An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings

An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings

The purpose of this paper is to show the compositions of past deleveragings and, through this process, to convey in-depth, how the deleveraging process works.

本文的目的是展示过去去杠杆化的组成，并通过这一过程深入地介绍去杠杆化过程的运作。

The deleveraging process reduces debt/income ratios. When debt burdens become too large, deleveragings must happen. These deleveragings can be well managed or badly managed. Some have been very ugly (causing great economic pain, social upheaval and sometimes wars, while failing to bring down the debt/income ratio), while others have been quite beautiful (causing orderly adjustments to healthy production-consumption balances in debt/income ratios). In this study, I review the mechanics of deleveragings by showing how a number of past deleveragings transpired in order to convey that some are ugly and some are beautiful. What you will see is that beautiful deleveragings are well balanced and ugly ones are badly imbalanced. The differences between how deleveragings are resolved depend on the amounts and paces of 1) debt reduction, 2) austerity, 3) transferring wealth from the haves to the have-nots and 4) debt monetization. What I am saying is that beautiful ones balance these well and ugly ones don’t and what I will show below is how.

去杠杆化流程降低债务/收入比。当债务负担过大时，必须进行去杠杆化。这些去杠杆化可以很好地管理或管理不善。有些過程非常丑陋（造成巨大的经济痛苦，社会动荡，有时是战争，而不能降低债务/收入比），但有些人做得则相当漂亮（导致有序调整健康的生活消费平衡/债务/收入比率）。在这项研究中，我通过展示一些过去的去杠杆化来表达一些丑陋，一些是漂亮的，去评估去杠杆化的机制。你会看到，漂亮的去杠杆化是平衡的，丑陋的是非常不平衡的。如何解决去杠杆化之间的差异取决于1）减免债务的数额和步伐，2）紧缩，3）将财富从有钱人转移到没钱的人身上，4）债务货币化。我所说的是，漂亮的人平衡这些好丑的人不会，下面我将会显示如何。

Before I examine these, I will review the typical deleveraging process.

在我研究这些之前，我将回顾一下典型的去杠杆化过程。

The Typical Deleveraging Process 典型的去杠杆过程

Typically, deleveragings are badly managed because they come along about once in every lifetime and policy makers haven't studied them. As a result, they usually set policies like blind men trying to cook on a hot stove, through a painful trial and error process in which the pain of their mistakes drives them away from the bad moves toward the right moves. Since everyone eventually gets through the deleveraging process, the only question is how much pain they endure in the process. Because there have been many deleveragings throughout history to learn from, and because the economic machine is a relatively simple thing, a lot of pain can be avoided if they understand how this process works and how it has played out in past times. That is the purpose of this study.

通常情况下，去杠杆化的管理是非常糟糕的，因为他们每一个生命都有一次，政策制定者还没有研究过它们。结果，他们通常设置盲人试图在热炉上做饭的政策，通过一个痛苦的试错过程，他们的错误的痛苦使他们摆脱了正确的举动。由于每个人都最终通过去杠杆化过程，唯一的问题是他们在这个过程中忍受了多少痛苦。因为历史上有许多去杠杆化来学习，而且因为经济机器是一件比较简单的事情，如果他们了解这个过程是如何工作的，以及它在过去的时间里如何发挥，就可以避免很多痛苦。这是本研究的目的。

As previously explained, the differences between deleveragings depend on the amounts and paces of 1) debt reduction, 2) austerity, 3) transferring wealth from the haves to the have-nots, and 4) debt monetization. Each one of these four paths reduces debt/income ratios, but they have different effects on inflation and growth. Debt reduction (i.e., defaults and restructurings) and austerity are both deflationary and depressing while debt monetization is inflationary and stimulative. Ugly deleveragings get these out of balance while beautiful ones properly balance them. In other words, the key is in getting the mix right.

