明斯基时刻

FROM the start of his academic career in the 1950s until 1996, when he died, Hyman Minsky laboured in relative obscurity. His research about financial crises and their causes attracted a few devoted admirers but little mainstream attention: this newspaper cited him only once while he was alive, and it was but a brief mention. So it remained until 2007, when the subprime-mortgage crisis erupted in America. Suddenly, it seemed that everyone was turning to his writings as they tried to make sense of the mayhem. Brokers wrote notes to clients about the “Minsky moment” engulfing financial markets. Central bankers referred to his theories in their speeches. And he became a posthumous media star, with just about every major outlet giving column space and airtime to his ideas. The Economist has mentioned him in at least 30 articles since 2007.

从1950年代他学术生涯的开始知道1996年他去世，海曼·明斯基一直默默无闻。他关于金融危机及其原因的研究只吸引到几个忠诚的崇拜者却未能得到主流的注意：在他在世的时候，这个报纸（经济学人）只引用过他一次，而且还只是简短地提了一下。这种情形一直延续到2007年美国次贷危机爆发的时候。一夜之间，似乎每个人都想借他的论文来弄懂这次灾难。经纪人跟他们的客户说是“明斯基时刻”吞噬了整个金融市场。央行行长们纷纷在演讲中引用他的理论。他变成了死后的媒体明星——所有的媒体都开辟了专栏和专门播报时间来宣传他的思想。《经济学人》在2007年之后至少在30篇文章中引用过他。

If Minsky remained far from the limelight throughout his life, it is at least in part because his approach shunned academic conventions. He started his university education in mathematics but made little use of calculations when he shifted to economics, despite the discipline’s growing emphasis on quantitative methods. Instead, he pieced his views together in his essays, lectures and books, including one about John Maynard Keynes, the economist who most influenced his thinking. He also gained hands-on experience, serving on the board of Mark Twain Bank in St Louis, Missouri, where he taught.

明斯基一直远离人们视线的一部分原因是他的方法有意回避了学术界的惯例。虽然经济学越来越强调量化的方法，而明斯基自己在大学最开始学习的是数学，但是当他开始研究经济学的时候，却几乎没有用到数学方法。相反，他在自己的论文报告和书中整合了他自己的观点，并且包括梅纳德凯恩斯（凯恩斯对他的思想影响最大）的观点。他也在马克吐温银行董事会任教的时候获得了第一手的经验。

Having grown up during the Depression, Minsky was minded to dwell on disaster. Over the years he came back to the same fundamental problem again and again. He wanted to understand why financial crises occurred. It was an unpopular focus. The dominant belief in the latter half of the 20th century was that markets were efficient. The prospect of a full-blown calamity in developed economies sounded far-fetched. There might be the occasional stockmarket bust or currency crash, but modern economies had, it seemed, vanquished their worst demons.

在大萧条中长大的明斯基决心弄懂危机。多年以来，他一直反复思考着同一个基本问题。他想要弄明白为什么金融危机会发生，这在当时并没有受到广泛关注。二十世纪后半叶的主流观点都认为市场是有效的。在发达经济体中的全面经济灾难听起来是不着边际的。虽然股票市场的爆发和货币崩溃会时有发生，但是现代的经济似乎已经，完全征服了它们。

Against those certitudes, Minsky, an owlish man with a shock of grey hair, developed his “financial-instability hypothesis”. It is an examination of how long stretches of prosperity sow the seeds of the next crisis, an important lens for understanding the tumult of the past decade. But the history of the hypothesis itself is just as important. Its trajectory from the margins of academia to a subject of mainstream debate shows how the study of economics is adapting to a much-changed reality since the global financial crisis.

不同于这些确信，固执的明斯基发展出了自己的金融不稳定理论。该理论检验了繁荣延长多久会为下一次危机播下种子，为理解过去几十年间的灾难提供了重要的视角。但该理论的历史也同样重要。它从学术界边缘到主流学科的转变历程表明了经济危机之后，经济学研究是如何适应剧变的现实的。

Minsky started with an explanation of investment. It is, in essence, an exchange of money today for money tomorrow. A firm pays now for the construction of a factory; profits from running the facility will, all going well, translate into money for it in coming years. Put crudely, money today can come from one of two sources: the firm’s own cash or that of others (for example, if the firm borrows from a bank). The balance between the two is the key question for the financial system.

