Will There Be Another Wizard?
In 1900, Frank Baum published "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," a literary endorsement of a move to a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver. Fueled by William Jennings Bryan's speeches, the dispute over the nation's money supply had reached its rhetorical highpoint well before the Federal Reserve was even created.
Bryan and the populist pro-silver movement lost the debate and the elections of 1896 and 1900, despite their better command of language. But their goal of reflation happened anyway. Vast new deposits of gold were subsequently discovered in South Africa, Alaska, and Colorado, increasing the money supply enough to allow prices to rise over 40% between 1897 and 1914. Politically, the debate was really about the preferred rate of money-creation and whether to favor in-debt farmers with easy money or the powerful city financiers with tight money. But the more fundamental choice was between a discretionary monetary policy in which politicians decided how much money was created and a discretion-free system enforced by gold.
A century later, an actual wizard of monetary policy is making perhaps his last appearance before Congress, and the president must find a replacement. The monetary debate has evolved, of course, since 1900, with nearly everyone now agreeing that inflation should be kept as close to zero as possible without letting prices fall. But there is a great debate over how best to accomplish this goal, and whether other goals like risk management and full employment deserve a seat at the Fed's weighty table.
Once again, the central choice is between monetary policy driven by human judgment or by a set of rules that constrain discretion. The current vogue in central banking is the movement toward inflation targeting, whereby the central bank uses an explicit inflation target as the primary guide to making monetary policy. While contemplating what monetary policy will look like in the next era, the president and Congress should also consider whether it would be a safer course to have a more rule-based policy. Inflation targeting has been tested recently in places like the U.K., Brazil and Mexico, and is most credible when there is some accountability of the central bank to the target. Inflation targeting makes great sense in places without a long history of effective independent monetary policy and can help anchor long-term interest rates.
Whether it makes sense for the U.S. is a more difficult question. In the semi-annual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, the Fed today will announce their expected range of inflation based on the presumption of appropriate monetary policy, which last February was between 1.5% and 1.75% for 2005 and 2006. With long-run interest rates near historic lows and inflation expectations exceedingly well contained, there is little to be gained at the moment from making this target more binding. Most importantly, the Fed may want to keep this powerful tool in reserve in case it ever loses its hard-won credibility.
More worrisome, inflation-targeting could actually erode the credibility of the central bank during familiar circumstances. Suppose an oil-price shock temporarily accelerated inflation above the formal target. Even if the central bank expected economic growth to falter and future inflation to subside, it may worry that an interest-rate cut would erode its credibility even more than the initial breach of the inflation target. This isn't a hypothetical situation, but one in which the European Central Bank has found itself this year.
While the crowning achievement of the Greenspan Fed has been the achievement of price stability, it has accomplished even more. It has reacted promptly to domestic financial crises by lending through the discount window immediately after the October 1987 stock market crash and by pumping in over $80 billion in liquidity just after Sept. 11, 2001. The Fed also cut interest rates by about 80 basis points in the four months following the stock market crash and by 175 basis points in the three months after Sept. 11. In each case, the Fed's actions were critical to maintaining confidence in the U.S. economy at a vulnerable time. This crisis-management role is not simply a side-show. Responding to financial crises as a lender of last resort was one of the primary reasons for establishing the Federal Reserve, which was created in response to the particularly severe banking panic of 1907. For better or worse, the Fed is also as close as there is to an international central bank, having more power and standing than the IMF.
In 1998, the Fed responded indirectly to the Russian debt default, which spread into the U.S. via the LTCM hedge fund, by lowering interest rates 75 basis points over four months. Responses to international events are much more controversial, and there are legitimate arguments to criticize, in hindsight, the Fed's action, given how strong the U.S. economy was at the time. But in the era of globalization and leverage, the Fed needs to preserve the option of acting. A restrictive inflation-targeting regime would risk cutting off this alternative without even knowing what risks will turn into events over the next decade. A close look at China's banking system is enough to make any seasoned economist know that systemic risk is not a quaint problem of the last century.
A concrete inflation-targeting regime also raises the delicate question of what constitutes inflation. There are serious technical questions with existing measures, such as the different treatments of housing and medical care by different indices and the lack of chain-weighting by the headline CPI. Even more difficult is the question of how the Fed should handle rapidly rising asset prices, like the NASDAQ's 86% climb in 1999 or the housing market's double-digit-and-still-accelerating pace of today.
