TE||Can’t hardly wait
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导读
“央妈”们为何要加息？
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音乐| 精读 | 翻译 | 词组
Can't hardly wait
亟不可待
本文英文部分选自经济学人Finance and economics版块
Free exchange
自由交流专栏
“自由交流”（Free exchange）是《经济学人》经济板块的专栏，经济学人记者每周结合理论与实例，分析世界经济的变化。
Can't hardly wait
亟不可待
A misguided notion of what is normal could cause central banks to err
对“正常”的错误理解可能导致央行犯错
LIKE teenagers, central bankers long to feel normal. For many of them (the central bankers, that is), the past decade has been an unusually angst-ridden one. They stumbled through it, confused by the way their policymaking bodies were changing, unsure what to do with their interest rates, embarrassed by their burgeoning balance-sheets. Teenagers often seek to quell their anxiety and insecurity by imitating behaviour they regard as normal. So too for central bankers.
各国央行像青少年一样渴望正常“生活”。对于各国央行来说，过去十年是忧心忡忡，跌跌撞撞的十年。他们困惑于决策机构的政策变动，不知如何妥善处理利率问题，也曾陷入不断扩表的尴尬处境。青少年经常会通过模仿他们自认为正常的行为（怕被认为不正常）来缓解内心的焦虑和不安。各国央行亦是如此。
But the desire to normalise policy, and leave crisis-era measures behind, could distract central bankers from their main goals, namely to support growth and control inflation. The Bank for International Settlements, a global club for central bankers, recently urged officials not to let market jitters discourage them from raising interest rates. Yet at worst, chasing some elusive notion of normal could put the global recovery at risk.
但是，希望通过规范化政策并摒弃危机时代采取的措施，使各国央行偏离主要目标，即支持经济增长和控制通胀。国际清算银行作为全球性中央银行俱乐部，最近敦促各央行避免市场因加息而形成紧张恐慌情绪。更糟糕的是，若一味追逐一些“所谓的正常”可能会使全球经济复苏面临风险。
What central bankers mean by normalising policy is clear enough. As Peter Praet, the chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB), explained in a recent speech, to normalise is to end their reliance on “unconventional” or “non-standard” tools such as quantitative easing (QE, the printing of new money to buy assets). It means returning to a familiar world in which adjustments to interest rates are their main policy lever.
各国央行的规范化政策意味着什么都一目了然。正如欧洲央行（ECB）首席经济学家普雷特（Peter Praet）在最近的一次演讲中解释的那样，规范化是要结束对“非传统”或“非标准”工具的依赖，如量化宽松（QE，新增印钞购买资产）。而应回归常规操作方式，如通过调节政策利率。
Central bankers make no secret of their longing to return to this normality. When, in his first monetary-policy report to Congress, Jerome Powell, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, praised his predecessor, Janet Yellen, he focused on her achievements in just this area. “During her term,” he said, “Federal Reserve policymakers began to normalise both the level of interest rates and the size of the balance-sheet.” (On March 21st Mr Powell made his own contribution to the effort, as the Fed raised its benchmark rate by 0.25%.)
各国央行毫不掩饰地表达了他们对恢复正常状态的渴望。美联储新任主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔（Jerome Powell）在向国会提交的第一份货币政策报告中赞扬了他的前任耶伦（Janet Yellen），他着重强调了耶伦在政策规范化领域取得的成就。他表示：“在她的任期内，美联储着手使利率水平正常化和保持资产负债表规模于正常水平。”（鲍威尔在3月21日也为这一努力做出了自己的贡献，即美联储上调基准利率0.25%。）
But what makes one era the standard by which all others are judged normal or abnormal? Older central bankers cut their teeth during the 1970s and 1980s when giants like Paul Volcker, a former Fed chairman, used double-digit interest rates to tame inflation. Younger ones began their professional lives during the 1990s, when Alan Greenspan and his peers manipulated their economies with a deft rate hike here, a cunning cut there.
