席勒 恐懼正驅動資產市場

It’s often said that asset markets are driven by greed and fear. Professor Robert Shiller is in no doubt which of the two is in control right now. The Nobel laureate and best-selling author thinks the credit crisis, rising inequality and the relentless march of technology are making investors around the world nervous.

人們常說，資產市場受到貪婪和恐懼的驅動。羅伯特•席勒(Robert Shiller)教授非常確定現在是哪一種情緒在控制局面。這位諾貝爾(Nobel)經濟學獎得主和暢銷作家認爲，此次信貸危機、日益加劇的不平等狀況以及技術的不斷進步讓全球投資者感到不安。

“People are fundamentally worried about what kind of income they will have — or that their children will have — in 30 or 40 years,” he says.

他表示：“從本質上來說，人們擔心的是，30年或40年後，他們（或者他們的子女）的收入會處於何種水平。”

This is in marked contrast to what he calls “the millennium boom” — the run-up in markets in the late 1990s — and the “ownership society boom” that ran from about 2000 to 2007.

這與他所說的“千年之交繁榮”（millennium boom，指上世紀90年代末各種市場的繁榮）以及從大約2000年持續到2007年的“業主社會繁榮”(ownership society boom)形成鮮明對比。

“They were both driven by some kind of enthusiasm and excitement about investing. This time it seems to be more about fear. It’s technology again, but it’s fear about technology, rather than elation about the opportunities.”

“那兩次繁榮都受到某種對投資的熱情和興奮的驅動。這一次，似乎更多的是出於恐懼。這一次又與技術有關，不過是對技術的擔憂，而不是對機遇的興奮。”

As if to prove the point, he pulls a smartphone from his pocket and speaks slowly into it. “What is the Treasury bill rate today?” It takes a couple of attempts, but the phone dutifully displays a page full of T-bill prices and yields.

好像是爲了證明這點，他從口袋裏掏出一部智能手機，對着它一字一句地說道：“今日國債價格是多少？”他試了幾次，終於手機不辱使命地顯示了一個列滿國債價格和收益率的頁面。

“Where will this be in 20 or 30 years? That’s the scary thing. I think people are spooked by that.”

“20年或30年後這個頁面會是怎樣的？可怕的是這個。我認爲，人們被這件事嚇住了。”

The response has been to bid up the price of safe assets. “They’re bidding up bonds, they’re bidding up stocks too. There aren’t enough safe assets.”

人們的迴應一直是擡高安全資產價格。“他們在擡高債券價格，還在擡高股票價格。市場上沒有足夠多的安全資產。”

Prof Shiller has built much of his reputation frompricking asset bubbles. The first edition of Irrational Exuberance — its title was borrowed from a famous Alan Greenspan speech — questioned valuations in the dotcom stocks era. The second did the same for US real estate. A third edition has just been published and calls the end to the long bull market in government debt.

席勒教授的聲譽在很大程度上來自戳破資產泡沫。他的第一版《非理性繁榮》(Irrational Exuberance)（題目借用了艾倫•格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan)在一次著名演講中說的話）對互聯網股票時代的股票估值提出質疑。第二版是對美國房地產估值提出質疑。第三版剛剛出版，呼籲結束政府債券的長期牛市。

“The US bond yield [which moves inversely to bond prices] has been going down for 35 years. It’s not a crisis phenomenon. It can’t keep going down.”

“美國國債收益率（與債券價格成反比）已下行了35年。這並非一種危機現象。它不可能持續下行。”

But isn’t everything else just as expensive? The US is aspricey as ever, but Prof Shiller is increasingly interested in the divergence in valuations between the US market and Europe. Based on the “cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio” (Cape) he helped develop — which compares a 10-year average of earnings to current share prices — Europe looks attractive.

但其他所有資產不是一樣昂貴嗎？美國仍一如既往地昂貴，但席勒教授對於美國市場與歐洲市場之間估值的差異越來越感興趣。根據他幫助開發的“經週期調整的市盈率”（Cape，將10年盈利均值與目前的股價相比），歐洲看上去頗具吸引力。

“If you look at Cape ratios across countries, there are low-Cape countries, notably Greece which is under four.”

“如果你看看各國的Cape值，你會發現，一些國家的Cape值較低，特別是希臘，低於4倍。”

“And then there is Russia, in the sevens, then Hungary, Portugal and Italy. They are all well below average.”

