Regulators must risk more to push growth

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By Alan Greenspan from FT

Since the Japanese earthquake and, earlier, the global financial tsunami, governments have been pressed to guarantee their populations against all risks exposed by those extremely low probability events. But should they? Guarantees require the building up of a buffer of idle resources that are not otherwise engaged in the production of goods and services. They are employed only if, and when, the crisis emerges.

The buffer may encompass expensive building materials whose earthquake flexibility is needed only for a minute or two every century. Any excess bank equity capital also would constitute a buffer that is not available to finance productivity-enhancing capital investment.

The choice of funding buffers is one of the most important decisions that societies must make. If policymakers choose to buffer their populations against every conceivable risk, their standards of living would almost certainly decline. It is no accident that earthquake protection of the extent employed in Japan has not been chosen by less prosperous countries at similar risk of a serious earthquake. Buffers are largely a luxury of rich nations. It does not matter whether we perceive an increased buffer as part of a nation’s capital stock, or as part of the net equity of the country. They are the same magnitude from different perspectives. Consolidated, the net capital stock of a nation must equal the sum of the equity of households, businesses and governments, adjusted for the nation’snet international investment position.

How much of its output should a society wish to devote to fending off once in 50 or 100-year crises? How is such a decision reached, and by whom? In the 19th century, when caveat emptor ruled, such risk judgments were not separable from the overall price, interest rate and other capital-allocating decisions struck in the marketplace.

Today, while the decisions of what risks to take remain predominantly with private decision-makers, the responses to the global financial and Japanese earthquakes have been largely government scripted. In the immediate aftermath of such crises, it is difficult to convince people that the wrenching events are not likely to recur any time soon, because, with a (very) low probability, they might. This is especially the case having just been through the brunt of a financial crisis that is likely to be judged the most virulent ever.

In the wake of the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008, private markets and regulators are requiring much larger capital, ie buffers, to support liabilities of financial institutions. Had banks and other financial entities maintained adequate equity capital-to-asset ratios before the 2008 crash, then by definition no defaults or contagion would have occurred as the housing bubble deflated. A resulting recession, though possibly severe, would almost certainly not have been as prolonged or have required bail-outs.
Bank managements, currently repairing their flawed risk management paradigm, have been moving aggressively to build adequate capital to enable them to lend. For the moment they are expanding their loan portfolios only marginally. Most of the new capital appears to have buffer status. Deep uncertainty about our economic future, as well as the potential level of regulatory capital, has unsettled bank lending. More than $1,600bn in deposits at Federal Reserve banks are lying largely dormant despite available commercial and industrial loans that, according to the Fed, entail “minimal risk” and are yielding far more than the 25 basis points reserve banks pay on such deposits. The excess reserves thus seem to have taken on the status of a buffer, rather than actively participating in, and engendering, lending and economic activity.

The “frozen” reserves appear to be the result of the unexpected sequence of bank bail-outs in 2008. Had Bear Stearns failed in March 2008 (without government intervention), Lehman Brothers, and possibly AIG, would have been induced to take capital-building actions during the subsequent six months to fend off insolvency. But Bear Stearns was bailed out, creating a perception that if it was “too big to fail”, so were all its competitors. Lehman’s fear of insolvency was dangerously assuaged. What sequence of events would have emerged had Bear been left to fend for itself will always remain conjectural.

What is not conjectural, however, is that in recent years, US policymakers faced with the choice to assist a major company or risk negative economic fallout, have regrettably almost always chosen to intervene. Failure to act would have evoked little praise, even if no problems subsequently arose; but scorn, and worse from Congress, if inaction was followed by severe economic repercussions. Regulatory policy, as a consequence, has become highly skewed towards maximising short-term bail-out assistance at a cost to long-term prosperity.

This bias leads to an excess of buffers at the expense of our standards of living. Public policy needs to address such concerns in a far more visible manner than we have tried to date. I suspect it will ultimately become part of the current debate over the proper role of government in influencing economic activity.

