双语阅读：货币政策流行词指南.doc

双语阅读：货币政策流行词指南环球外汇货币政策和央行的运作是世界经济前景的核心。“货币战争”、“非传统货币政策”、“央行独立性威胁因素”等流行词的运用十分广泛，这些词通常让实际辩论变得晦涩而非澄清相关议题。 货币政策的意图是什么？ 每个人都同意其核心目的是维持物价稳定。通过利率和近期采用的非常规货币政策，如量化宽松来刺激花费就可达到这一目的。量化宽松是指创造货币，通过购买政府债券等资产将其注入经济之中。 为什么会有大规模政策辩论？ 在经济增长令人失望的成熟经济体中，问题在于是基本面表现不佳还是暂时脱轨。一些人认为缓慢增长将成为新常态。而另一些人完全不同意这样的判断，他们认为要通过货币政策刺激来推升花费水平，在不造成通胀的情况下使得经济发展得以维系。 央行独立性为什么很重要？ 在制定货币政策方面的独立性可以防止政治家们为赢得选举需求过多的刺激措施，引起通胀，导致长期经济受损。通过使家庭和企业相信通胀处于控制之中，独立性还有助于构建政策的可信度，使央行在危机中采取宽松政策时更有决断力。 央行的独立性处于威胁之下吗？ 本周日本央行受政府压力调高了通胀目标后，德国央行行长魏德曼(Jens Weidmann)警告称，央行的独立性受到了威胁。 然而，对立性受威胁的程度主要取决于对独立性的定义独立性是自主运行方面的，还是绝对的。德国央行、欧洲央行和日本央行传统上在制定货币政策目标和达成办法上有“绝对的独立性”。英国央行和美联储在达成政府制定的目标方面有“自主运行的能力”。 事实上，日本央行是被迫与美联储和英国央行行动一致的。这是对绝对独立性的威胁，而并非政治上的接管。 日本央行是受害者吗？ 与其他央行不同，日本央行似乎不愿遵循其定义的价格稳定，这让政治家们十分恼怒。由于允许持续的通缩它可以创造通胀它不能将自己作为政治干预的受害者，至少目前还不能。 就独立性产生的辩论如何与货币战争向关联？ 沾点边。令人担忧的是，日本的货币政策在变化，它或通过推动日元下跌，提高进口价格(这也帮助日本出口商)刺激经济增长和通货膨胀。对于一个贸易顺差已经较大的国家来说，这被视为激进的反社会行为，即使汇率一直是央行货币政策传导机制的一部分。 更广泛的问题是，许多国家正寻求通过出口来刺激经济增长。所有的国家没办法同时这样做，如果一国寻求低汇率，其他国家也会跟着做，随之而来的紧张情绪将很难控制。 为什么这一切变得如此激烈? 因为许多决策者都通过代理进行战斗。魏德曼最关心的是非正式扩大欧洲央行的政策，使其由通胀目标转向财政政策的举措。这是他最关心的问题。 为什么这一切都与非传统货币政策有关? 常规的货币政策通常是指提高或降低利率来控制需求，最终，控制通胀。但随着短期利率降至接近为零的水平(“零率绑定”)，它们不能再降了，所以央行发行货币，目的在于影响其他市场化的利率，如长期政府债券的收益率。这是通常被称为非常规货币政策，尽管学者们表示，这真的只是常规政策的扩展，所以应该称为“常规的非常规政策”。 更大胆的举措，目前还未实施，包括印钞来支撑政府开支。这真的是非常规的，但如果未来的复苏表现还是令人失望，这或许不再是不可思议的举措。Guide to monetary policy buzzwordsMonetary policy and the operations of central banks have become central to world economic prospects. Buzzwords including “currency wars”, “unconventional monetary policy”, “threats to central bank independence” are widely used, and these often obscure the real debates rather than clarify issues. What is the purpose of monetary policy? Almost everyone agrees its central purpose is to maintain the stability of prices. This is achieved by regulating incentives to spend money through interest rates and, more recently, unconventional monetary policy tools such as quantitative easing whereby money is created and pumped into an economy by purchasing assets such as government bonds. So why the big policy debate? In most mature economies where growth has been disappointing, the question is whether weakness is fundamental or a temporary aberration. Some is suggesting that slow growth is the new normal. But others profoundly disagree with this diagnosis and believe monetary policy stimulus is needed to raise spending to the levels economies can easily sustain without generating inflation. Why is central bank independence important? Independence to set monetary policy prevents politicians seeking too much stimulus for electoral reasons and causing long-term economic damage through high inflation. By ensuring households and companies believe inflation will remain under control, independence also helps build policy credibility, enabling central banks to act more decisively in loosening policy when there is a crisis. Is central bank independence under threat? Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank president, warned this week of threats to central bank independence, after the Bank of Japan was pressed by the government into raising its target for inflation. The degree of threat to independence, however, depends crucially on the specific definition of independence whether independence is operational or absolute. The Bundesbank, European Central Bank and BoJ have traditionally had “absolute independence” to set their monetary policy target and to meet it. The Bank of England and Federal Reserve have had “operational independence” to meet a target set by the government. In essence the BoJ has been forced to move into line with the Fed and BoE. It is a threat to absolute independence, but not a political takeover. So is the BoJ a victim? Unlike other central banks, the BoJ has annoyed politicians by not appearing to follow its own definitions of price stability. By allowing deflation to persist and it is always possible to create inflation it cannot regard itself as a victim of political interference, at least not yet. How is the independence debate related to currency wars? Only tangentially. The concern is that a change of monetary policy in Japan will seek to boost growth and inflation from driving the yen down, raising import prices and also helping Japanese exporters. This is seen as aggressive antisocial action for a country already with a large trade surplus even if the exchange rate has always been part of any central bankers transmission mechanism of monetary policy. The wider concern is that many countries are seeking to boost growth through exports. Not all countries can do so simultaneously, so if one seeks a weaker exchange rate, others may follow and the ensuing tensions would be difficult to handle. Why has it all got so heated? Because many policy makers are fighting their own battles by proxy. Mr Weidmann is most concerned about moves to informally broaden the ECBs mandate away from inflation targeting towards fiscal policy. This is his ultimate concern. And why is there all this talk about unconventional monetary policy? Conventional monetary policy is generally regarded as the raising or lowering of interest rates to control demand and ultimately inflation. But as short-term interest rates have descended to levels close to zero (the “zero rate bound”), they cannot go lower, so central banks have created money with the aim of influencing other market-determined interest rates such as the longer-term yield on government bonds. This is often known as unconventional monetary policy, though pedants say it is really just an extension of regular