While the Fed doesn't have the ability to know what level asset prices should be at, it must have a general view on whether it is creating too much liquidity. And liquidity can raise assets prices just as it can raise wages or goods prices. Along the same lines, the Fed must have a view on whether leverage is excessive, especially since it has control of margin requirements and has the ability to weigh in on all areas of finance.
Another key consideration to the inflation targeting debate is whether the Fed should also be concerned about full employment. Its independence is a gift of Congress, not an inalienable right. The 1978 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act amended the Fed's charter to make the bank's mandate the pursuit of both stable prices and maximum employment. Inflation targeting puts one goal explicitly ahead of the other, and a change to a rigid system would politically require the consent of Congress.
The narrow debate on inflation-targeting is part of a larger debate on how critical decisions are made. Are decisions ultimately best left to human judgment, allowing the human brain to tap into its immeasurable supply of theoretical, historical and real-time anecdotal evidence? Or is it better to allow a model to precisely calculate an answer based on quantifiable assumptions and potentially stale data? I'll bet if you gave investors or business leaders a choice of having access to the Fed's macroeconomic model or Alan Greenspan's frontal lobe, almost all would choose the lobe.
There is a split among replacement candidates between those who favor a more rule-based monetary policy and those who favor a completely discretionary policy. Mr. Greenspan himself favors a discretionary, risk-based policy. As a first step toward making a decision on the next Fed chairman, the president and Congress may want to decide whether they are looking for another wizard or someone who follows the rules.
Mr. Sumerlin, former deputy director of the National Economic Council under President Bush, is managing director of the Lindsey Group.
美国人需要再来一位魔法师吗？
法兰克?包姆(Frank Baum)1900年出版了《奥兹国的魔法师》一书（The Wonderful Wizard of Oz，又译：《绿野仙踪》），这部童话故事隐含了作者赞成美元实行金、银复本位制的思想。早在美国政府设立联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve)之前，围绕美国货币供应问题的争论就曾因威廉?布莱恩(William Jennings Bryan)的“煽动性”言论而一度达到了白热化。
虽然布莱恩和他的同党很善于运用语言攻势，但他们支持金、银复本位制的运动在那场争论中最终落败，布莱恩在1896年和1900年两届总统竞选中也都输给了对手。不过，他们的通货再膨胀目标还是“实现”了。在南非、阿拉斯加和科罗拉多，新发现了大量金矿，这导致货币供应急剧攀升，物价也随之走高，在1897-1914年之间，物价上涨了40%。
从政治角度看，那场大辩论实际上是关于货币供给以及是否要给负债累累的农民提供低利率贷款、而对城市金融家实行高利率的问题。但更根本的问题在于，是选择由政治家决定发行多少货币的相机抉择货币政策，还是选择严格按照国家的黄金储备量来决定货币发行量。
