為什么說(shuō)中國(guó)不會(huì)發(fā)生債務(wù)危機(jī)？

Are rising debt-to-gross domestic product ratios around the world a sign that another financial crisis is looming? At a recent investment conference, I had a heated debate with an economist who claimed that rising indebtedness across the globe was a sure sign of renewed economic sickness and deterioration. “The Minsky moment will return,” he declared, pounding the table. He singled out China as the place where the next financial collapse would occur. Credit expansion there, he said, had grown “too much, too fast”.

在全球范圍內(nèi)，債務(wù)與國(guó)內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值(GDP)的比率不斷上升，這是否意味著另一場(chǎng)金融危機(jī)即將來(lái)臨?在最近一次投資會(huì)議上，我和一位經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家進(jìn)行了激烈的爭(zhēng)論，他認(rèn)為全球債務(wù)增長(zhǎng)是經(jīng)濟(jì)又出了問(wèn)題、經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況惡化的確切跡象。他拍著桌子說(shuō)：“明斯基時(shí)刻將重新降臨。”他認(rèn)為中國(guó)將是下一次金融崩潰的發(fā)生地。他說(shuō)，中國(guó)的信貸擴(kuò)張得“太多太快了”。

For decades, the debt-to-GDP ratio has been widely used as the key gauge of a nation’s financial vulnerability. Nevertheless, this measure has proved to be misleading. In the mid-1990s, when Japan’s gross ratio approached 120 per cent, many concluded that the country was heading for fiscal ruin, which would inevitably collapse the bond market and the yen, and cause hyperinflation. What has happened since then is that the total ratio has risen to 250 per cent today, while Japanese government bond yields have fallen to zero. Japan has suffered decades of price deflation.

幾十年來(lái)，債務(wù)與GDP比率一直被廣泛用作衡量一個(gè)國(guó)家金融脆弱性的關(guān)鍵指標(biāo)。不過(guò)，這一指標(biāo)已被證明是誤導(dǎo)性的。上世紀(jì)90年代中期，當(dāng)日本的這個(gè)總比率接近120%時(shí)，許多人斷定日本即將陷入財(cái)政危機(jī)，這將不可避免地造成該國(guó)債券市場(chǎng)和日元崩潰，并導(dǎo)致惡性通脹。而實(shí)際上，日本現(xiàn)在的總比率已上升到250%，其國(guó)債收益率已降到零。日本經(jīng)歷了數(shù)十年的通貨緊縮。

Looking around the world, the levels of interest rates for different countries are negatively correlated with levels of total indebtedness. Countries that have borrowed aggressively — such as Japan, China and Singapore — have very low or zero interest rates. On the other hand, countries that have barely borrowed, including Brazil, Russia and Indonesia, usually pay very high interest rates. This negative correlation is highly significant, disproving the widely held notion that higher debt levels lead to higher risk premia at the macro level.

環(huán)顧全球，各國(guó)的利率水平與總債務(wù)水平呈負(fù)相關(guān)。大量積累了債務(wù)的國(guó)家——如日本、中國(guó)和新加坡——利率非常低或?yàn)榱?。另一方面，巴西、俄羅斯和印度尼西亞等幾乎沒(méi)有借債的國(guó)家通常利率極高。這種負(fù)相關(guān)性是非常顯著的，它在宏觀層面推翻了一個(gè)廣泛持有的觀點(diǎn)：較高的債務(wù)水平會(huì)導(dǎo)致較高的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)溢價(jià)。

How is this negative correlation explained? Interest rates are the price of domestic savings, and countries with more abundant savings almost always have lower interest rates. Moreover, every economy needs to transform its domestic savings into investment, usually through the banking system. It is inevitable, therefore, that countries with higher savings rates have lower interest rates, but higher levels of credit creation (or debt-to-GDP ratios) — because banks need to extend more credit to move larger pools of savings into investment. This means there is nothing wrong with high-saver nations having high ratios.

這種負(fù)相關(guān)該如何解釋?利率是國(guó)內(nèi)儲(chǔ)蓄的價(jià)格，而儲(chǔ)蓄較多的國(guó)家?guī)缀蹩偸窍碛休^低的利率。而且，每個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)體都需要將國(guó)內(nèi)儲(chǔ)蓄轉(zhuǎn)化為投資——一般是通過(guò)銀行體系。因此，儲(chǔ)蓄率較高的國(guó)家不可避免地會(huì)有較低的利率，但會(huì)有較高的信貸創(chuàng)造水平——或債務(wù)與GDP比率，因?yàn)殂y行需要發(fā)放更多的信貸，將較為龐大的儲(chǔ)蓄轉(zhuǎn)化為投資。這說(shuō)明高儲(chǔ)蓄國(guó)家有著高債務(wù)比率是沒(méi)有問(wèn)題的。

The fundamental problem with this ratio is that it only provides a narrow snapshot of an economy’s debt picture. Debt is a stock concept, while GDP is a flow. The ratio tells you more about how much of an economy’s accumulated savings have been allocated via the debt channel. It does not tell us anything about a country’s net asset position. Nor does it provide any information on debt-servicing costs or the mix of local versus foreign currency-denominated debt. As such, the debt-to-GDP ratio gives us almost no information on a nation’s ability to sustain its debt.

