《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版

A special report on the euro area
欧元区特别报道

No exit 没有退路

Jun 11th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Staying in the euro will be tough for some members, but leaving would be too awful to contemplate
对一些成员国来说，呆在欧元区的日子不好过，但是考虑离开欧元区更可怕

Illustration by M. Morgenstern


IN THE weeks following the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September the number of euro banknotes in circulation suddenly increased. Fears about the rickety state of banks had made many people mistrustful of keeping money on deposit. Far safer to keep cash stuffed under a mattress. The more discriminating hoarders, it was said, were careful to squirrel away banknotes with serial numbers prefixed by the letter “X”, indicating currency issued in Germany. Notes with “U” (French) or “P” (Dutch) prefix were also fine, but those with a “Y” or an “S”, issued by Greece and Italy, were shunned.

去年9月自雷曼兄弟破产后的数周内流通中的欧元钞票数量骤增。摇摇欲坠的银行系统令人担忧，使得人们不敢将钱存入银行。人们认为将钱藏在家里更安全。据 说，越挑剔的储蓄者，越小心翼翼。他们喜欢储存序列号前缀为X的钞票，即在德国发行的货币。前缀为U（法国）或者P（荷兰）的钞票也可以，但是那些前缀为 Y或者S，分别是在希腊和意大利发行的钞票则是要极力避免的。

The logic was that if you were preparing for financial apocalypse, you had better not rely on the euro area surviving intact. In fact, banknotes are a shared obligation of all euro-zone members, no matter where they are printed. If the issuing country were to leave the single currency, a five-euro note would still be worth five euros, whatever the serial number. However, interest-bearing debt denominated in euros is a different matter, and bond markets quickly started to sort the Xs from the Ys.

这背后的逻辑是如果你警惕经济灾难，最好不要试图依靠欧元区而毫发无损。事实上，流通中的钞票是所有欧元区成员国的共同负债，不管它是在哪儿发行。如果发 行国打算放弃单一货币，一个5欧元的钞票仍然值5个欧元，不管它的序列号是什么。然而，欧元面值的有息负债却是另一回事，债券市场很快开始将前缀为X和Y 的钞票区分开来。

By early 2009 the yield on a ten-year Greek government bond was almost twice that on a comparable German Bund. The spread over Bunds for Italian, Spanish and Irish bonds also widened dramatically before narrowing again more recently. One explanation was that in skittish markets Bunds were prized for their extra liquidity. Another was that the bond-trading arms of bombed-out banks were less willing to make markets in the issues of small countries, such as Greece and Ireland, which left their prices unmoored.

2009年早些时候，希腊政府10年期国债收益率几乎是德国相应国债的两倍。意大利，西班牙和爱尔兰国债间的收益率差距在最近收窄前曾一度急剧扩大。一种 解释是在变幻莫测的市场中人们特别青睐流动性特好的债券。另一种解释是遭受重创的银行债券交易机构不愿意承销象希腊、爱尔兰等小国发行的债券，这使得这些 小国的国债价格下跌。

But at least part of the rise in spreads reflected concern that countries might find it hard to pay back their borrowings. The government bonds of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain were all downgraded a notch by credit-rating agencies. For some, bond spreads are a crude gauge of the risk that the euro will break up. If a euro-zone member were shut out of capital markets and had to default on its debt, it might be tempted to use the opportunity to recreate its own currency and devalue. In that event, creditors could be forced to convert their bonds into claims in a new currency at a discount linked to a new exchange rate against the euro. Default would be one way for countries to free themselves from the euro’s shackles—or, to look at it from the opposite point of view, for the euro zone to rid itself of troublesome members.

但是收益率差距扩大至少部分反映了人们对欧元区一些国家可能很难偿还借款的担忧。希腊、爱尔兰、葡萄牙和西班牙政府的国债评级全部被评级机构降了一级。对 一些人来说，国债收益差是对欧元区分裂风险的粗略估计。如果欧元区的一个成员国被资本市场拒之门外以及他不得不拖欠债务，他很可能趁机重新创造自己的货 币，然后进行贬值。如果那样，债权人将被迫将他们的债券以与新货币对欧元汇率相关联的新货币折价计算求偿权。违约将是这些国家逃脱欧元枷锁的一种方法或者 从相反的角度看，也是欧元区除掉其令人头疼的成员的方法。

A game of consequences
后果游戏

That kind of thinking, however, is found mostly among those who were doubtful that the euro would ever get off the ground in the first place. It is rare in countries seen as candidates for exit. As Eurocrats in Brussels are keen to stress, far from breaking up, the euro zone is growing. Since its launch it has taken on five new members, and more are queuing to join.

然而，那种想法主要集中在那些一开始就对欧元能否顺利实施的国家。现在还没有国家准备退出。布鲁塞尔的欧共体官员热衷于强调，欧元区正在扩大，远没有分裂。欧元启动以来已新增了五个成员，还有更多的国家正排队准备加入。

The costs of backing out of the euro are hard to calculate but would certainly be heavy. The mere whiff of devaluation would cause a bank run: people would scramble to deposit their euros with foreign banks to avoid forced conversion to the new, weaker currency. Bondholders would shun the debt of the departing country, and funding of budget deficits and maturing debt would be suspended.

中途退出欧元区的成本很难准确计算但是这个代价必然很沉重。仅仅一阵贬值将会引起银行挤兑：人们会争先将他们的欧元存入外国银行从而避免被迫转换为新的弱势货币。债券持有者将会极力避免可能会退出欧元区国家发行的债券，预算赤字的融资以及到期债务将会被延期。

Changing all contracts in euros—bonds, mortgages, bank deposits, wage deals and so on—to the new currency would be a logistical nightmare. The changeover to the euro was planned in detail and the exchange rate was fixed in advance, in co-operation with all the euro members. The reverse operation would be nothing like as orderly, not least because the exchange rate would be a moving target.

