剥夺利率和汇率调整机制 欧元先天不足

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　　自2008年金融危机以来，欧洲——特别是欧元区——便一直没有健康过，这是无可争议的。

　　The single currency was supposed to bring prosperity and enhance European solidarity¹.

　　单一货币原本应该带来繁荣并巩固欧洲团结。

　　It has done just the opposite, with depressions in some countries even greater than the Great Depression.

　　但结果正好相反，一些欧元区国家遭受的萧条甚至比大萧条(Great Depression)时期更严重。

　　To answer the question about what is to be done, one has to answer another: what went wrong. Some claim that policymakers made a set of mistakes — excessive austerity and poorly designed structural² reforms.

　　要回答该怎么办这个问题，人们必须先回答另一个问题：哪里出了问题？一些人声称政策制定者犯下了一系列错误——推行过度紧缩的政策和设计糟糕的结构性改革。

　　In other words, there is nothing wrong with the euro that could not be fixed³ by putting someone else in charge.

　　换句话说，欧元没什么问题，换个人执掌就能解决问题。

　　I disagree.

　　我不这样认为。

　　There are more fundamental problems with the structure of the eurozone, the rules and institutions that guide and constitute it.

　　欧元区的结构、指引和构建欧元区的规则和制度存在更为根本的问题。

　　These may well be insurmountable, raising the prospect⁴ that the time has come for a more comprehensive rethinking of the single currency, even to the point of unwinding it.

　　这些问题可能是无法克服的，因此引出了一种前景——是时候更全面地反思欧元了，甚至可以考虑放弃欧元了。

　　Put simply, the euro was flawed at birth.

　　简单地说就是欧元先天不足。

　　It was almost inevitable⁵ that taking away two key adjustment mechanisms⁷, the interest and exchange rates, without putting anything else in their place, would make macro adjustment difficult.

　　剥夺了利率和汇率这两项关键的调整机制、而不加入取代它们的工具，几乎不可避免地使得宏观调控难以进行。

　　Add to that a central bank mandated⁸ to focus on inflation and with countries still further constrained⁹ by limits on their fiscal¹⁰ deficits¹¹, the result would be excessively high unemployment and gross domestic product consistently below potential output.

　　再加上央行的使命是聚焦于通胀，而成员国仍然进一步受到财政赤字上限的约束，结果就是超高的失业率和持续低于潜在产出的国内生产总值(GDP)。

　　With countries borrowing in a currency not under their remit¹², and with no easy mechanism⁶ for controlling trade deficits, crises too were predictable.

　　在成员国借入不在其控制范围的货币、且没有控制贸易赤字的简单机制时，爆发危机是预料之中的。

　　The alternative to adjusting nominal¹³ exchange rates is adjusting real ones — having Greek prices fall relative to German prices.

　　调整名义汇率的替代选择是调整实际汇率——使得希腊的物价相对德国物价下滑。

　　But there are no rules in place that could force a rise in German prices and the social and economic costs of forcing Greek prices to fall enough are enormous.

　　但是，没有规定可以强迫德国物价上涨，而压低希腊物价将带来巨大的社会和经济成本。

　　One might dream of Greek productivity growing faster than that of Germany as an alternative way of adjusting, but no one has figured out how to do it.

　　有人可能会指望希腊生产率增速超过德国作为调整的替代选择，但是没人知道如何实现这一点。

　　So too for Spain and Portugal.

　　西班牙和葡萄牙也是一样。

　　In the absence of a grand strategy, the troika of international institutions has flailed¹⁴ around, putting in place new rules for defining fresh milk or the size of loaves of bread.

　　在没有总体战略的情况下，国际机构的三驾马车四处出击，为新鲜牛奶的定义或者面包的标准出台琐碎新规。

　　Whether these are desirable can be debated; that they are not going to achieve the desired adjustment in real exchange rates cannot.

　　对于这些措施是否可取，可以展开辩论；但它们不会取得调整实际利率的理想效果是不容置疑的。

　　The rule changes needed to make the euro work are in an economic sense small.

　　从经济学角度看，只需要小幅改变规则就可以拯救欧元。

　　A common banking¹⁵ union, most importantly common deposit insurance; rules to curtail¹⁶ trade surpluses; and eurobonds or some other similar mechanism for mutualisation of debt.

　　建立一个共同的银行业联盟，最重要的是共同的存款保险体制；制定遏制贸易顺差的规则；发行欧元债券或建立其他类似的债务共担机制。

　　Monetary¹⁷ policy to focus more on employment, growth and stability, not just inflation.