“接下來是俄羅斯（7倍）、然後是匈牙利、葡萄牙和意大利。它們都遠遠低於平均水平。”

Greece is a tough sell right now, though. Has he put his own money there? “No, but maybe I would. But the trouble is it sounds like a flaky thing to do, even if it comes out well. This is the problem of groupthink.”

不過，希臘國債眼下無人問津。他有沒有將自己的錢投入希臘國債？“沒有，不過我可能會投。但問題是，即便最後結果不錯，這麼做似乎也有點不靠譜。這就是羣體思維(groupthink)的問題所在。”

“I did put money into Italy, though.”

“不過，我倒是真投了意大利國債。”

Cheapness matters to Prof Shiller because he asserts that it is a predictor of future returns. He points to a famous chart in the original edition of Irrational Exuberance, showing the market’s p/e ratio in January on one axis and the real returns in the following 10 years on the other. There are exceptions, but in general, low p/e ratios are accompanied by high returns and vice versa. The chart was used in testimony to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors just a day before Mr Greenspan’s famous remark.

對於席勒教授而言，廉價至關重要，因爲他主張，這預示着未來的收益情況。他談到第一版《非理性繁榮》(Irrational Exuberance)中的一個著名圖表，一個座標軸代表市場1月的市盈率，另一個座標軸顯示接下來10年的實際收益率。其中存在例外，但總體而言，低市盈率伴隨着高收益，反之亦然。就在格林斯潘發表那次著名講話的前一天，席勒曾用這張圖表在美聯儲(Fed)作證。

I counter that most “cheap” markets are cheap because they are risky, perhaps too risky for most people — and that waiting for “expensive” markets to revert to the mean isn’t an option for people with children to educate and retirements to finance.

我反駁說，多數“廉價”市場之所以廉價是因爲他們有風險，這種風險對於多數人來說或許太高了，而等待“昂貴”市場迴歸中值，不是家裏有孩子上學以及需要退休金養老的人們的選擇。

He agrees, but says the solution goes beyond the market. “People are not saving enough. Not just individuals, but defined benefit pension plans are not putting enough in to support their promised benefits.”

他同意我的看法，但他表示，解決方案在市場以外。“人們儲蓄得不夠多。不僅是個人，固定收益養老計劃也沒有投入足夠多的資金來支持他們承諾的福利。”

Isn’t that mostly because they can’t afford to? Quite possibly. A solution is to make much more use of insurance. “We need livelihood insurance. Human capital is not protected at all. You can’t insure against changes in incomes in your occupation,” he says, thinking of all those workers whose salaries have been driven lower, first by globalisation and now by automation.

這難道不是主要因爲他們承受不起這樣做嗎？很有可能是的。一個解決辦法是大大增加對保險的利用。他表示：“我們需要職業保險(livelihood insurance)。人力資本根本沒有得到保護。你不能爲職業收入發生變化上保險。”他想到所有那些薪資先是被全球化、眼下又被自動化壓低的勞動者。

He also thinks that society will need to revisit its social welfare provisions — “there could be a bad time coming because of these low returns” — and and create better incentives for the financial services industry to service lower net worth clients.

他還認爲，社會需要重新評估其社會福利保障（“由於收益低，未來可能會出現一個艱難時期”），並採取措施讓金融服務業更有動力去爲那些資產淨值較低的客戶服務。

I point out that in the UK at least, the solution to many of the issues with stock and bond markets is property. I’m intrigued to know what someone who has made a career writing about asset bubbles and the crowd psychology that helps create them makes of the real estate market.

我指出，至少在英國，解決股市與債市很多問題的方法是房地產。我很想知道，整個職業生涯都在撰文分析資產泡沫以及幫助製造泡沫的羣衆心理學(crowd psychology)的他，是如何看待房地產市場的。

He is not concerned about the US, where there was a sharp correction in values after the subprime crisis. “The US property bust brought prices almost right back down to where they were. Overall they’re nowhere near the peak they reached in 2006.”

他並不擔心美國，在次貸危機後，美國房價出現大幅下調。“美國房地產市場崩盤導致房價幾乎回到原點。總體而言，房價距離2006年的峯值水平還差得很遠。”

But north of the border, where Bank of England governor Mark Carney once held sway, there’s a problem.

然而，在美國以北的加拿大（英國央行(Bank of England)行長馬克•卡尼(Mark Carney)曾經擔任加拿大央行行長），問題已經出現。

“I think there is a housing bubble in Canada. If you look at Vancouver right now, it looks as bubbly as San Francisco ever got.”