明斯基首先解释了投资。本质上投资就是用今天的钱去换明天的钱。一个公司现在出钱建厂，如果一切顺利的话，在未来几年运营工厂会将利润转化为钱。粗略的来说，今天的钱有两个来源：公司自己的钱或者别人的钱（比如公司从银行借的钱）。两者之间的平衡在金融系统中非常关键。

Minsky distinguished between three kinds of financing. The first, which he called “hedge financing”, is the safest: firms rely on their future cashflow to repay all their borrowings. For this to work, they need to have very limited borrowings and healthy profits. The second, speculative financing, is a bit riskier: firms rely on their cashflow to repay the interest on their borrowings but must roll over their debt to repay the principal. This should be manageable as long as the economy functions smoothly, but a downturn could cause distress. The third, Ponzi financing, is the most dangerous. Cashflow covers neither principal nor interest; firms are betting only that the underlying asset will appreciate by enough to cover their liabilities. If that fails to happen, they will be left exposed.

明斯基将金融分为三类。第一类hedge financing 是最安全的：公司依靠未来的现金流来偿还所有的借款。为了做到这点，他们就必须要非常有限的借款和健康的盈利。第二类speculative financing 的风险稍高：公司依靠现金流偿还借款的利息，但必须滚转负债来偿还本金。只要经济运行稳定，这种方式就是可控的，但经济下行就会造成灾难。第三类ponzi financing 是最危险的。现金流既不能偿还利息，也不能偿还本金。公司只是在打赌标的资产会变得足够有吸引力来cover他们的负债，一旦赌输他们就完全暴露在风险之中。

Economies dominated by hedge financing—that is, those with strong cashflows and low debt levels—are the most stable. When speculative and, especially, Ponzi financing come to the fore, financial systems are more vulnerable. If asset values start to fall, either because of monetary tightening or some external shock, the most overstretched firms will be forced to sell their positions. This further undermines asset values, causing pain for even more firms. They could avoid this trouble by restricting themselves to hedge financing. But over time, particularly when the economy is in fine fettle, the temptation to take on debt is irresistible. When growth looks assured, why not borrow more? Banks add to the dynamic, lowering their credit standards the longer booms last. If defaults are minimal, why not lend more? Minsky’s conclusion was unsettling. Economic stability breeds instability. Periods of prosperity give way to financial fragility.

hedge financing 占主要地位（即有着强大的现金流和低负债杠杆的）的经济是最稳定的。一旦speculative 尤其是ponzi financing 占据了主导地位，金融系统就变得非常脆弱。一旦资产的价格开始下跌，不管是因为货币的紧缩或者外部的冲击，过度扩张的公司将被迫卖出他们的头寸，这将进一步降低资产的价格，波及更多的公司。如果他们将自己限制在hedge financing ，就可以避免这个麻烦。但随着时间的流逝，特别是当经济运行良好的时候，负债的诱惑就变得无法抗拒。当增长看起来非常确定的时候，为什么不多借点钱呢？银行通过降低维系更长繁荣的信用门槛增加了波动性。如果违约率是极小的，那为什么不多借点呢？明斯基得出了一个令人不安的结论：经济的稳定会滋生不稳定。长时间的繁荣会让位于脆弱的金融。

With overleveraged banks and no-money-down mortgages still fresh in the mind after the global financial crisis, Minsky’s insight might sound obvious. Of course, debt and finance matter. But for decades the study of economics paid little heed to the former and relegated the latter to a sub-discipline, not an essential element in broader theories. Minsky was a maverick. He challenged both the Keynesian backbone of macroeconomics and a prevailing belief in efficient markets.

现在上一次全球金融危机过度杠杆的银行和无头期贷款的抵押贷款，在人们脑海中仍然记忆犹新，明斯基的洞见就显得理所当然。当然，贷款和融资非常重要，但几十年来的经济学却很少注意到前者并且将后者降级为次级学科而不作为更加广泛研究中的基础元素。明斯基是个特立独行的人，他不仅挑战了凯恩斯宏观经济学的支柱观点，并且挑战了流行的有效市场观点。

It is perhaps odd to describe his ideas as a critique of Keynesian doctrine when Minsky himself idolised Keynes. But he believed that the doctrine had strayed too far from Keynes’s own ideas. Economists had created models to put Keynes’s words to work in explaining the economy. None is better known than the IS-LM model, largely developed by John Hicks and Alvin Hansen, which shows the relationship between investment and money. It remains a potent tool for teaching and for policy analysis. But Messrs Hicks and Hansen largely left the financial sector out of the picture, even though Keynes was keenly aware of the importance of markets. To Minsky, this was an “unfair and naive representation of Keynes’s subtle and sophisticated views”. Minsky’s financial-instability hypothesis helped fill in the holes.

