经济学人下载:明斯基的繁荣孕育泡沫破裂之种子(下)

To Minsky, this was an “unfair and naive representation of Keynes's subtle and sophisticated views”.
对于明斯基而言，这是“对凯恩斯的精妙且成熟的观点的一种不公平且天真的表述”。

Minsky's financial-instability hypothesis helped fill in the holes.
明斯基的金融不稳定假说帮助填补了这些漏洞。

His challenge to the prophets of efficient markets was even more acute.
他对有效市场预言家们的挑战甚至更加激烈。

Eugene Fama and Robert Lucas, among others, persuaded most of academia and policymaking circles that markets tended towards equilibrium as people digested all available information.
尤金·法马和罗伯特·鲁卡斯等人已经说服了学术界和政策圈中的大多数人，让他们相信，随着人们对所有可以得到的信息的消化，市场将趋向于均衡。

The structure of the financial system was treated as almost irrelevant.
金融市场的结构得到了几乎毫不相关的对待。

In recent years, behavioural economists have attacked one plank of efficient-market theory: people, far from being rational actors who maximise their gains, are often clueless about what they want and make the wrong decisions.
近年来，行为经济学家痛击了有效市场理论的一大支柱：人，远非是能将其收益最大化的理性角色，经常对他们想要的东西一无所知，而且常常做出错误的决定。

But years earlier Minsky had attacked another: deep-seated forces in financial systems propel them towards trouble, he argued, with stability only ever a fleeting illusion.
但是，此前数年，明斯基就已经痛击了有效理论的另一个支柱：他指出，鉴于稳定仅是一种转瞬即逝的幻觉，金融体系中的深层次力量将其推向困境。

Yet as an outsider in the sometimes cloistered world of economics, Minsky's influence was, until recently, limited.
然而，作为有时是与世隔绝的经济学世界的局外人，直到最近，明斯基的影响力都是有限的。

Investors were faster than professors to latch onto his views.
投资者比教授们更快地领会了他的观点。

More than anyone else it was Paul McCulley of PIMCO, a fund-management group, who popularised his ideas.
普及了他的思想的正是资产管理集团PIMCO的保罗·麦考利。

He coined the term “Minsky moment” to describe a situation when debt levels reach breaking-point and asset prices across the board start plunging.
他创造了“明斯基时刻”这个词汇来描述一种债务水平达到临界点、整个市场的资产价格开始跳水的情况。

Mr McCulley initially used the term in explaining the Russian financial crisis of 1998.
最初，麦考利曾把这个词用于解释1998年俄罗斯金融危机。

Since the global turmoil of 2008, it has become ubiquitous.
自2008年的全球动荡以来，它已经变得无所不在了。

For investment analysts and fund managers, a “Minsky moment” is now virtually synonymous with a financial crisis.
如今，对于投资分析师和基金经理而言，“明斯基时刻”实际上就是金融危机的代名词。

Minsky's writing about debt and the dangers in financial innovation had the great virtue of according with experience.
明斯基关于债务和金融创新威胁的论述具有与经历相符的伟大优点。

But this virtue also points to what some might see as a shortcoming.
但是，这种优点还指向别人可能认为是一种短处的东西。

In trying to paint a more nuanced picture of the economy, he relinquished some of the potency of elegant models.
在尝试绘制一副更加细致入微的经济画卷的过程中，明斯基放弃了优雅模型中的某些影响力。

That was fine as far as he was concerned; he argued that generalisable theories were bunkum.
这是只有他才有的长处；他指出，凡是可以概括的理论都是夸夸其谈。

He wanted to explain specific situations, not economics in general.
他想要解释特殊情况，而不是一般意义上的经济学。

He saw the financial-instability hypothesis as relevant to the case of advanced capitalist economies with deep, sophisticated markets.
他把金融不稳定假说视同于具有深度、成熟市场的发达资本主义经济体的实例。

It was not meant to be relevant in all scenarios.
它并非在所有情况下都是一样的。

These days, for example, it is fashionable to ask whether China is on the brink of a Minsky moment after its alarming debt growth of the past decade.
例如，如今，质疑中国在经历了过去十年的令人警醒的债务增长后是否正处于“明斯基时刻”边缘是很时髦的。

Yet a country in transition from socialism to a market economy and with an immature financial system is not what Minsky had in mind.
然而，正处于从社会主义向市场经济转型而且具有不成熟金融体系的国家不是明斯基所考虑的。

Shunning the power of equations and models had its costs.
避开等式和模型的力量是有代价的。

It contributed to Minsky's isolation from mainstream theories.
它直接造成了明斯基之于主流理论的孤立。

Economists did not entirely ignore debt, even if they studied it only sparingly.
经济学家没有完全无视债务，即便他们只是有所保留地研究研究。

Some, such as Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and Ben Bernanke, who would later become chairman of the Federal Reserve, looked at how credit could amplify business cycles.
清泷信宏和后来会成为美联储主席的本·伯南克等人曾对信贷如何放大商业周期做过研究。

