历数全球金融危机
历数全球金融危机（上）
作者：英国《金融时报》前任总编辑理查德•兰伯特(Richard Lambert)
2008年8月7日 星期四
每一次经济恐慌都有其与众不同的特点，但都有一个相似之处，即它们都紧接着一段表面上的繁荣期之后发生，从而暴露出这种繁荣的空洞。这种顺序屡试不爽，每当我们发现可以不必通过艰苦缓慢的实干，就能轻松大发其财之时，就可以十拿九稳地断言，恐慌时期即将来临。
可能过去就有人讲过这样的话。事实上，在1859年，它已被写进1857-58年商业危机的历史。金融动荡感觉上各不相同，但大多数几乎如出一辙。
让我们从一个显然极为相似的案例开始。北岩银行(Northern Rock)是英国自1866年欧沃伦格尼银行(Overend Gurney)关门以来第一家倒闭的大型银行。两家都是久负盛名的机构，有着审慎且令人敬佩的财务历史：北岩银行的前身是东北部一家共同所有的建房互助会，欧沃伦格尼银行则在东安格利亚贵格会拥有深厚根基。
渴望增长的新一代高管接掌了两家银行的领导权，他们急切想要迅速扩大他们的贷款规模：北岩在房价泡沫的顶峰陷在房屋抵押贷款里，而欧沃尼栽在一些显然有问题的企业上，包括造船、谷物贸易、铁路融资行业及许多其他行业的企业。这些企业都犯了致命错误，即依赖短期借款为他们快速扩张和风险越来越大的贷款账目提供资金。与北岩一样，欧沃尼为其有缺陷的业务模式付出了代价。一个重大的不同之处在于，英国央行让欧沃尼倒闭了，导致其他一些企业在接着引发的恐慌中倒闭。
最近，两位美国经济学家——马里兰大学的卡门•莱因哈特(Carmen Reinhart)和哈佛大学的肯•罗格夫(Ken Rogoff)发表了一份对当前金融危机的分析报告，在文中他们找出了二战以来发生在工业国家的前18次银行业危机，把当前的金融危机放到了这一背景下加以研究。他们发现了把单个事件转化成金融繁荣和萧条的整体图景的共同主题，他们称之为“诸多标准金融危机指标上惊人的定性和定量相似点”。他们重点对美国进行了研究，但如果你观察相关数字，他们分析中的大部分内容也适用于英国。
在每次重大金融动荡之前，住房价格都会快速上涨，股票价格也是如此。由于直到危机发生的前夜，资本流入加速，经常账盈余迅速扩大。公共债务上升是战后危机中一个几乎普遍的前兆。当问题隐约浮现时，总体经济增长开始逐渐放缓。此外，以往的金融冲击发生前，通常有一段放松金融管制的时期。
作为一位见识颇多的记者，我见证了1973年至1974年的次级银行危机，我们最强大的金融机构险些被拖垮。现在，我还仍然保留着由四大清算银行之一发布的否认它们身处困境的新闻稿。那次事件有几个不同的触发因素：其中之一是1971年底开始实施的《竞争与信贷管理条例》(Competition and Credit Control)，它放开了贷款的上限，降低了对银行的流动性要求，并终结了利率同盟。之后的两年里，对英国居民的信用垫款总额增加了2.5倍。
放松管制也在今天的事件中扮演着角色。引用前美联储主席保罗•沃克尔(Paul Volcker)的话，过去25年间“我们从一个以商业银行为中心的、高度监管的金融体系，转变为一个经过了高度设计、复杂得多的体系。今天，众多金融中介发生在有效的官方监管和监督之外的市场，全都装在不知有多少万亿规模的衍生品工具里。”
另一个共同特征是，资产价格泡沫通常接在一段时期的价格稳定后发生，最近英国《金融时报》一篇由查尔斯•古德哈特(Charles Goodhart)和阿维纳什•佩尔绍德(Avinash Persaud)撰写的文章指出了这一点。他们引用了1929年的美国、20世纪90年代的日本、1997-98年的亚洲，以及2007-08年次级住房抵押贷款危机作为案例。
低通胀导致低利率和真实资产的积累，继而导致投资者为了获得更高的投资回报而去冒更大风险。20世纪70年代就有一个经典案例，当时石油美元涌入国际资本市场并推动利率走低。银行流动性充足，正四处寻找新的出口。他们在中欧和拉美的发展中经济体找到了正在找寻的东西。但当1982年8月墨西哥政府暂停偿还外债时，这种情形便戛然而止。
过去数年中发生了很多同样的事件。甚至罗格夫和莱因哈特大胆地暗示，这一次大量资金事实上已被再循环至一个发展中经济体，但这回这个经济体存在于美国境内。逾一万亿美元被导入由最穷、信用最低的借款人构成的美国次级房贷市场。
此处的共同特征就是对风险的误判，对风险的定价错得离谱。1929年，问题出在投资资金被过度利用；1997-98年的亚洲金融危机则是与错配的货币敞口有关；互联网热潮时期，当时的想法就是互联网将导致永不休止的经济增长。在最近这次信贷泡沫中，想法就是把债务分开拆碎，然后分发到世界各地，垃圾债券能就这样奇迹般地转变为3A级投资对象。
这一次确实有什么不同之处吗？
然而，最近的这次事件与历史上其他相似片段共同的另一个特征是，其性质是真正的国际性的。几个世纪来一次又一次地的金融危机让世人明白一个道理，即乐观、贪婪、狂热和绝望是不分国界的。早在互联网之前，不断变化的市场情绪就以令人惊讶的速度席卷全世界。
1929年10月24日和29日的股价下跌，以及1987年10月19日再度上演的这一幕，简直是在除日本外的所有金融市场里同步发生的。用套利、资本流动或资金转移远不能解释这一现象。1720年的南海和密西西比泡沫是相关的，放松管制和在英格兰及法国的强力货币扩张助长了泡沫。紧跟泡沫发生的危机波及到了荷兰、意大利北部以及德国北部。此类国际性震荡的名单一眼看不到头。
当然，世界各地国家经济体之间总有着实体的联系，如国际贸易商品和金条、出口和进口、资本和资金流动，等等。但我发现，让我着迷的却是纯心理方面的联系，像是某国投资人的情绪在什么时候影响另一国投资人的情绪，有时候是距离非常远的两个国家。我们在考虑金融快感和恐惧时始终要牢记的是，理性行为总是不在考虑之列。历史上最伟大思想家之一的艾萨克•牛顿(Isaac Newton)在南海股票上大肆投机，结果输惨了。正如他沮丧地感言：“我能计算天体的运动，却不能计算人类的疯狂。”
重大金融震荡的结果是什么？
关于这个问题，大量知识来自于经济史学家查尔斯•金德尔伯格(Charles Kindleberger)，他1978年发表了经典著作《癫狂、恐慌与崩溃》(Manias, Panics and Crashes)。金德尔伯格用相当没有把握的方式所表达观点是，得到正确运用的最后贷款人所扮演的角色，是令通常紧接着金融危机之后发生的商业滑坡缩短的关键。他引用1720年、1873年、1882年、1890年、1921年和1929年的危机作为证据。这几次危机中，没有一次最后贷款人能真正出现。之后发生的萧条比之其他几次时间更长、程度更深。19世纪70年代和20世纪30年代发生的两次危机，均被称为“大萧条”。
最后贷款人角色的经典定义是由沃尔特•白芝浩(Walter Bagehot)所下的。他的伟大著作《伦巴第街》(Lombard Street)发表于1873年，书中阐述的一个理念此后就一直是央行在危机时刻的指导格言：凭良好抵押品以高利率自由放贷，也是从那本书开始的。自由放贷，用他的话来讲就是，“止住恐慌”。用高利率，目的是“没人可以不经过慎重考虑、用很低的代价就借到钱”。无限度地凭所有良好的银行业证券放贷——因为“造成惊恐的方式，就是拒绝持有优质抵押品的人”。
