加息窗口臨近 耶倫如何抉擇 Janet Yellen’s fateful decision

As the Federal Reserve’s open markets committee meets for its crucial two-day session in Washington, Janet Yellen faces her first real policy test since assuming the chair in February 2014. Amazingly, she is already almost halfway through her first term. But, so far she has had the relatively easy task of piloting the exit from quantitative easing. The exit plan had already been mapped out by Ben Bernanke, and it was not particularly contentious inside the committee.

隨着美聯儲公開市場委員會(FOMC)在華盛頓召開爲期兩天的關鍵會議，珍妮特耶倫(Janet Yellen)面臨着自2014年2月接任美聯儲主席以來的首次真正政策考驗。令人驚訝的是，她的首個任期已經幾乎過半。但到目前爲止，她所做的只是相對容易的工作——引導美國退出量化寬鬆政策。該退出計劃早已由本伯南克(Ben Bernanke)制定好，而且在該委員會內部也不存在特別大的爭議。

The decision on whether to raise interest rates this week is, however, proving more divisive. Among her key lieutenants, vice-chair Stanley Fischer seems somewhat hawkish, while William Dudley has stated the case for the doves. John Williams, her successor at the helm of the San Francisco Fed, and a key ally, also seems inclined to a more dovish view than he championed earlier in the summer.

然而，事實將證明，該委員會對於本週是否加息存在更大的分歧。在耶倫的主要助手中，美聯儲副主席斯坦利費希爾(Stanley Fischer)看起來有些鷹派傾向，而威廉達德利（William Dudley，紐約聯儲行長——譯者注）闡述了鴿派一方的理由。耶倫的關鍵盟友、接替她掌舵舊金山聯儲(San Francisco Fed)的約翰威廉姆斯(John Williams)，似乎也比今夏早些時候更偏於鴿派。

Mr Williams recently told the Wall Street Journal that he would “honestly, honestly, honestly” want to hear the opinions of his colleagues at this week’s meeting before making up his mind. Does he protest too much, I wonder? Perhaps the decision has already been taken, but the Yellen camp wants to allow the hawks a full and fair hearing before announcing that rates would remain unchanged.

最近，威廉姆斯對《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)表示，在做出決定之前，他將在本週的會議上“誠心誠意地”聽取同僚們的看法。我懷疑他是不是太經常提出異議了。也許決定早已做出，但耶倫陣營希望在宣佈利率保持不變前給鷹派成員們一場全面、公平的聽證。

Mr Williams also said that he would be eagerly waiting to hear the opinions of Ms Yellen before making up his own mind on the rate hike. With the committee split more than usual, the views of the chair will probably swing the vote, within certain limits. But what does she think? Ms Yellen ducked last month’s Jackson Hole seminar, and has not spoken about monetary policy since a speech on 10 July, since when much water has passed under the bridge. No one can be sure which way she will jump.

威廉姆斯還稱，在是否加息問題上做出自己的決定之前，他急切地等着聽聽耶倫的看法。由於此次委員會內部的分歧比平常嚴重，美聯儲主席的意見可能扭轉投票結果，但這種影響有一定限度。但她是怎麼想的呢？耶倫在上月傑克遜霍爾(Jackson Hole)研討會上避不表態，而且自7月10日發表過一次演講之後再未談論過貨幣政策，自那時以來形勢已經發生了很大變化。沒有人確定她會怎樣選擇。

Among independent economists who normally share Ms Yellen’s way of thinking (eg the FT’s columnists Martin Wolf and Larry Summers), opinion has hardened against a rate rise in September. In fact, some of them express bewilderment about why the Fed would even contemplate a rate hike in today’s economy.

在通常與耶倫思路一致的獨立經濟學家——如英國《金融時報》的兩位專欄作家馬丁茠爾夫(Martin Wolf)與拉里薩默斯(Larry Summers)——中間，反對9月加息的立場已變得更加堅定。事實上，他們中的一些人還表達了困惑：美聯儲爲何會在當前的經濟形勢下考慮加息？

The answer to this, though, is straightforward: the majority of the FOMC believes that the economy has now largely “normalised”, while the level of rates remains far from normal. This can be translated into a Taylor Rule framework, which shows fairly clearly that a rate rise will be overdue by the end of 2015.

不過，這一問題的答案很簡單：多數美聯儲公開市場委員會成員都認爲，美國經濟如今已經在很大程度上實現了“正常化”，但利率水平仍遠未恢復正常。這種觀點可以用泰勒法則(Taylor rule)的框架解釋，後者相當清晰地顯示出，2015年底加息將太遲。

Ms Yellen, based on her past statements, seems to accept this broad framework. One implication of this is that she implicitly accepts that the labour market is now close to “normal”, despite depressed productivity growth and a low level of labour participation. She is not seeking to make the argument that monetary policy should run demand in the economy “hot” in an effort to overcome these supply side problems. This is a major, if poorly explained, strategic decision.

