上周末于加拿大举行的20国集团(G20)峰会，是朝着合作还是朝着不合迈进了一步？答案似乎为：两者皆是。有关"增长友好型财政整顿计划"的呼吁，对所有人都具有一定意义。但它却将一个有待证明的结论当成了理所当然的事实。这个结论是，迅速开展财政整顿如今将推动而非妨碍增长。
不过，我并没有去详细研究上述结论，而是问了自己一个更笼统的问题：我们现在走到了哪一步？问完后，我发现自己想起了英国小孩玩的一个游戏："传包裹"。在这个游戏中，参与者依次传递包裹，直到音乐停止。在音乐停止时拿到包裹的人剥去一层包裹皮，然后游戏继续开始。剥去最后一层包裹皮的人是获胜者，得到包裹里的奖品。
我们成人的传包裹游戏比这要复杂得多：首先是有多个游戏同时进行；其次，被传递的包裹也有多个，有的里面包的是奖品，有的里面包的是惩罚。参与者最好是本着合作的精神玩这些游戏，就像国际货币基金组织(IMF)在其提交本次峰会的"G20相互评估程序"背景文件中所指出的那样。但这很难做到。尽管各方说了很多漂亮话，但出现不合作结果的可能性要大得多。
眼下就有四个传包裹游戏在同时进行。第一个是在金融部门内部：每个参与者一方面试图确保不良贷款最终落在其他参与者手里，另一方面试图在游戏过程中为打开每张包裹皮收取一定的费用。第二个游戏是在金融部门与非金融私人部门之间进行：金融部门试图尽可能多地向后者出售服务，同时确保损失最终由客户承担。第三个游戏是在金融部门与政府间进行：金融部门目的是，如果所有其它方法都失败了，那么要确保政府最终为这些损失埋单。接着，在政府实施纾困后，金融部门可通过做空已被其掏空的政府来赢得游戏。第四个游戏是在各国政府之间进行：参与者的目的是，确保过剩的供给最终由其它国家消化。盈余国家可通过使贸易伙伴国私人与公共部门先后陷入破产，来取得游戏的胜利。我们可以称之为："以邻为壑，却心安理得"。这正是德国如今在欧元区玩得非常溜的游戏。
这四个游戏什么地方与本次G20峰会有关？答案很简单：所有的地方。第一个游戏在整个金融系统撒播有毒资产。第二个游戏让非银行私人部门负债累累、不得不去杠杆化。第三个游戏恰到好处地毁掉了各国政府的财政状况。第四个游戏促成了危机，如今又成为复苏的阻碍之一。最重要的是，这些游戏全都彼此关联，所以必须被一同整改。G20确实领悟到了这一点，但领悟得不够彻底。
正如塔列朗(Talleyrand)据信在谈及波旁皇族时所说的那样，政策制定者们什么都没学会，也什么都没忘记――尤其是在当前财政危机的私人财务根源这一点上。大多数情况下，政策制定者们都在孤立地讨论财政整顿。但这是一个巨大的错误。问题的关键不仅仅是公共债务，而是所有的债务。
国际清算银行(BIS)最新的年度报告就阐明了这点。报告显示，只要家庭债务相对国内生产总值(GDP)的比例大幅上升（见图表）
，三个重要赤字国家――美国、英国、西班牙――的公共债务规模似乎就会得到很好的抑制。拿西班牙来说，其政府债务甚至出现了持续下降。家庭债务相对金融资产的比例，也误导我们相信，基础债务的状况良好。然后，随着金融危机爆发、资产泡沫破裂，家庭部门开始减少负债，财政部门则开始增加负债。
这些都是一一对应的关系：如果私人部门有财务盈余（收大于支），那么就肯定对应着财政赤字或经常账户盈余（或两者都有）。私人部门盈余越多，财政赤字或经常账户盈余也肯定越多。反过来，如果财政赤字减少，私人部门的支出与收入比就必须提高，或者经常账户盈余就必须增多。显然，若想提高私人部门的支出与收入比，就需要增加支出，而非降低收入――尤其是在经历严重衰退之后。
这与G20在财政政策方面的决议有什么关系？在金融危机爆发前的几年里，有三类国家拥有巨额收支盈余：少数成熟的工业国（尤其是德国和日本），中国（自成一类），以及一些大宗商品出口国。与此同时，由于数次金融危机留给大多数新兴市场经济体的伤口尚未愈合，所以，许多发达国家（尤其是美国）和中东欧国家就相应累积着赤字。然后，当本次危机爆发时，由于外部需求剧减，盈余国家的盈余也随之减少。但它们的外部需求也受到了财政赤字飙升（尤其是赤字国家）的支撑。如此一来，公共部门的增加负债在一定程度上抵消了私人部门减少负债的影响。如今，随着欧洲外围国家不自愿地紧缩和其它国家自愿地紧缩，公共财政将愈发趋紧。
人们普遍认为，这种紧缩会通过信心效应带来私人支出的迅速增长。但正如BIS年度报告另一方面显示的，去杠杆化过程在后危机经济体中往往是深入和持久的。考虑到全球很大一部分经济体都受到危机波及，去杠杆化这一危机留下的不利影响很可能会持续更长时间。
总而言之，"供给过剩"这个包裹从盈余国家传递到赤字国家的私人部门，接下来，在危机过后，又传递到赤字国家的公共部门。假设许多赤字国家现在都开始收缩财政。下一步该把包裹传给谁？
这个问题仍没有明确的答案。或许，这些盈余将被一系列新兴国家不断扩大的外部赤字吸收，正如受到这些国家相对偿付能力引诱的金融市场正试图实现的那样（见图表）；或许，像美国官员所担心的，这些盈余最终将由老好人"山姆大叔"扩大赤字来消化――尤其是在欧元区正转向实现外部盈余之时；或许，以中国为首的国家，将会减少盈余；又或许，这些盈余会在一场旷日持久的全球性衰退中逐渐消失。
不过，显而易见的是，孤立地讨论削减财政赤字的必要性是行不通的。只有解决受损的私人部门负债过多的问题，或减轻外部失衡，或双管齐下，才会减少财政赤字。
我们一直在玩的游戏并不利于经济发展。如果我们开始玩一些更好的游戏，我们就将踏上复苏之路。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001033361
Was the summit of the Group of 20 leading economies in Canada over the weekend a step forward towards co-operation or a step backwards towards disagreement? The answer seems to be both. The call for "growth-friendly fiscal consolidation plans" provides something for everybody. But it assumes what is to be proved: that rapid fiscal consolidation will now support growth, rather than undermine it.