因为明斯基他自己也崇拜凯恩斯，所以说他的观点是对凯恩斯主义的批判是不恰当的。但是他认为该主义在很大程度上背离了凯恩斯自己的观点。经济学家们，在解释经济的时候创造了模型来抽象出凯恩斯的话。最著名的就是希克斯和汉森创造的IS-LM模型，该模型揭示了投资和货币的关系。直到现在，他依然是教学和政策分析的有力工具。但是虽然凯恩斯敏锐地觉察到了市场的重要性，希克斯和汉森却并没有考虑金融部门。对于明斯基来说，这种陈述对于凯恩斯微妙成熟的观点是不公平并且过于简单的。明斯基的金融不稳定理论填补了这个漏洞。

His challenge to the prophets of efficient markets was even more acute. Eugene Fama and Robert Lucas, among others, persuaded most of academia and policymaking circles that markets tended towards equilibrium as people digested all available information. The structure of the financial system was treated as almost irrelevant. In recent years, behavioural economists have attacked one plank of efficient-market theory: people, far from being rational actors who maximise their gains, are often clueless about what they want and make the wrong decisions. But years earlier Minsky had attacked another: deep-seated forces in financial systems propel them towards trouble, he argued, with stability only ever a fleeting illusion.

他对于有效市场预言的挑战更加尖锐。法码和卢卡斯和其他的经济学家告诉学术界和政策制定者，因为人们消化掉所有可以获得的信息，所以市场趋于均衡。金融体系的结构被认为基本上没有相关性。近年来，行为经济学家攻击了有效市场理论中的一条：在经济中，人们根本不会像假设中的那样理性，并且最大化他们的收益，他们经常搞不清楚自己想要什么，并且做出错误的决定。但是在更早之前，明斯基已经攻击了另一条：他认为，金融体系中深层次的力量将他们推向了麻烦，而稳定仅仅是一个转瞬即逝的幻想罢了。

Yet as an outsider in the sometimes cloistered world of economics, Minsky’s influence was, until recently, limited. Investors were faster than professors to latch onto his views. More than anyone else it was Paul McCulley of PIMCO, a fund-management group, who popularised his ideas. He coined the term “Minsky moment” to describe a situation when debt levels reach breaking-point and asset prices across the board start plunging. Mr McCulley initially used the term in explaining the Russian financial crisis of 1998. Since the global turmoil of 2008, it has become ubiquitous. For investment analysts and fund managers, a “Minsky moment” is now virtually synonymous with a financial crisis.

作为一个有时与世隔绝经济的局外人，直到今天，明斯基的影响力依旧很有限。投资者们比教授们更快的理解了他的观点。其中的佼佼者就是PIMCO（一个基金管理集团）的保罗麦考利，他推广了明斯基的思想。他创造了“明斯基时刻”这个术语，用来描述当负债水平达到临界点资产价格开始跳水时的状态。麦考利首先用这个术语解释了1998年俄罗斯的金融危机。自从2008年全球金融危机之后，这个术语就变得普遍起来。对于投资分析师和基金管理者，明斯基时刻现在几乎就是金融危机的代名词。

Minsky’s writing about debt and the dangers in financial innovation had the great virtue of according with experience.But this virtue also points to what some might see as a shortcoming. In trying to paint a more nuanced picture of the economy, he relinquished some of the potency of elegant models. That was fine as far as he was concerned; he argued that generalisable theories were bunkum. He wanted to explain specific situations, not economics in general. He saw the financial-instability hypothesis as relevant to the case of advanced capitalist economies with deep, sophisticated markets. It was not meant to be relevant in all scenarios. These days, for example, it is fashionable to ask whether China is on the brink of a Minsky moment after its alarming debt growth of the past decade. Yet a country in transition from socialism to a market economy and with an immature financial system is not what Minsky had in mind.

明斯基论文中，关于负债和金融创新的危险与实际的经验相一致。但是这个优点在一些人眼中也是缺点。为了对经济做一个细致入微的刻画，他舍弃了一些漂亮的模型的能力。对他而言，这没什么关系，他认为通用的理论是一派胡言。他想要解释特定的情形，并不是整个经济。他认为金融不稳定假说与有着深厚，成熟市场的先进资本主义经济的情况有关，这并不意味着与所有的情形都有关。例如，近来有很多人都想知道，中国是否到了明斯基时刻的边缘，因为在过去的几十年它的负债增长速度非常快。但是明斯基并没有考虑到，一个正在从社会主义转向市场经济并且金融市场还不成熟的国家。

Shunning the power of equations and models had its costs. It contributed to Minsky’s isolation from mainstream theories. Economists did not entirely ignore debt, even if they studied it only sparingly. Some, such as Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and Ben Bernanke, who would later become chairman of the Federal Reserve, looked at how credit could amplify business cycles. Minsky’s work might have complemented theirs, but they did not refer to it. It was as if it barely existed.

