A small price to pay for growth in Asia
Many distinguished commentators have been saying that the US current account deficit will soon visit pain and suffering on the US and the rest of the world. Some argue that the world's richest country should not be borrowing from less fortunate countries to compensate for weak savings rates and a profligate government.
Surely, they say, a sensible international monetary system would channel savings from the US to poor countries, where capital formation and economic development are badly needed. Others say that, sooner or later, these official sector investors will decide that they do not want to trust their savings to a country that seems to have embraced a “buy now, pay later” policy.
Who is lending to the US and why? The who is easy. Governments in Asia have been accelerating their buying of US paper, as have oil producers and some Latin American countries. Meanwhile, private investors in Europe, the US and elsewhere have backed away at current interest rates because of the growing US deficits.
Of the net $720bn in marketable Treasury paper issued since the end of the 2001 fiscal year, $450bn has been accounted for by foreign official reserves. An even higher percentage of the US current account deficit is financed in the form of official reserves. So great is the flood of savings to the US even in the face of a current account deficit of about 6 per cent of gross domestic product that US real and nominal interest rates have not moved in this growth phase of the business cycle. Capital must be being pushed into the US by foreign supply, not pulled in by US demand.
The why has been less clear. The likeliest reason is that governments have been lending to the US in the broader context of their economic development strategy, not just to satisfy a passing desire to accumulate reserves or defend unrealistic exchange rates.* China's dominant objective, for example, is the rapid employment of a large pool of labour in high-quality industrial jobs. The acid test of quality is the ability to sell in world markets. Producing goods that can pass this test requires sound capital formation, a task that has generally been beyond domestic capital markets in low-income emerging markets. A massive inflow of direct investment clearly bypasses domestic credit markets in poor countries but generates huge risks for the direct investors in rich countries.
An effective international monetary system would solve this problem of balancing risks and rewards for global investors. Emerging markets in Asia need gross inflows of direct investment by foreign companies that know how to use local labour to make world-class products. With more than enough domestic savings, they do not need net inflows of savings from rich countries.
Remarkably, the monetary system that has emerged in recent years meets these needs. Asia's managed exchange rate, large pool of labour and low real wages strongly encourage direct investors to pull cheap labour from the countryside and make it productive. Once committed, the investor has powerful incentives to work to keep open import markets for manufactured goods in rich countries. In the old days, such an export-driven development policy would have provoked a commercial policy response through an alliance of capital and labour in affected industries. Now that alliance is split.
China's savings finance its own development. From 1991 to 2003, inflows of foreign direct investment amounted to $425bn and were about matched by outflows of Chinese private claims on non-residents. Although balanced on capital account, there is an imbalance of risk. To make such a position work in financial markets, the riskier credit must pay collateral. The way for China to accumulate collateral is through a current account surplus and the concentration of resulting claims in the form of the $408bn in official sector reserves, mainly dollars. The willingness of the key reserve country to absorb the collateral has solved the development problem: how to attract lots of foreign equity capital without fear of expropriation.
This arrangement will not last forever. Systems such as Bretton Woods seem to have about a 20-year trajectory before they have served their purpose. Sending some domestic savings to the US and perhaps taking a hit in some distant future is a small price for Asian emerging markets to pay for investment in a world-class capital stock and the rapid absorption of a large pool of underemployed labour.
* See NBER working papers 9971, 10626 and 10727
The writer is head of research in Deutsche Bank's global markets research unit
亚洲经济增长的小代价
许多著名评论家一直在说，美国的经常账户赤字很快将让美国和世界其它地方陷入苦难。一些评论家声称，这个全球最富有的国家向那些不太幸运的国家借钱，来为自己疲软的储蓄率和挥霍无度的政府提供补偿，这样做是不应该的。
他们说，一个合理的国际货币体系当然该把美国的储蓄引导到贫穷国家，因为那些国家急需形成资本并发展经济。其他一些人则说，早晚有一天，这些官方部门的投资者将会决定，它们不想把储蓄交托给一个似乎信奉“今天买东西、明天付钱”政策的国家。
是谁在借钱给美国人？为什么要这么做？要回答是谁，这很简单。亚洲政府一直在加速购买美国国债，石油生产国和一些拉美国家也是如此。与此同时，由于美国的赤字日益增长，面对目前的美国利率水平，欧洲、美国和其它地区的私人投资者则已撤退。
自2001年财政年度结束以来，在7200亿美元净值的可交易美国国债中，已有4500亿美元国债成为外国官方储备。而在美国经常账户赤字中，有甚至更高的比例以他国官方储备的形式得到融资。即使在美国经常账赤字占国内生产总值约6%的情况下，各国储蓄还是源源不断地涌入美国，以至于在商业周期的这个增长阶段，美国的实际和名义利率并未改变。资金必然是被外国供应推入美国，而不是由美国需求拉进来的。
要说为什么会这样，就不太清楚了。最有可能的解释是，各国政府之所以一直借钱给美国，是出于经济发展战略这个更广泛的考虑，而不光是为了满足积累外汇储备的临时需求，或为了维持不切实际的汇率*。举例来说，中国的主要目标，是在高质量的工业岗位上迅速雇佣大批劳动力。对质量的决定性考验就是看产品在全球市场的销售能力。要生产出能通过这种考验的商品，就需要有健康的资本形成，而在低收入的新兴市场中，无法通过本地资本市场来完成这一任务。庞大的直接投资流入显然绕过了贫困国家的国内信贷市场，但也为富裕国家的直接投资者带来巨大的风险。
若有一个有效的国际货币体系，就将为全球投资者解决这个平衡风险与回报的问题。亚洲新兴市场需要外国公司带来大量的直接投资，这些公司知道如何利用本地劳动力制造出世界级的产品。由于这些市场的国内储蓄充足，因此它们不需要富国储蓄的净流入。
引人注目的是，近几年出现的货币体系满足了这些需要。亚洲市场拥有有管理的汇率制度、庞大的劳动力资源和低廉的实际薪资，这些都大大鼓励了直接投资者从农村拉来廉价劳动力，让这些劳动力生产。一旦致力于此，投资者就有强大的动机采取行动，让富裕国家的制成品进口市场保持开放。如果在以往，这类出口驱动型发展政策可能已激发了一种商业政策性反应，令受影响的行业形成劳资联盟。但如今，这种联盟破裂了。
中国的储蓄正为自身发展提供资金。从1991年到2003年，流入中国的外国直接投资达4250亿美元，与中国对非本国居民的私人债权的外流大致相当。尽管资本账户保持平衡了，但存在风险的不平衡。为使这样的状况在金融市场发挥作用，风险较高的信贷必须提供担保。中国积聚担保的方式是通过经常账盈余和最终债权的集中，债权的形式是4080亿美元官方储备，其中大部分是美元。这个关键的储备国吸收担保的意愿解决了发展的问题：如何吸引大量外国股本而又无须担心被侵占。
这种安排不会永远持续下去。布雷顿森林(Bretton Woods)等体系在完成使命之前，似乎维持了20年左右。对于亚洲新兴市场来说，把一些国内储蓄送到美国，或许会在某个遥远的未来受到打击，但这只是为了在世界级资本储备中进行投资，并迅速吸收大群未充分就业劳动力而付出的小小代价。
参见美国国家经济研究局(NBER)工作文献9971、10626和10727。
作者是德意志银行(Deutsche Bank)全球市场研究部门的研究主管。
