Is Bernanke an Inflation Dove? Yes, but...
The debate over whether Ben Bernanke is an inflation dove obscures an important point: Inflation doves today aren't the same as inflation doves of old. The difference is crucial to figuring out what interest-rate policy Mr. Bernanke will pursue if confirmed to succeed Alan Greenspan as U.S. Federal Reserve chairman.
In the 1960s and 1970s, many central bankers thought inflation did little harm and that reducing it was unacceptably painful. That breed of dove is now almost extinct. Today's hawks and doves are distinguished not by their philosophy, but by their forecast. Both believe in the wisdom of keeping inflation low. Doves are more confident it will stay there without wrenching increases in interest rates.
Judging by his public comments, Mr. Bernanke is an old-fashioned hawk but a modern dove. He expects inflation to remain low and, if that forecast proves correct, he probably will keep rates down. If that forecast proves wrong, he will raise them as far and as fast as Mr. Greenspan would have, and perhaps further.
When inflation began to creep up in the mid-1960s, the consequences were routinely dismissed. Lyle Gramley, then a Fed economist, remembers a colleague named Arthur Hersey who would warn inflation was getting out of control and had to be brought down. "People used to snicker at Arthur," says Mr. Gramley, who served as a Fed governor in the 1980s. "We thought he was making way too much of something that wasn't that important."
In those days, policy makers believed they could reduce unemployment by accepting a bit more inflation. By the 1970s, unemployment and inflation were rising. The Fed didn't try to reverse inflation's upswing. "You'd say, 'It happened. That's too bad. Let's not worry too much about it,' " Mr. Gramley says. "If you don't assign a pretty high negative to inflation, you're not inclined to pay the price of bringing it down."
Future Nobel laureate Milton Friedman began to chip away at those beliefs in the 1960s when he argued that higher inflation couldn't permanently lower unemployment. Eventually, he said, workers would demand wage increases to compensate for inflation, and unemployment would return to where it was. Other scholars showed how inflation hurt economic growth by distorting investment decisions. As Fed chairmen, Paul Volcker and Mr. Greenspan offered proof for that academic case by getting inflation down -- and, eventually, seeing unemployment fall, too.
Mr. Bernanke long has advocated setting inflation targets as a way of institutionalizing Mr. Volcker's and Mr. Greenspan's conquest of inflation. A target, he has said, would hold the central bank accountable. Over time, it would make the public more willing to believe low inflation will last, and that will make it easier for the Fed to cut rates when the economy softens without fueling inflation in the process.
He also has argued that inflation targets can prevent Japanese-style deflation. Maintaining "price stability," the mantra of modern central bankers, means being both an inflation hawk and deflation hawk, in the old sense of the term.
In short, Mr. Bernanke doesn't have the philosophy of a dove. But does he have the forecast of one? He may, judging from his public comments over the past year as a Fed governor and, since June, as head of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers.
His position on a debate that gripped the Fed this year offers an important clue. The Fed had been raising its key short-term interest rate since June 2004 and was signaling the rate still was below "neutral," a level believed to neither stimulate nor restrain growth. The Fed was suggesting rates would rise further.
Yet financial markets anticipated the Fed wouldn't raise rates much more, and bond yields, which reflect expectations of inflation, growth and Fed policy, remained unusually low. Fed officials wondered: Are markets telling us the economy is headed for trouble, a hint that they shouldn't tighten much more? Or are factors other than normal economic forces at work in the bond market, suggesting that the Fed should continue to lift rates?
Mr. Bernanke tended toward the first interpretation, with its dovish implications for Fed actions. "In the view of the markets at least, the neutral funds rate may be somewhat lower today than it was in the past," he said in a speech in March. He wasn't alone. The Fed's professional staff, with whom Mr. Bernanke worked closely, also thought consumers' need to boost saving and the fading stimulus of the 2003 tax cuts might be drags on economic growth.
In a later speech Mr. Bernanke argued foreigners were spending and investing too little, making it difficult for the U.S. to reduce its trade deficit. A "global savings glut" was holding down long-term rates, he said.
