財經新聞:美聯儲應提高存款準備金率

The financial markets shook with fear last month when the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s meeting suggested that the US central bank might reconsider the costs of pumping nearly $1.7tn of excess reserves into the banking system. Of particular concern to members of the Federal Open Market Committee is the inflationary potential of these reserves if the banks turn them into loans and deposits.

上月，美聯儲(Fed)會議紀要表明，美聯儲可能重新考慮向銀行業體系注入近1.7萬億美元超額準備金的成本，這導致金融市場出現恐慌。美國聯邦公開市場委員會(FOMC)成員尤其關注的是，如果銀行將這些準備金轉化爲貸款和存款，將有潛在通脹效應。

Before the financial crisis, banks held few reserves in excess of their requirements. This allowed the Fed to control closely the level of deposits that are extended when banks create loans. But today’s huge supply of excess reserves means financial institutions can create trillions of dollars of loans and deposits, which will be highly inflationary.

在爆發金融危機之前，銀行持有很少的超額準備金，因此美聯儲可以嚴格控制銀行放貸時動用的存款資金。但如今超額準備金的巨大供應意味着金融機構可以創造出數萬億美元的貸款和存款，這具有極高的通脹效應。

To eliminate these excess reserves, the Fed would have to sell more than half its nearly $3tn portfolio of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Given that the Fed has indicated that reversing its quantitative easing would be done only in a rapidly improving economic environment – which normally puts pressure on bond prices – further bond sales from the central bank could be destabilising to the financial markets.

要消除這些超額準備金，美聯儲將不得不出售其持有的近3萬億美元國債和抵押貸款支持證券(MBS)的一半以上。鑑於美聯儲已經表示，只有經濟環境迅速改善（這通常會對債券價格造成壓力）纔會退出量化寬鬆，因此美聯儲進一步出售債券可能造成金融市場的動盪。

Fortunately, there is a solution to the Fed’s exit problem that does not involve selling securities. It employs one of the Fed’s oldest policy tools: raising reserve requirements.

幸運的是，有一種辦法可以讓美聯儲不用出售證券資產就可以解決退出問題。那就是運用美聯儲最古老的政策工具之一：提高存款準備金率。

All textbooks on money and banking highlight the three principal policy options open to central banks: discount lending, open market operations, and reserve requirements. Since the financial crisis broke, the Fed has vigorously used the first two. Massive discount lending to banks following the Lehman collapse prevented a devastating run on banks. Then huge open market purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities provided the financial system with much-needed liquidity. But the Fed has not altered reserve requirements in more than 20 years and has not raised any reserve ratio on any deposit in almost four decades.

所有貨幣銀行學的教科書都強調央行有三大政策工具：再貼現率、公開市場操作和存款準備金率。自金融危機爆發以來，美聯儲積極使用前兩種政策。美聯儲在雷曼(Lehman)破產後向銀行提供了鉅額的貼現貸款，從而讓銀行避免出現災難性的擠兌。隨後美聯儲在公開市場大舉購買國債和抵押貸款支持證券，爲金融體系提供了亟需的流動性。但美聯儲已有20多年沒有調整存款準備金率，同時在近40年裏沒有提高任何存款的準備金率。

The decline in the use of reserve requirements is startling. Under pressure from the banks to keep costs down, required reserves at the Fed had withered to just $40bn before the financial crisis broke, equal to less than 0.5 per cent of the banks’ liabilities, far below the ceilings set by the Monetary Control Act of 1980. This legislation allowed the Fed to set a reserve ratio of up to 18 per cent on transactions balances and 9 per cent on time deposits. Additionally, the MCA allows the Fed to impose any reserve ratio it wishes on any liability of the banking industry for a period of up to one year.

