美国国债的收益率-布雷德森林体系

美国国债:收益率

2009-06-03

Buttonwood

布雷顿森林体系

Not so risk-free

并非那么无风险

May 28th 2009

From The Economist print edition

There are questions about the long-term appeal of

American Treasury bonds

美国国债的长期表现令人怀疑

LIKE London buses, big events in America’s Treasury market all seem to come at once. In a week when the Treasury auctioned more than $100 billion of notes and bonds, ten-year Treasury yields surged to their highest level in six months, despite a buy-back offer by the Federal Reserve. That will raise the cost of

finance for companies and homeowners.

就像伦敦巴士一样，美国债券市场的大事件都是毫无预兆就发生的。在一周之内，财政部拍卖了多达1000亿美元的债权，尽管联储回购了一部分，十年期国库券的收益率一路飙升到6个月以来的最高点。这会加重公司和家庭的财务成本。

All this activity was inevitable once the authorities decided to combine a huge fiscal deficit with quantitative easing (expansion of the money supply). It has been accompanied by a sharp rise in the gap between short and long rates. The ten-year yield has risen from 2.08% on December 18th to 3.70% on May 27th.

一旦当权者决定将巨额的财政赤字和数量性政策（货币供给增加）相结合的时候，所有的这些行为都是不可避免的。伴随着债券发放而来的长短期利率之间的差距大幅增加。十年期债券的收益从12月18号的2.08%上涨到了5月27号的3.70%。

Some of that rise in yields is undoubtedly due to investors switching back into shares on hopes that the global recession might end next year. But there have also been concerns about America’s long-term financial health. On May 27th Moody’s said it had no plans to reduce America’s coveted AAA debt rating. But on the same day John Taylor, a professor at Stanford University a nd the creator of the Taylor rule on monetary policy, wrote in the Financial Times that the American government “is now the most serious source of systemic risk.”

收益率上涨的从某种程度上说是令人猝不及防的，因为投资者在寄希望于全球大萧条会在明年年底结束的基础上将投资转回了股票市场。但是同样也存在着对美国长期财政健康度的担心。5月27号，Mood y’s称他们还没有将美国的AAA级评级下调的计划。在同一天，身为斯坦福大学教授同时也是货币政策上泰勒定律创建者的John Taylor在财经周刊上撰文称：美国政府现在处在最严重的系统风险的萌芽阶段。

On the surface, the worries seem odd. Is America likely to default on its obligations? No. To put it another way, if the world ever got into a state where America did prove unable to pay, lots of other assets would have defaulted first. Even though the American budget position is deteriorating rapidly, it is still a lot healthier than that of either Italy or Japan. Both countries have been carrying debt/GDP ratios of more than 100% for years without suffering a meltdown.

从表面来看，这种担心让人觉得可笑。美国有可能会不履行自己的责任吗？不会的，从另外一个角度看，如果世界陷入了一种连美国都被证实如法偿还债务的境地的话，会有大量的资产在此之前就首先被拖欠了。尽管美国的债务情况在逐渐恶化，但他仍然要比意大利或是日本的债务状况健康的多。几年来，意大利和日本的债务– GDP比率都维持在大于100%的

水平却没有彻底垮台。

Governm ent bonds are generally regarded as risk-free in their home countries, because the government has the power to tax and to print money. Since America is the world’s largest economy, has the most liquid financial markets and operates the world’s premier reserve cur rency, the Treasury bond has been seen as the global risk-free asset.

通常政府债券在本国内被认为是无风险的，因为政府掌握着征税和印制钞票的权利。自从美国成为世界最大的经济体，拥有着流动性最强的金融市场以及操控着世界首要储备货币以来，美国国库券被认为是全球最无风险的资产。

But that status implicitly rests on the belief that the American government will not exploit its advantages to the full. The same fiscal and monetary policies that seem appealing as a way of addressing domestic economic weakness also reduce the appeal of its debt to foreign investors.

但是这种情况潜在的基础是一种对美国政府不会把自身的优势消耗殆尽的信赖。在拉动国内经济走出低迷方面具有吸引力的财政和货币政策同样也削减了其债权对国外投资者

的吸引力。

America does not formally need to default to penalise its creditors; it can simply let its currency decline. Short-dated Treasury bonds (those with a maturity of one-to-three years) have returned a healthy 18% in dollar terms over the last three years. But when translated into Chinese yuan that return dwindles to just 0.3%.

从形式上看美国没必要用违约的方式来惩罚借贷方，只要很简单的将美元贬值就可以了。在过去三年里，用美元计价的短期国库券（期限为1-3年的债券）健康程度恢复到了18%，但是兑换成人民币之后这种健康程度的恢复减少到了只有0.3%。