美联储要员警告美国长期滞涨风险Fed’s Powell warns of stagnation¹ trap

There is an increasing risk that the US economy has become trapped in a prolonged period of subdued² growth that requires lower official rates than was previously³ expected, a leading Federal Reserve policymaker has warned.

美联储(Fed)一位主要政策制定者警告称，美国经济陷入长期低增长的风险日益增加，这要求官方利率比之前预计的更低一些。

Jerome Powell, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, said he was not in a hurry to lift rates, arguing for a “very gradual” path for any rises, while warning that the US outlook was still dogged by global risks.

美联储理事杰罗姆•鲍威尔(Jerome Powell)表示，他不会仓促加息，任何加息都应“极为小心地循序渐进”，同时警告称，美国前景仍受到全球风险的影响。

“With inflation below target, I think we can be patient,” he told the Financial Times.

他向英国《金融时报》表示：“由于通胀低于目标水平，我认为我们可以耐心一些。”

In his four years at the Federal Reserve, Mr Powell has demarcated himself for his willingness to get stuck into the nitty-gritty of financial markets, earning himself a reputation as the Fed’s markets governor.

鲍威尔在美联储的4年里以愿意致力于金融市场本质问题而与众不同，这为他赢得了美联储市场理事的名声。

But meeting the FT in a wood-panelled room at the Fed’s headquarters on Constitution Avenue, he appeared as much preoccupied⁴ by the longer-term US growth outlook as by the potential for market logjams and mishaps⁵.

但在位于宪法大道的美联储总部的一间实木装饰的房间里接受英国《金融时报》采访时，他看起来不仅关注可能出现的市场阻滞和小危机，而且还关注更长期的美国增长前景。

Economists⁶ led by Larry Summers, former Treasury⁷ secretary, have been propounding⁸ the sobering theory that the US may be mired⁹ in so-called secular¹⁰ stagnation — a trap of lethargic¹¹ economic growth and depressed¹² interest rates.

以美国前财长拉里•萨默斯(Larry Summers)为首的经济学家一直在提出一个令人警醒的理论，即美国可能深陷所谓的“长期停滞”——经济增长乏力，同时利率低迷。

For a while the Fed resisted that dismal¹³ prognosis. But Mr Powell, a level-headed centrist on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, appears increasingly alive to the possibility, even if he says secular stagnation is not his “baseline” expectation.

美联储一度不接受这种悲观的预测。但在制定利率的美联储公开市场委员会(FOMC)中属于头脑冷静的中间派的鲍威尔，似乎越来越关注这种可能性，即便他表示，长期停滞并非他的“基础”预期。

“I am more worried about it than I was,” he said. “The probability of an era of weaker growth, lower potential growth, for a longer period of time — that worries me more than it used to.”

他说：“我比以前更加担心这种可能性了。我比以前更加担心美国陷入更长时期的增长放缓和潜在增速下降的可能性。”

To achieve economic growth forecasts, Fed rates will “just have to be lower than I thought,” he added.

他补充称，要实现经济增长预测，美联储利率将“不得不比我之前预计的更低一些”。

One reflection of the quagmire¹⁴ is the gradual decline in Fed policymakers’ estimates for the long-term federal funds rate.

体现这种困境的一个迹象是，美联储政策制定者对长期联邦基金利率的估计逐步下降。

“I don’t think that process is over,” Mr Powell said. “The median estimate on the committee is 3 per cent for the long-term federal funds rate. It could be lower than that, in my view.”

鲍威尔表示：“我认为这个过程仍未结束。FOMC对长期联邦基金利率的估计中值是3%。就我看来可能会低于3%。”

Having lifted rates in December by a quarter point to a range of 0.25 per cent to 0.5 per cent and sat still since then, the Fed is weighing conflicting signals at home and overseas as it looks towards its September meeting.

美联储在去年12月加息25个基点，利率上调至0.25%到0.5%的区间，并自那以来保持不变，在即将迎来9月议息会议之际，它如今正在权衡国内外各种彼此冲突的信号。

The US economy, Mr Powell said, is “not full of risk right now”.

鲍威尔说，美国经济现在“并非充满风险”。

But he added: “The issue is that if you look around the world there are just a lot of risks that could affect us. So it is a US economy that is probably pretty close to its pattern of the last seven years, but the risks to us from the global economy are to the downside.”

