Why did so many market pundits fail to foresee the decline in yields across the developed world in 2014?
那么多市场权威都没能预见到2014年发达国家的收益率普降，原因何在？
The short answer is that they were obsessed with the potential impact of the US Federal Reserve’s retreat from unconventional measures while neglecting the importance of global imbalances. In effect, the world has been prey to a growing problem of deficient demand, leading to disinflation, while the US has been growing too sedately to spark the inflationary pressures that would have called for much tighter monetary policy. There is a risk that forecasters will make the same mistake in 2015.
一个简短回答是，他们过分纠结于美联储(Fed)退出非常规政策的潜在影响，同时忽略了全球不平衡的重要性。实际上，世界一直受困于一个日益严重的问题——需求不足（导致通胀速度减缓），而美国在激发通胀压力（这种压力会要求货币政策大大收紧）方面过于不紧不慢。
Consider the state of the world’s excess savers, starting with Japan. There Abenomics is having difficulty addressing deflation and raising economic growth. Weak demand resulting from adverse demographics and the recent consumption tax increase means the country is dependent on yet more bond buying and further yen devaluation to generate the cost-push pressure that would enable the Bank of Japan to meet its 2 per cent inflation target.
下面考察一下世界上储蓄率过高国家的状况，就从日本开始。在日本，安倍经济学(Abenomics)没能消除通缩并提高经济增长率。不利的人口结构导致的需求萎靡，加上近来的消费税提高，意味着日本目前要依赖购买更多债券、加大日元贬值力度，才能生成“成本驱动型”压力，进而使日本央行(BoJ)达成其2%的通胀目标。
China, meantime, is going through an awkward transition whereby its astonishingly high rate of investment is beginning to decline. Domestic demand growth has flagged. This has contributed to the fall in global commodity and energy prices. At the same time China faces a more competitive export environment as others, spurred by Japan, engage in competitive devaluations.
与此同时，中国正在经历一次尴尬的转型，该国极高的投资率正开始下降。中国国内需求增长已放慢，这在一定程度上拉低了全球大宗商品和能源的价格。同时，中国在出口方面正面临更激烈的竞争，因为在日本的刺激下，其他国家也开始实施竞争性货币贬值。
As for the eurozone, it is being driven towards deflation by a moralistic drive for austerity which does nothing to arrest rising debt as a percentage of gross domestic product because the harder hit economies have shrunk. Disagreement on the governing council of the European Central Bank ensures a crabwise progression towards full scale government bond buying without which its inflation target will not be met.
至于欧元区，由于受冲击更严重的经济体已萎缩，出于良心的追求紧缩对于阻止债务对国内生产总值(GDP)比例升高毫无作用，反而正将该地区推向通缩。由于欧洲央行(ECB)管理委员会存在分歧，使得欧元区只会以龟速迈向全面的债券购买——若不实施债券购买计划，欧洲央行的通胀率目标将无法实现。
From a rather different perspective Richard Batley of Lombard Street Research argues that global deflationary pressure has also increased as a result of the relative decline in US economic power. For much of the postwar period the US acted as a clearing house for global demand and supply by maintaining open markets that absorbed the rest of the world’s goods. But the supply clearing capacity of the US ran out after 2008 because it had exhausted its debt capacity. Instead of excess supply being cleared through ever higher US household debt, it is now being cleared through lower prices.
朗伯德街研究(Lombard Street Research)的理查德•巴特利(Richard Batley)视角相当不同。他认为，导致全球通缩压力升高的另一个原因，是美国经济实力的相对衰落。冷战后大部分时间里，美国一直维持着开放的市场，吸收了世界其他地区的产品，由此扮演着全球供需清算中心的角色。但2008年之后，由于美国的举债能力达到极限，因此其出清供给的能力也被耗尽。目前，过度供给无法通过不断升高的美国家庭债务出清，供给出清正通过价格降低来实现。
All the high saving economies run current account surpluses that require equivalent capital outflows. As their currencies weaken, capital in these countries confronts low yields at home — spectacularly so in the case of Japan and the eurozone — and higher US Treasury yields, along with further potential strengthening of the dollar. This provides much of the explanation for last year’s decline in Treasury yields despite the maturing of the economic recovery, which would normally have prompted rising yields.
所有高储蓄经济体都存在经常账目盈余，这就要求等额的资本账户赤字。由于这些经济体的货币贬值，这些国家的资金面对的是较低的国内收益率（日本和欧元区的情况最为明显）、以及较高的美国国债收益率，此外美元还有进一步升值的可能性。这在很大程度上解释了，为何去年尽管经济复苏企稳，但美国国债收益率仍然下降——在正常情况下，经济复苏企稳原本应该会推高美国国债收益率。
The combination of dollar strength and declining Treasury yields seems likely to persist. Elsewhere in the developed world yields are set to rise, chiefly where default risk enters the picture, as in Greece on the basis of recent political instability.
美元走强与美国国债收益率不断下降并存的局面看上去可能会延续下去。在所有其他发达国家，国债收益率应该会上升，尤其是出现违约风险的国家，鉴于近来不稳定的政治局势，希腊可算一例。
Markets are proving remarkably sanguine about other peripheral eurozone sovereign debt. Given the structural flaws in the monetary union, the ECB’s dilatory approach to quantitative easing and German-led fiscal conservatism, that may not last. More generally, against the background of a rise in non-financial debt in advanced economies from 212 per cent of GDP in 1999 to 279 per cent in 2014, of which more than half has taken place since the global financial crisis, occasional neurotic spasms in the markets are inevitable.
实际上，市场对其他欧元区外围国家的主权债务显出了不同寻常的乐观。鉴于欧元货币联盟的结构性缺陷、欧洲央行在施行量化宽松上的拖拉，以及德国主导的财政保守主义，这种乐观可能不会持续下去。总的来说，在发达经济体债务对GDP比例从1999年的212%升高至2014年的279%的背景下（一大半升幅是在全球金融危机爆发后完成的），市场时不时“抽风”是不可避免的。
Emerging markets will have a much tougher time in this deflationary world. They may again become an important locus of global financial instability, and not just in Russia. US dollar denominated non-financial debt outside the US now stands at more than $9tn, according to the Bank for International Settlements, compared with $6tn at the start of 2010. The biggest increase has been in corporate bonds issued by emerging market companies tapping investors desperate for yield. The currency mismatch means a strengthening dollar tightens financial conditions as attempts to pay down dollar debt forces the dollar higher, causing a vicious circle.
在这个以通缩为主题的世界里，各个新兴市场将迎来一段艰难得多的时期。不只是俄罗斯，这些新兴市场都可能再度成为全球金融动荡的重要动荡点。国际清算银行(BIS)数据显示，如今美国以外地区以美元计价的非金融企业债务超过了9万亿美元，而2010年初这个数字为6万亿美元。增加比例最高的是新兴市场公司发行的公司债，它们利用的是某些投资者渴望高收益的心理。这种货币错配意味着，美元走强会让资金状况更加紧张，因为尝试清偿美元债务会迫使美元进一步走高，从而引发恶性循环。
This is a fearful world in which geopolitical risk, competitive devaluations and protectionist pressure could bring a descent into intractable deflation and long-depressed yields in the absence of robust policy.
这是一个令人担心的世界：若不出台强有力的政策，地缘政治风险、竞争性货币贬值和贸易保护主义压力，可能让经济滑向难以消除的通缩和长期的低收益率。
The writer is an FT columnist
本文作者为《金融时报》专栏作家