Brian Sack, who once worked with Mr. Bernanke at the Fed and now is at the forecasting concern Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, says the theory "gave intellectual capital to an idea that would promote some caution" about the Fed raising rates.
As Mr. Bush's economist, Mr. Bernanke has predicted inflation will stay low. However, that is often the refrain of White House officials, who are supposed to sound optimistic. It isn't clear if he will have the same view at the Fed. After all, in recent months even previously dovish Fed officials have ratcheted up their anti-inflation rhetoric. One of them, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Janet Yellen, recently suggested rates have to go higher than she previously believed to reach neutral.
Mr. Greenspan is intent on pre-empting higher inflation by erring on the side of higher rates, even if that means weaker economic growth. The Fed tomorrow is expected to raise the target for the federal-funds rate, at which banks lend to each other, to 4% from 3.75%, and to signal plans to go further. Markets expect the rate to hit 4.5% on Jan. 31, Mr. Greenspan's last day in office.
In principle, Mr. Bernanke favors pre-emption. "Policy makers achieve better results when they act in advance to forestall developing problems," he said in 2004. Mr. Sack wonders, will Mr. Bernanke "err on the side of restraint, considering that the transition to a new chairman might make the Fed's credibility more fragile?" Both Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Volcker raised rates after taking office.
If Mr. Bernanke's forecast is as dovish as it was in March, he may be inclined to leave rates where he finds them. But a dovish forecast doesn't mean a dovish philosophy. If his forecast is wrong and inflation takes off, he may have to raise rates significantly -- because his goal no longer will be to keep inflation from rising, but to actually get it down.
贝南克：此“鸽派”非彼“鸽派”
在贝南克被提名为下一任联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve，简称Fed)主席之后，有关他在通货膨胀问题上是否属于鸽派的争论忽略了很重要的一点，那就是：今天的鸽派和当年相比内涵已有所不同。
早在上世纪六、七十年代，许多Fed人士认为通货膨胀危害不大而且降低通货膨胀可能得不偿失。但这种鸽派现在几乎已经绝迹。当今的鸽派和鹰派不是在政策思想上有所不同，而且对前景的预测很不一样。他们都认为使通货膨胀保持低水平是明智的做法。不同之处在于，鸽派认为无需拼命加息也能将通胀维持在低水平。