Minsky's work might have complemented theirs, but they did not refer to it.
明斯基的工作或许补充了他们的研究，但是他们却没有提及它。

It was as if it barely existed.
好像它压根不存在一样。

Since Minsky's death, others have started to correct the oversight, grafting his theories onto general models.
明斯基去世后，其他人开始纠正这种疏漏，将他的理论移植到通用模型中。

The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College in New York, where he finished his career (it still holds an annual conference in his honour) , has published work that incorporates his ideas in calculations.
他在那里走完了自己学术生涯的纽约巴德大学利维经济研究所发表了包含他关于计算的思想的研究。

One Levy paper, published in 2000, developed a Minsky-inspired model linking investment and cashflow.
发表于2000年的一份利维论文提出了一个受明斯基启发的将投资与现金流相连接的模型。

A 2005 paper for the Bank for International Settlements, a forum for central banks, drew on Minsky in building a model of how people assess their assets after making losses.
2005年，国际清算银行的一份论文在构建一个人们如何在出现损失后评估自己资产的模型时也曾引用过明斯基。

In 2010 Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist who is best known these days as a New York Times columnist, co-authored a paper that included the concept of a “Minsky moment” to model the impact of deleveraging on the economy.
2010年，现今以纽约时报专栏作家而闻名的诺贝尔奖得主经济学家保罗·克鲁格曼曾与别人共同完成了一份将“明斯基时刻”引入经济体去杠杆效果模型的论文。

Some researchers are also starting to test just how accurate Minsky's insights really were: a 2014 discussion paper for the Bank of Finland looked at debt-to-cashflow ratios, finding them to be a useful indicator of systemic risk.
有些研究者也在开始验证明斯基的洞见到底有多么精确：芬兰银行2014年的一份讨论稿考察了债务/现金流比率，发现它们是一个很有用的系统风险指标。

Still, it would be a stretch to expect the financial-instability hypothesis to become a new foundation for economic theory.
然而，期望金融不稳定假说成为经济理论的一个新基础会是一大方向。

Minsky's legacy has more to do with focusing on the right things than correctly structuring quantifiable models.
明斯基留给我们的理念更多地与关注正确的事情有关，而不是正确地构建可量化模型。

It is enough to observe that debt and financial instability, his main preoccupations, have become some of the principal topics of inquiry for economists today.
看到他的主要关注点——债务和金融不稳定，已经成为当今经济学家讨论的一些主要话题就够了。

A new version of the “Handbook of Macroeconomics”, an influential survey that was first published in 1999, is in the works.
1999年首版的有影响力的调查报告——《宏观经济学手册》的新版本正在准备之中。

This time, it will make linkages between finance and economic activity a major component, with at least two articles citing Minsky.
这一次，它将把金融与经济活动间的联系列为一个主要部分，至少有两篇文章引用明斯基。

As Mr Krugman has quipped: “We are all Minskyites now.”
正如克鲁格曼所调侃的那样：“我们现在都是明斯基主义者”。

Central bankers seem to agree.
央行银行家似乎同意这种看法。

In a speech in 2009, before she became head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen said Minsky's work had “become required reading”.
在成为美联储主席之前，珍妮特·耶伦曾在2009年的一次演讲中称，明斯基的著作“已经成为必读书”。

In a 2013 speech, made while he was governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King agreed with Minsky's view that stability in credit markets leads to exuberance and eventually to instability.
默文·金爵士曾在2013年在英格兰银行行长任上发表2013年的一篇演讲中，对明斯基关于信贷市场稳定导致过度充裕并最终带来不稳定的观点表示赞同。

Mark Carney, Lord King's successor, has referred to Minsky moments on at least two occasions.
他的继任者马克·卡尼已经至少在两个场合提到过明斯基时刻。

Will the moment last? Minsky's own theory suggests it will eventually peter out.
这种时刻将持续下去吗？明斯基本人的理论认为，这种时刻终将过去。

Economic growth is still shaky and the scars of the global financial crisis visible.
如今，经济增长仍然不稳定，全球金融危机的创伤依旧可见。

In the Minskyan trajectory, this is when firms and banks are at their most cautious, wary of repeating past mistakes and determined to fortify their balance-sheets.
在明斯基时刻的轨迹中，这是企业和银行万分谨慎小心之时，一方面担心再犯过去的错误，另一方面已经下定决心加固自己的资产负债表。

But in time, memories of the 2008 turmoil will dim.
但是，总有那么一天，2008年的危机记忆终将褪去。

Firms will again race to expand, banks to fund them and regulators to loosen constraints.
企业将再次竞相扩张，银行将再次竞相为它们提供资金，监管者终将再次放松限制。

The warnings of Minsky will fade away.
明斯基的警告将逐渐消失。

The further we move on from the last crisis, the less we want to hear from those who see another one coming.
我们在远离上一次危机的路上走得越远，就越不愿意听从看到另一场危机正在到来的人。