但是，不幸的是，生活并不那么简单。首先，央行官员们并不总是把他们的工作做得很好。人们普遍认为，英国央行在干预1825年恐慌时没起什么作用。城市历史学家戴维•基纳斯顿(David Kynaston)说明了英国央行的政策是如何在自满和过于剧烈的信贷紧缩之间急剧转向的。70多家银行倒闭了，据传，英国央行自己也是侥幸逃过一劫。正当5英镑和10英镑的纸币全部用光之际，有人发现了大量1797年后就一直留在金库里的1英镑的票子。这些纸币是得到政府许可发行的，并“创造了奇迹”。接着发生的萧条持续了几年时间：根据一份报告，直到1827年年底，“在商界，几乎人人都仍旧感觉得到1825年的高潮留给他们的损失所造成的伤痛——并且直到现在，由于害怕风暴后持续很长时间的汹涌波涛，甚至现在都远离海边”。
另一个问题是，过度热情的央行干预可能给未来造成实际麻烦。关于艾伦•格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)所留下来的经济摊子的热议，背后体现的就是这个问题。2006年1月，艾伦•格林斯潘卸任美联储主席。美联储的经典角色一直是逆风而行，在艰难时期放松信贷，在局面失控之前紧缩信贷。威廉•麦克切斯尼•马丁(William McChesney Martin)曾担任过18年的美联储主席，直到尼克松总统时代，用他的话说：“美联储的功能，就是在聚会渐入佳境的时候，端走宾治盆。”格林斯潘的批评者声称，他非但没有端走宾治盆，而且在聚会快结束的苗头初步显露时，他又喝了一瓶白兰地，高兴得不想离场。
他们还说，不论出了什么问题，格林斯潘执掌的美储储总会通过创造足够多廉价货币收买的方法来化解困境。1987年10月市场崩盘后，美联储在六周内三次降息，股市迅速恢复。同样的情形也发生在1997-98年亚洲金融危机后，以及911事件之后。
但央行能走多远还是有限制的。随着时间推移，廉价货币和负的实际利率导致带来泡沫的投机和通货膨胀。这是央行行长们警告道德风险的危险时所要表达的意思，这种道德风险指的是，把银行家们从困境中拯救出来只会鼓励他们将来更加不负责任。当应该让一家机构倒闭时，试图把个人过失和可能导致极严重后果的系统性失效清楚地区分开来是十分困难的。
出于这个原因，多年来，常常是这样一个情况，银行当局下决心不干预，最终却发现自己被迫屈服于压力。利物浦勋爵(Lord Liverpool)1825年威胁说，如果投机者得到拯救，他将辞去财政大臣的职务，但最后投机者还是得救了。金德尔伯格发现类似的例子发生在1763年、1869年、1897年和1975年拯救纽约时。现任英国央行行长默文•金(Mervyn King)也对道德风险多次发出强有力的警告，直到几个月前英国央行准备进行一次看上去象经典白芝浩式的干预为止。
在给投机者一个教训和系统性失效之间取得平衡相当困难。只有历史才能够对格林斯潘和金的不同做法作出评判。
在对最近这场危机的反应中，美联储在很大程度上已经比他们的前辈们走得更远。华尔街投资银行贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)因在衍生品和证券化贷款市场上的巨大敞口而面临倒闭危险。面对这种情况，再次引用保罗•沃克尔的话，美联储判断有必要采取“把合法和默示的权利用到极致，跨越某些根深蒂固的央行准则和惯例”的措施。
同样，这种救援肯定必定导致美国证券监管的彻底重塑。如果美联储将来站到这些机构背后，那它需要的监督程度要远比当前规则下允许的要直接地多。难怪沃克尔言语之间有些担心。
经济低迷时间跨度可能有多长，影响可能有多深？
当然，任何回答都不得不受限于大量的变数。关键之一是最后贷款人的存在和表现。但还有许多其他变数，因为繁荣和萧条鲜有单一触发因素的。例如，1847年危机的触发因素有：铁路狂热、马铃薯病害、一年小麦歉收和第二年丰产以及欧陆接着发生的革命。1857年华尔街恐慌通过内战变成了一场持续很长时间的衰退。关于20世纪30年代大萧条的成因，著有众多的教科书，而《大崩溃》(Great Crash)绝不是其唯一的贡献者。
(待续)
译者/红岭
阅读本文章英文,请点击 Crashes, Bangs & Wallops
Crashes, Bangs & Wallops
By Richard Lambert
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Each separate panic has had its own distinctive features, but all have resembled each other in occurring immediately after a period of apparent prosperity, the hollowness of which it has exposed. So uniform is this sequence, that whenever we find ourselves under circumstances that enable the acquisition of rapid fortunes, otherwise than by the road of plodding industry, we may almost be justified in auguring that the time for panic is at hand."
That could have been said yesterday. In fact it was written in 1859, in a history of the commercial crisis of 1857-58. Financial shocks all feel different, but most of them are pretty much the same.
Let's start with an obvious parallel. The run on Northern Rock was the first big bank failure in this country since 1866, when Overend, Gurney went down. Both were long-established institutions with histories of prudent and highly respectable finance: Northern Rock as a mutually owned building society in the north-east, Overend with its roots deep in Quaker East Anglia.