從耶倫以前的聲明來看，她似乎接受了這一寬泛的框架。這意味着，她默認了勞動力市場現在已經接近“正常”，儘管生產率增長低迷，而且勞動力參與率處於低水平。她並不尋求主張，貨幣政策應該使經濟中的需求“火爆”，以便克服供應面問題。這是一項重大的——即使解釋欠佳——戰略決策。

Nevertheless, within this framework there is some wriggle room, which comes into the category of “data dependence”. In her July speech, Ms Yellen said that two requirements would need to be met before the Fed would raise rates:

然而，這一框架中留有一些餘地，涉及“數據依賴”的範疇。在7月的演講中，耶倫說，美聯儲加息之前，有兩個條件需要被滿足：

I expect that it will be appropriate at some point later this year to take the first step to raise the federal funds rate and thus begin normalizing monetary policy…We will be watching carefully to see if there is continued improvement in labor market conditions, and we will need to be reasonably confident that inflation will move back to 2 per cent in the next few years.

我預計，在今年晚些時候的某個時點首次採取措施提高聯邦基金利率是恰當的，從而開啓貨幣政策正常化……我們將仔細觀察勞動力市場狀況是否得到持續改善，而且我們需要有相當的把握，相信未來幾年通脹將重回2%。

The July FOMC statement then added that the committee would also consider “readings on financial and international developments”.

美聯儲公開市場委員會7月會議紀要中還說，委員會還將考慮“金融和國際發展方面的數據”。

How do these criteria look today? There has certainly been a “continued improvement” in labour market conditions. However, on inflation, wage increases remain stubbornly fixed at about 2 per cent, and the core PCE inflation rate has actually moved downwards to a new low of 1.24 per cent. Not all of this can be explained by “temporary factors” such as the drop in oil prices and the stronger dollar. Furthermore, inflation expectations in the bond market, and among the public, have been falling.

如今這些標準看起來如何？勞動力市場狀況肯定是取得了“持續改善”。然而，在通脹方面，工資增長仍然頑固地維持在2%左右，核心個人消費支出(PCE)通脹率實際上已經下滑至1.24%的新低。並非所有情況都能用油價下跌和美元走強等“臨時性因素”來解釋。此外，債券市場的通脹預期以及公衆的通脹預期都持續下滑。

Meanwhile “readings on financial and international developments” have clearly deteriorated markedly. The China shock may not have much impact on the US economy through trade flows, but it could do so through a tightening in financial conditions. According to Goldman Sachs, the pioneers in this field of analysis, the FCI has tightened by almost 75 basis points since the July FOMC meeting owing to the stronger dollar, lower equity prices and widening credit spreads.

與此同時，“金融和國際發展方面的數據”已經顯著惡化。中國股市或許不會通過貿易流動對美國經濟造成太大影響，但是卻可能通過導致金融狀況收緊而影響到美國。據該分析領域的領頭羊高盛(Goldman Sachs)表示，自美聯儲公開市場委員會7月會議以來，由於美元走強、股市下跌及信貸息差擴大，金融狀況指數(FCI)已經收緊將近75個基點。

From where I sit, it is hard to say that these key criteria have been met today, unless they were already met in July, when the Fed decided not to raise rates.

在我看來，很難說如今已經滿足了這些關鍵標準，除非7月美聯儲決定不加息時就已經達到了這些標準。

So why is a rate rise even on the table? The politics of running the committee may be responsible; in order to maintain a broad consensus, the chair conceded earlier in the year that a rate rise this year was “expected”. This form of calendar guidance was quite likely to cause trouble, and it has. If the committee decides against a rate rise tomorrow, it will probably simultaneously demonstrate in the “dots” plot that a rate rise is still very probable in December.

那麼，爲什麼加息議題如今還擺在桌面上？管理該委員會的政治學也許是原因所在；爲了維持一個廣泛的共識，耶倫在今年早些時候承認，年內加息“在預期中”。這種時間指引的形式無異於製造麻煩，而如今確實有了麻煩。如果此次委員會決定不加息，很可能同時利用“點狀圖”表明，12月仍然有很大可能加息。

So, realistically there are two options for Ms Yellen. The first and more likely option is a “hawkish postponement”, under which she explains that the conditions have not quite been met, but that the bulk of the committee believes this will happen by December. I am not sure that would do much to clear the air.

因此，實在地講，耶倫有兩個選項。第一個也是最可能的選項是“鷹派地推遲加息”，解釋目前還沒完全滿足加息條件，但是委員會的大多數成員認爲將在12月加息。我不確定這對消除疑慮有多大幫助。

The second is the so-called “one and done” option, under which the FOMC raises rates by 0.25 per cent (or even conceivably by 0.125 per cent), and the “dots” show that no further rate rise is expected in October or December, except by a small handful of hawks.

第二個是所謂的“一次到位”選項——加息0.25%（或更可能的0.125%），並且用“點狀圖”表明，10月和12月預計不會進一步加息，除了少數鷹派委員有異議。

This option seems to be gaining ground in the public commentary, on the grounds that it would get the bad news out of the way. But the markets know from past experience that they should take the first rate hike seriously as a guide to the Fed’s underlying attitude, and they would probably reprice short rates in 2016 upwards.

這個選項似乎在公共輿論中越來越爲人所接受，因爲這將避免不利消息的影響。但是市場從過去的經驗中得知，他們應該認真對待第一次加息，以此爲參考瞭解美聯儲潛在的態度，他們很可能又將預期短期利率在2016年上行。

A final, more dovish, option — to keep rates unchanged, and also to eliminate the expectation of a rise in December — is probably not one that Ms Yellen could guide through the committee, even if she wanted to do so.

最後一個是鴿派選項——維持利率不變、並且消除12月加息的預期，這很可能不是耶倫能引導公開市場委員會通過的決定，儘管她希望這樣做。