一个世纪后，一位掌控货币政策的真正魔法师即将最后一次在国会露面，总统必须为他找一个接班人。当然，自1900年以来，有关货币政策的讨论也在演变，现在，几乎所有人都同意，通货膨胀率应该尽可能控制在接近于零但又不至于变成负值（即物价下跌）的水平。
但是，对于如何以最佳方式实现这一目标以及风险管理和充分就业等其他目标在Fed的天平上是否也应有一席之地，人们又产生了更大的争论。
与以前一样，在确定货币政策方面人们目前也面临两种选择：要么根据人的主观判断来决定这一政策，要么将货币政策交由一套硬性规则去主导。目前Fed通常的做法是倾向于采取通货膨胀目标控制法，即将一个明了的通货膨胀目标作为制定政策时的第一参考指标。
在考虑今后一个时期应该执行怎样的货币政策时，总统和国会应思考一下，执行一种更由硬性规则主导的货币政策是否为上佳选择？近来，采用通货膨胀指标的方法在英国、巴西和墨西哥等国受到了检验，实践表明，在央行充分重视该目标的情况下，这种做法是最可靠的。对于那些历史上没有长期有效实行过独立货币政策的国家来说，通货膨胀目标法非常有效，且能有助于稳定长期利率。
但它对美国是否有效却是一个很难回答的问题。今天Fed将在国会发表半年一次的货币政策报告，届时Fed将宣布他们在货币政策适当的前提下对未来通货膨胀率的预期，2月份发表报告时他们的预期是2005、2006年的通胀率在1.5%-1.75%之间。
目前，美国的长期利率水平接近历史低点，通货膨胀前景也控制得相当好，在这种情况下，加大通胀目标的约束性意义并不太大。最重要的是，Fed或许希望不要轻易动用这个强力工具，以免有损其得来不易的声望。
更让人担心的是，通胀目标法有可能在并不算异常的环境之下对央行的声望造成损害。设想一下油价突然暴涨使通货膨胀率暂时上升到正常水平之上的情形。即使央行能预见到经济增长会放缓、未来的通胀会减弱，它也还会担心降息会比较早时通胀目标被突破更有损于它的名誉。这种假设并非杞人忧天，欧洲央行(European Central Bank)今年就遇到了这种情况。
格林斯潘(Greenspan)执掌的Fed取得的最大成就是实现了价格稳定，但它的成果还远不止于此。在1987年10月股市崩盘之后，Fed通过贴现窗口向银行系统注入资金，对国内金融危机作出了迅速反应；2001年的911事件后，它又向市场注入了800亿美元的流动资金。
那次股市崩盘后的4个月里，Fed共降息80个基点；911之后的3个月降了175个基点。在每次事件后的脆弱时期，Fed的行动对维持人们对美国经济的信心都起到了非常关键的作用。
这种危机处理职能并不是Fed附带为之的行为。作为国家“最后的贷款人”，对危机事件作出反应正是当初为应对1907年银行业大恐慌而设立Fed的初衷之一。不论世人喜欢与否，Fed从一定角度而言已很接近一家国际“央行”的角色，其权力和名望比国际货币基金组织(IMF)都要大。
1998年俄罗斯发生拖欠债务事件的影响通过美国对冲基金──长期资本管理公司(LTCM)蔓延到了美国，对此Fed也间接采取了行动，在4个月内降息75个基点。对国际事件作出反应一向是很具争议性的事，而鉴于当时美国经济的强劲势头，人们更有充分的理由指责Fed的做法（当然他们是事后才这么做的）。
但是，在全球化和杠杆交易风行的时代，Fed需要保留采取行动的选择。如果将坚守通货膨胀率目标作为货币政策的重点，那么这种选择的机会就有可能不复存在，而人们并不知道未来10年哪些风险会转化成现实事件。任何一位富有学识的经济学家只要仔细研究一下中国的银行系统就会看到，系统性风险并未随著上个世纪的结束而一去不复返了。
根据具体的通胀目标制定货币政策的做法势必还会引发一个更棘手的问题，那就是计算通货膨胀率时应该包括哪些要素。现有的方法存在严重的技术性问题，比如，不同的指数对住房和医疗服务的价格就有不同的处理方法，总体消费价格指数也缺乏权重连锁调整。更麻烦的问题是，Fed该如何处理迅速上升的资产价格──比如出现1999年那斯达克市场上涨86%的情况，或者眼下住房市场正在以两位数的速度增长且增速还在加快的情形。
尽管Fed并不能搞清楚资产价格到底应该在什么水平，但它必须对它是否向市场注入了太多的流动资金有个大概的认识。流动资金过多能抬高资产价格，就像它能抬高工资和物价水平一样。同样，Fed还必须对市场上杠杆交易是否太多有总体把握，考虑到它能控制保证金标准且能够对所有金融领域施加影响，就更应如此了。
在有关通货膨胀目标法的讨论中，另一个需要考虑的关键问题是Fed是否要顾及全面就业问题。Fed的独立地位是国会赠予它的一件礼物，并非其神圣不可侵犯的权利。1978年的《全面就业和均衡增长法》(Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act)对Fed的章程作出了修改，将实现价格稳定和最大程度的就业列为它的职责。通胀目标法将一个目标明确地置于其他目标之上，Fed如果明确表示要这样做，从政治程序上说，需要得到国会的首肯。
在对通胀目标法的讨论背后，是更具广泛意义的有关如何形成重要决策的讨论。是否所有决定最好都应交由人去作判断，让人脑在数不清的各种理论、历史经验和最新发生的事件中理出头绪？
或者，还是让模型去根据可以量化的假设和可能已经过时的数据去精确计算并得出结论更好些？我敢打赌，如果你让投资者或者商界领袖选择去窥探Fed的宏观模型或钻进格林斯潘的大脑，相信几乎所有人都会选择后者。
赞成在制定货币政策时更多依据规则的人和支持根据情况由决策者自由裁量的人都有可能成为格林斯潘的继任人。格林斯潘本人赞成在考虑风险的基础上作自由裁量。在物色下任Fed主席的时候，总统和国会第一步或许应先决定他们究竟需要哪一类人，是另一位魔法师呢，还是一位愿意“循规蹈矩”、按规则行事的人。
（编者按：本文作者Marc Sumerlin曾任美国国家经济委员会(National Economic Council)副主任，现任Lindsey Group的董事总经理。）
