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Finance & economics | Buttonwood
财经版块 | 梧桐树专栏
英文部分选自经济学人20260912期财经版块
What is causing the global bond sell-off?
全球债券抛售，原因几何？
India hints at the answer
且看印度
WHEN GLASS-HALF-EMPTY types look at bond yields surging around the world, they blame feckless politicians. In America Donald Trump is presiding over huge deficits and trying to bully the Federal Reserve into easy money. Politicians elsewhere are similarly blasé about borrowing, and only a bit less about central-bank independence. Higher yields reflect, on this theory, investors’ alarm that all this will lead to higher inflation.
当悲观主义者看到全球债券收益率飙升时，他们归咎于不负责任的政客。在美国，唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）主政下财政赤字高企，他还试图胁迫美联储推行宽松货币政策。其他地方的政客对举债过日子同样满不在乎，对维护央行独立性也好不到哪里去，只是态度稍微谨慎一些。按照悲观主义者的这套理论，收益率上升反映的是投资者对这一切将推高通胀的担忧。
The glass-half-full view, championed by America’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is that bond markets are reacting to prospects of faster long-term economic growth. The artificial-intelligence revolution will raise productivity in the future but needs plenty of capital in the present to build data centres and electricity generation to power them. The public sector is thus competing for money with the private sector.
相反，以美国财政部长斯科特·贝森特（Scott Bessent）为代表的乐观派则认为，债券市场这一动向是在对经济长期更快增长的前景做出反应。人工智能革命未来将提高生产率，但当下需要大量资本来建设数据中心，以及为其供电的发电设施。因此，公共部门正在与私营部门争夺资金。
One test of the two theories is India. The yield on ten-year Treasuries is up by 0.67 percentage points this year, to 4.8%. That on the equivalent Indian government securities (Gsecs) has risen by 0.37 points, to 7%. That spread remains near historic lows. Whatever is causing bond yields to spike is having less of an effect on the world’s largest democracy than on its oldest one. Why?
检验上述两套理论孰优孰劣的一个样本是印度。今年十年期美国国债收益率上升了0.67个百分点，达到4.8%。与之对应的印度政府证券（Gsecs）收益率仅上升了0.37个百分点，达到7%。两者之间的利差仍接近历史低位。无论是什么原因导致债券收益率飙升，其对世界最大民主国家印度的影响都小于对最古老民主国家美国的影响。原因何在？
Growth in India is blistering. In the second quarter GDP expanded by 7.8% year on year; the figure for the preceding three months was 8.6%. Private investment shot up by nearly 12%. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy, a private data-compiler whose numbers market-watchers trust more than the official ones, reckons new projects, particularly data centres and nuclear power plants, were up by 27%. If exchequers are competing with a newly capital-intensive private sector then Gsecs should be feeling it more than many rich-world bonds. A wicket against the growth theory, then.
印度的经济增长势头异常强劲。今年第二季度，其国内生产总值同比增长7.8%；而前一个季度的增速更是高达8.6%。私人投资猛增近12%。印度经济监测中心是一家私营数据编制机构，市场观察人士对其数据的信任度高于官方数据；该机构估计，新项目数量增加了27%，尤以数据中心和核电站为甚。既然印度政府财政部门正在与新近转向资本密集型的私营部门展开竞争，那么印度政府证券受到的影响应当比许多发达国家债券更大。然而事实并非如此。那么，乐观主义者的增长理论先失一分。
注释：wicket是板球术语，本意为三门柱。板球比赛中，击球方要保护自己的三柱门；投球方每击倒一个三柱门，击球方就损失一名击球手（lose a wicket）；击球方共有10个三柱门，全部被击倒则整局结束。所以a wicket against somebody意思是“某人失一分”
What about economic policy? Early during the recovery from the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, rich countries ignored inflation risk and overstimulated their economies. Poorer ones, by contrast, raised rates swiftly and were less profligate. Once you strip out a few defaulters, the spread between poor-world debt and Treasuries is the narrowest since early in the global financial crisis of 2007-09.
