英国央行行长默文•金(Mervyn King)是全球最有影响力的央行行长之一，也是一位一流的政策经济学家。我非常钦佩他的才华和正直。对于说服英国联合政府，相信制定他称之为“明确而可信的削减赤字计划”方面，他也发挥了重要作用。非常难得的是，他刚刚向他所能找到的最不友好的听众——英国工会总会(TUC)讲了这一点。他接着说道：“如果不向你们解释未能尽快制定计划的风险，那就是我的失职。”确实，他应该说出自己的想法。但他的想法就是正确的吗？我表示怀疑。
对于那些看过我两周前为戈登•布朗(Gordon Brown)前顾问埃德•鲍尔斯(Ed Balls)的观点所作背书的人来说，这应该不足为奇。正如我当时所言，我在财政立场上的态度比鲍尔斯更强硬，但不如金。没错，我赞同过慢削减财政赤字存在风险。然而，过快削减赤字也存在风险。同样，尽管缺乏可信计划存在风险，但设置不灵活的计划也存在巨大的风险。英国需要一个灵活的减赤计划，一个考虑到私人部门脆弱性带来巨大不确定性的计划。
金的观点的核心是什么？是“市场对日益增长的主权债务的反应有可能迅速从良性变为恶性……冒险让长期利率破坏性上升，从而导致投资和抵押贷款成本变得更加昂贵，这样做是不明智的。目前的计划是在5年内稳步削减赤字——这是一种比其它一些国家更循序渐进的财政紧缩措施。由于没有更早地出台此类计划，一些欧元区国家在付出了代价后发现，它们将被迫进行更为迅速的调整”。
我曾经说过，英国的情况与，比如说希腊，截然不同：其债务与国内生产总值(GDP)的比例要低得多；它用本币借款；它拥有促进本国复苏的手段——这对管理公共债务至关重要；它的经常账户赤字较为适中；它拥有妥善管理公共债务的历史；而且当前相对于GDP的债务负担率也低于过去三个世纪的平均水平。市场对于为这些赤字提供资金也表现得相当放松：一年多来，与指数挂钩的英国国债利率一直保持在1%或更低的水平；10年期英国国债收益率仍低于危机前的水平，目前接近3%；在整个危机期间，英国国债与德国国债的息差一直是一个百分点，或者更低。
英国政府表示，借款成本只是因为其承诺要实施紧缩政策才受到了抑制。实际上，自2月份以来，英国国债对德国国债的息差一直保持稳定，大选后仅下降了0.2个百分点。这表明，联合政府强硬的财政立场已经让政府的可信度有所上升。我们无法知道，如果工党赢得选举，情况会怎样。
如果风险只会从未能快速紧缩单向发展，那这些都无关紧要。但情况并非如此。另一面的风险在于，按照未来5年每年相当于GDP 1.6%的结构性紧缩计划，经济将大幅走软。这不利于产出和就业。它还将以周期性放松抵消结构性紧缩的影响：英国要将不得不快跑才能停留在原地。
想想我们不知道的吧：实际GDP与从过去趋势推导出的GDP之间10%的差距中，有多少是永久性的；又一场经济低迷会对潜在产出产生多大的影响；私人部门对财政紧缩会做出怎样的反应；以及货币政策抵消的效果会如何。
我对人们对这些不确定性表现出的信心感到震惊。正如总部位于伦敦的Smithers & Co的安德鲁•史密瑟斯(Andrew Smithers)指出的那样，抵消快速紧缩的一个可能方式（甚至可行），将是企业储蓄（即利润）大幅下降。在财政大幅紧缩、利率处于最低点的背景下，作为一种实施必要的削减企业财政盈余（2010年一季度占GDP的6.1%）的方式，这似乎是比企业投资飙升更为合理的结果。为何这会是一件好事呢？
更为明智的做法是根据经济复苏情况制定财政紧缩计划。如果经济增长率保持在2%或以下，就应该减缓削减支出，或者应该抵消税收减少——或许是员工保险费。如果经济增长率高于2%，就可以加快削减支出，改变财政抵消的方向。这样一种灵活的计划最终将更加可信，而不是相反：很难说服市场相信，有人准备实施政治自杀。中国人说，人们应该“摸着石头过河”。当我们像现在这样知之甚少时，这听起来是一个非常好的建议。
译者/君悦
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034806
Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, is among the world’s most influential central bankers and leading policy economists. I greatly admire both his intellect and his integrity. Mr King has also played a big part in persuading the UK’s coalition government of the urgency of what he calls “a clear and credible plan for reducing the deficit”. To his great credit, he has just said this to the Trades Union Congress, the most unfriendly audience he could find. He went on to say: “I would be shirking my responsibilities if I did not explain to you the risks of failing to do so.” Indeed, he should say what he thinks. But is he right to think as he does? I have doubts.
