2021年经济学人 易受美国金融动荡影响的新"脆弱四国"(2)（在线收听）

Indeed, judged by the criteria of 2013, emerging markets today look far less fragile than they once were. Inflation is lower (only 1.4% in Indonesia) and "exchange-rate valuations have cheapened up considerably", says Mr Lord. Their current accounts are also "much improved". Indonesia's is now in surplus, as are India's and South Africa's.

事实上，以2013年的标准衡量，如今的新兴市场远没有过去那么脆弱。通货膨胀率较低(印度尼西亚只有1.4%)，“汇率估值也大幅降低”，劳德先生说。它们的经常账户也“大大改善”。印尼、印度和南非现在都处于盈余状态。

These past indicators of fragility, however, may not be appropriate for 2021. The pandemic has depressed demand and curtailed imports, which has temporarily narrowed current-account deficits around the world. But the fight against covid-19 has also dramatically widened another kind of deficit: the gap between government spending and revenues. Budget deficits averaged over 10% of GDP across the fragile five last year, according to the IMF. Fiscal sustainability "has become the key macro area of concern for some emerging markets", Mr Lord says.

然而，过去的这些脆弱性指标可能不适用于2021年。大流行抑制了需求，减少了进口，暂时缩小了世界各地的经常账户赤字。但抗击新冠也大幅扩大了另外一种赤字：政府支出与收入之间的差距。根据国际货币基金组织的数据，去年“脆弱五国”的平均预算赤字超过了GDP的10%。罗德表示，财政可持续性“已成为一些新兴市场担忧的关键宏观领域”。

Bond strategists at HSBC, a bank, published an alternative ranking of vulnerable emerging economies on March 2nd. The least resilient, according to their scorecard, are Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa. These economies have all been prone to current-account deficits in recent years, even if the pandemic has flattered the latest figures. And sizeable government debt in South Africa and especially Brazil leaves them exposed to any jump in interest rates, which are now unusually low.

3月2日，汇丰银行(HSBC)的债券策略师发布了另一份新兴经济体脆弱指数的排名。根据它们的记分卡，最不具弹性的国家是巴西、印度尼西亚、墨西哥和南非。这些经济体近年来都很容易出现经常账户赤字，即便大流行病夸大了最新数据。而南非，尤其是巴西的巨额政府债务，使得它们随时可能受到利率飙升的影响，而目前的利率水平低得异乎寻常。

The fairweather four

晴天四国

These are not the only potential sources of vulnerability. When American yields rise and the dollar strengthens, countries that have borrowed heavily in hard currencies find their debts harder to bear. But the trouble need not end there, according to Valentina Bruno of the American University in Washington, DC, and Hyun Song Shin of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Any deterioration in the creditworthiness of one borrower in an international lender's portfolio can limit the risks it is willing to take on other emerging markets, even those that mostly borrow in their own currency. Boris Hofmann and Taejin Park of the BIS have shown that a rising dollar is a particular danger to emerging markets that have sold a large share of their bonds to foreigners. One reason why Mexico is on HSBC's worry list and Turkey is not is that foreigners hold 46% of Mexico's local-currency government bonds and less than 7% of Turkey's.

这些并不是脆弱性的唯一潜在来源。当美国国债收益率上升，美元走强时，那些大量借入硬通货的国家会发现它们的债务更难承受。但华盛顿美国大学的瓦伦蒂娜·布鲁诺和国际清算银行(BIS)的申铉松认为，麻烦还不止于此。在国际银行的投资组合中，一个借款方的信用状况出现任何恶化，都会限制它愿意承担的其他新兴市场风险，即使是那些主要以本币借贷的市场。国际清算银行的鲍里斯·霍夫曼和泰金·帕克的研究表明，美元不断升值对已将很大一部分债券出售给外国人的新兴市场尤其危险。墨西哥在汇丰银行的担忧名单上而土耳其不在，原因之一是外国人持有墨西哥46%的本币政府债券，而土耳其的不到7%。

These findings create a headache for conscientious finance ministers in emerging markets. If they strive to reform their economies to make them less fragile, they will become more attractive to foreign investors, who will then snap up a greater share of their bonds. But that could make them more vulnerable to a sell-off whenever global financial conditions darken. Indonesia's reforms after the taper tantrum soon won praise from the IMF and attracted foreign buyers back to its bond market. But, Mr Basri admits, these inflows increased the vulnerability of Indonesia's economy to a reversal when global markets wobbled again in 2015. Emerging economies are not powerless victims of the Fed. But they can be hapless victims of their own success.

这些发现让新兴市场尽责的财政部长们感到头疼。如果它们努力改革经济，使其不那么脆弱，它们将对外国投资者更具吸引力，然后外国投资者将抢购它们更多的债券。但这可能使它们在全球金融状况恶化时更容易遭到抛售。在缩减恐慌之后，印尼的改革很快赢得了国际货币基金组织(IMF)的赞扬，并吸引了外国买家重返其债券市场。但巴斯里承认，这些资金流入加剧了印尼经济在2015年全球市场再次动荡时遭遇逆转的脆弱性。新兴经济体并非美联储手无缚鸡之力的受害者，但他们也可能成为自己成功的不幸受害者。