世界經濟--疫病流行後，通膨會回來嗎？

 

The world economy 世界經濟

After the pandemic, will inflation return?

疫病流行後，通膨會回來嗎？

Low inflation underpins today’s economic policy. It is not guaranteed to last. 低通膨支撐當今的經濟政策，但不保證持續

Leaders

Dec 12th 2020 edition

---

Economists love to disagree, but almost all of them will tell you that inflation is dead. The premise of low inflation is baked into economic policies and financial markets. It is why central banks can cut interest rates to around zero and buy up mountains of government bonds. It explains how governments have been able to go on an epic spending and borrowing binge in order to save the economy from the ravages of the pandemic—and why rich-world public debt of 125% of gdp barely raises an eyebrow. The search for yield has propelled the s&p 500 index of shares to new highs even as the number of Americans in hospital with covid-19 has surpassed 100,000. The only way to justify such a blistering-hot stockmarket is if you expect a strong but inflationless economic rebound in 2021 and beyond.

經濟學家很愛獨排眾議，但幾乎所有人都會告訴你通膨已死。 低通膨的前提已嵌入經濟政策和金融市場，這就是為什麼央行可將利率砍至近零，並購買成山成海的政府債券。它解釋政府如何能夠毫無節制地持續極大規模的支出和借貸，來拯救經濟免於疫病流行的摧殘—以及為何富國公共債務占GDP的125％，卻無人大驚小怪。投資人對收益率的追求推升標普500抵至歷史新高，儘管美國因感染新冠病毒而住院的人數已超過10萬。唯一解釋如此狂熱的股市是：你可能預計2021年及之後會有強勁但無通膨的經濟復甦。

Yet as we explain this week, an increasingly vocal band of dissenters thinks that the world could emerge from the pandemic into an era of higher inflation. Their arguments are hardly overwhelming, but neither are they empty. Even a small probability of having to deal with a surge in inflation is worrying, because the stock of debt is so large and central-bank balance-sheets are swollen. Rather than ignore the risk, governments should take action now to insure themselves against it.

然而，正如我們本周解釋的那樣，愈來愈多異議者認為，世界可能走出疫病流行，來到通膨率更高的時代。他們的論點並未強到無可辯駁，但也不空洞。即使須應付通膨激增的可能性很小，卻也令人擔憂，因為債務量如此龐大，且央行資產負債表膨脹。政府應立即採取行動，以確保自己免受威脅，而不是忽略風險。

In the decades since Margaret Thatcher warned of a vicious cycle of prices and wages that threatened to “destroy” society, the rich world has come to take low inflation for granted. Before the pandemic even an ultra-tight jobs market could not jolt prices upwards, and now armies of people are unemployed. Many economists think the West, and especially the euro zone, is heading the way of Japan, which fell into deflation in the 1990s and has since struggled to lift price rises far above zero.

自從柴契爾夫人警告物價和工資的惡性循環威脅將「毀滅」社會，已過了幾十年，富國將低通膨視為理所當然。在疫病流行前，即使是極度緊繃的就業市場，都無法拉抬物價上漲，更別說現在有大量的失業人口。許多經濟學家認為，西方--尤其是歐元區--正在步入日本的後塵，日本1990年代陷入通縮，後來費力拉抬物價，通膨率卻始終未能大幅高於零。

Predicting the end of this trend is a kind of apostasy. After the financial crisis some hawks warned that bond buying by central banks (known as quantitative easing, or qe) would reignite inflation. They ended up looking silly.

預測這種趨勢的結束，簡直可說是離經叛道。金融危機後，一些鷹派人士警告，央行購債（稱為量化寬鬆或是ＱＥ）將重燃通膨，他們最後看起來很蠢。

Today the inflationistas’ arguments are stronger. One risk is of a temporary burst of inflation next year. In contrast to the period after the financial crisis, broad measures of the rich-world money supply have shot up in 2020, because banks have been lending freely. Stuck at home, people have been unable to spend all their money and their bank-balances have swelled. But once they are vaccinated and liberated from the tyranny of Zoom, exuberant consumers may go on a spending spree that outpaces the ability of firms to restore and expand their capacity, causing prices to rise. The global economy already shows signs of suffering from bottlenecks. The price of copper, for example, is 25% higher than at the start of 2020.

如今，通膨主義者的論點更加強烈。風險之一是明年通膨暫時爆發。由於銀行放款無拘無束，富國廣義貨幣供給量在2020年急劇上升，與後金融海嘯時期對照鮮明。人們困在家裡，無法花光所有的錢，銀行存款也膨脹了。但一旦他們接種疫苗且掙脫Zoom的宰制，精力旺盛的消費者可能大肆消費，超出公司能重拾並擴大產能的速度，造成物價上揚。全球經濟已顯示出受苦於瓶頸的跡象。例如，銅的價格比2020年初高5％。

The world should be able to manage such a temporary burst of inflation. But the second inflationista argument is that more persistent price pressures will also emerge, as structural disinflationary forces go into reverse. In the West and in Asia many societies are ageing, creating shortages of workers. For years globalisation lowered inflation by creating a more efficient market for goods and labour. Now globalisation is in retreat.