The leadership of both had been taken over by a new breed of growth-hungry executives, anxious to expand their loan books rapidly: Northern Rock in mortgages at the top of a house-price bubble, Overend in some decidedly dubious enterprises including shipbuilding, grain trading, railway finance and much else besides. Both made the fatal mistake of relying on short-term borrowing to fund their rapidly expanding and increasingly risky loan books. And just like Northern Rock, Overend paid the price for its flawed business model. The one big difference was that the Bank of England let Overend fail, and take down other firms with it in the ensuing panic.
Two American economists, Carmen Reinhart of Maryland and Ken Rogoff of Harvard, have recently published an analysis of the current financial crisis in the context of what they identify as the previous 18 banking crises in industrial countries since the second world war. They find what they call "stunning qualitative and quantitative parallels across a number of standard financial crisis indicators" - the common themes that translate these individual dramas into the big-picture story of financial boom and bust. Their study is focused on the US, but if you look at the relevant numbers, most of their analysis also applies to the UK.
Ahead of each big financial shock, house prices rose rapidly, as did equity prices. Current account deficits ballooned, with capital inflows accelerating up to the eve of the crisis. Rising public debt is a near universal precursor of other postwar crises. And overall economic growth started to fall away as trouble loomed. In addition, financial shocks in the past have often been preceded by periods of financial deregulation.
I witnessed as a wide-eyed reporter the secondary banking crisis of 1973-74, which came within a whisker of pulling down some of our most powerful financial institutions; and I still have in my possession the press release put out by one of the big four clearing banks denying that it was in difficulties. That drama had several different triggers: one was the Competition and Credit Control scheme introduced at the end of 1971, which removed the ceiling on loans, reduced banks' liquidity requirements and ended the interest rate cartel. Over the next two years, total credit advances to UK residents multiplied 2.5 times.
Deregulation has also played a part in today's events. To quote Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, over the past 25 years "we have moved from a commercial-bank-centred, highly regulated financial system, to an enormously more complicated and highly engineered system. Today, much of the financial intermediation takes place in markets beyond effective official oversight and supervision, all enveloped in unknown trillions of derivative instruments."
Another common feature, this one identified in a recent FT article by Charles Goodhart and Avinash Persaud, is that asset-price bubbles often follow periods of price stability. They cite as examples the US in 1929, Japan in the 1990s, Asia in 1997-98 and the implosion of subprime mortgages in 2007-08.
