How to avoid the horrors of ‘stag-deflation’

各國的央行在處理通膨上, 很容易可以藉由升息來控制 . 然而在對付通縮時, 因為利率無法降到零以下,故將導致貨幣政策失效, 無法藉此控制. 先前對於通膨的煩腦, 現在大概都已被通縮取代了.
而Roubin先前曾提及, 不用再去管這些的Bail out有沒有用, 做總比不做好的多. 寬鬆的貨幣政策,即使將導致通膨的產生, 相信各央行都有很好的經驗可應付. 但若stag-deflation(停滯性通縮)到來, 那才將是個horrors.

以下取自12/2/08Financial Times by Nouriel Roubini

The US and the global economy are at risk of a severe stag-deflation, a deadly combination of economic stagnation/recession and deflation.

A severe global recession will lead to deflationary pressures. Falling demand will lead to lower inflation as companies cut prices to reduce excess inventory. Slack in labour markets from rising unemployment will control labour costs and wage growth. Further slack in commodity markets as prices fall will lead to sharply lower inflation. Thus inflation in advanced economies will fall towards the 1 per cent level that leads to concerns about deflation.

Deflation is dangerous as it leads to a liquidity trap, a deflation trap and a debt deflation trap: nominal policy rates cannot fall below zero and thus monetary policy becomes ineffective. We are already in this liquidity trap since the Fed funds target rate is still 1 per cent but the effective one is close to zero as the Federal Reserve has flooded the financial system with liquidity…

As traditional monetary policy becomes ineffective, other unorthodox policies have be used: massive provision of liquidity to financial institutions to unclog the liquidity crunch and reduce the spread between short-term market rates and policy rates; quasi-fiscal policies to bail out investors, lenders and borrowers…

In the next few months, the flow of macroeconomic and earnings news will be much worse than expected. The credit crunch will get worse, with de­leveraging continuing as hedge funds and other leveraged players are forced to sell assets into illiquid and distressed markets, leading to further cascading falls in prices, other insolvent financial institutions going bust and a few emerging market economies entering a full-blown financial crisis.

The worst is not behind us: 2009 will be a painful year of a global recession, deflation and bankruptcies. Only very aggressive and co-ordinated policy actions will ensure the global economy recovers in 2010 rather than facing protracted stagnation and deflation.

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