As the period of ultra-loose monetary policy in the developed world inches to a close, a paradox calls for explanation. Throughout this extraordinary monetary experiment managers of listed companies appeared to see risks everywhere and have been reluctant to invest in fixed assets despite enjoying the lowest borrowing costs in history. By contrast financial institutions have been fearless in propelling markets ever higher.

随着发达国家的超宽松货币政策期接近终结，一个矛盾需要得到解释。纵观这次不寻常的货币实验，上市公司的管理者眼里似乎到处都是风险，尽管随手可得史上最低的借款成本，他们却不愿投资于固定资产。相比之下，金融机构却像不要命似的不断推高市场。

This dichotomy between subdued risk taking in the real economy and aggressive risk taking in financial markets has prompted Angel Gurría, general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Dev-elopment, to remark that one or other of these views will be proved wrong.

实体经济死气沉沉不愿冒险，而金融市场激进冒险，这种反差促使经合组织(OECD)秘书长安赫尔古里亚(Angel Gurría)评论称，这两种观点必然有一种将被证明是错误的。

With the US Federal Reserve now preparing to raise interest rates we may soon know whose judgment is dangerously flawed.

鉴于美联储(Fed)正准备提高利率，我们或许很快就能得知哪种判断存在危险的缺陷。

The behaviour of financial institutions, whether judicious or insane, is at least comprehensible. Central banks’ post-crisis bond buying programmes were precisely designed to prod investors to take on more risk. This has given further impetus to a secular decline in real interest rates that predated the financial crisis, reflecting such forces as the Asian savings glut, deficient in the west and adverse demographic trends. The outcome has been the much-discussed search for yield.

不管是明智还是疯狂，金融机构的行为至少是可以理解的。危机后央行的债券购买计划正是为了激励投资者承担更多风险。这进一步推动了在金融危机前已经出现的实际利率长期下滑，反映了亚洲储蓄过剩、西方投资不足以及人口结构趋势不利等多种力量。结果是人们已有很多讨论的对收益的追逐。

Downward pressure on yields has been reinforced by a shortage of so-called safe assets. Hence a stampede into sovereign bonds with negligible or negative yields — in effect, a search for non-yield. Even after the recent upturn in yields, investors are still paying some European governments to take their money.

所谓的安全资产的缺乏，加大了收益率的下行压力。于是，投资者蜂拥进入收益率微不足道甚至为负值的主权债券——实际上是在追逐无收益。即使在最近收益率有所回升之后，投资者依然要付钱让某些欧洲国家的政府借走自己的钱。

In a speech in June Andrew Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England, pointed out that there had been no precedent for such negative rates since the time of the Babylonians. Among the various potential explanations, Mr Haldane puts particular emphasis on the phenomenon of “dread risk”, a term used by psychologists to describe an exaggerated sense of fear and insecurity in the wake of catastrophic events.

英国央行(BoE)首席经济学家安德鲁霍尔丹(Andrew Haldane)在6月的一次讲话中指出，自巴比伦时代以来，人类历史上从未有过这样的负收益率先例。在多种可能的解释中，霍尔丹特别强调了“恐惧风险”(dread risk)现象，这是心理学家用来描述灾难性事件后放大的恐惧和不安全感的术语。

It certainly provides a plausible explanation of private sector savings behaviour after 2008. Back then, households and companies were running a combined financial deficit (income less spending) of 2.4 per cent of gross domestic product in the US and 1.5 per cent in the UK, while the eurozone was running a surplus of 2.4 per cent. So the private sector was neither saving nor dissaving to any great degree.

这无疑为2008年后私营部门的储蓄行为提供了一个可信的解释。2008年，美国家庭和企业的总财务赤字（收入扣除支出）占国内生产总值(GDP)的2.4%，在英国为1.5%，而欧元区私营部门运行着占GDP 2.4%的财务盈余。也就是说，私营部门既没有大举储蓄，也没有大举花掉储蓄。

By 2010 the private sector had switched to a large financial surplus of 7.2 per cent of GDP in the US, 8.2 per cent in the UK and 5.8 per cent in the eurozone. Serious thrift had set in.

到2010年，美国私营部门转为大幅财务盈余，达到GDP的7.2%，英国和欧元区分别为8.2%和5.8%。人们当真养成了节俭习惯。

Yet there are limits to the explanatory power of dread risk. Why should a once-in-5,000-year event have struck now, rather than in the 1930s Depression, which saw far greater losses of output and employment?

然而恐惧风险的解释力有限。为什么5000年一遇的事件会发生在当下，而不是上世纪30年代的大萧条时期？那时的产出和就业损失比现在严重得多。

Note, too, that the dichotomy between risk perceptions in the real economy and in the financial markets is partly an illusion. Industrialists are fuelling risk-taking in markets through buy-backs

还要注意的是，在一定程度上，实体经济和金融市场在风险认知上的反差是一种假象。企业家自身的回购和收购助推着金融市场上的冒险倾向。

In their recent Business and Finance Outlook, OECD economists identified flawed incentive structures as part of the reason for divergent perceptions of risk. They are surely right. The growth of buy-backs stems from equity-related incentives and performance-related pay. The most popular performance metrics, earnings per share and total shareholder return, are manipulable by management. No surprise, then, that survey evidence in the US has shown that profitable investment opportunities are routinely turned down in order to meet short-term earnings targets.

在最近一期《商业和金融展望》(Business and Finance Outlook)中，经合组织的经济学家们认为，风险认知不同的部分原因在于激励机制有缺陷。他们无疑是正确的。回购增长源于股权激励和绩效薪酬机制。最流行的业绩指标（每股盈利和股东总回报）可以受到企业管理层的操纵。难怪美国的调查结果表明，企业为了达到短期盈利目标，经常放弃有利可图的投资机会。

A different take comes from economists at the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements. For them, the people who suffer most from dread risk — though they do not use the term — are central bankers. The folk in Basel believe that low interest rates beget yet lower rates because they cause bubbles, followed by central bank bailouts. Their worry is that we risk trapping ourselves in a cycle of financial imbalances and busts. Unlike Mr Haldane, they would like to see an early return to monetary “normalisation”.

位于巴塞尔(Basel)的国际清算银行(Bank for International Settlements)的经济学家们提出了另一个见解。在他们看来，受恐惧风险（尽管他们没有使用这个词）影响最严重的是央行官员。巴塞尔的这些经济学家认为，低利率会进一步催生低利率，因为它们会引起泡沫，而泡沫破裂后央行会出手纾困。他们的担忧是，我们有可能陷入金融失衡和崩盘的循环。和英国央行的霍尔丹不同，他们希望货币政策尽早回归“正常化”。

This, though, would be painful. Even a modest move in the direction of historic interest rate norms could pose a threat to solvency, not least for banks whose balance sheets are stuffed with sovereign debt. The search for non-yield has made safe assets unsafe, while rock-bottom policy interest rates have restricted central bankers’ crisis management toolbox. Escaping from this once-in-5,000-year aberration may thus require Houdini-like skills.

不过，这将是痛苦的。即使是朝着长期利率常态的方向迈出有分寸的一步，也可能对偿付能力构成威胁，尤其是对那些资产负债表上积压大量主权债务的银行。对无收益的追逐让安全资产不安全，而低得不能再低的政策利率又限制了央行官员管理危机的手段。因此，要从这场5000年一遇的反常事态脱身，需要魔术大师霍迪尼(Houdini)那样的高超技巧。