亚洲金融危机10周年祭

亚洲金融危机10周年祭

Ten years ago today the world's last major financial crisis began in Bangkok with speculative attacks on the Thai baht. Debate still rages about the causes of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, the actions of the International Monetary Fund, and about whether the right lessons have been learned.

Between 1997 and 1998 there were linked banking and currency crises in South Korea and most economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. These “tiger” economies had grown fast but had maintained fixed exchange rates, which encouraged external borrowing. They also experienced dramatic asset price booms.

The crisis caused recessions that cost some countries more than 10 per cent of their real output per person. The recovery was rapid and strong, but with the exception of South Korea, many of the Asean economies are growing about 2 percentage points per annum slower than they did prior to 1997.

One explanation is that this simply reflects unsustainable pre-crisis growth, fuelled by imports of capital and too much domestic liquidity. This is clearly part of the story, but cannot account for the diversity of outcomes in the regions, from spectacular growth in China to something near stagnation in Indonesia.

Another possibility is that the financial crisis itself hit Asean particularly hard and reduced its ability to grow. But the academic evidence for such effects is limited while, in many ways, the crisis improved the Asean economies. It certainly brought better banking regulation and other structural reforms.

It now seems that the crisis of 1997 was not the cause of Asean's woes but rather a highly dramatic symptom. The export performance of the “tiger” economies deteriorated in the 1990s, leading to large current account deficits, and vulnerability to capital outflows. That was partly due to inappropriately high pegged exchange rates, but also due to China's emergence as an exporter, creating a vast new competitor with an almost limitless capacity to sell at a lower price.

That has meant a change of economic model for the tigers, away from exporting finished manufactures to advanced economies, and toward exporting commodities, components and services (such as tourism) to China. Asean can still grow, and grow fast, but there is now a speed limit. Until another generation has passed, and China itself has grown rich, export-led industrial growth will be hard for anyone to achieve. Ten years on, the meaning of the 1997 financial crisis is starting to become clear.




十年前的今天，随着投机资金开始攻击泰铢，全球一场大规模金融危机在曼谷爆发。对于1997-98年亚洲金融危机的成因、国际货币基金组织(IMF)采取的措施，以及它为我们带来的教训，各方的争论依然很激烈。

1997至1998年间，韩国和东盟大多数经济体都出现了连环的银行和货币危机。这些亚洲“小虎”经济曾快速增长，但都维持着固定汇率制度，从而鼓励了外部借贷行为。它们也都经历了急剧的资产价格膨胀。

这一危机带来的经济衰退，使一些国家付出惨重代价，人均实际产出中，超出10%的财富化为乌有。除韩国之外，危机后的经济复苏迅猛而强劲。如今东盟中很多经济体每年的经济增长率较1997年之前慢了约2个百分点。

有种解释认为，上次金融危机只反映出，在危机发生前，相关国家由资本流入和过多国内流动性所催生的经济增长不可持续。显然这是问题的一部分，但它无法解释这个金融危机在该地区引发的多种结果，比如中国取得了令人惊叹的经济增长，而印度尼西亚的经济则近乎停滞。

另一种可能是，亚洲金融危机沉重打击了东盟国家，削弱了它们的增长能力。但能够证明这种后果的学术证据有限，而从许多方面而言，亚洲金融危机改善了东盟国家的经济。毫无疑问，它促使这些国家加强了银行监管和其它结构改革。

现在看来，1997的亚洲金融危机并不是造成东盟国家困境的原因，而是一个非常富有戏剧性的症状。上世纪90年代，亚洲“小虎”经济的出口情况严重恶化，导致大规模经常账户赤字，而且易受资本流出的影响。这种局面的部分原因在于东盟国家畸高的联系汇率，也在于中国崛起为出口大国，而这个巨大的新竞争对手压低商品价格的能力几乎是无限的。

这导致亚洲“小虎”经济模式的转变。它们放弃向发达经济体出口工业成品，转而向中国出口大宗商品、零部件和服务（例如旅游）。东盟国家仍能够快速增长，但其经济增速目前则受到了限制。在经过下一代人的奋斗，以及中国自身富裕起来之前，任何东盟国家都将难以实现出口导向型的经济增长。10年后的今天，1997年亚洲金融危机的意义正开始明朗起来。