双语新闻：日本饱尝定量宽松苦果
The debate about the effectiveness of unconventionalmonetary policy measures such as quantitative easing remainsperennially inconclusive. Yet the experience of Japan suggeststhere is one clear negative outcome from ultra loose monetarypolicy: it does structural damage to the economy.围绕定量宽松等非常规货币政策的效果问题，人们长期以来争论不下。然而，日本的经历表明，超宽松货币政策会带来一个明显的负面后果：它会对经济造成结构性破坏。
The problem starts with an excessively low cost of capital. Average interest rates on new corporateloans, both short and long term, are down to an unprecedented level in Japan of almost 1 percent, while the average interest rate paid on overall corporate lending is just below 1.5 per cent. Atthese levels too many inefficient businesses are being kept alive, says Jesper Koll, head of equityresearch at JPMorgan in Tokyo.
问题源自极低的资金成本。日本新增企业贷款（无论是短期还是长期贷款）的平均利率已降至近1%这一史无前例的水平，而整体企业贷款的平均利率略低于1.5%。摩根大通(JPMorgan)驻东京的股票研究部门负责人杰斯珀 科尔(Jesper Koll)表示，依靠这些低息贷款，许多效率低下的企业生存了下来。
This is at a time when competition in all product markets has never been stronger and Japan iscoping with a currency that has strengthened since the disappearance of the carry trades thatflourished when the yen was seen as a cheap funding vehicle. The depreciation of the SouthKorean won after the Lehman Brothers collapse has been particularly painful, leaving the giants ofJapanese electronics in such disarray at the hands of the South Korean chaebols as to dentJapanese national pride.
当前各类产品市场的竞争比以往任何时候都激烈，同时日元汇率自套利交易(carry trade)消失以来不断走强——套利交易在日元被视为廉价融资工具时期极为盛行。雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)破产后韩元贬值的影响尤其严重。韩国大企业给日本电器巨头带来了极大冲击，使日本的国民自豪感严重受挫。
The deeper problem is that this monetary ease tends to freeze the existing industrial structure. Looked at from the Austrian perspective of Von Mises, Schumpeter or Hayek, the Japanese bubblethat burst in 1990 fostered economic distortions they dubbed “malinvestments” – credit-driveninvestments in real capital that prove lossmaking when a credit bubble implodes. The results ofthese misconceived investment decisions take a long time to work their way out of the system, while industries that expanded in response to high demand in the bubble are left with excesscapacity. The elimination of this excess and the process of adjustment to a new industrial structureto reflect changed demands, which in Japan’s case means a greater service orientation to addressan ageing population, is invariably painful.
更深层次的问题是，银根宽松往往会“冻住”现有的产业结构。用冯 米塞斯(von Mises)、熊彼特(Schumpeter)或哈耶克(Hayek)等奥地利人的理论来解释，日本于1990年破灭的泡沫助长了被他们称为“不当投资(malinvestments)”的经济扭曲，这些是在信贷驱动下的实际资本投资，当信贷泡沫破裂时往往会造成亏损。这些错误投资决定所带来的后果需要很长时间才能消除。当初经济出现泡沫时，需求增加，企业为迎合这种需求而大举扩张，结果导致产能过剩。要消除这种过剩，并向新产业结构转变以反映需求状况的变化，通常都要经历一个痛苦的过程——就日本而言，转变产业结构意味着要大力发展服务业，以解决人口老龄化问题。
In effect, low funding costs in Japan have impeded the process that Joseph Schumpeter dubbedcreative destruction because “zombie” companies have been kept afloat at high cost to thecompetitiveness of others. Worse, the public credit guarantees introduced to help the bankingsystem lend to industry and commerce have had unintended consequences. The Bank of Japanfears the banks’ capacity for credit assessment is being diminished, while the restructuring of non-viable small-and medium-sized businesses is discouraged.
实际上，日本融资成本过低，阻碍了熊彼特称作“创造性破坏”(creative destruction)的过程，因为“僵尸”公司因低利率而得以生存，却严重损害了其他公司的竞争力。更糟糕的是，为推动银行体系向工商企业放贷而引入的公共信用担保制度产生了意想不到的后果。日本央行(Bank of Japan)担心，银行的信用评估能力正遭到削弱，同时生存能力薄弱的中小企业则丧失重组意愿。
This is extraordinary because it suggests Japan is reverting to some of the worst habits of the 1980s bubble period. Then, Japanese banks had no understanding of credit risk and the cost ofcapital was so low that a grotesque misallocation of capital across the economy resulted. Alsoextraordinary is that with declining investment, Japan has achieved the same kind of distortionChina has brought about through the excessive investment that followed fiscal pump priming afterthe Lehman collapse.
这种情况之所以不寻常，是因为它表明，日本正在重蹈上世纪80年代泡沫期间的某些覆辙。当时，日本的银行不了解信贷风险，资金成本非常低，导致整个经济的资本严重配置不当。同样不寻常的是，随着投资不断减少，日本出现了与中国同样类型的扭曲。中国在雷曼兄弟破产后采取向经济中大规模注资的财政刺激手段，从而导致投资过度，产生了扭曲。
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