Low inflation leads to low interest rates and the accumulation of real assets. That in turn leads investors to take bigger risks in order to secure a higher return on their investments. A classic example came in the 1970s, when petrodollars flooded the international capital market and drove interest rates down. Banks were flush with liquidity and looking around for new outlets. They found what they were looking for in the developing economies of central Europe and Latin America. But things came to a grinding halt in August 1982, when the Mexican government suspended debt service.
Much the same has happened in the past few years. Indeed Rogoff and Reinhart rather cheekily suggest that this time round, a large chunk of money has effectively been recycled to a developing economy - but one that this time exists within America's own borders. More than a trillion dollars were channelled into the US subprime mortgage market, which is made up of the poorest and least creditworthy borrowers.
The common feature here is that risk is misunderstood, and so mispriced. In 1929, it was excess leverage in investment funds that went wrong. In the Asian crisis of 1997-98, it was about mismatched currency exposures. In the dotcom boom, the thought was that the internet would lead to everlasting growth. And in the recent credit bubble, the idea was that by slicing and dicing debt, and distributing it widely around the world, junk debt could be miraculously converted into triple-A investments.
Is it really any different this time?
Yet another feature that this latest drama has in common with other similar episodes in history is that it is truly international in character. Time and again over the centuries it has been clear that optimism, greed, euphoria and despair do not recognise national boundaries. Well before the internet, changing market moods swept across the world with astonishing speed.
The falls in share prices on October 24 and 29 1929, and again on October 19 1987, were practically instantaneous in all financial markets, except Japan. This was far faster than could be explained by arbitrage, capital flows or money movements. The South Sea and Mississippi bubbles of 1720 were related, stoked by deregulation and powerful monetary expansion in England and France. And the crisis that followed them rippled across the Netherlands and northern Italy, as well as northern Germany. The list of such international earthquakes is just about endless.
Of course there have always been physical connections between national economies around the world - internationally traded commodities and bullion, exports and imports, capital and money flows, and so on. But what I find fascinating are the purely psychological connections, as when the mood of investors in one country infects those in another, sometimes great distances away. And what we always have to remember when thinking about financial euphoria and panic is that rational behaviour can very often go out of the window. Isaac Newton, one of the greatest minds in history, speculated wildly in South Sea stock and ended up losing his shirt. As he observed glumly: "I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."
What are the consequences of big financial shocks?
The great source of knowledge on this is the economic historian charles kindleberger, whose classic book, Manias, Panics and Crashes, was published in 1978. Kindleberger's view, rather tentatively expressed, is that the role of lender of last resort, properly exercised, is the key to shortening the business slowdowns that normally follow financial crises. He cites as evidence the crashes of 1720, 1873, 1882, 1890, 1921 and 1929. In none of these was a lender of last resort effectively present. The depressions that followed them were much longer and deeper than others. Those of the 1870s and the 1930s were both known as "the Great Depression".
The role of lender of last resort was classically defined by Walter Bagehot. His great book Lombard Street was published in 1873, and set out what has become the guiding mantra for central banks in times of crisis ever since: lend freely at high rates against good collateral. Lend freely, in his words, "to stay the panic". At high rates, so that "no one may borrow out of idle precaution without paying well for it". And lend on all good banking securities to an unlimited extent - because the "way to cause alarm is to refuse someone who has good security to offer".
But, unfortunately, life is not as simple as that. For one thing, central bankers don't always do the job well. The Bank of England is generally thought to have played a poor hand in its intervention in the panic of 1825. City historian David Kynaston shows how its policy veered wildly between complacency and an over-sharp contraction of credit. More than 70 banks collapsed, and according to legend the Bank of England itself narrowly escaped disaster. Just as it ran out of £5 and £10 notes, someone discovered a block of £1 notes left in the vaults since 1797. These were issued with government approval, and "worked wonders". The ensuing depression lasted several years: by the end of 1827, according to one report, "in commerce, almost every one still smarting under the losses which the climax of 1825 had left them - and fearing from the long continuance of the swell after the storm even now to venture far from shore".
Another problem is that over-enthusiastic central bank intervention can store up real trouble for the future. This lies behind the energetic debate over the economic legacy of Alan Greenspan, who stepped down as chairman of the Federal Reserve in January 2006. The classic role of the Federal Reserve has been to lean against the wind, easing credit in hard times and tightening it before things get out of hand. In the words of William McChesney Martin, who served 18 years as chairman, up to the time of President Nixon: "The function of the Federal Reserve is to take away the punch bowl just as the party is getting good." Greenspan's critics claim that far from taking away the punch bowl, he was only too happy to chuck in an extra bottle of brandy at the first sign of the party coming to an end.
They also say that no matter what went wrong, the Fed under chairman Greenspan would save the day by creating enough cheap money to buy off trouble. After the crash of October 1987, the Fed cut rates three times in six weeks - and stocks quickly recovered. The same happened after the Asian crisis in 1997-98, and again after 9/11.
But there are limits to how far central banks can go. Cheap money and negative real interest rates lead over time to frothy speculation and inflation. This is what central bankers mean when they warn about the dangers of moral hazard - the risk that bailing bankers out of trouble will only encourage them to be even more irresponsible in future. The great difficulty lies in attempting to draw a distinction between individual culpability, when you should let an institution go bust, and the risk of systemic failure that might have desperately serious consequences.