美聯儲對存款準備金率的使用次數少得驚人。在金融危機爆發前，在降低成本的壓力下，銀行存放在美聯儲的存款準備金縮水至僅400億美元，不到銀行負債的0.5%，遠低於《1980年貨幣控制法》(Monetary Control Act of 1980)規定的上限。該法案規定美聯儲可以對交易賬戶和定期存款賬戶分別制定最高18%和9%的準備金率。此外，該法案還允許美聯儲在最長一年的期限內，對銀行業的任何類型債務任意制定準備金率。

The Fed’s Flow of Funds Account indicates that total deposits in financial institutions were $10.6tn at the end of 2012. This implies that a 15 per cent reserve requirement on deposits would absorb almost all the excess reserves now in the banks.

美聯儲編制的《資金流向報告》(Flow of Funds Account)表明，截至2012年年底，金融機構存款總額爲10.6萬億美元。這意味着，15%的存款準備金率將吸收銀行目前幾乎所有的超額準備金。

To prevent banks from evading reserve requirements by issuing other, non-reserved liabilities, the MCA also gave the Fed powers to impose reserves on any non-deposit funding source.

爲了防止銀行發行其他未規定準備金率的債務來逃避準備金要求，《1980年貨幣控制法》還賦予美聯儲對任何非存款資金來源施加準備金要求的權力。

A reserve ratio as high as 15 per cent may appear to be extraordinarily burdensome to banks. But in 2008 Congress allowed the Fed to mitigate this cost by paying interest on reserves. As the Fed exits from quantitative easing, one feasible policy for the central bank to pursue is to set the interest rate on reserves at half the level of the Fed funds target.

對銀行來說，高達15%的準備金率似乎會帶來極大的成本。但在2008年，美國國會允許美聯儲向準備金支付利息來降低這種成本。當美聯儲退出量化寬鬆時，它可以選擇的一個可行政策是，將準備金利率設爲聯邦基金目標利率的一半。

Data from the Fed show that most FOMC members expect the long-run Fed Funds target to be about 4 per cent, which would imply that the Fed would pay a 2 per cent rate on reserves under this policy. Given $1.7tn dollars of reserves, these payments would amount to a $34bn cost to the Fed, which is less than half the $77bn it earned in 2012. This means that after paying interest on bank reserves, Fed profits, which are remitted to the US Treasury, would still exceed profit levels that prevailed before the financial crisis.

美聯儲數據表明，大多數的FOMC委員預計聯邦基金利率的長期目標在4%左右的水平，按照上述政策，這意味着美聯儲將支付2%的準備金利率。考慮到準備金有1.7萬億美元，因此美聯儲將支付340億美元利息，這還不到其2012年770億美元收入的一半。也就是說，美聯儲在向銀行支付準備金利息後剩下的利潤仍將超過金融危機前的一般水平。美聯儲的利潤上繳至美國財政部。

Another attractive feature of higher reserve ratios is that they allow the government to modify, and in some cases eliminate, the liquidity and capital ratios dictated by new Basel III banking regulations. Reserves are deposits at the Fed that can be turned into currency on demand, and as such are the world’s most liquid asset. The higher reserve levels achieved by this policy will satisfy many of the liquidity requirements in the Basel agreement.

提高準備金率的另一個吸引之處在於，政府可以借之減輕（在某些情況下消除）新的《巴塞爾協議III》(Basel III)規定的流動性和資本比率的影響。準備金是存放於美聯儲的存款，可以隨時轉化爲現金，因此也是全球流動性最高的資產。這項政策可以提高準備金水平，從而滿足巴塞爾協議中的許多流動性要求。

The bottom line is that by increasing required reserves and bringing the Fed’s third policy tool out of hibernation, the US central bank’s exit strategy can be made far easier. And because these reserves satisfy many of the Basel III provisions, this policy can be a win-win for the Fed, the banking industry and the US economy.

最重要的是，通過提高準備金率和解凍第三套政策工具，美聯儲實施退出戰略將會容易得多。由於這些準備金滿足《巴塞爾協議III》的許多條款，這種政策不僅有利於美聯儲和銀行業，而且還有利於美國經濟。

Jeremy J. Siegel is the Russell E. Palmer professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

本文作者是賓夕法尼亞大學沃頓商學院(Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania)Russell E. Palmer金融學教授