如前所述，去杠杆化之间的差异取决于1）减少债务的数额和步伐，2）紧缩，3）将财富从有钱人转移到有钱人，以及4）债务货币化。这四条路径中的每一条都可以减少债务/收入比，但对通货膨胀和增长有不同的影响。债务减免（即违约和重组）和紧缩都是通货紧缩和沮丧，而债务货币化则是通货膨胀和刺激性的。丑陋的去杠杆化使得这些失去平衡，而漂亮的人正确地平衡它们。换句话说，关键在于使组合正确。

Typically, in response to a debt crisis the going to these four steps takes place in the following order:

通常，为了应对债务危机，按照以下顺序进行这四个步骤：

1) At first, problems servicing debt and the associated fall off in debt growth cause an economic contraction in which the debt/income ratios rise at the same time as economic activity and financial asset prices fall. I will call this phase an “ugly deflationary deleveraging”. Debt reduction (i.e., defaults and restructurings) and austerity without material debt monetization characterize this phase. During this period, the fall in private sector credit growth and the tightness of liquidity lead to declines in demand for goods, services and financial assets. The financial bubble bursts when there is not enough money to service the debt and debt defaults and restructurings hit people, especially leveraged lenders (banks), like an avalanche that causes fears. These justified fears feed on themselves and lead to a liquidity crisis. As a result, policy makers find themselves in a mad scramble to contain the defaults before they spin out of control. This path to reducing debt burdens (i.e., debt defaults and restructurings) must be limited because it would otherwise lead to a self-reinforcing downward spiral in which defaults and restructurings can be so damaging to confidence that, if let go, they might prevent faith and recoveries from germinating for years.

1）首先，债务偿还和债务增长相关的问题首先导致经济收缩，债务/收入比在经济活动和金融资产价格下跌的同时上升。我将把这个阶段称为“丑化通货紧缩的去杠杆化”。债务减免（即违约和重组）以及没有实质性债务货币化的紧缩这个阶段是特征。在此期间，私营部门信贷增长下滑和流动性紧张导致货物，服务和金融资产需求下降。当没有足够的钱来偿还债务，债务违约和重组对人们，特别是杠杆贷款机构（银行），像一场引起恐慌的雪崩，金融泡沫破灭了。这些合理的恐惧反而会导致流动性危机。因此，政策制定者发现自己陷入疯狂的争夺之中，以便在失控之前包含违约。减轻债务负担（即债务违约和重组）的道路必须受到限制，因为否则将导致自我加强的下行螺旋，其中违约和重组可能对信心造成损害，如果放开，他们可能会阻止信仰并恢复发芽多年。

Defaults and restructurings cannot be too large or too fast because one man's debts are another man's assets, so the wealth effect of cutting the value of these assets aggressively can be devastating on the demands for goods, services and investment assets. Since in order to reduce debt service payments to sustainable levels the amount of write-down must equal what is required so the debtor will be able to pay (e.g., let's say it’s 30% less), a write-down will reduce the creditor's asset value by that amount (e.g. 30%). While 30% sounds like a lot, since many entities are leveraged, the impacts on their net worths can be much greater. For example, the creditor who is leveraged 2:1 would experience a 60% decline in his net worth. Since banks are typically leveraged about 12 or 15:1, that picture is obviously devastating for them. This is usually apparent from the outset of the deleveragings. Since the devastating forcefulness of the wave of defaults that occurs in a deleveraging is apparent from the outset, policy makers are typically immediately motivated to contain the rate of defaults, though they typically don't know the best ways to do that.

违约和重组不能太大或太快，因为一个人的债务是另一个人的资产，所以积极削减这些资产价值的财富效应可能会破坏对货物，服务和投资资产的需求。既然为了减免债务到可持续水平，减记量必须等于债务人能够支付的所需数额（例如，假设减少30％），减记将减少债权人的资产价值（例如30％）。虽然30％听起来很多，但由于许多实体被杠杆化，所以对其净值的影响可能会更大。例如，杠杆比例为2：1的债权人的净值将下降60％。由于银行通常杠杆约为12或15：1，这张图片显然是毁灭性的。从去杠杆化开始就可以看出这一点。由于从一开始就显而易见的是在去杠杆化中发生的违约浪潮的破坏性强大，政策制定者通常立即有动机来控制违约率，尽管它们通常不知道最佳方法。

