市場の失敗？ 政策の失敗？

●Tyler Cowen, “Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?”（New York Times, December 26, 2008）

THE financial crisis is a result of many bad decisions, but one of them hasn’t received enough attention: the 1998 bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund. If regulators had been less concerned with protecting the fund’s creditors, our current problems might not be quite so bad.

With the Long-Term Capital bailout as a precedent, creditors came to believe that their loans to unsound financial institutions would be made good by the Fed — as long as the collapse of those institutions would threaten the global credit system. Bolstered by this sense of security, bad loans mushroomed.

今般の金融危機は規制なき市場の失敗とだけは必ずしもいえないかもしれない。1998年におけるLTCMの救済（ベイルアウト）が先例となって、貸し手（creditors）のモラルハザード（＝政府による救済を前提としたリスキーな（あるいはずさんな審査に基づく）貸出行動）が誘発された結果かもしれないのである。とすれば、今般の金融危機は規制なき市場の失敗という側面だけでなく（あるいはそれに加えて）政策の失敗という側面も備えているかもしれないのである。

コーエンのこの論説を読んでいて思い出したのは以下のフリードマンの論説。議論の対象は90年代の通貨危機で、批判の対象はIMFだけども。

●Milton Friedman, “Markets to the Rescue”（Wall Street Journal, October 13, 1998）

The IMF, sitting on a pile of funds, sought and found a new function: serving as an economic consulting agency to countries in trouble--an agency that was unusual in that it offered money instead of charging fees. It found plenty of clients, even though its advice was not always good and, even when good, was not always followed. However, its availability, and the funds it brought, encouraged country after country to continue with unwise and unsustainable policies longer than they otherwise would have or could have. Russia is the latest example. The end result has been more rather than less financial instability.

The Mexican bailout helped fuel the East Asian crisis that erupted two years later. It encouraged individuals and financial institutions to lend to and invest in the East Asian countries, drawn by high domestic interest rates and returns on investment, and reassured about currency risk by the belief that the IMF would bail them out if the unexpected happened and the exchange pegs broke. This effect has come to be called "moral hazard," though I regard that as something of a libel. If someone offers you a gift, is it immoral for you to accept it? Similarly, it's hard to blame private lenders for accepting the IMF's implicit offer of insurance against currency risk. However, I do blame the IMF for offering the gift. And I blame the United States and other countries that are members of the IMF for allowing taxpayer money to be used to subsidize private banks and other financial institutions.

あとコーエンの論説の後半部分はハートとジンガレスによる以下の論説と併せて読めばいいかもしれない。

●Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales, “Economists Have Abandoned Principle”（Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2008）