世界應該能夠應付這種暫時性暴增的通膨。但是通膨主義者的第二個論點是，隨著結構性通縮力量的逆轉，更持久的物價壓力也將浮現。在西方和亞洲，許多社會進入高齡化，進而造成工人短缺。多年來，全球化創造更有效率的商品和勞動市場降低通膨。現在全球化正在退縮。

Their third argument is that politicians and officials are complacent. The Federal Reserve says it wants inflation to overshoot its 2% target to make up for lost ground; the European Central Bank, which announced more stimulus on December 10th, may yet follow suit. Weighed down by the need to pay for an ageing population and health care, politicians will increasingly favour big budget deficits.

他們第三個論點是政治人物和官員都在沾沾自喜。美國聯準會希望通膨率超過2％的目標，以彌補過去的損失，歐洲央行可能效仿美國，並在12月10日宣布更多的刺激計畫。政治人物承受必須為人口老化和醫療照護找財源的壓力，將愈來愈傾向龐大的預算赤字。

Might these arguments prove correct? A temporary rebound in inflation next year is perfectly possible. At first it would be welcome—a sign economies were recovering from the pandemic. It would inflate away a modest amount of debt. Policymakers might even breathe a sigh of relief, especially in Japan and the euro zone, where prices are falling (though rapid changes in the pattern of consumer spending may have muddied the statistics).

這些論點證明正確嗎？明年通膨暫時性反彈是完全有可能的。起初它將受到歡迎，這是經濟從疫病流行中恢復的跡象。它將適度的減少債務。政策制定者甚至可以鬆口氣，尤其是在日本及歐元區，那裡的物價正在下跌。儘管消費者支出方式的快速變化，可能使統計數字混淆。

The odds of a more sustained period of inflation remain low. But if central banks had to raise interest rates to stop price rises getting out of hand, the consequences would be serious. Markets would tumble and indebted firms would falter. More important, the full cost of the state’s vastly expanded balance-sheet—both governments’ debt and the central banks’ liabilities—would become alarmingly apparent. To understand why requires peering, for a moment, into how they are organised.

持續通膨的可能性仍然很小。但若央行須靠升息來阻止物價上漲將一發不可收拾，後果將是嚴重的。市場將暴跌，負債累累的公司將步履蹣跚。更重要的是，國家大舉擴張的資產負債表的全部成本（包括政府債務及央行的負債）將變得非常明顯。要理解原因，需凝視一下它們的組織方式。

For all the talk about “locking in” today’s low long-term interest rates, governments’ dirty secret is that they have been doing the opposite, issuing short-term debt in a bet that short-term interest rates will remain low. The average maturity of American Treasuries, for example, has fallen from 70 months to 63. Central banks have been making a similar wager. Because the reserves they create to buy bonds carry a floating interest rate, they are comparable to short-term borrowing. In November Britain’s fiscal watchdog warned that a combination of new issuance and qe had left the state’s debt-service costs twice as sensitive to short-term rates as they were at the start of the year, and nearly three times as much as in 2012.

儘管種種說法要把長期利率「鎖在」今日的低點，各國政府的齷齪祕密是他們卻反其道而行----發行短期債券，押注短期利率仍將偏低。例如，美國公債的平均到期日從70個月降至63個月。各國央行一直在進行類似的賭注，由於他們為購買債券而創造的儲備金為浮動利率，因此可以與短期借款相提並論。 英國財政監督機構11月警告，發行新債加上量化寬鬆，使政府償債成本對短期利率的敏感度（受牽連的程度），變成年初時的二倍，且幾乎是2012年的三倍。

So while the probability of an inflation scare may have risen only slightly, its consequences would be worse. Countries need to insure themselves against this tail risk by reorganising their liabilities. Governments should fund fiscal stimulus by issuing long-term debt. Most central banks should start an orderly reversal of qe and instead loosen monetary policy by taking short-term interest rates negative. Finance ministries should incorporate risks taken by the central bank into their budgeting (and the euro zone should find a better tool than qe for mutualising the debts of its member states). Shortening the maturity of the state’s balance-sheet—as in 2020—must only ever be a last resort, and should not become the main tool of economic policy.

因此，儘管通膨恐慌的可能性僅微微上升，但後果可能更糟。各國需要重組債務，來確保自己免受這種極端風險的影響。政府應透過發行長期債券，籌措財政刺激所需的資金。 大多數央行應開始循序漸進地扭轉ＱＥ，並改用短期負利率來寬鬆貨幣政策。財政部應該將央行承擔的風險納入預算中（歐元區應找到比量化寬鬆更好的工具，共同承擔成員國的債務）。縮短國家資產負債表的到期日（如2020年）只能是最後手段，不應成為經濟政策的主要工具。

In praise of mothballs 讚揚備案

The chances are the inflationistas are wrong. Even the arch-monetarist Milton Friedman, who inspired Thatcher, admitted late in his life that the short-term link between the money supply and inflation had broken down. But the covid-19 pandemic has shown the value of preparing for rare but devastating events. The return of inflation should be no exception. 

通膨主義者可能是錯的，即使是啟發柴契爾夫人的極端貨幣主義者傅利曼，在他生命的晚期也承認，貨幣供給和通膨間的短期關連已經破裂。但新冠肺炎疫情顯示，對罕見但災難性事件預做準備，價值甚大。防範通膨捲土重來，也不例外。