サブプライム危機と歴史の教訓

●Barry Eichengreen, “Back to the ‘Thirties with a Twist”（VOX, August 30, 2008）

One of the chief ways financial market participants make sense of events is by drawing parallels with the past. The subprime crisis, when it first erupted, was widely perceived as the most dangerous financial crisis since the 1930s. The implication was that it was critical to avoid the policy mistakes that transformed that earlier crisis into a macroeconomic disaster. Specifically, it was important to avoid an excessively tight monetary policy.

Now, with inflation surging, the popular parallel is not the deflationary 1930s but the stagflationary 1970s. Again the implication is that it is important for policymakers to avoid past mistakes. This time, however, past mistakes means a monetary policy that allows inflation expectations to become unanchored.

The Fed’s mistake was cutting interest rates so dramatically when it expanded its credit facilities. Better would have been to lend freely at a penalty rate, a la Bagehot. Higher interest rates which made its emergency credit more costly would have meant better targeted lending and less inflation.

1930年代の銀行危機の経験から中央銀行が最後の貸し手として機能することの重要性を歴史の教訓として引き出すのは正しい歴史の利用法であるといえる。しかしながら、1930年代のデフレーションとは反対にインフレ加速の瀬戸際に立たされている状況で金利引き下げを伴いつつ最後の貸し手として機能しようとする現在のFRBの政策運営方針には疑問がある（中銀貸出には市場金利を上回る罰則的金利を課すべきではないか）。現在反面教師として依拠すべき過去は1930年代ではなく1970年代であり、FRBが優先的に取り組むべき政策課題はインフレ期待の不安定化をいかにして防止するかということである。