For this reason, banking authorities over the years have often resolved not to intervene, only to find themselves forced to cave in under pressure. Lord Liverpool threatened to resign as chancellor of the exchequer in 1825 if the speculators were bailed out - but eventually they were. Kindleberger finds similar examples in 1763, 1869, 1897 and 1975, with the rescue of New York City. And Mervyn King, the present Bank of England governor, also made powerful warnings against the risks of moral hazard until the Bank was ready to make what looks like a classic Bagehot-style intervention a couple of months ago.
It's a difficult balance between teaching speculators a lesson and averting systemic failure. Only history will be able to judge the different approaches of Greenspan and King.lower abs fat润唇卸妆油排行榜眼线怎么瘦腰洗面增高的方法好去黑眼圈眼霜排行榜减肥丰胸产品最好很好静脉曲张袜有用吗瘦身霜什么美白产品比较好评价好的眼部滋润眼线淡斑产品哪个好
In its response to the latest crisis, the US Federal Reserve has gone considerably further than its predecessors. Faced with the threatened collapse of the Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns, with its huge exposure to the derivative and securitised loans markets, the Fed, to use Paul Volcker 's words again, judged it necessary to take actions that "extend to the very edge of its lawful and implied powers, transcending certain long-embedded central banking principles and practices".
As such, this bail-out must surely lead to a radical reshaping of US securities regulation. If the Fed is to stand behind such institutions in future, it will require a much more direct degree of supervision than permitted under current rules. No wonder Volcker sounds concerned.
How long and deep is any economic slowdown likely to be?
Of course any answer has to be hedged around with lots of variables. The key one is the presence and performance of a lender of last resort. But there are many others, because booms and busts seldom have a single trigger. For example, the crisis of 1847 had the railway mania, the potato disease, a wheat crop failure one year and a bumper crop the next, followed on the continent by revolution. The Wall Street Panic of 1857 was turned into a prolonged recession by civil war. Libraries of textbooks have been written on the causes of the 1930s depression, to which the Great Crash was by no means the only contributor.
(To be continued)
历数全球金融危机（下）
作者：英国《金融时报》前任总编辑理查德•兰伯特(Richard Lambert)
2008年8月8日 星期五
大宗商品尤其是能源的价格在飚升，正好在这个时刻，世界最重要的各家银行突然惊现一个十分巨大的漏洞──这再次说明：造成麻烦的不只是金融冲击，这样的事实令当今的经济挑战更加使人生畏。通货膨胀上升加上需求减缓意味着各地的政策制定者面临严峻的问题。因此欧洲央行最近调升利率以保持通货膨胀得到抑制，而这偏偏又是在需求减缓的时刻，通常需要来一次减息。
尽管存在所有这些变数，但历史确实也为重大金融事件的潜在经济影响提供了一些指南。正如莱因哈特和的罗格夫分析的那样，二战后最具灾难性的五个例子中（芬兰、日本、挪威、瑞典和西班牙），年产出增长率从顶峰到谷底的跌幅超过5%，甚至三年后，增长率仍维持在比危机前趋势增长率稍低的水平上。把所有18次冲击放在一起评价，实际人均产出增长率平均跌幅结果是略大于2%，且一般需要两年时间恢复到趋势增长率水平。
经济学家保罗•奥默罗德(Paul Ormerod)最近分析了17个西方国家在1871年和2006年间的255次衰退案例。他发现，其中164次只持续了一年时间，大多数在两年内结束。
由此，作为一个凭经验得出的非常粗糙的规律，在最后贷款人做了它该做工作的前提下，多年来金融冲击后的经济低迷时期持续长达两年左右时间的情形屡见不鲜。在那基础上，鉴于当前金融事件的规模之大，美国和英国财政部看上去总是在预计中相当乐观，他们预计2007年夏季后出现短暂、剧烈的倒退，而在今年下半年复苏将会初露端倪。而从目前情况来看，2009年的前景很可能会比2008年更糟糕，至少在英国是这样。
金融创伤多大程度上导致经济低迷？
首先，金融危机导致人们大规模损失资产和财富，对经济活动的影响可想而知——只要想想世界上大型银行的股东如今感觉比一年前少了多少钱。冲击对于银行资产负债情况的影响也对他们的放贷能力有着直接的影响。最惊人的例子就是大萧条时期严厉的信贷限制。美国汽车销量从1929年时的450万辆下降至1932年的110万辆，在20年时间里没能超过先前的顶峰水平。
此外，从繁荣到萧条的转变完全改变了公众对于金融和承担风险意愿的观点。昨天的英雄成了今天的恶棍。投资的时间长度缩短了。如J.K.•加尔布雷斯(J.K. Galbraith)在他伟大的著作《1929年大崩盘》(The Great Crash 1929)里评述的那样，在经济低迷的一些日子里，“某些近乎普遍相信的东西变成了好似受到普遍怀疑的东西”。
金融震荡也频繁暴露出欺诈和犯罪，加强了一种不安的总体感觉，并让公众叫嚷着要复仇。南海公司的董事们的勉强保住了性命。当时，一位议员坚决主张，这些人应该被判弑长犯上罪，并受到古罗马对于此罪的刑罚——即把他们跟一只猴子和一条蛇一起缝在麻袋里，并把他们溺死。当情况变得不太对劲时，要留意那些从不休假的雇员。在伦敦，当联合银行的威廉•普林格(William Pullinger)被迫在1860年参加葬礼时，一桩巨大的挪用资金案才被曝光。在巴黎，最近在兴业银行(Societe Generale)资产负债表上捅了个大窟窿的违规交易员杰洛米•科维尔(Jerome Kerviel)同样也不想离开他的办公桌。