Yet, instead of examining the outcome in detail, I asked myself a broader question: where have we got to? When I did so, I found myself thinking of the British children's game of "pass the parcel". In this game, a package is passed around until the music stops. Thereupon, a player removes a piece of wrapping paper and the game restarts. The winner removes the last piece of paper and secures the prize.
Our adult game of pass the parcel is far more sophisticated: there are several games going on at once; and there are many parcels, some containing prizes; others containing penalties. The games would be better played co-operatively, as the International Monetary Fund notes in its background paper on the "G20 mutual assessment process" for the summit. But this is very hard to do. For all the fine words, unco-operative outcomes are far more likely.
So here are four such games. The first is played within the financial sector: the aim of each player is to ensure that bad loans end up somewhere else, while collecting a fee for each sheet unwrapped along the way. The second game is played between finance and the rest of the private sector, the aim being to sell the latter as much service as possible, while ensuring that the losses end up with the customers. The third game is played between the financial sector and the state: its aim is to ensure that, if all else fails, the state ends up with these losses. Then, when the state has bailed it out, finance can win by shorting the states it has bankrupted. The fourth game is played among states. The aim is to ensure that other countries end up with any excess supply. Surplus countries win by serially bankrupting the private and then public sectors of trading partners. It might be called: "beggaring your neighbours, while feeling moral about it". It is the game Germany is playing so well in the eurozone.
What have these four games to do with the G20 summit? In a word, everything. The first game scattered toxic assets across the financial system. The second left the non-bank private sector with a debt overhang and deleveraging. The third duly damaged the finances of states. The fourth helped cause the crisis and is now an obstacle to recovery. Above all, these games are all linked to one another and so have to be changed together. The G20 does understand this, but only up to a point.
As Talleyrand is supposed to have said of the Bourbons, policymakers have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, not least about the private financial roots of the present fiscal crises. Too often, the debate treats fiscal consolidation in isolation. But this is a huge mistake. What matters is not public debt alone, but all debt.
The latest annual report from the Bank for International Settlements makes the point clearly: it shows that three important deficit countries � the US, UK and Spain � had what appeared to be well-contained public debt positions, so long as household debt was exploding relative to gross domestic product (see chart). In the case of Spain, the government debt even consistently improved. The ratio of household debt to financial assets also gave a misleadingly good impression of the healthiness of the underlying debt. Then, with the financial crisis and the bursting of asset bubbles, came household deleveraging and fiscal leveraging.
These are mirror images: if the private sector runs a financial surplus (an excess of income over spending), there has to be either a fiscal deficit or a current account surplus (or both). The bigger the private surplus, the bigger the fiscal deficit or current account surplus must be. If, in reverse, fiscal deficits are to fall, the private sector must spend more relative to income or the current account must improve. Evidently, this needs to happen with higher spending, not lower incomes, particularly after a deep recession.
What has this to do with the G20 decisions on fiscal policy? In the years prior to the financial crisis, three groups of countries had large excesses of income over spending: a few mature industrial countries, notably Germany and Japan, China � which was in a category of its own � and some commodity exporters. Meanwhile, with most emerging market economies scarred by financial crises, the offsetting deficits were run by a number of advanced countries, notably the US, as well as central and eastern Europe. Then, when the crisis broke, the surpluses of the surplus countries shrank as external demand collapsed. But their external demand was also supported by the soaring fiscal deficits, particularly in deficit countries: thus, public leveraging partially offset private deleveraging. Now, with the involuntary tightening in peripheral Europe and voluntary tightening elsewhere, comes yet more austerity.
There is a widely held belief that this retrenchment will, via confidence effects, lead to a burgeoning of private spending. But, as the BIS annual report also shows, deleveraging tends to be deep and prolonged in post-crisis economies. When such a large part of the world economy is affected, the adverse legacy is likely to last still longer.
In sum, excess supply parcels went from surplus countries to the private sectors of deficit countries and then, after the crisis, on to the public sectors of the latter countries. Assume that many of the latter now retrench. Where will they go next?
This is unclear: maybe, the surpluses will be absorbed in bigger external deficits in a range of emerging countries, as financial markets, seduced by these countries' relative solvency, are seeking to achieve (see chart); maybe, as US officials fear, particularly with the eurozone moving into external surplus, these surpluses will end up in higher deficits for good old Uncle Sam; maybe, the surpluses will shrink, with China leading the way; and, maybe, they will be deflated away in a prolonged global slump.
Yet it is quite clear that an isolated discussion of the need to reduce fiscal deficits will not work. These cannot be shrunk without resolving the overindebtedness of damaged private sectors, reducing external imbalances, or both.
The games we have been playing have been economically damaging. We will be on the road to recovery, when we start playing better ones.
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