That will come as little surprise to those who read my endorsement of points made by Ed Balls , former adviser to Gordon Brown and current Labour leadership candidate, two weeks ago. I am more fiscally hawkish than Mr Balls, as I said at that time. But I am not as hawkish as Mr King. Yes, I agree that there are risks to cutting the fiscal deficit too slowly. However there are also risks in cutting it too fast. Similarly, while there are risks in not having a credible plan, there are also huge risks in having an inflexible one. The UK needs an adaptable plan for fiscal cuts, one that takes account of the huge uncertainties that result from the fragility of the private sector.
What is the core of Mr King’s argument? It is that “market reaction to rising sovereign debt can turn quickly from benign to malign ... It is not sensible to risk a damaging rise in long-term interest rates that would make investment and the cost of mortgages more expensive. The current plan is to reduce the deficit steadily over five years – a more gradual fiscal tightening than in some other countries. As a result of a failure to put such a plan in place sooner, some euro-area countries have found – to their cost – a much more rapid adjustment being forced upon them.”
I have argued before that the UK is in a very different position from, say, Greece: it has a far lower ratio of debt to gross domestic product; it borrows in its own currency; it has the means to promote its own recovery, which is vital for managing public debt; it has a modest current account deficit; it has a history of managing its public debt well; and current indebtedness is lower, relative to GDP, than the average of the past three centuries. Markets have also been remarkably relaxed about funding these deficits: interest rates on index-linked gilts have been 1 per cent, or less, for more than a year; the yield on 10-year gilts has remained below pre-crisis levels and is now close to 3 per cent; and spreads over German bunds have been 1 percentage point, or less, throughout the crisis.
The government argues that borrowing costs have been contained only because of its commitment to austerity. In fact, spreads over bunds have stabilised since February and fallen by just 0.2 percentage point since the election. This suggests that the coalition’s strong fiscal stance has brought modest credibility gains. What would have happened if Labour had won we cannot know.
None of this would matter if the risks went only one way – from a failure to tighten rapidly. This is not so. The danger on the other side is that the economy weakens sharply under a structural retrenchment averaging 1.6 per cent of GDP a year over five years. This would be bad for output and jobs. It would also offset the structural fiscal tightening with cyclical loosening: the UK would have to run to stand still.
Consider what we do not know: how much of the 10 per cent gap between actual GDP and the extrapolation of past trends is permanent; how big an impact another slowdown would have on potential output; how the private sector will respond to the fiscal tightening; and how effective monetary offsets will be.
I am astonished by the certainty people feel about such uncertainties. As Andrew Smithers of London-based Smithers & Co has noted, one possible – even likely – offset to rapid fiscal tightening would be a collapse in corporate savings or, in other words, profits. In the context of a sharp fiscal tightening, with interest rates at rock bottom, that seems a far more plausible outcome than a surge in corporate investment as a way of achieving the needed reduction in the corporate financial surplus, which was 6.1 per cent of GDP in the first quarter of 2010. Why would that be a good thing?
It would be far more sensible to make plans for fiscal retrenchment that are explicitly contingent on how the economy recovers. Should growth remain at or below 2 per cent, cutting spending should be slower or, alternatively, there should be offsetting cuts in taxation, perhaps national insurance contributions. If growth rises above this rate, cutting can be accelerated and fiscal offsets reversed. Such a flexible plan would ultimately be more credible, not less: it is quite hard to convince markets one is prepared to commit political suicide. The Chinese say one should “cross the river while feeling the stones”. When we know as little as we do, that sounds excellent advice.
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