诺
贝尔经济学奖得主斯蒂格利茨(Joseph Stiglitz)将美联储(Federal Reserve)的量化宽松政策贬斥为“以邻为壑”的货币贬值策略，并呼吁美国学习中国的经济刺激艺术。美国总统奥巴马(Barack Obama)曾为美联储这个有争议的计划说好话。他对国际社会说，美国经济的快速增长对整个世界经济有利。但斯蒂格利茨周四在香港一场研讨会上发言时指责，量化宽松造成美元贬值，实际上是在从其他经济体窃取增长。
斯蒂格利茨在亚洲国际地产投资交易会(Mipim Asia)上说，奥巴马总统说，如果美国实现增长，整个世界将会受益，这一点说得对，但他忘记提一点，即竞争性货币贬值是一种以他人为代价的增长形式；所以我认为它将来可能会给世界经济带来麻烦。
美联储通过增加美国货币供给刺激美国经济的量化宽松政策，已经引起了新兴市场国家的警觉。他们担心此举最终反倒造成大量“热钱”涌入，催生资产泡沫和通货膨胀，让规模更小的发展中经济体无力招架。作为防范，很多国家和地区都在建立或强化资本管制，即限制资金出入的银行监管措施。最新采取这种措施的是台湾和巴西，韩国也在考虑采取什么样的具体办法。
斯蒂格利茨说，各国资本管制各自为政，“正在分裂全球资本市场”。
斯蒂格利茨来自美国哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)。他呼吁低利率国家（特别是美国）不要仅仅是放宽货币政策，还要借低利率优势提高政府支出。
他说，我们真的要向中国学习经验，如果拿钱投资，短期内经济就会增长，长期也会因此而增长。他说中国过去两年的大规模基础设施投资已经改变了整个国家的“经济地理”，从而为将来几年的强劲增长奠定了基础。
他说，美国也应该这样做，而且各种项目很有可能取得可观的投资回报，因为过去20年基础设施的投入实在太少。
斯蒂格利茨说，美国有一系列事情亟待完成，我们可以开始高速铁路建设；2000年草拟的基础设施建设清单上，首要任务就是建设新奥尔良的防洪堤坝；众所周知，新奥尔良需要一个新堤坝，若当初能够投资50亿美元建设防洪堤，则可挽回2,000亿美元的损失（译者注：指的是2005年卡特琳娜飓风），想想这个项目的资本回报率有多大吧。
不过，斯蒂格利茨承认，第二轮刺激财政的梦想不太可能实现。他说，相比之下，小布什政府出台的减税政策倒更有可能得到延期，该政策的成本与效益比例非常低，而这将影响联邦政府的预算赤字。
在汇率问题上，斯蒂格利茨与以中国为首的新兴市场看法一致，认为发达国家数十年来拥护的自由浮动汇率制波动性太大了。
斯蒂格利茨说，对于普通企业来说，它们只是想把自己的产品卖出去，而汇率总是一刻不停地上下波动，这让企业不清楚自己在卖出产品之后换回的是什么。他说，金融市场还没有发明出可为企业保值的足够好、足够便宜的避险工具。
斯蒂格利茨说，汇率波动产生的社会成本也很高，因此各国政府要将市场没有管理好的汇率稳定下来，这是非常合情合理的。
因此，如果你接受为减少汇率波动而出手干预汇市的做法，认为其对世界经济没有造成伤害，那么认为这种做法“越界”并成为“损人利己”的操纵手段的说法从何谈起呢？这是20国集团峰会上各国决策者正试图取得一致的核心问题。
例如，有人会说：中国今年已积累了2,500亿美元的外汇储备，但却令人民币仅升值了约3%。这个做法不是很过分吗？
斯蒂格利茨说，中国的汇率政策是可以理解的。他响应了中国国务院总理温家宝的观点，即人民币快速升值会造成数千家中国企业倒闭。
斯蒂格利茨说，鉴于市场不能为依赖出口的企业提供充分保护，那么确保本国汇率波动不至于迫使相当数量的、对宏观经济有影响的本土企业倒闭，这至少是一个政府应当做出的、最起码的干预举动。
Alex Frangos
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, dismissing the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing as a “beggar-thy-neighbor” strategy of currency devaluation, called on America to learn the art of stimulus from China.
President Barack Obama has defended the Fed’s controversial program, telling the world that a fast-growing America is good for the world economy. But Mr. Stiglitz, in comments at a conference in Hong Kong on Thursday, charged that quantitative easing, by leading to a weaker U.S. dollar, in fact steals growth from other economies.
“President Obama has rightly said that the whole world will benefit if the U.S. grows, but what he forgot to mention is…that competitive devaluation is a form of growth that comes at the expense of others,” Mr. Stiglitz said at the Mipim Asia real estate conference. “So I think it is likely to present problems for the global economy going forward.”
Emerging-market nations have bristled at the Fed’s move to spur the U.S. economy by increasing the U.S. money supply. They worry it will end up instead as a tidal wave of “hot money” that will overwhelm smaller, developing economies, creating asset bubbles and inflation. To prevent that, many are establishing or strengthening capital controls, banking regulations that restrict the flow of money into and out of economies. Taiwan and Brazil are the latest to act. South Korea is also considering measures.
That patchwork of international capital controls is “fragmenting the global capital market,” Mr. Stiglitz said.
Rather than just looser monetary policy, the Columbia University economist urges more government spending by countries whose low borrowing costs make it affordable─notably the U.S.
“We really should learn the lesson from China,” he said. “If you take money and spend it on investments, then you grow the economy in the short run, but you also grow the economy in the long run.” He says China’s massive infrastructure investments over the past two years have “changed the economic geography” of that country, setting it up for strong growth in the years ahead.