从贝南克在公开场合发表的言论来看，他应该属于老式鹰派和现代鸽派。他预计通货膨胀会保持在低水平，而且，如果这种预测符合现实的话，他可能会让利率保持在较低水平。如果预测与现实不符，他将以与格林斯潘同样的速度和幅度加息，甚至加得更高。
上世纪六十年代中期，当通货膨胀开始缓慢爬升的时候，其产生的影响每每都被人们忽略了。当时任Fed经济学家的莱尔?格莱姆雷(Lyle Gramley)现在还记得有一位叫阿瑟?赫谢(Arthur Hersey)的同事，他当年警告说通货膨胀将失去控制，必须采取措施将它降下来。格莱姆雷说，当时大家都偷偷嘲笑阿瑟，觉得他太小题大作了。
那个时候决策者认为，为降低失业率，可以容忍存在一点通货膨胀。到七十年代时，失业率和通货膨胀都在上升。但Fed并未打算扭转通货膨胀的升势。格莱姆雷说，人们都在说，“通货膨胀真地很成问题，太糟了。不过别太为它担心。”而如果人们不认为通货膨胀有太大的负面影响的话，也就不会试图花力气去让它降下来了。
后来曾获得诺贝尔奖的经济学家米尔顿?弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)六十年代开始对这类想法提出了挑战，当时他认为，高通胀并不能永远维持低失业。他说，最终工人会要求增加工资以应付通货膨胀，而失业率也将回到通胀前的水平。其他学者还提出通货膨胀会通过影响投资决策进而损害经济增长的观点。先后担任Fed主席的保罗沃克(Paul Volcker)和格林斯潘(Greenspan)抑制通货膨胀的做法为上述见解提供了佐证，而且最终失业率也降了下来。
贝南克一直提议设立通货膨胀控制目标，以此将沃克和格林斯潘应对通货膨胀的做法制度化。贝南克说，设定一个目标将使Fed更有责任感。长期以往，公众将更愿意相信低通胀会持续，这种心态将使Fed可以在经济走软时下调利率，而在此过程中又不会引发通货膨胀。
他还认为，通货膨胀目标可以防止美国出现日本式的通货紧缩。维持“价格稳定”这一现代中央银行人士奉为圭臬的要义意味著，既要在通货膨胀上保持鹰派立场，也要在通货紧缩问题上成为鹰派──如果我们仍用这些词语的传统含义来表述的话。
简而言之，贝南克的思想中并无鸽派的成分。但他的预期是否是鸽派的呢？从他过去一年担任Fed理事期间及今年6月出任总统经济顾问委员会(Council of Economic Advisers)主席以来的公开言论来看，或许是这样。
贝南克在Fed今年以来一直非常火热的讨论中表现出来的立场可以给我们提供一些重要线索。自从2004年6月以来，Fed连续上调联邦基金利率，并表示利率仍低于既不刺激增长也不会抑制增长的所谓“中性”水平。Fed已暗示还将进一步加息。
不过金融市场人士认为，Fed不会再有很大幅度的加息了，而反映市场对通货膨胀、经济增长和Fed政策预期的国债市场收益率水平仍低得出奇。Fed官员很想知道：市场是在向他们表明经济将面临困难、因而他们不应再进一步加息了吗？抑或是国债市场上有正常经济因素之外的其他因素在作用、因而Fed还应该继续加息？
贝南克倾向于第一种理解，这对Fed的加息行动来说具有温和的意味。他在三月份的一次讲话中说，至少在市场看来，今天的中性联邦基金利率要比过去低。持这种看法的并非只有他一个人。Fed里的专业人员──也是贝南克曾经的同事──也认为，消费者增加储蓄的需要以及2003年减税措施刺激作用的消退可能会拖累经济增长。
贝南克在后来的讲话中认为，外国人的开支和投资太少，让美国人很难降低贸易赤字。他说，“全球性的过度储蓄”拉低了长期利率。
曾在Fed与贝南克共事、现供职于预测机构Macroeconomic Advisers LLC的布莱恩?塞克(Brian Sack)说，他的观点为一种观点提供了理论基础，这种观点将促使人们对Fed加息持谨慎看法。
作为布什总统经济顾问的贝南克一直预计通货膨胀将保持在低水平。不过，这往往是白宫官员的老生常谈，以他们的身份他们理应这样表现得很乐观。不知道贝南克执掌Fed之后是否还会保持这种看法。毕竟，近几个月来，即使是以前在通货膨胀问题上持温和立场的Fed官员也提高了反通胀的声量。比如旧金山联邦储备银行行长珍妮特?耶伦(Janet Yellen)最近表示，要达到中性水平，利率应该上调到比以前设想的更高的位置。
格林斯潘打定主意要对通货膨胀采取先发制人的做法，为此他宁可让利率一升再升，即使这样有可能导致经济增长趋缓也在所不惜。预计Fed明天将把联邦基金利率从3.75%上调到4%，并作出将继续上调的表示。市场预计，在格林斯潘明年1月31日离开Fed之前，联邦基金利率将升至4.5%。
原则上讲，贝南克赞成先发制人。他在2004年曾表示，决策者如能预见到可能出现的问题并提前采取行动，应能收到更好的效果。塞克想知道的是，考虑到新、老Fed主席的交接可能会让Fed的可信度变得比较脆弱，贝南克是否会宁可偏向于采取紧缩措施。格林斯潘和沃克在上任后都紧接著采取了加息动作。
如果贝南克的预测仍与他三月份作出的一样温和，他或许会倾向于让利率保持不动。不过，温和的预期并不意味著思路也同样温和。如果他的预测错了，通货膨胀开始加紧步伐，那他或许不得不大幅提高利率，因为他的目标将不再是避免通货膨胀上升，而是要使它切切实实地降下来。