In reaction to the shock of the debt crisis, policy makers typically try austerity because that's the obvious thing to do. Since it is difficult for the debtor to borrow more, and since it’s clear that he already has too much debt, it’s obvious that he has to cut his spending to bring it back in line with his income. The problem is that one man's spending is another man's income, so when spending is cut, incomes are also cut, so it takes an awful lot of painful spending cuts to make significant reductions to debt/income ratios. Normally policy makers play around with this path for a couple of years, get burned by the results, and eventually realize that more must be done because the deflationary and depressing effects of both debt reduction and austerity are too painful. That leads them to go to the next phase in which “printing money” plays a bigger role. I don’t mean to convey that debt reductions and austerity don’t play beneficial roles in the deleveraging process because they do – just not big enough roles to make much of a difference and with too painful results unless balanced with “printing money/monetization”.

为了应对债务危机的冲击，决策者通常会尝试紧缩，因为这是显而易见的事情。由于债务人难以借款，由于显然他已经有太多的债务，所以很明显，他必须削减支出才能使其与收入保持一致。问题是，一个人的支出是另一个人的收入，所以当消费减少时，收入也会减少，所以花费大量痛苦的支出削减大幅度减少债务/收入比。通常政策制定者在这个道路上玩弄了好几年，被结果烧毁，最终意识到要做到这一点，因为减债和紧缩两者的通货紧缩和沮丧的影响都是痛苦的。这导致他们进入下一个阶段，“打印钱”发挥更大的作用。我并不是表示减免债务和紧缩措施在去杠杆化过程中没有发挥有益作用，因为他们做的 - 只是没有足够的角色来做出很大的改变，并且带来了太痛苦的结果，除非与“打印货币/货币化” ”。

2) In the second phase of the typical deleveraging the debt/income ratios decline at the same time as economic activity and financial asset prices improve. This happens because there is enough “printing of money/debt monetization” to bring the nominal growth rate above the nominal interest rate and a currency devaluation to offset the deflationary forces. This creates a “beautiful deleveraging”. The best way of negating the deflationary depression is for the central bank to provide adequate liquidity and credit support and, depending on different key entities’ need for capital, for the central government to provide that too. This takes the form of the central bank both lending against a wider range of collateral (both lower quality and longer maturity) and buying (monetizing) lower-quality and/or longer-term debt. This produces relief and, if done in the right amounts, allows a deleveraging to occur with positive growth. The right amounts are those that a) neutralize what would otherwise be a deflationary credit market collapse and b) get the nominal growth rate marginally above the nominal interest rate to tolerably spread out the deleveraging process. At such times of reflation, there is typically currency weakness, especially against gold, but this will not produce unacceptably high inflation because the reflation is simply negating the deflation. History has shown that those who have done it quickly and well (like the US in 2008/9) have derived much better results than those who did it late (like the US in 1930-33). However, there is such a thing as abusive use of stimulants. Because stimulants work so well relative to the alternatives, there is a real risk that they can be abused, causing an “ugly inflationary deleveraging”.

2）在经济活动和金融资产价格改善的同时，典型的去杠杆化的第二阶段债务/收入比率下降。这是因为有足够的“打印货币/债务货币化”，使名义增长率高于名义利率，货币贬值抵消通货紧缩的力量。这创造了一个“漂亮的去杠杆化”。否定通货紧缩的最好办法是中央银行提供足够的流动资金和信贷支持，根据不同的关键实体的资本需求，中央政府也提供资金支持。这种形式采取中央银行的形式，借贷更广泛的抵押品（低质量和较长期限），以及购买（货币化）低质量和/或长期债务。这产生了缓解，如果以正确的数量完成，则允许以正增长发生去杠杆化。适当的数额是那些a）中和否则将是通货紧缩的信贷市场崩溃，以及b）将名义增长率略高于名义利率以容忍地扩大去杠杆化进程。在通货膨胀的时候，通常货币疲弱，特别是对黄金，但由于通货膨胀只是否定通货紧缩，这不会导致无法接受的高通胀。历史表明，那些快速做好的人（如2008/9年度的美国）比那些迟到的人（像美国在1930年至33年）得到了更好的结果。然而，有这样的事情是滥用兴奋剂。因为兴奋剂相对于替代品而言工作如此的好，所以存在着可以被滥用的真实风险，导致“丑陋的通货膨胀去杠杆化”。

3) When there is too much “printing of money/monetization” and too severe a currency devaluation (which are reflationary) relative to the amounts of the other three alternatives “ugly inflationary deleveragings” can occur. When these happen a) they either occur quickly in countries that don’t have reserve currencies, that have significant foreign currency denominated debts and in which the inflation rate is measured in their rapidly depreciating local currency, and b) they can occur slowly and late in the deleveraging process of reserve currency countries, after a long time and a lot of stimulation that is used to reverse a deflationary deleveraging.