The U.S. should do the same, he said, adding that because it has funded infrastructure so poorly over the past 20 years, projects will likely have strong positive return on investment.
“We have a big list of what we need to do,” he said. “We could begin with high-speed railroads. On the list of infrastructure that was drawn up in 2000, at the top of the priority was New Orleans levees. It was public knowledge that New Orleans needed new levees; $5 billion invested in New Orleans levees would have saved $200 billion. Figure out the rate of return on that.”
He recognizes, however, that this dream of a second fiscal stimulus is unlikely to materialize. Much more likely is an extension of the Bush administration’s tax cuts, whose “bang for the buck is very low,” he said, and which will hurt the federal budget deficit.
On the issue of exchange rates, Mr. Stiglitz falls into the emerging-markets camp, led by China, that thinks the system of free-floating rates advocated for decades by the developed world is too volatile.
“An ordinary business, they just want to sell products,” he said. “With the exchange rate going up and down all over the place…you don’t know what you are going to get in return for the sales of your products.” Financial markets haven’t created hedging tools that are good enough and cheap enough to provide protection, he said.
“There’s a high social cost for the volatility in exchange rates,” he said. “So it’s very reasonable for governments to stabilize what the markets haven’t done a very good job at.”
So if you accept that intervention in currency markets to reduce volatility isn’t damaging to the world economy, where does it cross the line and become “beggar-thy-neighbor” manipulations? That’s the crux of the problem that policymakers at the G-20 are trying to hash out.
For instance, China has accumulated $250 billion in reserves this year while letting its currency appreciate only about 3%. Is that too much?
Mr. Stiglitz says China’s currency policy is understandable. And he echoed Premier Wen Jiabao’s contention that fast currency appreciation would send thousands of Chinese businesses into insolvency.
Given the failure of markets to offer adequate protection to export-dependent firms, he said, “to make sure that the exchange-rate volatility is not such as to force significant number of firms in bankruptcy that have macroeconomic consequences, that is at least the minimal intervention that is appropriate on behalf of government.”
Alex Frangos
President Barack Obama has defended the Fed’s controversial program, telling the world that a fast-growing America is good for the world economy. But Mr. Stiglitz, in comments at a conference in Hong Kong on Thursday, charged that quantitative easing, by leading to a weaker U.S. dollar, in fact steals growth from other economies.
“President Obama has rightly said that the whole world will benefit if the U.S. grows, but what he forgot to mention is…that competitive devaluation is a form of growth that comes at the expense of others,” Mr. Stiglitz said at the Mipim Asia real estate conference. “So I think it is likely to present problems for the global economy going forward.”
Emerging-market nations have bristled at the Fed’s move to spur the U.S. economy by increasing the U.S. money supply. They worry it will end up instead as a tidal wave of “hot money” that will overwhelm smaller, developing economies, creating asset bubbles and inflation. To prevent that, many are establishing or strengthening capital controls, banking regulations that restrict the flow of money into and out of economies. Taiwan and Brazil are the latest to act. South Korea is also considering measures.
That patchwork of international capital controls is “fragmenting the global capital market,” Mr. Stiglitz said.
Rather than just looser monetary policy, the Columbia University economist urges more government spending by countries whose low borrowing costs make it affordable─notably the U.S.
“We really should learn the lesson from China,” he said. “If you take money and spend it on investments, then you grow the economy in the short run, but you also grow the economy in the long run.” He says China’s massive infrastructure investments over the past two years have “changed the economic geography” of that country, setting it up for strong growth in the years ahead.
The U.S. should do the same, he said, adding that because it has funded infrastructure so poorly over the past 20 years, projects will likely have strong positive return on investment.
“We have a big list of what we need to do,” he said. “We could begin with high-speed railroads. On the list of infrastructure that was drawn up in 2000, at the top of the priority was New Orleans levees. It was public knowledge that New Orleans needed new levees; $5 billion invested in New Orleans levees would have saved $200 billion. Figure out the rate of return on that.”
He recognizes, however, that this dream of a second fiscal stimulus is unlikely to materialize. Much more likely is an extension of the Bush administration’s tax cuts, whose “bang for the buck is very low,” he said, and which will hurt the federal budget deficit.
On the issue of exchange rates, Mr. Stiglitz falls into the emerging-markets camp, led by China, that thinks the system of free-floating rates advocated for decades by the developed world is too volatile.
“An ordinary business, they just want to sell products,” he said. “With the exchange rate going up and down all over the place…you don’t know what you are going to get in return for the sales of your products.” Financial markets haven’t created hedging tools that are good enough and cheap enough to provide protection, he said.
“There’s a high social cost for the volatility in exchange rates,” he said. “So it’s very reasonable for governments to stabilize what the markets haven’t done a very good job at.”
So if you accept that intervention in currency markets to reduce volatility isn’t damaging to the world economy, where does it cross the line and become “beggar-thy-neighbor” manipulations? That’s the crux of the problem that policymakers at the G-20 are trying to hash out.
For instance, China has accumulated $250 billion in reserves this year while letting its currency appreciate only about 3%. Is that too much?
Mr. Stiglitz says China’s currency policy is understandable. And he echoed Premier Wen Jiabao’s contention that fast currency appreciation would send thousands of Chinese businesses into insolvency.
Given the failure of markets to offer adequate protection to export-dependent firms, he said, “to make sure that the exchange-rate volatility is not such as to force significant number of firms in bankruptcy that have macroeconomic consequences, that is at least the minimal intervention that is appropriate on behalf of government.”
Alex Frangos
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