“我認爲，加拿大存在房地產泡沫。如果你看看現在的溫哥華，你會發現那裏的泡沫嚴重程度達到了舊金山歷史最高水平。”

What about the UK? There is “plausibly” a bubble here, he says, when I inform him that prices in London are now well above their 2007 peak. Certainly, many of the “bubble factors” he writes of are present: advantageous tax reforms, demographic factors, uncritical extrapolation of past returns into the future and saturation media coverage.

英國怎麼樣？當我告訴他倫敦房價現在遠高於2007年的峯值，他表示“貌似”存在泡沫。當然，他寫到的很多“泡沫因素”是存在的：有利的稅收改革、人口條件因素、根據過去收益推導未來的盲目預期、以及媒體鋪天蓋地的報道。

“In the UK, you have [the television series] Property Ladder. In the US, we had Flip That House. The difference is that Property Ladder turned intoProperty Snakes and Ladders whereas Flip That House just disappeared.” The final episode was broadcast in 2008.

“在英國，有一部（電視劇）叫《房地產階梯》(Property Ladder)，在美國，我們也曾有一部《賣掉那棟房子》(Flip That House)。區別是，《房地產階梯》現已更名爲《房地產、蛇和階梯》(Property Snakes and Ladders)，而《賣掉那棟房子》卻停播了。”最後一集是2008年播出的。

Home ownership rates in the US are nevertheless declining, just as UK ones are, a development that exacerbates growing financial inequality. I ask aboutCapital in the 21st century, the landmark book by French economist Thomas Piketty.

然而，美國的住房擁有率正在下滑，就像英國那樣，這一變化加劇了日益嚴重的金融不平等狀況。我問到，他對法國經濟學家托馬斯•皮凱蒂(Thomas Piketty)的里程碑式著作《21世紀的資本》(Capital in the 21st century)有何看法。

“I think he [Piketty] is focusing on the wrong aspects of inequality. His solution is a global wealth tax. But a lot of inequality is caused by different savings rates.”

“我認爲，（皮凱蒂）對不平等的關注沒有關注到點子上。他的解決方案是徵收全球財富稅。但不平等很大程度上是不同的儲蓄率造成的。”

Prof Shiller outlined many of his prescriptions for addressing inequality in Finance and the Good Society, published in 2012 (and described as “priestly” by an FT review at the time). It called for a “democratisation and humanisation of the financial infrastructure”, including government subsidy for financial advisers who sign an oath of loyalty to their customers and “continuous workout mortgages” that effectively insure against house price falls.

席勒教授在2012年出版的著作《金融與美好社會》（Finance and the Good Society，當時英國《金融時報》的一篇書評稱這是一本帶有“牧師口吻”的書）中列出瞭解決不平等的很多方法。它呼籲“金融基礎設施民主化和人性化”，包括對那些簽署忠實於客戶承諾書的顧問提供政府補貼，以及提供有效對抗房價下跌風險的“滾動調整的抵押貸款”。

“The stock market is not the answer to everything,” he adds. “Only a minority of the population is naturally interested in investing. We don’t want to encourage people to go contrary to their personal predilections.”

“股市不是萬能的，”他補充稱，“只有少數人天生對投資感興趣。我們不想鼓勵人們違揹他們的個人偏好。”

CV — Robert Shiller

羅伯特•席勒簡歷

Born: Detroit, 1946

出生年份和出生地：1946年，底特律

Education: BA from University of Michigan in 1967, followed by PhD at MIT. Currently Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University

教育經歷：1967年獲得密歇根大學(University of Michigan)學士學位，後在麻省理工學院(MIT)取得博士學位。目前是耶魯大學(Yale University)斯特林經濟學教授(Sterling Professor of Economics)

Career: Created the Cape ratio with John Campbell in 1988, and the Case-Shiller house price index with Karl Case in 1991. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2013, jointly with Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen

職業成就：1988年與約翰•坎貝爾(John Campbell)共同編制Cape，1991年與卡爾•凱斯(Karl Case)共同編制凱斯•席勒(Case-Shiller)房價指數。2013年與尤金•法馬(Eugene Fama)和拉爾斯•彼得•漢森(Lars Peter Hansen)共同榮獲諾貝爾經濟學獎(Nobel Prize in Economic Science)