经济学4Hyman Minsky 2.docx

1、经济学4Hyman Minsky 2Did Hyman Minsky find the secret behind financial crashes?American economist Hyman Minsky, who died in 1996, grew up during the Great Depression, an event which shaped his views and set him on a crusade to explain how it happened and how a repeat could be prevented, writes Duncan W

2、eldon.Minsky spent his life on the margins of economics but his ideas suddenly gained currency with the 2007-08 financial crisis. To many, it seemed to offer one of the most plausible貌似有理的 accounts of why it had happened.His long out-of-print books were suddenly in high demand with copies changing h

3、ands for hundreds of dollars - not bad for densely 浓密的written tomes with titles like Stabilizing an Unstable Economy.Senior central bankers including current US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and the Bank of Englands Mervyn King began quoting his insights. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krug

4、man named a high profile talk about the financial crisis The Night They Re-read Minsky.Here are five of his ideas.Stability is destabilising不稳定的Minskys main idea is so simple that it could fit on a T-shirt, with just three words: Stability is destabilising.Most macroeconomists 微观经济学work with what th

5、ey call equilibrium平衡 models - the idea is that a modern market economy is fundamentally stable. That is not to say nothing ever changes but it grows in a steady way.To generate an economic crisis or a sudden boom some sort of external shock has to occur - whether that be a rise in oil prices, a war

6、 or the invention of the internet.Minsky disagreed. He thought that the system itself could generate shocks through its own internal dynamics.动态的 He believed that during periods of economic stability, banks, firms and other economic agents become complacent.自满的They assume that the good times will ke

7、ep on going and begin to take ever greater risks in pursuit of profit. So the seeds of the next crisis are sown in the good time.Three stages of debtMinsky had a theory, the financial instability hypothesis, arguing that lending goes through three distinct stages. He dubbed these the Hedge保护手段, the

8、Speculative and the Ponzi 骗人向虚假公司投钱，引诱更多人上当stages, after financial fraudster Charles Ponzi.In the first stage, soon after a crisis, banks and borrowers are cautious. Loans are made in modest amounts and the borrower can afford to repay both the initial principal and the interest.As confidence rises

9、banks begin to make loans in which the borrower can only afford to pay the interest. Usually this loan is against an asset which is rising in value. Finally, when the previous crisis is a distant memory, we reach the final stage - Ponzi finance. At this point banks make loans to firms and households

10、 that can afford to pay neither the interest nor the principal. 本金Again this is underpinned加固加强 by a belief that asset prices will rise.The easiest way to understand is to think of a typical mortgage. Hedge 防止损失金钱的手段finance means a normal capital repayment loan, speculative finance is more akin相似的 t

11、o an interest-only loan and then Ponzi finance is something beyond even this. It is like getting a mortgage, making no payments at all for a few years and then hoping the value of the house has gone up enough that its sale can cover the initial loan and all the missed payments. You can see that the

12、model is a pretty good description of the kind of lending that led to the financial crisis.Minsky momentsThe Minsky moment, a term coined by later economists, is the moment when the whole house of cards falls down. Ponzi finance is underpinned by rising asset prices and when asset prices eventually

13、start to fall then borrowers and banks realise there is debt in the system that can never be paid off. People rush to sell assets causing an even larger fall in prices.It is like the moment that a cartoon character runs off a cliff. They keep on running for a while, still believing theyre on solid g

14、round. But then theres a moment of sudden realisation 认识与领会- the Minsky moment - when they look down and see nothing but thin air. Then they plummet骤然暴跌 to the ground, and thats the crisis and crash of 2008.Finance mattersUntil fairly recently, most macroeconomists were not very interested in the fi

15、ner details of the banking and financial system. They saw it as just an intermediary 中间人的which moved money from savers to borrowers.This is rather like the way most people are not very interested in the finer details of plumbing when theyre having a shower. As long as the pipes are working and the w

16、ater is flowing there is no need to understand the detailed workings.To Minsky, banks were not just pipes but more like a pump - not just simple intermediaries moving money through the system but profit-making institutions, with an incentive 诱因to increase lending. This is part of the mechanism that

17、makes economies unstable.Preferring words to maths and modelsSince World War Two, mainstream economics has become increasingly mathematical, based on formal models of how the economy works.To model things you need to make assumptions, and critics of mainstream economics argue that as the models and

18、maths became more and more complex, the assumptions underpinning them became more and more divorced from reality. The models became an end in themselves.Although he trained in mathematics, Minsky preferred what economists call a narrative approach - he was about ideas expressed in words. Many of the

19、 greats from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes to Friedrich Hayek worked like this.While maths is more precise, words might allow you to express and engage with complex ideas that are tricky to model - things like uncertainty, irrationality, and exuberance丰富. Minskys fans say this contributed to a v

