Finance and Economics；German macroprudential reforms；Beware Teutonic caution；
财经； 德国宏观审慎监管改革；当心条顿的警示；

The Bundesbank should not exert its new clout too zealously；
德国央行不应如此热情的展现其新的影响力；

The European Central Bank (ECB) decided a year ago to hold this week’s monetary-policy meeting in Barcelona, but the timing turned out to be perfect. Spain is in the crosshairs of the markets, not least because of budgetary overruns by regional governments such as Catalonia’s. And the contrasting economic fortunes of beaten-up Spain, where the jobless rate has reached 24%, and resilient Germany, where it is below 6%, exemplify the difficulty of finding the right monetary policy in a currency union of 17 members.
一年前，欧洲央行便以决定这周在巴塞罗那举行货币政策会议，且时机证明是相当成熟。西班牙现是市场的交叉点，至少不是因为类似于加泰罗尼亚地方政府的预算超支。而与之形成鲜明对比的是遭受重创的西班牙经济时运，其失业率已达24%，恢复力强的德国经济也不到6%,也反映出在货币联盟的十七个成员国中很难找到合适的货币政策。

The ECB’s meeting on May 3rd (after The Economist went to press) was not expected to change its monetary stance. Behind the scenes, however, there are acute tensions within its 23-strong governing council, made up of six board members and the heads of the 17 national central banks. In particular Jens Weidmann, the president of the powerful German Bundesbank, opposed the decision to cut interest rates to 1% in December, and frets about the adequacy of the collateral against which the ECB has lent so much money to banks in recent months.
在五月三日举行的欧洲央行会议上仍没有改变其货币立场。但是，在这种场景之下是23个强硬理事会之间的剑拔弩张，其由6个董事会成员组成并领导着17个国家中央银行，特别是金斯魏德曼 其为资金雄厚的德国银行行长，反对在今年十二月将利率下降到1%，并对欧洲央行在最近数月来借出大量资本的抵押条件的充足性表示担忧。

Among other things Germany’s top central banker wants to avoid a home replay of the credit and property boom whose excesses have been so harmful in Spain. Loose monetary policy makes him nervous about the possibility of a property bubble in Germany. After a long period when house prices fell and then stagnated, they have picked up in the past couple of years (see chart). Homebuilding orders are up by a fifth on a year ago.
在其它的一些事情中，德国最高央行行长希望阻止住房的重复赊购和房地产的繁荣，这种过度的行为对西班牙的经济造成严重的损害。宽松的货币政策也使得他对德国地产泡沫破灭的可能性倍感忧虑，在相当一段时期内当房价下跌且接连发生滞胀，他们不得不在过去几年中重拾信心（见表）。建造房屋的订单已比去年增长了20%。

Such anxiety looks premature: house-price rises represent a thawing in the property permafrost rather than a market on fire. But if Mr Weidmann is minded to take pre-emptive action, he will soon have the means to do so. At present the Bundesbank can preach about risks to financial stability but it cannot impose counter-measures such as setting higher capital requirements for banks or putting constraints on specific types of lending such as mortgages. The authority for implementing these steps lies with BaFin, Germany’s bank supervisor (which is assisted on the ground by Bundesbank staff).
这样的焦虑看似是不必要的：房价的上涨代表着房地产的冷却的一种缓和而不是火爆，如果魏德曼想采取先发制人的措施，他很快会有相应的对策。当前德国央行宣扬金融稳定的风险性，但其不能施加诸于为银行设置更高的的资本要求，亦或是对类似于抵押贷款的特定类型设限的措施。联邦金融监管局，德国银行的监管机构（现场由德国央行员工协助）拥有实施这些措施的权力。

This will change under new proposals to set up a joint committee, which will have representatives from the finance ministry and BaFin, but which will give the Bundesbank the leading role and enable it to push through binding directives. The legislation won’t come into force until next year, but since it is designed to strengthen his hand, Mr Weidmann would probably be able to get his own way before then.
在建立联合委员会这一新提议下，这一切将发生改变，联合委员将会拥有从财政部和联邦金融监管局的代表，并给与德国央行主导地位使具有法律效应的指示得以通过。明年这项立法将生效，而联合委员会的设置之初是为了加强其行使权力的目的，魏德曼也许会在那之前达到他的目的。

The reform is part of a general move to add “macroprudential” instruments to the toolkit of central banks, allowing them to choke off credit excesses while monetary policy is set for the economy as a whole. If anything, Germany is treading less far down this path than some other countries—in Britain, for example, the Bank of England will call the shots through a powerful new Financial Policy Committee, which has already started work. Such powers should be particularly useful in the euro area, providing countries with a national lever to pull if their banks are getting too festive (though Spain’s pre-crisis policy of “dynamic provisioning”, designed to get local banks to set aside more provisions in the good times, cautions against investing too much hope in macroprudential tools).
这项改革是整体行动的冰山一角目的就为了是将宏观审慎监管改革的方法加入到央行的整体体系中，允许他们阻止超额赊购并且货币政策的设置是为了整个经济的需求，若有事发生，德国走这条路会比其它一些国家稍显谨慎，例如在英国，英格兰银行会通过一个强大的新的金融政策委员会来解决事态，并已发挥效应。此类权力在欧洲地区尤为有用，如果他们的银行盈利过多其会提供国家间的相互扶持（尽管西班牙的危机前动态供给政策的设计是让当地银行在时机恰当的时候将一些条条框框至于一旁，并谨慎将太多的希望置于宏观审慎监管工具中）

But in the current climate there is also the danger that such regulations may be used in bigger economies to grab back power from the ECB. By reducing credit availability national central banks can contravene the euro zone’s wider monetary stance. Speaking in New York in late April Mr Weidmann said that if monetary policy becomes too expansionary for his home country, “Germany has to deal with this using other, national instruments.” If Mr Weidmann does use his new powers overzealously that could dash one of the few remaining hopes for the hard-hit peripheral economies: a strong recovery in the euro area, led by Germany.
但在当前这种环境下，这些条款在更大经济体里的使用是为了从欧洲央行获取权力，但这存在着一定的风险，通过减少住房赊销的途径，国家中央银行违背欧元区更广货币立场。四月末，魏德曼在纽约时说道：‘若货币政策在他的祖国扩张太快，德国那边不得不采用其他的国家政策’。如果魏德曼过分使用他刚赋予的权力，这将会对难以影响到的外围经济所仅有的少数希望带来冲击：在欧元区一个强大的经济将会在德国的带领下复苏。