将债券、抵押贷款、银行存款和劳动合同等所有以欧元表示的合同转化为以新货币表示的合同将是一个后勤上的恶梦。各成员国货币统一为欧元时是经过详细计划的，汇率是同所有成员国合作提前固定的。反向操作不太可能有条理，有序进行，特别是因为汇率将会是一个不断变化的目标。

If businesses converted their debts to a weaker currency, that might constitute default and trigger legal challenges. If they stuck to their covenants, they would have to service their euro debts from earnings in a weaker currency. That would hurt firms which rely mostly on profits from their domestic market. The convulsions would be felt by other euro-area members too. The writedown of the departing country’s government bonds might threaten the solvency of banks in the rest of the euro zone. Around half of Italian government bonds, for instance, are held outside Italy. Other euro-area members could suffer contagion as markets bet on further defaults.

如果企业将他们的债务转化成以弱势货币计价，那将会引发一些违约现象并且引起法律上的挑战。如果他们按照原来的以欧元计价的合同，他们不得不用以弱势货币 计价的营业收入去偿还他们的欧元债务。那将对严重依赖国内市场的公司造成伤害。欧元区其他成员国也将感受到震荡。对要离开国政府债券的价值减计将会影响到 欧元区其他地区的银行的偿付能力。例如，约一半的意大利政府国债被国外的投资者持有。随着市场预期违约风险的加剧，欧元区其他成员国将会受到严重影响。

If the act of leaving would be hard, the aftermath might be even harder. A country that forced bondholders to take a loss would be punished. Continued access to bond markets would come at a high price. Investors would ask for a huge premium to cover the risk of further default. On that count alone, borrowing costs would be far higher than they were within the safer confines of the euro area.

如果说退出欧元区本身就困难重重，其影响可能会更严重。那些迫使债券持有者承担损失的国家将受到惩罚。再次进入债券市场的代价将会非常大。投资者会要求更高的溢价来弥补进一步加大的违约风险。仅这一点就会使得借款成本远远高于他们待在更安全的欧元区。

Investors would have to protect themselves from two further risks: exchange-rate volatility and inflation. A former euro member would have to reinvent its own monetary policy and would struggle to convince investors that it could keep a lid on inflation. One of the euro’s big attractions was that it offered many countries a shortcut to a credible monetary set-up. Devaluation could itself trigger a wage-price spiral. For high-debt countries, such as Greece and Italy, the interest rates demanded by markets to insure themselves against such risks would be ruinous.

投资者将不得不保护自己免受汇率波动和通货膨胀的风险。之前的欧元区成员国将不得不重新采用自己的货币政策并且努力使投资者相信他可以控制通货膨胀。欧元 最大的魅力之一是它为很多国家提供了一个实现有公信力的货币政策的捷径。贬值本身将引发工资-价格螺旋。对象希腊和意大利等高负债国家，市场投资者为确保 自身免受此类风险而要求的利率将会太高，且是破坏性的。

And even though the costs are likely to be heavy, the immediate benefits might prove only transitory. A devaluation is a proxy for a national pay cut: it helps exporters but makes consumers of imports poorer. Workforces would put up strong resistance to being paid in a weaker currency. In countries such as Greece and Ireland, whose exports contain a lot of imports, a devaluation would push up inflation. And where a large proportion of wage contracts is indexed to prices, as in Spain, higher inflation would rapidly work its way through to wages.

即使成本很可能很高，但最直接的好处却可能很短暂。贬值可以减少国民支出：它对出口商有利，但是对进口商品的消费者不利。劳动者将会强力组织反对以弱势货 币来支付薪酬。象希腊和爱尔兰等出口产品中进口大部分原料的国家，贬值会推高通货膨胀。在大部分工资合同根据物价进行调整的国家，例如西班牙，高通胀会很 快通过就会导致工资上涨。

The wrong cure
错误处方

An exit from the euro would not tackle weak productivity growth and inflexible wages, which are the root causes of low competitiveness. In time, further devaluations might be needed. Countries with high debts and a history of poor macroeconomic management would be most tempted to leave. But these are also the countries most likely to be hurt.

退出欧元区不会解决疲软的产出增长和刚性工资等导致经济低竞争力的根源问题。最终，欧元区可能需要进一步进行贬值。那些高负债以及宏观经济管理一直较差的国家将最有可能退出。但是这些国家也最可能受到伤害的。

A more plausible, though still unlikely, scenario would involve a breakaway by a group of low-debt and cost-competitive countries, centred around Germany. Members of a new, “hard” European currency would leave behind a stock of depreciating euro debt and might be rewarded by lower borrowing costs on debt issues in the new currency. Yet a large part of the appeal to Germany of the single currency has been that it rules out revaluations and rewards its firms for being competitive. Germany, France and the rest have too much invested in the success of the EU and the euro to put it at risk. As Daniel Gros of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels think-tank, puts it: “The weak can’t leave and the strong won’t leave.”

一个更合理但可能性较小的情景是以德国为中心的低负债和具有成本优势的一批国家集体退出。新的硬欧洲通货的成员将面对一些贬值的欧元债务并且采用新货币的 好处是债务的借贷成本将减少。但是单一货币对德国的魅力很大部分在于它排除了货币升值的可能性并且国内公司将因其竞争力而获利。德国、法国和其他国家对欧 盟的成功付出很多，欧元却将它置于危险境地。布鲁塞尔智囊团－欧洲政策研究中心的Daniel Gros说：“弱国不能离开并且强国不会离开 ”。