The writer is a former chairman of the US Federal Reserve and is now president of Greenspan Associates

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关键词：regulators Regulator Growth More Must Risk Growth push regulators

中文翻译：
日本地震和之前的全球金融海啸发生后，各国ZF都面临压力，要求它们采取措施，保证民众不致暴露于那些概率极小事件的风险。但它们真的应该这样做吗？保证意味着需要“闲置”一些资源，以构建一个缓冲层，使这些资源无法参与产品和服务的生产，而只有在危机发生的时候才会派上用场。

缓冲层资源可能是昂贵的抗震建筑材料，其抗震挠性每个世纪只用得上一两分钟。额外的银行资本金也构成“缓冲”资源的一部分，而无法用作可以提高生产率的资本投资。

调拨资源以构建缓冲层，是一个社会必须做出的最重要选择之一。如果政策制定者们选择对国民面临的每一种想象得到的风险都提供“缓冲”，那么国民的生活水平几乎肯定会下降。一些较穷的国家，虽然发生严重地震的风险跟日本差不多，但并未采取日本那样高水准的防震措施，这并非偶然。“缓冲”在很大程度上是一种奢侈品，只有富国能够负担。至于我们应该把增加的“缓冲”资源看作一国资本存量的一部分，还是一国净资产的一部分，那是无关紧要的。两者同等大小，只是从不同角度来看。合并起来看，一国净资本存量必然等同于家庭、企业与ZF的净资产之和，外加该国的净国际投资头寸。

一个社会应拿出总产值的多少，来抵挡50年或100年一遇的危机？这个问题应该如何决定、由谁决定？在“买者自慎”原则大行其道的19世纪，这种风险决策与总体价格、利率和市场中的其他资本配置决策密不可分。

如今，尽管风险决策仍主要由私人决策者决定，但事关全球金融危机和日本地震的回应主要是由ZF策划的。在这些危机发生后不久，很难劝服人们相信这种痛苦事件近期内不会再次发生，因为它们还是有可能发生，只是概率极低。在刚刚经历了可能是有史以来最致命的一场金融危机冲击后，情况尤其是这样。

2008年雷曼(Lehman)破产之后，私人市场和监管机构开始要求金融机构大幅提高资本金（即“缓冲”资金），以支撑负债。如果在2008年金融危机爆发前，银行和其他金融实体的资本充足率（资本与资产的比率）足够高，那么随着房地产泡沫破灭，理论上就不会发生违约和产生连锁效应。由此导致的衰退尽管可能相当严重，但几乎可以肯定不会持续这么长时间，也不会达到需要ZF出手“纾困”的地步。

正在修补风险管理范式的银行管理层，在补足资本金以便放贷方面步子迈得很大。眼下他们只是在略微扩大放贷业务量。新增资本似乎大多带有“缓冲”的性质。对经济前景的极度不确定、以及监管机构潜在要求的资本金水平，都影响了银行的放贷业务。尽管按照美联储(Fed)的说法，有许多商业和工业贷款“风险极低”，且收益率远远高于联邦储备银行支付的25个基点利息，但仍然有逾1.6万亿美元存款存放于各联邦储备银行(Federal Reserve banks)。因此，超额准备金似乎也带有某种“缓冲”性质，而非积极参与（或催生）放贷和经济活动。

处于“冻结”状态的准备金，似乎是2008年一系列出乎意料的银行纾困活动所导致的。如果2008年3月贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)在没有ZF干预的情况下倒闭，那么雷曼兄弟和美国国际集团(AIG)都可能从中汲取教训，在接下来的六个月里采取行动补足资本金，以免资不抵债。但贝尔斯登获得了纾困，造成这样一种观感：如果贝尔斯登“太大而不能倒”，它的竞争者亦然。雷曼对于资不抵债的恐惧缓解了，而这是危险的。如果ZF任凭贝尔斯登自生自灭，那么后来会发生什么情况？我们永远只能凭想象去猜测。
但并非想象的是，近年来，每当面临在“救助一家大公司”和“承受负面经济风险”之间做选择，美国的政策制定者们几乎总会令人遗憾地选择出手干预。不干预不会获得多少赞扬，即便随后没有出现问题；但假如随后经济出现了严重的问题，各方就会对政策制定者的不作为大加嘲讽，国会还会做出更强烈的举动。其后果是，监管政策变得高度倾向于最大化短期纾困援助，而代价是牺牲长期繁荣。

这种倾向导致“缓冲”过多，降低了美国人的生活标准。与我们迄今的尝试相比，公共政策需要以更加透明的方式应对人们的担忧。我猜测，这最终会成为有关ZF在影响经济活动方面恰当角色的当前辩论的一部分。

注：作者是美联储前主席，现任Greenspan Associates咨询公司董事长。