這一比率的根本問(wèn)題在于，它只讓我們窺見(jiàn)了一個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)體債務(wù)圖景的局部。債務(wù)是一個(gè)存量概念，而GDP是一個(gè)流量。其比率更多地是告訴你一個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)體中累積的儲(chǔ)蓄有多少是通過(guò)債務(wù)渠道來(lái)配置的。它絲毫不說(shuō)明一個(gè)國(guó)家的凈資產(chǎn)狀況，也沒(méi)有提供關(guān)于償債成本或本外幣債務(wù)構(gòu)成的任何信息。因此，債務(wù)與GDP比率幾乎提供不了關(guān)于一個(gè)國(guó)家償債能力的任何信息。

In recent years, the rapid escalation of China’s credit-to-GDP ratio has been watched keenly by the investment community. Many predict that a debt crisis in the country would be the next big event that would bring down the world economy and global financial markets. I disagree. China’s domestic saving rate is 48 per cent, which amounts to almost $6tn of new savings each year. This vast pool of savings primarily relies on state-owned banks for allocation. It is therefore inevitable that the country has a high credit-to-GDP ratio.

近年來(lái)，中國(guó)的債務(wù)與GDP比率的快速上升一直備受投資界關(guān)注。許多人預(yù)測(cè)中國(guó)的債務(wù)危機(jī)將是下一個(gè)會(huì)拖垮世界經(jīng)濟(jì)和全球金融市場(chǎng)的重大事件。我不同意這一觀點(diǎn)。中國(guó)的國(guó)內(nèi)儲(chǔ)蓄率達(dá)到48%，相當(dāng)于每年有近6萬(wàn)億美元新增儲(chǔ)蓄。這個(gè)龐大的儲(chǔ)蓄池主要依靠國(guó)有銀行進(jìn)行配置。這不可避免地導(dǎo)致了中國(guó)的信貸與GDP的高比值。

Furthermore, so-called credit risk in China is, in fact, sovereign risk. The Chinese government often relies on bank credit to finance government stimulus programmes. In 2009, Beijing launched a fiscal package worth more than $600bn to combat the effects of the global recession that followed the financial crisis. Subsequently, Chinese bank credit growth climbed steeply, lifting the credit-to-GDP ratio to new highs. In essence, the Chinese government was using credit expansion to finance fiscal stimulus. This was a credit-based equivalent of the Troubled Asset Relief Program in the US. There, fiscal stimulus programmes are financed by increasing public sector debt. In China, they are often funded by depositors.

而且，中國(guó)的所謂信貸風(fēng)險(xiǎn)實(shí)際上是主權(quán)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。中國(guó)政府往往依靠銀行信貸為政府刺激計(jì)劃提供資金。2009年，北京方面推出了價(jià)值逾6000億美元的財(cái)政方案，以應(yīng)對(duì)金融危機(jī)后全球經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退的影響。隨后，中國(guó)銀行信貸增速大幅攀升，令信貸與GDP比率一再創(chuàng)下新高。實(shí)質(zhì)上，中國(guó)政府是利用信貸擴(kuò)張來(lái)為財(cái)政刺激提供資金。這相當(dāng)于是美國(guó)“問(wèn)題資產(chǎn)救助計(jì)劃”(Troubled Assets Relief Program, Tarp)的一個(gè)基于信貸的對(duì)等措施。在美國(guó)，財(cái)政刺激計(jì)劃的資金來(lái)自不斷上升的公共部門債務(wù)。在中國(guó)，這些資金通常由儲(chǔ)戶提供。

China has a chronic current account surplus and has been a net creditor to the rest of the world for decades. Beijing’s outstanding public sector debt, valued at about $4tn, is dwarfed by the vast assets controlled by the various levels of governments. Therefore, China’s sovereign risk is extremely low. Importantly, the balance sheets of the Chinese state-owned banks, the government and the People’s Bank of China are all interconnected. Under these circumstances, a debt crisis in China is almost impossible.

中國(guó)的經(jīng)常賬戶長(zhǎng)期處于盈余狀態(tài)，且?guī)资陙?lái)一直是世界其他地方的凈債權(quán)國(guó)。與中國(guó)各級(jí)政府控制的巨額資產(chǎn)相比，中國(guó)的公共部門未償債務(wù)余額——據(jù)估計(jì)約4萬(wàn)億美元——相形見(jiàn)絀。所以中國(guó)的主權(quán)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)極低。重要的是，中國(guó)的國(guó)有銀行、政府和中國(guó)人民銀行(PBoC)的資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表都是相互關(guān)聯(lián)的?？紤]到以上這些情況，債務(wù)危機(jī)在中國(guó)幾乎是不可能發(fā)生的。

The writer is founding partner and chief global strategist at Alpine Macro

作者是Alpine Macro的創(chuàng)始合伙人兼首席全球策略師