卡尼面临的挑战

The appointment of Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of England is a historic event. It is extraordinary – and admirable – that a country should choose to give its most important official position to a foreigner such as Mr Carney, even if Canadians are not very foreign and the governor-designate, with his English wife and connections, less so than most of his compatriots. Yet it is also both a surprise and a gamble. It is a surprise because Mr Carney, a widely respected governor of the Bank of Canada, did not – so far as I know – apply for the job. It is a gamble because a foreign national will be assuming a job that is inescapably political and, in the current difficult economic and financial circumstances of the UK, even more political than usual.

任命马克·卡尼(Mark Carney)为英国央行(BoE)行长，是一个历史性事件。即便加拿大人也是大英女王的子民，而且这位新任行长娶了位英国太太，在英国有很多亲朋好友，比大部分加拿大人与英国更亲近，但一个国家选择这样一位外国人担任其最重要的官方职位，仍是非同寻常和令人钦佩的。不过，这个任命依然令人意外，也是一场赌博。它之所以令人意外，是因为（据我所知）这位广受尊敬的加拿大央行(Bank of Canada)行长没有主动申请成为英国央行行长。它之所以是一场赌博，是因为一名外国公民将出任一个不可避免地带有政治性的职位，而且考虑到英国当前艰难的经济和金融形势，该职位的政治性更甚往常。

George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, deserves credit not only for choosing an exceptional person but for persuading him to take the job. Unquestionably, Mr Carney is a man of quality, with a broad background in economics, finance and central banking. In person, he is both brilliant and forceful. On one celebrated occasion, he engaged in a fierce row with Jamie Dimon, the redoubtable boss of JPMorgan – and held his ground.

英国财政大臣乔治·奥斯本(George Osborne)值得赞扬之处不仅在于他选择了一名杰出的人才，而且还在于他说服卡尼接受了该职位。毫无疑问，卡尼非常优秀，而且拥有在经济、财政和央行部门任职的丰富经验。他聪明，而且足够强势。有一件著名的事情就是，他曾与令人生畏的摩根大通(JPMorgan)老板杰米·戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)发生了一场激烈的争吵，并坚持了自己的立尝没有退让。

Mr Carney has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in economics from Harvard and Oxford. He worked for 13 years at Goldman Sachs. He has been governor of the Bank of Canada since 2008 and chairman of the Financial Stability Board since 2011, when Mario Draghi, another Goldman alumnus, left to become president of the European Central Bank. He has, not least, gained credit for the relatively robust performance of the Canadian economy during his period at its central bank. How far he is responsible for this happy outcome is unclear, as such things so often are.

卡尼先后在哈佛大学(Harvard)和牛津大学(Oxford)取得了经济学学士和硕士学位。他在高盛(Goldman Sachs)工作了13年。卡尼自2008年起一直担任加拿大央行行长。2011年，另一位前高盛高管马里奥·德拉吉(Mario Draghi)卸任金融稳定委员会(FSB)主席、出任欧洲央行(ECB)行长之后，卡尼接任FSB主席。卡尼之所以声望很高，很大程度上是因为在他担任加拿大央行行长期间，加拿大经济表现相对强劲。这种令人欢喜的表现在多大程度上应归功于卡尼，这不好说，这种事一般都说不清楚。

Nevertheless, Mr Carney faces three huge challenges in his new job.

不过，卡尼上任后将面临三大挑战。

His first is political. The idea that the job of running the Bank of England is essentially technocratic is plainly wrong. In an economy using pure fiat (or state-made) money, the central bank makes discretionary decisions with huge consequences for income distribution, financial health, economic performance and fiscal solvency.

首先是政治上的挑战。认为执掌英国央行基本上是个技术活的想法大错特错。在一个完全使用法定（或国家发行）货币的经济体中，央行可以自由做出一些决策，这些决策会对收入分配、金融健康、经济表现和财政偿付能力产生重大影响。

No neat technocratic solutions exist. This is vastly more obvious today, after the financial crisis, which demolished the erroneous notion that stabilising inflation was a sufficient condition for stabilising the economy. The BoE’s decisions are deeply political. They are political in themselves. They become still more political when the governor is enjoined to comment on fiscal policy or to intervene in the financial system. An outsider will have some advantages in making these difficult decisions. He will be more independent. But will he also be viewed as legitimate?