但是评判一个时代“正常”与否的标准究竟是什么？上世纪七八十年代，资深银行家初试牛刀，如美联储前任主席保罗·沃尔克（Paul Volcker）这类巨擘，实施高利率政策以遏制通货膨胀。到九十年代，更年轻一代开始踏入职场，艾伦·格林斯潘（Alan Greenspan）和同事们青睐以灵活变动的利率水平来调控经济。
After the financial crisis, policy rates plummeted to near zero, forcing central bankers to experiment with QE, negative interest rates and promises to leave rates at rock-bottom far into the future. Since the crisis, asset accumulation in rich economies, which still continues in the euro area and Japan, swelled central banks’ balance-sheets by trillions of dollars.
金融危机过后，利率急剧下降，接近于零。这迫使央行决策者实行货币宽松政策，即零利率同时承诺未来很长一段时间内利率都会触底。自危机以来，发达国家（主要是欧元使用区和日本）的资产积累，这数以亿计的资金，使得央行资产负债表规模扩张。
This combination is more than a relic of the financial crisis, however. Rather, it increasingly looks like a persistent feature of the world economy. Across rich countries, central banks’ benchmark interest rates have been only about 2%, on average, over the past 20 years . The Fed hopes to raise its benchmark policy rate to 3.5% by 2020, according to its most recent projections, clearing that low bar, but with little to spare.
然而，这样的政策组合并不只是金融危机遗留的“骸迹”。相反，其看上去越来越像是世界经济的持续性特征。在发达国家，过去二十年里央行基准利率平均只有2%（如图）。据最新的预测，美联储希望于2020年之前将基准利率提升至3.5%，clearing that low bar, but with little to spare（此句不知如何翻译是好，请各位大佬留言，谢谢）。
Since rates usually fall by much more than three percentage points during downturns, the Fed’s projections imply that “unconventional” tools such as asset purchases will be needed again in future. For other central banks, normal is even further out of reach. The Bank of England hopes to reach a policy rate of just over 1% by 2021. The ECB is still in the process of weaning its economies off asset purchases, currently set at €30bn ($37bn) a month. Japan has been living in an abnormal world for roughly a quarter of a century.
由于在经济萧条期间，利率水平普遍降低不止三个百分点，美联储的预测便暗指像购买资产这类“非传统”政策工具将重出江湖。对于其他国家央行而言，达“正常”水平要更是遥不可及。英国央行仅希望2021年之前利率水平可超过1%。欧洲央行还在逐步退出资产购置的过程当中，目前资产购置月均300亿欧元（370亿美元）。日本从过去大约25年以来便一直处在非常规经济环境中。
Am I bovvered?
你烦我吗？
出自《凯特秀》 Catherine Tate Show，Basically means: "I don't care!"
Am I Bovvered? = am i bothered? = fxck off
All this makes talk of normalisation perplexing. It might be bravado intended to conceal uncertainty about how to behave—another teenage habit. Or central bankers may be pinning their hopes on global economic conditions returning to something more like supposedly “normal” periods in the past. But central-bank policy rates are low because interest rates around the world are low. Those rates reflect a world in which economic growth in advanced economies is slower than it was in the post-war decades, in which there is more capital sloshing around than governments or firms can easily put to good use, and in which inflation is very low and stable.
以上这些使“正常化”主题变得更为复杂。青少年的另一个习惯就是逞强，这种逞能可能是为了掩饰不知道该怎么表现的迟疑。或者各国央行可能将他们的希望寄托在全球经济回到过去被认为更像是“正常时期”的年代那样。但央行政策利率较低是因为世界各国的利率都很低。这些利率反映了一个发达经济体的经济增速要比战后时代来得慢，资本超出政府和企业能派得上用场的水平，通胀率水平低且稳定。
None of this seems likely to change soon. Slow productivity gains and ageing populations weigh on advanced economies. An unanticipated borrowing binge by America’s government will soak up some global savings. But it has not yet raised yields on long-term Treasury bonds from their historically low levels. In the absence of a sudden and dramatic change in global conditions, central bankers will be forced to abandon plans to normalise policy—hopefully before, but potentially after, raising rates above levels their economies can tolerate.