立法机构在这种金融狂热的时刻并不总是能作出最英明的决策。1720年《泡沫法》(The Bubble Act)禁止所有未经皇家许可状授权的股票发行，这使得一个多世纪时间里里，在英国要开办一家合法企业都变得很困难，直到该法最终被废除情况才有了变化。1929年华尔街崩溃催生了《1930年斯姆特－霍利关税法》（Smoot-Hawley Tariff Legislation of 1930)，这部法律对国际贸易产生了破坏性影响。本世纪初商业网络泡沫之后，美国出台了《萨班斯—奥克斯利法案》（Sarbanes-Oxley Legislation），增加了所有美国上市公司的经济负担。
正如马丁•沃尔夫(Martin Wolf)在本报评论的那样：“人人都牵扯其中——借款人、放款人和监管者——都过于频繁地被过度兴趣和恐慌的潮流席卷。是人都会犯错。那是监管很少逆经济周期而动的原因之一：监管方也被潮流席卷。”所以历史记录说明，我们应对于去年的事件审慎地作出监管反应，但这并不是说监管者应该袖手旁观。
我们应该怎么办？
一个建议是，我们应建立某种机制，可能是一个重新设定焦点的国际货币基金，赋予它在视野里寻找问题的职责。听上去这个主意不赖。但历史上充斥着这样的情形，在狂热的氛围里，当局有关泡沫即将来临的警告被完全无视。1996年年底，艾伦•格林斯潘谈到了“非理性繁荣”，股价短暂下滑。但之后10年的大多数时间里股价加速上涨。英国央行行长默文•金就在去年夏天之前很早的时候就曾谈到过错误定价的信贷风险和艰难时局即将到来。但当市场上涨时，没人把那些灾难预言家的话当回事。
那就是与当今流行的观点相反的论点。如今的普遍观点是，货币政策制定者在制定利率时，应该考虑资产价格通货膨胀和货币通货膨胀。当住房价格在到2006年的3年内越飚越高时，我正在货币政策委员会任职。我能记得当时的想法：“如果我们的使命是抑制住房价格上涨（当然那时还没发生），那么利率将何去何从？”要弄清楚是什么构成了可以长期维持的住房价格非常困难。仅仅因为感觉到住房价格太活跃，我们是不是就准备彻底打跨这个行业呢？我不这么看。
最近，古德哈特和佩尔绍德提出了一个更有趣、更进一步的想法，那就是建立一个监管框架，提高银行资本金要求，用一个比率将之与一个同银行资产价格增长率挂钩。其目的是遏制过度的放款，并在繁荣时期扩充银行准备金。
一些监管是无可避免的，拯救贝尔斯登的行动使得一场改革在美国势在必行。在英国，今年稍晚时候政府将推出立法，以解决一些在北岩事件期间浮现出来的弊端。此外，也有可能进行更多微观经济层面的改变，例如信贷评级机构的工作等。没完没了且最终没有什么成果的争论——关于有必要限制金融城奖金的，关于更充分披露和提高透明度的，将一如既往地存在。大型商业银行的年报将继续以每年多出20至50页的速度变厚。
显然有必要使银行体系里雇员和股东的经济利益更加一致，以减少交易商去肩负巨大短期风险的诱因。但无论如何，未来几年很可能出现的情况是谨慎和节制成为主基调。银行在考虑把钱放在哪里和如何放时，将谨慎得多。灰暗乏味将统治地球，浮华的繁荣将被视为庸俗。
这或许是历史的最后一个教训，对此，没人比白芝浩说得更好了：“在英格兰，一场巨大灾难后，人们相互猜忌。一旦灾难被遗忘，人们再次互相信赖。”
理查德•兰伯特是英国工业联合会(CBI)主席，《金融时报》(Financial Times)前任总编辑。本文是根据他在牛津大学坦普顿学院演讲基础上经编辑的讲稿。
1866年欧沃伦•格尼银行
欧沃伦•格尼银行的破产引发了英国最著名的银行挤兑。当该银行从核心业务（交易汇票）向外扩张进入到如船厂等风险更高的投资领域时，问题就发生了。当几家债权人破产时，该银行的股票骤然暴跌。沃尔特•白芝浩称其政策“过于轻率，人们会觉得小孩来放贷也会比这做得好”。英国央行拒绝提供支持的那天，欧沃尼停止现金支付，挤兑变成了一场骚乱，之后又有10家银行暂停支付，200家公司无力偿债，“伦敦金融城的街道上人群拥挤，跌跌撞撞”。
2007年北岩银行
去年9月12日，当信贷紧缩加剧时，北岩被迫求助于英国央行，希望由后者以最后贷款人角色为其提供流动性支持。关于贷款的新闻引发了挤兑。接下来的两个月里，因多个援救方案失败，该银行2007年2月曾一度涨到12.14英镑历史高位的股价重挫至90便士。北岩银行估计欠英国央行250亿英镑，于2月17日被政府国有化。
1720年南海泡沫
南海公司1711年赢得对南美贸易的垄断，附带条件是承担了西班牙王位继承战造成的国家债务。但西班牙对于海洋的控制使得公司贸易范围很小，甚至在1718年战火重燃前情况也没有改观。然而，由于拥有皇家特许状，并且董事们四处散布编造的国外贸易大获成功的故事，泡沫使得公司股价在1720年头6个月里，从128英镑飚升至1050英镑。当泡沫破灭时，价格重挫回落至175英镑，成千上万的人因此破产。
1997年亚洲危机
在经历数十年强劲经济增长后，该地区赢得了“亚洲虎”外号，资本从发达世界快速流入这些自由化的市场。1997年7月，泰国对泰铢实行浮动汇率的决定引发了金融危机，很快传播到该地区其他经济体。不久，“亚洲传染病”危机扩散到全球，巴西和俄罗斯也受害。
1929年华尔街崩盘
20世纪初，股票市场投机还被限于专业人士，到了20世纪20年代，就有数以百万计的“普通美国人”在纽约股票交易所进行投资。到了1929年8月，小投资人用保证金所购股票面值的三分之二以上是向经纪人的借款——借款超过了85亿美元。到了10月，这种情况难以为继，股东出现恐慌。就在一天时间里，股票交易量超过了1200万股，人们拼命兑现他们的资产。“大萧条”开始了。
1987年黑色星期一
1987年10月1日，全球股市经历了史上最大单日下挫（道琼斯工业平均指数下跌22.6%，而富时100指数下跌10.8%）。崩盘的确切原因到现在还没有搞清楚——有人甚至将之将富时指数的暴跌归咎于10月16日的伦敦飓风。
译者/红岭
阅读本文章英文,请点击 Crashes, Bangs & Wallops
Crashes, Bangs & Wallops
By Richard Lambert
Friday, August 08, 2008
The economic challenges today are made all the more daunting by the fact that commodity prices, particularly energy, are soaring at precisely the moment that a very large hole has been blown into the balance sheets of the world's most important banks - another case where it's not just the financial shock that is causing the trouble. Rising inflation plus slowing demand add up to serious problems for policymakers everywhere. Thus the European Central Bank recently raised interest rates to keep inflation in check, at the very time when slowing demand would normally require a cut.