抛弃了数学和模型也会有相应的代价。就是它导致了明斯基一直被孤立在主流之外。虽然经济学家们对复杂的研究很少，但它也不是一直被忽视。比如清泷信和伯南克（他即将成为美联储的主席）就研究了信贷是如何扩大了商业周期的。明斯基的理论可以与他们形成互补，但是他们并没有引用明斯基的理论，就好像它根本就不存在一样。

Since Minsky’s death, others have started to correct the oversight, grafting his theories onto general models. The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College in New York, where he finished his career (it still holds an annual conference in his honour), has published work that incorporates his ideas in calculations. One Levy paper, published in 2000, developed a Minsky-inspired model linking investment and cashflow. A 2005 paper for the Bank for International Settlements, a forum for central banks, drew on Minsky in building a model of how people assess their assets after making losses. In 2010 Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize-winning economist who is best known these days as a New York Times columnist, co-authored a paper that included the concept of a “Minsky moment” to model the impact of deleveraging on the economy. Some researchers are also starting to test just how accurate Minsky’s insights really were: a 2014 discussion paper for the Bank of Finland looked at debt-to-cashflow ratios, finding them to be a useful indicator of systemic risk.

在明斯基死后，另外一些人开始纠正他的过失，并且将他的理论嫁接到一般的模型中。纽约的巴德学院利维经济研究院（明斯基在此完成他的职业生涯）已经发表了将他的思想整合在算式中的论文。在一篇2000年发表的论文中，有一个收到明斯基启发将投资和现金流量系起来的模型。在国际结算银行（中央银行论坛）一篇2005年的论文中，在明斯基的基础上建立了一个模型来研究，在受到损失之后人们会如何估计他们的资产价值。在2010年，保罗克鲁格曼（诺贝尔经济学奖获得者，纽约时报知名专栏作家）与别人合著了一篇论文，其中包含了明斯基时刻的概念，用来对在经济中去杠杆的影响进行建模。一些学者开始检验明斯基的洞见到底有多精确：芬兰银行2014年的一篇论文研究了负债现金流比率，发现其对于系统性危机具有很好的指示作用。

Still, it would be a stretch to expect the financial-instability hypothesis to become a new foundation for economic theory. Minsky’s legacy has more to do with focusing on the right things than correctly structuring quantifiable models. It is enough to observe that debt and financial instability, his main preoccupations, have become some of the principal topics of inquiry for economists today. A new version of the “Handbook of Macroeconomics”, an influential survey that was first published in 1999, is in the works. This time, it will make linkages between finance and economic activity a major component, with at least two articles citing Minsky. As Mr Krugman has quipped: “We are all Minskyites now.”

期待经济不稳定理论成为经济理论新的基石仍然有些牵强。明斯基的遗产更倾向于正确的事情，而非正确的构造量化的模型。负债和金融不稳定性（他的主要研究对象）在今天已经成为一些经济学问题的主题就已经足够。新版本的《宏观经济学手册》（在1999年第一次出版的，很有影响力的调查）正在筹划中。这一次有两篇最新的文章都引用了明斯基，使得金融与经济活动之间的联系成为一个主要的组成部分。克鲁格曼打趣道：现在我们都是明斯基主义者了。

Central bankers seem to agree. In a speech in 2009, before she became head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen said Minsky’s work had “become required reading”. In a 2013 speech, made while he was governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King agreed with Minsky’s view that stability in credit markets leads to exuberance and eventually to instability. Mark Carney, Lord King’s successor, has referred to Minsky moments on at least two occasions.

央行官员们似乎都同意这个观点。2009年，在成为美联储主席之前，詹妮特叶轮在一次演讲中说明斯基的论文已经成为了必读之物。时任英格兰银行主席的默文·金同意明斯基的观点：信贷市场的稳定将带领经济走向繁荣，但最终会走向不稳定。金勋爵的继任者马克-卡尼至少两次引用过明斯基时刻。

Will the moment last? Minsky’s own theory suggests it will eventually peter out. Economic growth is still shaky and the scars of the global financial crisis visible. In the Minskyan trajectory, this is when firms and banks are at their most cautious, wary of repeating past mistakes and determined to fortify their balance-sheets. But in time, memories of the 2008 turmoil will dim. Firms will again race to expand, banks to fund them and regulators to loosen constraints. The warnings of Minsky will fade away. The further we move on from the last crisis, the less we want to hear from those who see another one coming.

这个时刻会持续下去吗？明斯基自己的理论认为它最终会逐渐消失。现在全球经济增长仍然虚弱，人们对金融危机依然惧怕。在明斯基理论中的经济发展进程中，现在公司和银行们都非常谨慎，担心会重蹈覆辙并且决心稳固他们的资产负债表。但2008年危机的记忆迟早会消退，公司们会继续竞争性扩张，银行为他们提供资金，监管者放松管制。明斯基的警告逐渐消退。我们离上一次危机越远，我们就越不愿意听取那些看到下一次危机到来人的意见。