Nouriel Roubini 最近和讀者的一些對話，甚有參考價值。
It is pretty much consensus now that 2009 will be a zero growth year for the world economy (something that you forecast well in advance). It seems that the major risk for the following years is having a lost decade of Japanese-style stagnation but on a worldwide basis. How are the governments in US and Europe faring so far in their effort to avoid that? Marco, Sao Paulo
NR: To avoid a Japanese style multi-year L-shaped near-depression or stag-deflation (a deadly combination of stagnation, recession and deflation) the appropriate, coherent and credible combination of monetary easing (traditional and unorthodox), fiscal stimulus, proper clean-up of the financial system and reduction of the debt burden of insolvent private agents (households and non-financial companies) is necessary.
The eurozone is well behind the US in its efforts as: a) the ECB is behind the curve in cutting policy rates and creating non-traditional facilities to deal with the liquidity and credit crunch; b) the fiscal stimulus is too modest as those who can afford it (Germany) are lukewarm about it and those who need it the most (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy) can least afford it as they already have large budget deficits; c) there is lack of cross-border burden sharing of the fiscal costs of bailing out financial institutions.
The U.S. has done more (with its aggressive monetary easing and large fiscal stimulus putting it ahead) but two key elements are key to avoid a near-depression and still missing: a proper clean-up of the banking system that may require a proper triage between solvent and insolvent banks and the nationalization of many banks; and a more aggressive and across-the-board solution to the unsustainable debt burden of millions of insolvent households.
Thus, I would say the L-shaped near-depression scenario is possible.
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It seems clear that governments will not allow their banking system to fail altogether and that they will intervene to rescue whenever needed. My question is: The governments will save the banks, but who will save the governments? Is it possible that we are about to see countries default? What does that mean for the global economy? Which countries are the ones who pose the greatest risk? Jonathan Arad
NR: In many countries the banks may be too-big-to-fail but also too- big-to-save, as the fiscal/financial resources of the sovereign may not be large enough to rescue such large insolvencies in the financial system.
Traditionally only emerging markets suffered – and still suffer - from such a problem. But now such sovereign risk – as measured by the sovereign spread - is also rising in many European economies whose banks may be larger than the ability of the sovereign to rescue them: Iceland, Greece, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and, some suggest, even the UK.
The process of socializing the private losses from this crisis has already moved many of the liabilities of the private sector onto the books of the sovereign: banks, other financial institutions and, soon enough possibly, households and some important non-financial corporate companies.
At some point a sovereign bank may crack, in which case the ability of governments to credibly commit to act as a backstop for the financial system – including deposit guarantees – could come unglued.
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How long will be before we can tell if the US and UK governments’ plans to rescue the banks prove effective or not? If they don’t when do you think lending will recover to near-normal levels? Canh Humphries, Beckenham
NR: There are three basic approaches to a clean-up of the banking system: recapitalization together with purchase by a bad bank of toxic assets; recapitalization together with guarantees – after a first loss – of the bad assets; outright government takeover (call it nationalization) of insolvent banks to be cleaned after takeover and then resold to the private sector.
Of the three options the first two have serious flaws: in the bad bank model the government may overpay for the bad assets as the true value of them is uncertain; even in the guarantee model there can be such implicit over-payment (or over-guarantee that is not properly priced).
In the bad bank model the government has the additional problem of having to manage all the bad assets it purchased.
Thus, paradoxically nationalization may be a more market friendly solution: it creates the biggest hit for common and preferred shareholders of clearly insolvent institutions and – possibly – even the unsecured creditors in case the bank insolvency is too large; it provides a fair upside to the tax-payer; it can resolve the problem of government managing the bad assets by reselling most of the assets and liabilities of the bank to new private shareholders after a clean-up of the bank.
This “nationalization” approach was the one successfully taken by Sweden while the current US and UK approach may end up looking like the zombie banks of Japan that were never properly restructured and ended up perpetuating the credit crunch and credit freeze.
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Many analysts are now predicting that the bond market is the last and most serious bubble which will burst shortly. Do you agree?Mike, Qatar
NR: The current fall in government bond yields is justified by economic fundamentals: a severe recession, risks of deflation, risk aversion and move away from risk assets such as equities.
But certainly, over time, large and unsustainable budget deficits in many emerging and advanced economies, may lead to a rise in sovereign risk and a risk in government bond yields. Also the risk – small but rising – that excessive permanent monetization of such deficits will lead to much higher inflation suggests the existence of a minor bubble in government bond yields.
And indeed, in the last two weeks, the back-up in yield on US inflation-linked bonds and traditional 10 to 30 year bonds suggest the concerns of market participants about the sustainability of large fiscal deficits that – over the long run – may lead to solvency concerns.
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Do you believe in the projections made by the Chinese officials predicting a return to steady growth when all the planned stimulus measures have been implemented? Do you expect a reversal in the decisions taken the last 5 years to outsource a majority of the developed economies production to China? Fiorini Mauro, Belgium
NR: China is now experiencing a hard landing and I predict that Chinese growth in 2009 may not be higher than 5 per cent.
For a country that needs a growth rate of about 10 per cent to move millions of poor rural farmers to the modern urban industrial sector, a growth rate of 5 per cent would effectively be a hard landing.
Fourth quarter gross domestic product growth in China – measured on a quarter to quarter annualized basis – was closer to 0 per cent than to the 6.8 per cent year-over-year growth reported by the Chinese government.
Other factors also suggest a hard landing: There was a sharp fall in generation of electricity in the fourth quarter. China’s purchasing manager’s index was well below 50 and closer to 40 for six months in a row; there has been a sharp fall in imports, mostly of intermediate inputs and raw materials. And while some of the latest data show a marginal improvement in the second derivative of growth in January, the first derivative still shows contraction. The manufacturing sector is still 40 per cent of GDP and it is clearly shrinking.
Whether the short-run policy stimulus in China will be effective or not is not clear.
Instead, consumption levels are still depressed and private savings too high because of structural reasons that will take time to change. The out-sourcing of production to China and other emerging markets was not a mistake. But a model of growth based on cheap exports given an undervalued currency is now in crisis as the US downward adjustment of consumption requires an increase of domestic private and public demand in the surplus countries.
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