2018货币危机? [美国媒体]

The Currency Crisis of 2018?

2018——货币危机？



It’s not too early to consider whether what’s happening in Turkey is simply a Turkish matter.

现在考虑土耳其发生的事情是否仅仅是土耳其的问题还为时过早。

Jacob L. Shapiro |August 15, 2018

What do the Turkish lira, the Iranian rial, the Russian ruble, the Indian rupee, the Argentine peso, the Chilean peso, the Chinese yuan and the South African rand all have in common? They’ve all declined steadily this year, and some have depreciated dramatically in the past two weeks alone. But this isn’t the whole story. The whole story is that each of these countries is sitting on a ticking time bomb of U.S. dollar-denominated debt.

土耳其里拉、伊朗里亚尔、俄罗斯卢布、印度卢比、阿根廷比索、智利比索、中国人民币和南非兰特都有什么共同之处？今年以来，它们都在持续贬值，仅在过去两周内，就有一些货币大幅贬值。但这还不是全部。整个事情的全貌是，这些国家都坐在一个美元计价债务（美元债）的定时炸弹上。

This story has been long in the making. In the 1990s, many countries began to accumulate large amounts of debt denominated in U.S. dollars. It was an effective way to kick-start economic activity, and so long as their own currencies remained relatively strong against the dollar, it was fairly risk free. From 1990 to 2000, dollar-denominated debt tripled from $642 billion to $2.17 trillion.

这个故事已经酝酿很久了。20世纪90年代，许多国家开始积累大量以美元计价的债务。这是启动经济活动的有效方式，只要本国货币兑美元保持相对强势，就相当没有风险。从1990年到2000年，以美元计价的债务从6，420亿美元增至2.17万亿美元，增长了两倍.

The problem may now be coming to a head. Dollar-denominated debt has ballooned. In its latest quarterly report, the Bank of International Settlements found that U.S. denominated debt to non-bank borrowers reached $11.5 trillion in March 2018 – the highest recorded total in the 55 years the bank has been tracking it. Meanwhile, the dollar has strengthened amid a tepid global recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. As the currencies of indebted countries weaken against the dollar, it is becoming harder for some countries to pay their debts. This could be a bubble waiting to pop, especially if vulnerable countries don’t have the monetary policy options to protect themselves.

这个问题现在可能已经到了最严重的地步。美元计价的债务激增。国际清算银行(BIS)在其最新季度报告中发现，2018年3月，美国对非银行借款者的债务达到11.5万亿美元，为该行55年来的最高记录。与此同时，在2008年金融危机后全球复苏乏力之际，美元走强。随着负债国家的货币对美元贬值，一些国家偿还债务的难度越来越大。这可能是一个等待破裂的泡沫，尤其是如果脆弱的国家没有货币政策选择来保护自己的话。

Turkey Isn’t Alone

土耳其并不孤单

Such was the case for Turkey, which is particularly susceptible to the vagaries of currency depreciation. The value of the lira had been declining for some time, but it dropped dramatically late last week. At nearly $200 billion, almost 50 percent of Turkey’s gross external debt is denominated in dollars. (Turkey’s General Directorate of Public Finance, which, unlike BIS, accounts for financial borrowers, puts that figure at nearly 60 percent.) The situation became progressively more dire through a combination of political uncertainty, unorthodox monetary policy and, most important, U.S. interest rate hikes. Turkey’s dollar-denominated debt is now almost twice as much as its total foreign reserves.



Then there is Mexico, which, at $271 billion, holds more dollar-denominated debt than any other country on the list except China. This far exceeds Mexico’s official reserves. As with Turkey, dollar-denominated debt is a disproportionately large share of Mexico’s gross external debt, at roughly 60 percent. (For perspective, Mexico’s gross external debt to GDP is 39 percent, so the dollar’s influence over Mexico is particularly strong.) So far, the Mexican peso has held steady; it is slightly up on the year, and down just 0.3 percent in the past week. But if the Mexican peso begins to weaken on the back of tougher-than-expected NAFTA negotiations, political instability surrounding the new president or any other contingency, Mexico could be as bad off as Turkey is now.