单从技术层面干净利落地解决问题是不可能的。在金融危机爆发后的今天，这一点变得更为明显，因为金融危机证明，稳定通胀是稳定经济的充分条件这个观点是错误的。英国央行的决策具有深刻的政治性。它们本身就是政治决策。当央行行长奉命评论财政政策或干预金融体系时，央行决策的政治性就变得更加明显。一个“局外人在做这些艰难决定时会有一些优势。他会更为独立。但人们会认为他有权做这样的决定吗？

Mr Carney’s second challenge will be organisational. He will inherit a world in flux – not just at the BoE itself, but also in the British, European and global regulatory architecture and financial systems. Under the new regime, the BoE has consolidated responsibility for monetary policy, financial policy and banking supervision. The range of these new responsibilities is daunting, the need to integrate decision-making within the BoE itself is challenging; the obligations both to co-ordinate policies with the government and to explain them to the public are pressing and onerous.

卡尼的第二个挑战将是组织上的。他将继承一个动荡的局面——不仅仅英国央行自身如此，整个英国、欧洲以及全球的监管架构和金融体系都是如此。按照新的体制，英国央行将集货币政策、金融政策和银行业监管三项职责于一身。新增职责范围之广令人畏惧。在英国央行内部对各方面决策进行整合势在必行，但这具有挑战性；英国央行还需要在与政府协调政策的同时向公众作出解释，这种责任不仅迫切而且艰巨。

A huge problem, in my view, is the difficulty of co-ordinating policy inside the BoE. It is simply untrue that financial stability and monetary policy can be treated separately, particularly in times like today’s. Policies that address the stability of the financial system, such as raising capital requirements or constraining lending, have powerful and direct consequences for monetary policy and vice versa. Under the envisaged plans, however, only a few permanent officials sit on all committees. This will give them extraordinary influence over the process and leave the outsiders who sit on only one of these bodies at a huge disadvantage. This is a mistake.

在我看来，一个重大问题在于，在英国央行内部协调政策非常困难。认为可以将金融稳定和货币政策区别对待的观点完全是错误的，尤其是在如今这种形势下。旨在提高金融体系稳定性的政策，比如提高资本金要求或限制放贷，会对货币政策产生重大而直接的影响，反之亦然。然而，按照设想的计划，只有少数几名终身制官员在所有的委员会中任职。这将让他们能够对决策过程施加特殊影响，并置那些仅在一家委员会任职的“局外人于极为不利的位置。这是一个错误。

Beyond that, the investigations of the BoE’s performance during the crisis have revealed serious failings. Examination of performance before the crisis might reveal still more important failings. As an experienced outsider, Mr Carney is in a relatively good position to act as the needed new broom. He must do so. But as he does, he must pay attention to making the BoE less centralised without thereby making it less able to respond quickly to events.

除此之外，对危机期间英国央行表现的调查表明，英国央行存在严重的失误。如果对其危机前的表现进行评估，可能会发现其失误更为严重。作为一名经验丰富的“局外人，卡尼处于相对有利的位置，可以按照需要追究相关责任。他必须这么做。但在这么做的时候，他必须注意，一方面要让英国央行的权力结构变得更加分散化，一方面不能因此损失其迅速应对的能力。

Mr Carney’s third and biggest challenge is intellectual. Unlike Canada, the UK has fallen into a dire economic condition. Despite exceptional monetary ease, the economy is stagnant. Coalition fiscal policy is controversial. The sources of future growth are obscure, while the challenges of needed economic rebalancing are daunting. Over the next governor’s term, the BoE must chart a voyage back to something close to normality, in co-operation with the government. It must avoid both permanent stagnation and high inflation. Yet these are still largely uncharted waters for economics and monetary-policy makers. Mr Carney’s biggest task of all, then, is to guide the central bank and the economy towards the least intolerable destination. Good luck.

卡尼面临的第三个、同时也是最重要的挑战是对其聪明才智的挑战。与加拿大不同，英国面临严峻的经济形势。尽管实施了异常宽松的货币政策，但英国经济仍然停滞不前。英国联合政府出台的财政政策备受争议。未来增长的源泉仍不清晰，同时在必要的经济再平衡方面我们面临严峻挑战。在新一任行长任期内，英国央行必须与政府合作，制定出回归一种近乎正常状态的路线图。它必须避免英国经济永远处于增长停滞和通胀高企的状态。然而，对经济和货币政策制定者而言，这很大程度上仍是一片未知的海域。因此，卡尼最重要的任务就是，引领英国央行和英国经济驶向一个糟糕程度最轻的目的地。祝好运。