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"全球储蓄过剩"的终结？

Apr 4, 2022 Jim O'Neill

发自伦敦—2005年，时任美国联邦储备委员会理事的本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）提出了全球储蓄过剩的观点以解释美国为何持续出现经常项目赤字。与1980和1990年代的许多学术思想不同，他认为是美国以外的过剩储蓄导致利率——尤其是长期利率——低于应有水平。

伯南克完善了一个时任美联储主席格林斯潘也曾探讨过的想法，指出美国的经常项目赤字之所以持续存在是因为美国国债吸引了世界各地渴望持有所谓安全资产的储蓄者。过去有种假设认为这些持续赤字将在某个时候危及美元的稳定并迫使美国提高利率以防止通胀和国内金融动荡。

伯南克的论点在当时的国际货币界日益流行，并在2008年金融危机后通胀率长期维持低位、美国的经常项目赤字持续存在时获得了更广泛的认同。从2000年代末开始许多企业改变了自身储蓄行为，着手设立特殊专项基金，也进一步推动了想法。

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Will Sanctioning Russia Upend the Monetary System? Economics
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Will Sanctioning Russia Upend the Monetary System?

Jim O'Neill explains why the dollar will remain globally dominant after the latest demonstration of its political power.

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Tim Keese Apr 10, 2022

"Even if the savings-glut thesis is true, why do all these countries need persistent massive current-account surpluses? "

Have you forgotten the Asian crisis 1997/8? Those countries learned a lesson not to be short $ - not to import more than export - and have been doing so since. Thus $ surpluses, i.e. Savings Glut.

This certainly one cause, perhaps the main cause.
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bill.diviney Apr 8, 2022

What about term premium? Bond yields are driven by: inflation, central bank policy expectations, and term premium. Term premium, according to Crump & Moench's estimate, has been largely negative in recent years. Central bank balance sheet policies are surely a factor, but arguably so is the savings glut hypothesis.
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vic lai Apr 5, 2022

Russia's simply dictating the transaction of her natural gas (and possibly other resources as well) with the European Union solely in rubles in the near future isn't enough.
She has to
(i) force the EU countries to accept rubles when Russia is importing goods and services from the EU, and
(ii) develop and deepen her own ruble-denominated treasury market in her country, so that the rubles held by the EU from now on has a good store of value, and so will return back to Russia to finance both the deficit (and military) spending and the BOP deficits of Russia year-in and year-out.
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Money, especially an international currency, not only serves as a unit of account or a medium of exchange, but also as a store of value and a standard for deferred payment.
This is just Money and Banking 101.
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- vic lai Apr 5, 2022
  
  Right now, Russia just demands the unfriendly EU countries to transfer Euros to an account in Gazprombank, which will then buy rubles on behalf of the European gas buyer, so that the paid Euros are now safely stored in Russia instead of in an European bank in the EU (which may easily freeze the foreign currencies so owned by Russia).
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  Those Euros now owned by Russia will probably be recycled back to a bank in the EU one day in the future, through Russia's future imports from the EU ------ this shows that today's Russia has no intention or ambition to internationalize the rubles through the help of the current Ukrainian War.
  Similarly, China's current top leaders have the highest priority of maintaining the rule of the CCP in China and has no real intention of further internationalizing the yuan and so challenging the global dominance of the US dollar as a "collateral damage".
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  Which means, the world has at most entered the stage of Bretton Woods 2.1 only, rather than Zoltan Pozsar's recently claimed BW 3.
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  - vic lai Apr 7, 2022
    
    Only when Russia can, in addition to the current OPEC+ global oil cartel, form effective and enforceable global commodity cartels, food cartels, and fertilizer cartels with other willing and cooperating countries (which are all protected from foreign military invasions), will the current BW2.0 be genuinely challenged or even replaced by a new BW 3.
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    Doing so will turn a great part of the global international trade market from the current buyer's market (dominated by the US$ and the Euro, an implicit assumption of Modern Monetary Theory) to a seller's market (dominated by the energy, food and commodity sellers) ------ the traditional dominance of the money flow in the global circular flow of income will shift to the parallel but opposite real flow.
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    Russia should instead ask her unfriendly EU countries to export goods and services she wants to her to get the rubles, before they can buy the energy, commodities, food and fertilizers from her, because in the current arrangement, the Euros gotten by Russia can still be frozen or even confiscated by the EU, because every international real good transaction by Russia using Euro in the future will be matched by a parallel net payment of Euro reserves between two international commercial banks ------- all these reserve flows will be closely watched and controlled in real time by the European Central Bank (ECB), just like currently every international global transaction in US dollar, and its parallel reserve transaction between banks, are under the close watch and control of the US Fed.
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alex Finch Apr 4, 2022

Jeremy Siegel recently predicted that an inverted yield curve may NOT be signaling a recession this time, because the long end is being pushed down more than usual by huge demand regardless of high inflation (as I understand his argument). Is that not proof the savings glut is alive and well? You could have mortgage rates at 5%, inflation at 5%, and the 10-yr treasury at 3%……?
- bill.diviney Apr 8, 2022
  
  Exactly, hence term premium is -40bp, when in the past it would have been at least +50-100bp. In other words, 10y Treasury yields would be approaching 4% in the current environment were it not for all of this excess liquidity (which, aside from current account surplus countries, is also coming from central bank balance sheet policies).
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- Safis Hajjouz Apr 5, 2022
  
  You understood correct. One reason 10-year yield might be going down is this. But, there is a reverse causality problem. Investors might expect a recession over the more medium term horizon and start purchasing more long bonds for protection
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