Switzerland is not known normally for jolting the global financial system — but that is what it has done, and without warning. It has abandoned a self-imposed peg of the Swiss franc against the euro, introduced in 2011, and lowered the already negative interest rate on deposits from minus 0.25 per cent to minus 0.75 per cent.
瑞士一般并不以令全球金融体系震荡而著称，然而它刚刚就这么干了一回，而且毫无预警。瑞士取消了自己强加的瑞士法郎兑欧元汇率上限（2011年出台），并将已经为负的存款利率从-0.25%降至-0.75%。
In the wake of Thursday’s announcement, the Swiss franc soared against the euro by almost 40 per cent, though this gain was subsequently halved.
上周四该政策一经宣布，瑞郎相对欧元一度飙升近40%，不过这一涨幅随后回吐了一半。So let us put the action of the Swiss National Bank into context; what was the aim and what is its significance?
那么，让我们梳理下瑞士央行(SNB)此举的来龙去脉，看看它目的何在，其意义又是什么？
The central bank might have seen an opportunity to stop the vigorous expansion of its balance sheet since 2011, which followed currency market interventions to hold down the Swiss franc and support the euro in the midst of the sovereign debt crisis. By the end of 2014, it had risen to about SFr500bn, or 80 per cent of gross domestic product. Relative to the size of its economy, Switzerland’s central bank had a balance sheet about three times larger than those of the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. Flows into Swiss francs have grown as a result of the quest for a haven from Russia’s economic and political problems.
瑞士央行或许是认为，这是阻止其资产负债规模急剧扩张的一个机会。自2011年瑞士央行干预汇市、压低瑞郎汇率并支撑遭遇主权债务危机的欧元以来，该行的资产负债规模就一直在扩张。到2014年底，其资产负债规模已扩至约5000亿瑞郎，相当于瑞士国内生产总值(GDP)的80%。就央行资产负债规模与本国经济规模之比而言，瑞士央行是美联储(Fed)和英国央行(BoE)的3倍以上。在俄罗斯遭遇经济和政治问题后，为寻求避险，越来越多的资金涌入瑞郎。The authorities may have grown concerned, moreover, at the prospect of additional flows into francs should there be an announcement by the European Central Bank at its meeting on 22 January — as is now widely expected — to commence quantitative easing. If there had been any such influx with the peg still in place, the SNB’s balance sheet would have expanded even further.
另外，瑞士当局或许是越来越担心，一旦欧洲央行(ECB)如人们现在普遍预期的那样在1月22日的会议上宣布启动量化宽松，可能会有更多资金流入瑞郎。如果汇率上限依然存在时出现过这种流入，那么瑞士央行的资产负债规模可能已进一步扩大。In theory, the SNB could have continued to build up its balance sheet without limit, comfortable in the knowledge that it could print unlimited Swiss francs to cover any foreign currency losses in the future if the franc rose. However, in so doing, the traditionally cautious central bank might well have landed itself with even bigger financial stability concerns than those it has been grappling with hitherto — ultimately, about the consequences of open-ended money creation. The monetary base has quintupled to SFr400bn since the middle of 2011, property prices and rents are increasing rapidly, and bank lending has risen by 25 per cent as a share of GDP to 170 per cent.
理论上讲，瑞士央行本可继续放心地无限扩大其资产负债规模，因为它清楚自己可以无限量印制瑞郎、以弥补若未来瑞郎升值所造成的任何外汇损失。但这家一向谨慎的央行如果真的这样做，很可能引起外界对其金融稳定性的更大担心，甚至要比它迄今一直竭力应对的问题引发的担忧更严重——这件事归根结底与无限货币创造的后果有关。自2011年中期以来，瑞士的货币基础已扩大了4倍，至4000亿瑞郎，房价和租金正在快速上涨，银行贷款增长了25%，贷款总额相当于GDP的170%。In any event, the central bank may have seen no mileage in being a backstop for selling “cheap” francs should the euro fall in the foreign exchange markets once a QE programme starts.
