上周令人失望的20国集团(G20)峰会之后，一场全面的汇率战争看上去似乎不可避免。但想想印度吧。在越来越多的国家采取资本管制和汇市干预之际，印度表明，还可以采取另一种方式。
自从近两年前改变想法以来，印度就不再干预市场以管理其汇率。印度没有像其它国家——从巴西到泰国——那样，实施新的资本管制措施。与中国和其它东亚重商主义国家不同，印度没有出口盈余；也没有坚持把过多的储蓄投向没有很好利用它们的富裕国家。相反，印度就像教科书上发展中国家应该做的那样管理经济。印度运行着贸易赤字，因此有助于富裕国家的复苏；它引进资本以帮助国民脱贫，每年实现8%左右的增长率。
对众多观察人士（包括许多印度人）而言，印度之所以成功是因为它始终实施资本管制，即便该国最近没有出台新措施——例如，印度债券市场基本上不对外国人开放。然而，正如印度国家公共财政与政策研究所(National Institute of Public Finance and Policy)的阿杰伊•沙(Ajay Shah)所言，尽管印度在法律上限制资本流入，但实际上该国的全球一体化程度已经取得显著进展。过去十年间，跨境资金流动总额已经从GDP的50%飙升至逾120%。约500家印度跨国公司进入全球资本市场，并可以将资金自由汇出/汇入母国。当你的贸易和投资全球化时，政府就难以压制资本全球化。
如果说印度已变得令人意外地开放，面对目前的紧张局势，它仍会坚持开放吗？中国操纵汇率，鼓励其贸易竞争对手压低本国汇率；这些汇率操纵国推动资本进入非汇率操纵国经济，推升后者的汇率，并带来资产泡沫的威胁。换言之，某些国家干预力度越大，不干预国家就越难坚守原则，然而，至少迄今为止，印度似乎致力于坚持开放模式。印度央行最近承担了汇率"反斗士"的角色，冒着卢比升值的风险提高利率。
如何解释印度的决心？印度当然不会没有资产泡沫的危险。最近印度国有煤炭公司首次公开发行(IPO)获得了15倍的认购；投资者竞相认购价值540亿美元的票据——这些资金足够建造25个像新德里刚启用的新机场那样宏伟的机场。但至少某些印度财政官员意识到，要抑制股市不断飙升的需求，你只需相应增加股票的供应。继煤炭公司之后，数十家其它国有企业私有化的时机已经成熟。通过IPO，印度可以消化外部资本，将潜在可逆的"热"钱流入，转换为更像外国直接投资的稳定资本。
当然，发行新股不会阻止卢比升值。但是大多数印度领导人在这方面也看到了坚持本国开放模式的理由。他们不希望出台新的资本管制措施，因为他们知道，资金将会渗入，管理起来是场噩梦。他们不愿干预货币升值，因为他们明白，阻止热钱流入的最佳方式或许是允许本币升值——到了一定时候，投资者将担心，卢比可能逆转走势，令他们蒙受损失。
今天急切的干预派应该注意了。他们远未意识到的是，自己正为交易者建立单向押注。对冲基金知道，韩元被政府人为压低，因此更有可能升值而非贬值，因此他们将海量资金汇入韩国，加剧了韩国迫切希望缓解的热钱问题。如果印度领导人坚持自己的开放政策，如果新干预主义得到应有的惩罚，事实可能证明，当前的干预主义幸好是短暂的。
本文作者是美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)高级研究员，著有《比上帝有钱：对冲基金与新精英的崛起》(More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite)一书
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001035595
After last week's disappointing summit of the Group of 20 leading economies, a full- blown currency war may look unavoidable. But consider India. At a time when more and more nations are resorting to capital controls and currency intervention, India shows there is another way.
Since a change of heart nearly two years ago, India has stopped intervening in markets to manage its exchange rate. It has not followed countries from Brazil to Thailand by slapping on new capital controls. Unlike China and other east Asian mercantilists, it does not run an export surplus; nor does it insist on showering excess savings on rich countries that have no good use for them. Instead, India manages its economy as the textbooks say a developing country ought to. It runs a trade deficit, thereby contributing to the rich world's recovery; and it imports capital to help lift its people out of poverty, registering growth of 8 per cent or so a year.
To many observers, including a lot of Indian ones, the country has succeeded because it has always kept capital controls, even if it has imposed no new ones recently – for example, its bond market remains largely closed to foreigners. Yet although India retains de jure restrictions on capital inflows, de facto global integration has progressed dramatically, as Ajay Shah of India's National Institute of Public Finance and Policy has argued. Gross cross-border flows of money have jumped from around 50 per cent of India's gross domestic product to more than 120 per cent over the past decade. Some 500 Indian multinationals have access to global capital markets and can funnel cash into and out of their home country. When you have globalisation of trade and investment, it is not in the power of government to suppress globalisation of capital.
If India has become surprisingly open, will it remain so in the face of today's strains? China's exchange-rate manipulation encourages its trade rivals to hold down their currencies; the manipulators drive capital into the economies of non-manipulators, pushing up their exchange rates and threatening them with asset bubbles. The more some governments intervene, in other words, the harder it is for non-interveners to stick to their principles. And yet, at least so far, India appears committed to its open model. The Reserve Bank of India acted the part of the anti-currency warrior recently, raising interest rates even at the risk of a stronger rupee.
What explains India's resolve? The country is certainly not immune to the danger of an asset bubble. The government's recent initial public offering of the state coal company was subscribed 15 times over; investors put in bids for $54bn worth of paper, enough to build 25 airports like the splendid new structure that just opened in Delhi. But at least some of India's financial leaders recognise that, to tame surging demand for equities, you just need an equivalent surge in the supply of equities. Lined up behind the coal company, scores of other state companies are ripe to be privatised. Through IPOs, India can mop up outside capital, converting potentially reversible "hot" portfolio flows into something more akin to stable foreign direct investment.
Of course, new equity issuance will not prevent the rupee from rising. But here again, most Indian leaders see the case for sticking to the country's open model. They do not want to impose new capital controls, because they know that these leak and are a nightmare to administer. They are reluctant to intervene against the rise of the currency, because they see that the best way to staunch inflows of hot money may be to allow it to appreciate – at a certain point, investors will fear that the rupee may reverse direction and hit them with losses.
Today's eager interventionists should take note. Far more than they realise, they are setting up one- way bets for traders. Hedge funds know that South Korea's won is being artificially held down by the government and is therefore more likely to rise than to depreciate, so they are hosing Seoul with capital and compounding the problem of hot inflows that Korea is desperate to alleviate. If India's leaders stick to their open policies, and if the neo-interventionists meet their comeuppance, the current dirigisme may prove mercifully short-lived.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
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