In spite of all these variables, history does provide some pointers to the potential economic impact of a big financial drama. As analysed by Reinhart and Rogoff, in the five most catastrophic examples since the second world war (in Finland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Spain), the drop in annual output growth from peak to trough was more than 5 per cent and growth remained well below pre-crisis trend even after three years. Taking all 18 shocks together, the average drop in real per capita output growth turned out to be a bit more than 2 per cent, and it typically took two years to return to trend.
Economist Paul Ormerod recently analysed 255 examples of recessions in 17 western countries between 1871 and 2006. He found that 164 of them lasted just one year, and the great majority were over within two years.
As a very rough rule of thumb, then, up to about two years of slowdown following a financial shock has not been out of the ordinary over the years - provided the lender of last resort has done its stuff. On that basis, and given the sheer scale of the current financial dramas, the US and UK Treasuries always looked rather optimistic in their projections of a short, sharp setback after the summer of 2007, with recovery beginning to make itself felt in the second half of this year. As things stand, the outlook for 2009 looks likely to be rather worse than that for 2008, at least in the UK.
How much do financial traumas lead to economic slowdowns?
First, they lead to a massive destruction of assets and wealth, with all that implies for economic activity - just consider how much poorer shareholders in the world's big banks feel today compared with a year ago. The impact of the shock on bank balance sheets also has an immediate effect on their ability to lend. The most spectacular examples of severe credit constraints came in the Great Depression. Automobile sales in America fell from 4.5 million in 1929 to 1.1 million in 1932, and didn't climb above their previous peak for 20 years.
In addition, the swing from boom to bust completely changes the public view of finance, and the willingness to take risks. Yesterday's heroes become today's villains. Investment horizons shorten. As J.K. Galbraith observed in his magnificent book The Great Crash 1929, within a few days of the downturn "something close to universal trust turned into something akin to universal suspicion".
Financial shocks also frequently expose fraud and crime, adding to the general sense of unease and leaving the public baying for vengeance. The directors of the South Sea Company barely escaped with their lives. One parliamentarian argued that they should be found guilty of parricide and suffer the ancient Roman punishment for that crime - to be sewn into sacks along with a monkey and a snake, and drowned. One thing to watch out for when things are going wrong is employees who never take a holiday. In London, it was only when William Pullinger of the Union Bank was obliged to attend a funeral in 1860 that his massive embezzlement came to light. In Paris, it seems that rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, who recently punched a hole in Societe Generale's balance sheet, was similarly disinclined to leave his desk.
Legislators do not always make their wisest calls at such times of financial frenzy. The Bubble Act of 1720 banned the issue of all stocks that were not authorised by royal charter and as such made it difficult to start a legitimate business in Britain for more than a century until its eventual repeal. The Wall Street crash of 1929 led to the Smoot Hawley tariff legislation of 1930, with its devastating impact on international trade. The dotcom bubble in the early years of this century was followed in the US by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, with expensive consequences for all US listed companies.