其次是墨西哥，它拥有2710亿美元的美元债务，比除中国以外的任何其他国家都多。这远远超过了墨西哥的官方储备。与土耳其一样，以美元计价的债务在墨西哥外债总额中所占比例过大，约为60%。(从整体上看，墨西哥的外债总额占GDP的比例为39%，因此美元对墨西哥的影响力特别大。)到目前为止，墨西哥比索保持稳定，今年略有上升，过去一周仅下跌0.3%。但如果墨西哥比索在北美自由贸易协定(NAFTA)谈判比预期更艰难、新总统周围的政治不稳定或任何其他紧急情况下开始走软，墨西哥可能会像土耳其现在一样糟糕。

The story is similar for Indonesia and Chile. Of the two, Indonesia is in slightly better shape. Its gross external debt is 35 percent of GDP, and 47 percent of that is denominated in dollars. But Indonesia doesn’t have a lot of reserves, and its currency has been showing signs of weakness, down almost 10 percent against the dollar this year. Chile’s percentage of dollar-denominated debt as a proportion to GDP is the highest of all BIS reporting countries – a whopping 36 percent. Chile’s gross external debt-to-GDP ratio is 66 percent. Most concerning, however, is that Chilean reserves totaled just $37 billion in June 2018, equal to about a third of its total dollar-denominated debt of $100 billion.

印尼和智利的情况也很相似。在这两个国家中，印尼的情况略好一些。其外债总额占国内生产总值的35%，其中47%以美元计价。但是印尼没有太多的外汇储备，而且它的货币已经显示出疲软的迹象，今年对美元的汇率下降了近10%。智利以美元计价的债务占GDP的比例是所有国际清算银行报告国中最高的-高达36%。智利外债总额与GDP之比为66%.然而，最令人担忧的是，2018年6月，智利的外汇储备总额只有370亿美元，相当于其1000亿美元债务总额的三分之一。

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Different Problems

问题不尽相同

Though these countries are the most vulnerable to a stronger dollar, six others – Brazil, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Russia and South Africa – face different but related problems. South Africa, for example, isn’t particularly indebted. The government insists it won’t intervene to stop the rand’s decline, but that’s only because it doesn’t have nearly enough reserves to cover what debt it has. (Its $50.6 billion in reserves could pay off just 28 percent of gross external debt.)

尽管这些国家最容易受到美元走强的影响，但其他六个国家-巴西、印度、韩国、马来西亚、俄罗斯和南非-面临着不同但相关的问题。例如，南非并没有特别负债。政府坚称不会干预以阻止兰特的贬值，但这仅仅是因为它没有足够的储备来支付它所拥有的债务。(其506亿美元的外汇储备仅能偿还总外债的28%。)



This is hardly an exhaustive list. The economies surveyed by BIS make up just 37 percent of total dollar-denominated debt held worldwide, meaning there is another $7.2 trillion in such debt in the global system to account for. What started in Turkey may well spread to other countries excluded from the BIS report. Again, Turkey was uniquely susceptible to this sort of thing. The country has low savings rates and high inflation rates and all but refused to make the politically unpopular decision to raise interest rates before it was too late. We will investigate whether the other countries identified in the BIS report have similar structural problems that could aggravate their exposure to a stronger U.S. dollar.

这并不是一个详尽无遗的清单。国际清算银行调查的经济体仅占全球美元计价债务总额的37%，这意味着全球体系中还有7.2万亿美元的此类债务。在土耳其开始的事情很可能蔓延到被排除在国际清算银行报告之外的其他国家。再一次，土耳其对这类事情有着独特的敏感性。这个国家的储蓄率很低，通货膨胀率很高，而且在为时已晚之前，几乎拒绝做出在政治上不受欢迎的提高利率的决定。我们将调查国际清算银行报告中提到的其他国家是否存在类似的结构性问题，这些问题可能会加剧它们对美元走强的风险敞口。

As for Turkey, most of the polices that created its economic problems are still in place, even though investors were somewhat encouraged by the central bank’s promise to pump as much liquidity into the system as necessary. Turkey’s economy will get worse before it gets better. The more important question now is whether that will spread to other vulnerable countries. The most worrying at this point are Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia and Chile. It’s too early to call a full-blown global financial crisis, but it’s not too early to begin to consider whether what’s happening in Turkey is simply a Turkish matter.

至于土耳其，造成其经济问题的大部分政策仍在实施之中，尽管央行承诺在必要时向该体系注入尽可能多的流动性，这在一定程度上鼓舞了投资者。土耳其的经济在好转之前会变得更糟。现在更重要的问题是，这种情况是否会蔓延到其他脆弱国家。目前最令人担忧的是阿根廷、墨西哥、印度尼西亚和智利。现在呼吁爆发全面的全球金融危机还为时过早，但现在就开始考虑土耳其发生的事情是否仅仅是土耳其的问题还为时过早。