20、iew of the economy that was far more realistic than that of mainstream economics.所谓“明斯基时刻”（Minsky Moment）是指海曼明斯基Hyman Minsky(美国经济学家)所描述的时刻，即资产价值崩溃时刻。他的观点主要是经济长时期稳定可能导致债务增加、杠杆比率上升，进而从内部滋生爆发金融危机和陷入漫长去杠杆化周期的风险。经济好的时候，投资者倾向于承担更多风险，随着经济向好的时间不断推移，投资者承受的风险水平越大，直到超过收支不平衡点而崩溃。这种投机资产促使放贷人尽快回收借出去的款项。“就像引导到资产价值

21、崩溃时刻”。1明斯基时刻表示的是市场繁荣与衰退之间的转折点。明斯基的观点简单明了：好日子的时候，投资者敢于冒险；好日子的时间越长，投资者冒险越多，直到过度冒险。一步一步地，投资者会到达一个临界点上，其资产所产生的现金不再足以偿付他们用来获得资产所举的债务。投机性资产的损失促使放贷者收回其贷款。“从而导致资产价值的崩溃。”分工理论一、分工理论亚当斯密认为，分工的起源是由人的才能具有自然差异，那是起因于人类独有的交换与易货倾向，交换及易货系属私利行为，其利益决定于分工，假定个人乐于专业化及提高生产力，经由剩余产品之交换行为，促使个人增加财富，此等过程将扩大社会生产，促进社会繁荣，并达私利与公益之调

22、和。他列举制针业来说明。“如果他们各自独立工作，不专习一种特殊业务，那么他们不论是谁，绝对不能一日制造二十枚针，说不定一天连一枚也制造不出来。他们不但不能制出今日由适当分工合作而制成的数量的二百四十分之一，就连这数量的四千八百分之一，恐怕也制造不出来。”分工促进劳动生产力的原因有三：第一，劳动者的技巧因专业而日进；第二，由一种工作转到另一种工作，通常需损失不少时间，有了分工，就可以免除这种损失；第三，许多简化劳动和缩减劳动的机械发明，只有在分工的基础上方才可能。货币理论二、货币理论货币的首要功能是流通手段，持有人持有货币是为了购买其它物品。当物物交换发展到以货币为媒介的交换后，商品的价值就用货

23、币来衡量。这时，便产生了货币的另一功能价值尺度。亚当斯密也谈到货币的储藏功能、支付功能。但是，他特别强调货币的流通功能。价值论三、价值论提及价值问题，亚当斯密指出，价值涵盖使用价值与交换价值，前者表示特定财货之效用，后者表示拥有此一财货取另一财货的购买力。进一步指出，具有最大使用价值之财货，往往不具交换价值，水及钻石是其著名的例子。不过水与钻石价值之比较是百年之后边际效用学派才圆满解决此一问题。分配理论四、分配理论亚当斯密的分配论，是即劳动工资、资本利润及土地地租自然率之决定理论。亚当斯密指出，尽管雇主拥有抑低工资的力量，工资仍有其最低水平，此一最低水平是劳动者必须能够维持基本生活，假定社会工

24、人需求增加或工资基金提高，工资将高于最低水平。就另一角度言之，一国国富、资本或所得增加，将促使工资上涨，工资上涨则促进人口增加。资本利润之高低如同劳动工资，决定于社会财富之增减，资本增加固可促使工资上涨，却使利润为之下降。亚当斯密指出，假定商人投资同一事业，因为彼此相互竞争，自然致使利润率降低。地租系指对土地使用所支付的价格。亚当斯密认为，地租高低与土地肥沃程度及市场远近有关。资本积累理论五、资本积累理论资本累积是大量进行分工必备的另一要素。分工的扩张与生产效率的提高跟资本的总额成正比。资本的累积必须在分工之前进行，因为分工需要使用许多特殊的设备与机械料，在在都需要以资本来购取。分工愈细，工具的需要愈多，资本愈显得重要。透过分工过程，可增加劳动生产量，提高国民所得，增强国民储蓄意愿与能力。赋税理论六、赋税理论亚当斯密提出四大赋税原则，即公平、确定、便利、经济。公平：一国国民应尽可能按其能力以支持政府，亦即国民应按其在政府保护下所享有的利得比例纳税。确定：各国民应当缴纳的税捐，须确定并不得随意变更，缴纳时期、缴纳方法、应付税额，都应对纳税人清楚宣示。便利：一切税捐，都应在最适合于纳税人的时间与方法收之。经济：每一税捐都应善加设计，务使公民缴付国库以外，在他的财力上受到最少可能的激动。