20年来，日本仍在偿还“泡沫时代”旧帐

日本通货紧缩


失守十年是厄运…


英国《经济学人》杂志2010年01月07日文章

中英对照英文原文

译者：zoetiramisu @ECO中文网（www.ecocn.org）


20年来，日本仍在偿还“泡沫时代”旧帐


对许多日本人而言，经济繁荣时期的生活仍然深深地烙在他们的记忆里。回首过去，往事历历在目：那时，梵高和雷诺瓦的作品卖出天价；曼哈顿房产争抢得手；工作时间热火朝天；双休日拥往人满为患的滑雪场，不想却在电梯上排上几小时的队。


经济泡沫破碎的时候，鲜有人察觉。十年的最后一个交易日1989年12月29日，股价曾一路标高，但世界不曾在此后便轰然倒塌。第二年，日本买家仍在克里斯蒂拍卖行出最高价收购印象派作品。房地产泡沫直到1991年才告破。当时既没有雷曼兄弟式的崩溃，也没有波尼.麦道夫式的欺诈来对这番乐极生悲的景象作出诠释。


20年前的这周，当日经指数刚触及38，916点，日本经济便一蹶不振。尽管从国际平均水平来看，日本2009年第三季度的名义GDP值还是很高，但已经低于其1992年的水平，不禁让人感觉，日本失守不是10年，而是20年。通货紧缩又成了要闻。虽然于12月25日起草的扩张性预算近期提升了股市，但是在12月29日，日经指数还是收盘于10，368点，与历史最高点相比，萎缩了73%。部分滑雪度假屋的市值仅为“泡沫时代”的十分之一。


眼见资产价值步步被残蚀，日本人民的心里又作何感受呢？这次泡沫破裂毕竟没有像1930年大萧条击垮美国那样击垮日本。虽然轻生和无家可归的人越来越多，年轻人找工作越来越难。但日本拥有着1，500万亿日元（16.3万亿美元）的储蓄，拥有着世界级的出口商和出手阔绰的人民。一位资历较高的公务人员这样评价：“即便经济在渐渐枯萎，日本人民也从未真正感觉自己身处危机。”


对个人而言，这是内伤。Arcus研究中心的Peter Tasker著有数部关于日本经济泡沫破碎的书籍。他认为，首先破裂的将是心理“泡沫”，即信心。对于经济的不作为，人们不是感到气愤，而是觉得日本经济已无力回天。Tasker先生说：到处都充斥着关于衰退的预期和应对的方法。


投资者的情绪骤然转为风险规避。散户们固然最早撤出了股市，且在1991年到2007年间扮演着股市的净空方，高盛集团在日本的首席战略师Kathy Matsui如是说。尽管自从1989年以来曾有连续四次熊市反弹，但都是由外国投资驱动的。


日本人都改而将钱投进政府的保护伞下，比如邮政业，它们向来投资稳健债券。结果，继1990年低潮期后十年，日本政府债券止跌回升78个百分点（参见图表）。Matsui女士指出：“固定收入是最持久的牛市之一。”


通货紧缩的思潮开始影响全局。随着物价下跌，甚至是存在银行系统和邮政储蓄系统的呆滞资金在去除通货膨胀因素的情况下还小赚了一笔免税收入。曾经当银行系统显现萎靡之态时，由于人们为了把现金放在家，保险柜的销量一度暴涨。长期的零利率方便了一些人在国外套利。“渡边夫人”（日本家庭主妇的代名词，掌管着家庭开支）投资了新西兰元和冰岛克朗。近来，她又正往巴西债券大量注入资金，因而有人戏称：尽管日本没有获得2016年奥运会的主办权，但势必要在里约热内卢资助一把奥运。日本投资散户们仍小心翼翼地在股市边缘徘徊。


经济学家们称，这场泡沫破碎带来的最坏影响已经由银行业和商业传开了。银行自身已被坏账压得喘不过气来，拖拖沓沓至今才开始正视自己的损失，着手资产整合。但根据瑞士联合银行驻日本的经济学家Takuji Aida的说法，鉴于通货紧缩的预期，长期收益依然很低，导致收益曲线（短期和长期利率之差）趋平。这样一来，银行无法依靠自己的力量摆脱危机，从而导致了放贷疲弱。


与此同时，公司除了集中精力偿还债务，还要对付国内经济的紧缩和来自廉价进口商品的竞争威胁。大型出口商被迫重组，因而在2002年至2007年期间，他们得以享受了长时间的繁荣。但国内经济保护地区的公司却时运不济：赢利能力，薪资和投资在过去的十年里都有所下滑。


这一切都已经反映在家庭方面。国际经合组织称，当公司削减财力时，全职工作占劳动力总数的比重从1990年的80%降至2007年的66%。而低薪非固定工作的比重相应上升。这种现象部分归因于女性在劳动力中攀升的地位，因为薪资和福利的下降迫使家庭需要双收入来维持。但这种持续的收入贫瘠长远来看势必导致社会问题。Tasker先生表示：“经济萧条道阻且长，使得人们愈发没有信心来抚养孩子”。


日本弱势的借贷消费文化意味着人们不得不更依赖自己的或者父母的积蓄。但是社会老龄化使得储蓄的增加额逐渐减少。伴随着越来越多的人离退，人们的积蓄也必定会减少。对现在的年轻一代来说，未来十年将比前两代的人更为艰苦。


Twenty years on Japan is still paying its bubble-era bills

FOR many Japanese the boom years are still seared on their memories. They recall the embarrassing prices paid for works by Van Gogh and Renoir; the trophy properties in Manhattan; the crazy working hours and the rush to get to the overcrowded ski resorts at the weekend, only to waste hours queuing at the lifts.