所有这些似乎都不会很快改变。生产率增速缓慢及人口老龄化加剧使发达经济体承压。美国政府出乎意料的借贷狂潮将消耗部分全球储蓄，尽管如此，美国长期国债收益率仍未从历史低位被拉回。在全球经济形势没有突然发生剧烈变化的情况下，各国央行将会在利率被提升到经济可以忍受的水平以上之前（希望是之前，实际情况则可能是之后）就被迫放弃政策正常化的计划。
Some factors pushing down global interest rates, such as slow growth and excess capital, depress the real (ie, adjusted for inflation) rate of interest. Yet the policy rates that central banks control are nominal. Inflation is a wedge between the two. Consequently, higher inflation would create an environment in which central bankers could set policy rates well above zero even as real interest rates stayed at their current lows.
经济增速放缓和资本过剩都是推低全球利率的因素，进而压低实际利率（即通胀调整后的利率）。然而，央行控制的政策利率是名义利率，通货膨胀是两者之间的变量。因此，即使实际利率仍保持在目前低水平的情况，高通胀能使央行政策利率达到远高于零的水平。
For just that reason, some economists have proposed a change in central-bank targets. Among their number are former Fed officials, including Narayana Kocherlakota, who has recommended an increase in the central bank’s inflation target, and Ben Bernanke, who prefers a flexible approach that would give central banks the freedom to allow inflation to rise temporarily higher than the current target permits.
出于这个原因，一些经济学家提议改变央行目标，其中包括前美联储官员纳拉亚纳·柯薛拉柯塔（Narayana Kocherlakota），他建议央行提高通胀目标，而本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）则更喜欢采取灵活的方式，让央行能够自由地允许通胀率阶段性高于目前的目标许可水平。
Each idea has its merits. Neither could be described as a return to normal. But as the rare self-confident, trend-setting teenager realises, it is possible, and indeed often preferable, to come to your own understanding of what normal means.
每个想法都有其优点，但两种说法都不能描述为回归正常化。作为非常自信且引领潮流的青少年来说，自己去定义何为“正常”显得更为可取。
翻译组：
Neil, 男，外贸民工，经济学人铁粉
Vivian，女，国际商务硕士， 经济学人粉丝
Jasmine， 女 ，税收专业大三学生， 经济学人粉丝
校核组：
Emily，女，金融民工，经济学人粉丝
Alan，男，金融工程硕士，经济学人粉丝
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观点 |评论|思考
本次观点由金融民工Lulu全权执笔
划重点：单身
首先我们来看一下文章中提到的央妈们所谓常规化货币政策和非常规化货币政策的区别。
常规货币政策可以理解为央行主要依赖对利率的调节来实现宽松或收紧货币市场，而非常规一般是指在利率已经很低的情况下，都低到尘埃里了，常规的货币政策已经无法起作用了，这时央行通过量化宽松（QE）等手段来补充流动性，说白了就是开启印钞机唰唰唰往市场里投钱，发达国家的大额资产购买计划就是最典型的例子，与公开市场操作还存在一定区别：一是购买债券的期限由短期变为中长期；二是购买债券的种类由常规的国债扩展至政府支持企业的机构债和 MBS；三是买断式操作, 不进行对冲交易。
非常规货币政策对于挽救金融危机、稳定金融市场、避免金融机构出现大面积破产倒闭具有很重要的作用，尤其是在2008年金融危机后，美国、日本、欧洲等各大发达国家体系都普遍采用了非常规货币政策。当然，就像药物的副作用一样，此类政策也属于是药三分毒的一剂猛药，各大经济体系也在承受着其带来的后续不良反应，尤其是当金融市场稳定之后，继续长时间实施非常规货币政策是否必要，是否真正起到刺激实体经济复苏的作用，无论是在学术界还是市场实操界都存在争议。
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愿景
小组
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