3）当相对于其他三种替代品的数量过多的“打印货币/货币化”和过度严重的货币贬值（通货膨胀）时，可能会发生“丑陋的通货膨胀脱钩”。当这些事情发生时，a）它们或者在没有储备货币的国家迅速发生，这些国家的外汇债务重大，其通货膨胀率是以快速贬值的当地货币衡量的，以及b）它们可能会缓慢而迟到在储备货币国家的去杠杆化过程中，经过很长时间和大量刺激，用于扭转通货紧缩的去杠杆化。

By the way, transfers of wealth from the have to the have-nots typically occur in many forms (e.g., increased taxes on the wealthy, financial support programs such as those the "rich” European countries are providing to the overly indebted ones, etc.) throughout the process, but they rarely occur in amounts that contribute meaningfully to the deleveraging (unless there are "revolutions").

顺便说一下，财富从有钱人转向有钱人通常会以多种形式出现（例如，对富有的增加税收，诸如“富有的”欧洲国家对过度负债的人提供的财政支持计划等等） ），但是它们很少以有助于去杠杆化的方式发生（除非有“革命”）。

Now let's take a look at some past deleveragings so we can see these things happening.

现在让我们来看看一些以前的去杠杆化，所以我们可以看到这些事情发生了。

Past Deleveragings　过去的去杠杆化

While there are dozens of deleveragings that I could have picked, I chose seven – 1) the US in the 1930s, 2) Japan in the 1930s, 3) the UK in the '50s and '60s, 4) Japan over the past two decades, 5) the US 2008-now, 6) Spain now and 7) the Weimar Republic in the 1920s – because they are both important and different in interesting ways. As you will see, while they are different because the amounts and paces of the four paths to deleveraging were different, “the economic machines” that drove the outcomes were basically the same.

虽然我可以选择几十种去杠杆化，但是在20世纪30年代，我选择了7 - 1）美国，2）20世纪30年代的日本，3）在50年代和60年代的英国，4）日本过去两年几年来，5）美国2008年 - 现在，6）西班牙现在和7）呃，在20世纪20年代，因为它们是重要的和不同的有趣的方式。正如你将看到的，虽然它们不同，因为去杠杆化的四个路径的数量和步伐是不同的，驱动结果的“经济机器”基本相同。

I am going to begin by looking at the first six and then turn our attention to the Weimar Republic’s inflationary deleveraging.

我将从前六个开始看，然后把注意力转向魏玛共和国的通货膨胀去杠杆化。

I will break these down into three groups, which I will call: 1) “ugly deflationary deleveragings” (which occurred before enough money was “printed” and deflationary contractions existed and when nominal interest rates were above nominal growth rates), 2) “beautiful deleveragings” (those in which enough “printing” occurred to balance the deflationary forces of debt reduction and austerity in a manner in which there is positive growth, a falling debt/income ratio and nominal GDP growth above nominal interest rates), and 3) “ugly inflationary deleveragings” (in which the “printing” is large relative to the deflationary forces and nominal growth through monetary inflation and interest rates are in a self-reinforcing upward spiral).

我会把它们分成三组，我会叫： 1）“丑恶的通货紧缩杠杆”（这种情况发生在足够的钱被“印”之前，存在通缩收缩，名义利率高于名义增长率时） 2）“美好的去杠杆化”（那些发生了足够的“印刷”，以平衡债务减免和紧缩的通货紧缩的方式，其中有正增长，债务/收入比率下降，名义GDP增长率高于名义利率） ，和 3）“丑陋的通货膨胀脱钩”（相对于通货紧缩力量而言，“打印”较大，通货膨胀和利率名义增长则呈现自我增强的上升趋势）。