不管怎样，瑞士央行可能已经看到了，如果量化宽松启动后欧元汇率在外汇市场上下跌，出售“廉价”瑞郎支撑欧元并无益处。Switzerland will now have to address at least three important problems.
瑞士眼下至少需要解决三大问题。First, if the franc’s immediate appreciation against the euro is not reversed, it will intensify the deflation that is working its way through the economy. As oil prices started falling, inflation was expected to be around zero — but we should now expect it to far below that, with prices falling substantially.
首先，如果目前瑞郎相对欧元的升值不逆转，将会加剧正在影响整个瑞士经济的通缩。在石油价格开始下跌时，人们曾预期瑞士的通胀率会降至零左右，但考虑到物价正大幅下跌，我们现在应当预期通胀率会降至远低于零的水平。Second, a stronger franc rate against the euro could lower Swiss economic growth by about 0.7 per cent. It will have a negative effect on business and investment decisions, and will harm exporters, which ship about half their products to countries using the euro. It could spur higher direct investment abroad.
其次，瑞郎兑欧元汇率走高可能会造成瑞士经济增幅减少约0.7个百分点。这将对商业和投资决策产生负面影响，并损害出口企业，瑞士出口企业有一半左右的产品都发往使用欧元的国家。这有可能会促使瑞士人对海外进行更多的直接投资。Third, the rise of the franc will expose the central bank to sizeable losses on its assets, about half of which are denominated in euros — though these might simply offset comparable gains made from currency interventions in 2014.
第三，瑞郎的走强将令瑞士央行面临巨大的资产损失，其资产约有一半以欧元计价——尽管这些损失可能只是刚好抵消了它2014年从干预汇市中获得的收益。Only last month, when the central bank reaffirmed its peg policy, it warned of the dangers of local and global deflation, and stated that the currency was still overvalued.
就在上个月，瑞士央行在重申其汇率上限政策时，还警告瑞士及全球有陷入通缩的危险，同时表示瑞郎仍然受到高估。The abandonment of the peg is, therefore, additionally surprising. Suppressing the value of the Swiss franc did not make local deflation any less likely, and presiding over this latest rise will only make bigger price falls likely. Some European banks have been active in lending the currency for mortgages in eastern Europe. These and other Swiss franc borrowers now face a new deflationary shock as their local debt service and amortisation costs rise.
因此，瑞士央行取消汇率上限的做法就更加令人惊讶。压低瑞郎汇率并没有减少瑞士通缩的可能性，而促成这次的上涨只会导致物价的更大幅下降。部分欧洲银行一直在东欧积极推出瑞郎抵押贷款。随着当地的偿债和摊还成本上升，这些抵押贷款的借款人以及其他借入瑞郎的人现在面临一个新的通缩冲击。As delegates head off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, they might reflect that history is repeating itself in a curious way. In the late 1970s, Switzerland introduced negative deposit rates to stop currency appreciation against the Deutschmark; and, when that did not work, it capped the franc’s value. That policy failed.
在各位参会者启程参加达沃斯世界经济论坛(World Economic Forum)之际，他们可能在想历史正在以一种奇特的方式重演。20世纪70年代末，瑞士出台负存款利率以阻止瑞郎对德国马克升值；当此举没有奏效时，瑞士为瑞郎汇率设置了上限。这一政策失败了。This time, Switzerland has pursued the same policies in reverse order.
这一次，瑞士以相反的顺序执行了同样的政策。Foreign exchange markets are important lightning conductors of global shocks, this time deflation — but central banks acting alone have rarely provided stability. With the ECB on the cusp of implementing QE, that goal seems a long way off.
外汇市场是防范全球性冲击的重要避雷针（这一次的全球性冲击是通缩），但各国央行的单打独斗很少能带来稳定性。在欧洲央行即将启动量化宽松之际，要实现这一目标似乎还有很长的路要走。