The bust, when it came, was less perceptible. The world did not come crashing down after December 29th 1989, the last trading day of that decade, when the stockmarket peaked. The next year Japanese buyers were still paying record prices for Impressionist art at Christie’s. It was not until 1991 that the property bubble burst. There was no Lehman-style collapse or Bernie Madoff-type fraud to hammer home the full extent of the hubris.

But once the Nikkei 225 hit 38,916 points 20 years ago this week, life began to leach out of the Japanese economy. In the third quarter of 2009 nominal GDP—though still vast by global standards—sank below its level in 1992, reinforcing the impression of not one but two lost decades. Deflation is back in the headlines. On December 29th the Nikkei stood at 10,638, 73% below its peak, though an expansionary budget drafted on December 25th has given it a recent lift. Urban property prices have fallen by almost two-thirds. Some ski apartments are worth just one-tenth of what the “bubble generation” paid for them.

What effect has this steady erosion of value had on the psychology of Japanese people? The bust did not lay waste to Japan, after all, as the Depression did to America in the 1930s. Homelessness and suicide have risen, and life has got much harder for young people seeking good jobs. But Japan still has ¥1,500 trillion ($16.3 trillion) of savings, its exporters are world-class, and many of its citizens dress, shop and eat lavishly. As a senior civil servant puts it: “Japanese people have never really felt that they are in crisis, even though the economy is slowly withering away.”

For individuals the damage lies below the surface. One of the first bubbles to pop, says Peter Tasker of Arcus Research, who has written several books on the bust, was a psychological one: confidence. Instead of getting angry, people lost faith in Japan’s economic prowess. “It became all about declining expectations and how society coped with it,” Mr Tasker says.

The mood among investors swiftly turned risk-averse. Remarkably, retail investors were among the first to get out of the stockmarket and were net sellers of equities from 1991 to 2007, says Kathy Matsui, chief strategist for Goldman Sachs in Japan. Though there have been four bear-market share-price rallies since 1989, they have all been driven by foreigners.

The Japanese parked their money instead in government-backed shelters such as the post office, which in turn invested in safe bonds. The result has been a 78% rally in ten-year government bonds since their trough in 1990 (see chart). “Fixed income has been one of the longest-duration bull markets in the world,” Ms Matsui notes.

A deflationary mindset started to take hold. With prices falling, even inert money in the bank or post office earned, in real terms, a small tax-free return. Once the banking system began to look frail, there was a boom in the sale of safes for people to keep their cash at home. A long period of zero interest rates led a few to hunt for higher yields abroad. The mythical figure of Mrs Watanabe—housewives in Japan manage the family money—invested in New Zealand dollars and Icelandic kronur. These days she is placing large bets on Brazilian bonds, leading to the quip that although Tokyo failed to secure the 2016 Olympics, the Japanese will finance the games in Rio de Janeiro anyway. Yet individual Japanese investors are still only gingerly returning to their own stockmarket.

The most pernicious effects of the bust, economists say, have been transmitted via banks and businesses. Banks found themselves loaded down with non-performing loans. Belatedly they faced up to many of their losses, restructured and consolidated. But according to Takuji Aida, an economist at UBS in Japan, long-term yields remained very low because of deflationary expectations, thereby flattening the yield curve (the difference between short- and long-term interest rates). That prevented banks from earning their way out of crisis, so lending remains weak.

Companies, meanwhile, have been focused on paying down debt, as well as coping with deflation in the domestic economy and competition from cut-price imports. Large exporters were forced to restructure and enjoyed a long boom from 2002 to 2007. But firms in more protected areas of the domestic economy have fared badly: profitability, wages and investment have declined in the past decade.

This has fed back to households. As firms cut back, the proportion of full-time contract jobs has fallen from almost 80% of the labour force in 1990 to 66% in 2007, according to the OECD. The proportion of lower-paid non-regular jobs has risen correspondingly. This is partly down to the increasing role of women in the workforce, as declining wages and benefits force families to rely on two incomes. But there are long-term social costs to this extended income drought. “The slow wear-and-tear of the recession has made people much less confident of their ability to finance children,” Mr Tasker says.

A weak culture of consumer borrowing means that people have been forced to rely even more on their savings—or those of their parents. But as society ages, growth in the stock of savings has dwindled. Savings are bound to fall as more people retire. For the younger generation the next decade may be even tougher than the past two.