As Martin Wolf has observed in this newspaper: "Everybody involved - borrowers, lenders and regulators, too - are all too often swept away in tides of euphoria and panic. To err is human. That is one of the reasons regulation is rarely countercylical: regulators are swept away as well." So the record suggests that we should be cautious in our regulatory response to the events of the past year. But it does not suggest that we should do nothing.
What should be done?
One suggestion is that we should establish some institution, maybe a refocused international monetary fund, and give it the job of looking for trouble on the horizon. It sounds a fine idea. But history is full of authoritative warnings of trouble to come that have been completely ignored in the euphoria of the moment. Share prices slipped briefly after Alan Greenspan spoke of the dangers of "irrational exuberance" at the end of 1996. But then they raced ahead for most of the next 10 years. Bank of England governor Mervyn King was talking about mispriced credit risks and tougher times ahead well before last summer. But when the market is going up, no one cares about the doomsayers.
That's the argument against the widespread view today that monetary policymakers should take asset price inflation as well as monetary inflation into account when setting interest rates. I was on the Monetary Policy Committee when house prices were roaring away in the three years to 2006, and I can remember thinking: "If our mission was to check house-price inflation (which of course it was not), where would interest rates have to go?" It was very hard to guess at what constituted the sustainable price of housing over the long term. Would we be prepared to knock industry for six simply because we felt that house prices were getting a bit too sporty? I don't think so.
A more interesting idea, advanced most recently by Goodhart and Persaud, is for a regulatory framework that raises bank capital requirements by a ratio linked to the growth of the value of bank assets. The purpose would be to moderate excessive lending, and build up bank reserves during boom times.
Some regulation is inevitable, and the Bear Stearns rescue makes reform essential in the US. In the UK, the government will introduce legislation later this year to tackle some of the shortcomings that became obvious during the Northern Rock affair. Other, more microeconomic changes are also likely, in the workings of the credit ratings agencies, for example. There will, as always, be endless and ultimately fruitless debate about the need to curb City bonuses, about the need for more disclosure and more transparency. The annual reports of the big commercial banks will continue to grow by 20 to 50 pages a year.
There's an obvious need to do more to align the financial interests of employees and shareholders in the banking system, to reduce the incentives for traders to take very large short-term risks. But the likelihood is that for the next few years, anyway, all will be caution and sobriety. Banks will be much more cautious about how and where they place their money. The grey will rule the earth and flashy exuberance will be regarded as, well, vulgar.
That is perhaps the final lesson of history, and no one put it better than Bagehot: "In England, after a great calamity, everybody is suspicious of everybody. As soon as that calamity is forgotten, everybody again confides in everybody."
Richard Lambert is the director general of the CBI and a former editor of the Financial Times. This is an edited version of a lecture given at Templeton College, Oxford.
1866 Overend, Gurney
The bankruptcy of Overend, Gurney & Co prompted Britain's most notorious bank run. The bank's troubles began when it expanded from its core business (trading bills of exchange) and moved into riskier investments such as shipyards. When several creditors collapsed, the bank's shares plummeted. Walter Bagehot called its policies "so reckless one would think a child would have lent better". The day after the Bank of England declined support, Overend suspended cash payments and the run turned into a riot - with 10 further banks suspending payments, 200 companies defaulting and "throngs heaving and tumbling about Lombard Street".
2007 Northern Rock
On September 12 last year, as the credit crunch tightened, Northern Rock was forced to seek liquidity support from the Bank of England in the Bank's role as lender of last resort. News of the loan prompted a run on the bank. Over the next few months, the share price, which had been at an all-time high of £12.14 in February 2007, plummeted to 90p as a host of rescue packages failed. The bank, which owed an estimated £25bn to the Bank of England, was nationalised by the government on February 17.
1720 South Sea Bubble
The South Sea Company won a monopoly on trade with South America in 1711 on the proviso that it assume the national debt caused by the War of Spanish Succession. But Spain's control of the seas left the company little scope for trade, even before hostilities resumed in 1718. However, with a royal charter and directors circulating stories of fictional foreign trading success, a bubble sent the company's share prices soaring from £128 to £1,050 in the first six months of 1720. When the bubble burst, prices plunged back to £175, ruining thousands.
1997 Asian Crisis
After decades of robust economic growth that had earned the region its "Asian tiger" moniker and had seen fast flows of capital into liberalised markets from the developed world, Thailand's decision to float the baht in July 1997 sparked a financial crisis that soon spread to other economies in the region. Soon, the "Asian contagion" crisis went global, taking Brazil and Russia with it.
1929 Wall Street crash
At the turn of the 20th century stock market speculation was restricted to professionals, but the 1920s saw millions of "ordinary Americans" investing in the New York Stock Exchange. By August 1929, brokers had lent small investors more than two-thirds of the face value of the stocks they were buying on margin - more than .5bn was out on loan. By October, the situation had become unsustainable and stockholders panicked. In a single day, more than 12 million shares were traded, as people desperately tried to realise their assets. The Great Depression had begun.
1987 Black Monday
On October 19 1987, world stock markets experienced their biggest one-day falls in history (the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 22.6 per cent, while the FTSE 100 dropped 10.8 per cent). The precise causes of the crash remain unclear - some have even blamed FTSE's woes on the London hurricane of October 16.
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