　　货币政策在更大程度上关注就业、增长和稳定，而不仅仅盯着通胀。

　　Meanwhile, industrial and other policies should be orientated¹⁸ to helping¹⁹ the laggard²⁰ countries catch up to the leaders.

　　与此同时，产业和其他政策应该定位于帮助落后国家赶上领头羊。

　　Most importantly: a move away from austerity towards growth oriented fiscal policies.

　　最重要的是：从紧缩政策转向以增长为导向的财政政策。

　　But these seem well beyond the politics of Europe today, with Germany still arguing that Europe is not a transfer union.

　　但是这些似乎远远超越了当今欧洲的政治现实，德国仍然主张欧洲不是拨款联盟。

　　Good currency arrangements cannot ensure prosperity; flawed ones lead to recessions and depressions.

　　良好的货币安排无法确保繁荣；但有缺陷的安排会导致衰退和萧条。

　　And among the kinds of currency arrangements long associated with recessions and depressions are pegs²¹, where the value of one country’s currency is fixed relative to another.

　　长期以来的经验表明，与衰退和萧条关联的种种货币安排都存在挂钩机制，即一国货币的币值紧盯另一国货币。

　　A single currency is neither necessary nor sufficient for close economic and political co-operation.

　　单一货币既不是紧密经济和政治合作的必要条件，也不是此类合作的充分条件。

　　Europe needs to focus on what is important to achieve that goal.

　　欧洲需要聚焦于实现目标的关键。

　　An end to the single currency would not be the end of the European project.

　　结束单一货币并不意味着终结欧洲一体化。

　　The other institutions of the EU would remain: there would still be free trade and migration²².

　　欧盟的其他制度仍将存在：自由贸易和人口自由流动仍会继续。

　　It is important that there can be a smooth transition out of the euro, with an amicable²³ divorce, possibly moving to a flexible-euro system, with say a strong Northern Euro and softer Southern Euro.

　　有必要平稳过渡退出欧元，尽力实现友好分手，也许是转向一种灵活的欧元体系，包括强劲的北方欧元和较疲软的南方欧元。

　　Of course, none of this will be easy.

　　当然，这不会轻易实现。

　　The hardest problem will be dealing²⁴ with the legacy²⁵ of debt.

　　最难的问题是处理遗留债务。

　　The easiest way of doing that is to redenominate all euro debts as Southern Euro debts.

　　最简单的办法是对所有欧元债务进行重新计价，改为南方欧元债务。

　　As we move to a digital economy, modern technology enables a set of market-based reforms that can simultaneously²⁶ achieve the triple goals of full employment, trade balance, and fiscal balance, through credit auctions²⁷ and electronic trade tokens.

　　随着我们进入数字化经济的时代，现代技术为一系列市场化改革创造了条件，这些改革通过信贷拍卖和电子交易令牌，可以兼顾完全就业、贸易平衡和财政平衡这三大目标。

　　In the current global system, we rely on central banks to set interest rates, hoping somehow that the resulting trade balance, investment, and consumption will be right.

　　在目前的全球体系中，我们依靠央行来设定利率，指望由此带来恰到好处的贸易平衡、投资和消费。

　　They typically aren’t.

　　结果通常并不理想。

　　The alternative approach focuses on the quantities of, say, investment and trade balance, that we need, and lets the market set the price to achieve this.

　　替代选择聚焦于我们所需要的投资和贸易平衡的数量，然后让市场设定价格以实现目标。

　　Over time exchange rate variations could become more limited as institutions develop.

　　随着时间推移，汇率差异有望随着制度发展而变得更有限。

　　The flexible euro is a strategy for incorporating the advances in economic integration²⁸ already made while providing the space for reforms.

　　灵活的欧元将是一种策略，在整合经济一体化现有成果的同时，为改革提供空间。

　　The single currency was supposed to be a means to an end.

　　单一货币本应该是一种达到目的的手段。

　　It has become an end in itself — one that undermines more fundamental aspects of the European project, as it spreads divisiveness rather than solidarity.

　　但现在它本身成了一个目的——这个目的破坏了欧洲一体化更为根本的方面，因为它带来了分歧、而非团结。

　　An amicable divorce — a relatively²⁹ smooth end to the euro, perhaps instituting the proposed system of the flexible euro — could restore Europe to prosperity and enable the continent to once again focus, with renewed solidarity, on the many real challenges that it faces.

　　友好分手——相对平稳地终结欧元，或许建立上述灵活欧元制度——可能使欧洲恢复繁荣，使之可以重新团结起来，再次专注于它面临的很多真正挑战。

　　Europe may have to abandon the euro to save Europe and the European project.

　　为了拯救欧洲和欧洲一体化，欧洲或许不得不放弃欧元。

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