但他补充称：“问题在于，如果你环顾世界，就会发现许多风险可能影响到我们。因此美国经济很可能接近过去7年的模式，但全球经济对我们造成了下行风险。”

He said it was hard to raise rates “in a world where everyone else is cutting and demand is weak around the world”.

他说，在一个“其他国家都在降息而需求疲弱的世界里”很难加息。

“The expectation of rate increases has produced a big move up in the dollar since 2014, which has restrained growth.”

“加息预期自2014年以来大幅推升了美元汇率，这抑制了增长。”

Mr Powell was speaking the day before the release of jobs data on Friday that beat expectations.

鲍威尔是在上周五就业数据发布的前一天作上述评论的。上周五发布的就业数据超过市场预期。

To support a rate increase, Mr Powell said that he would want to see strong growth in employment and demand; inflation heading back to 2 per cent and an absence of obvious “global risk events.”

鲍威尔表示，要支持加息，就业和需求必须出现强劲增长，通胀重回2%，并且没有明显的“全球风险事件”。

Fed policymakers are still scanning for potential fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the EU, while questions hang over China’s growth outlook.

美联储政策制定者仍在研究英国投票退出欧盟带来的潜在影响，而中国的增长前景也打上了问号。

Asked if his preconditions could be satisfied as soon as the Fed’s September meeting, Mr Powell said: “In particular, I need to see two really good employment reports. And then it is a conversation. I wouldn’t be pounding the table saying we really need to raise rates.”

在被问及他的前提条件是否会在美联储9月议息会议前得到满足时，鲍威尔表示：“首先，我需要看到两份真正强劲的就业报告。其次这只是交谈，我不会斩钉截铁地说我们真的需要加息。”

The former Carlyle Group partner — a keen athlete who cycles to work every day — has spent significant parts of his career at the sharp end of Treasury market structure.

这位前凯雷集团(Carlyle Group)合伙人热衷运动，每天骑自行车上班 。他的大部分职业生涯都处于美国国债市场的核心。

He served in the Treasury under former President George H.W. Bush, helping¹⁵ to formulate¹⁶ the government’s responses to the Salomon Brothers scandal in 1991. The firm used fake bids to purchase more Treasury securities at auction¹⁷ than was permitted by one institution.

他曾在老布什(George H.W. Bush)政府时期在财政部任职，在1991年帮助政府制定了对所罗门兄弟(Salomon Brothers)丑闻事件的对策。在那场丑闻中，所罗门兄弟在国债拍卖中提交虚假报价，以购买超出一家机构允许购买量的国债。

Mr Powell has recently been vocal¹⁸ on the intricate plumbing¹⁹ of markets, advocating the central clearing of so-called repo transactions in a bid to alleviate²⁰ some of the capital concerns that big banks blame for their pullback from the market. Repo markets are integral to the functioning of the broader Treasury market, allowing financial institutions to borrow and lend securities short term in order to cover obligations to other counterparties.

鲍威尔最近一直就错综复杂的市场暴跌发声，他主张集中清算所谓的“回购交易”，以缓解资本担忧，目前各大银行纷纷将自己撤出市场归咎于这种担忧。回购市场对于更广泛的国债市场运转是必不可少的，让金融机构能够短期地借贷证券来履行对对手方的义务。

But higher capital charges have made the transfer of Treasuries²¹ more expensive.

但提高资本要求让国债转移变得成本更高。

It is part of the industry’s explanation for why liquidity²², the ease of buying and selling an asset, has declined in Treasury markets.

这是业内对国债市场流行性（买卖资产的便利性）下降的部分解释。

Mr Powell has spoken in chorus with the Fed and Treasury in rejecting the industry’s concerns that market liquidity has become markedly worse. But he remains²³ attuned²⁴ to the potential for problems to arise.

美联储和财政部反驳了业内关于市场流动性明显恶化的担忧，鲍威尔的言辞也与之一致。但他仍然认为可能出现问题。

“Most of the time in most markets liquidity is okay. But it may be more fragile, and more prone²⁵ to disappearing in stress situations,” he says. “There hasn’t been a liquidity-related incident that has had a significant effect on the real economy. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

他说：“在大多数时间里，大多数市场的流动性还不错。但在压力情形下，它可能变得更为脆弱，也更容易消失。虽然现在还没有出现对实体经济造成重大影响的流动性相关事件，但这并不意味着将来不会有。”