那是否是悲观者认为的经济政策方面的原因呢？2020年和2021年，新冠疫情后的经济复苏刚开始时，富裕国家忽视了通胀风险，对经济刺激过度。相比之下，较贫穷国家迅速加息，财政支出也更加节制。剔除少数违约国后，贫困国家债务与美国国债之间的利差已降至2007年至2009年全球金融危机初期以来的最低水平。
India is a case in point. In the decade since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has had an inflation target (of 4% plus or minus two percentage points), prices have risen by an average of 4.6% a year, compared with 8.1% in the previous ten years. The primary fiscal deficit (ie, before interest payments) is back below 2%, near to where it had fallen before covid forced governments everywhere to spend more. This year the government is raising subsidies for fertiliser and fuel, whose prices have rocketed owing to the war in Iran. But it may offset part of this with revenue from privatisations of some large state-owned firms. A run for the rich-world institutional-decay hypothesis.
印度就是一个典型例证。自印度储备银行（RBI）设定通胀目标（4%，上下浮动两个百分点）以来的十年里，物价平均每年上涨4.6%，而此前十年为8.1%。基本财政赤字（即未计入利息支出的赤字）已重回2%以下，接近新冠疫情暴发前的水平（疫情曾迫使世界各国政府扩大财政支出）。今年，由于伊朗战争导致化肥和燃料价格飙升，印度政府正在增加对这两类商品的补贴。不过，政府或可利用部分大型国有企业私有化所得的收入，抵消一部分新增支出。悲观主义者的“富裕世界制度衰败”理论得一分。
注释：run 是板球（cricket）术语，指跑动得分。板球基本规则是：击球手击中球后，与搭档在两端三柱门之间跑动交换位置；每成功完成一次交换，击球方得一分（one run）；得分越多，对击球方越有利。所以a run for somebody意思是某人得一分。
Test match over? Not quite. The Indian bond market is, as in many other large emerging economies, full of captive investors who have no choice but to lump it and accept lower yields than they would like. Big domestic buyers of government bonds, such as life insurers, banks and pension funds, do not have the option of shifting capital out of the country. Much of the $127bn that the RBI has attracted to Indian banks with a scheme that subsidises foreign-currency deposits of non-resident Indians will be parked in Gsecs.
那么，这场理论较量就此结束了吗？还没有。与许多其他大型新兴经济体一样，印度债券市场中有大量受制于本土市场的投资者，他们别无选择，只能接受低于自己期望的收益率。人寿保险公司、银行和养老基金等政府债券的国内主要买家，无法将资本转移到国外。印度储备银行通过一项为非居民印度人的外币存款提供补贴的计划，为印度银行业吸引了1270亿美元，其中很大一部分将投向印度政府证券。
注释：“Test match” 是板球术语，指测试赛（国际板球最高级别比赛，通常打五天）。
And since getting capital out of India is hard, foreign investors are reluctant to provide lots of it in the first place. Only around 3% of Gsecs are owned by foreigners. This limits the need to worry about bond vigilantes. Rich countries may look at all this and conclude that the way to contain bond yields is to meddle in capital markets. Ahead of America’s midterm elections in November, Mr Bessent has tried to lower long-term yields, which determine the interest rates on things like mortgages, by announcing that the Treasury Department would buy up more long-dated bonds.
而由于资金难以撤出印度，外国投资者从一开始就不愿投入太多。目前，只有约3%的印度政府证券由外国投资者持有。这使印度不太需要担心“债券义警”。富裕国家可能会据此得出结论：要遏制债券收益率上升，就得干预资本市场。在美国11月中期选举前，贝森特宣布财政部将购买更多长期债券，试图压低长期收益率，因为它决定着房贷等贷款的利率。
注释：bond vigilantes：债券义警，指通过抛售债券来抗议财政或货币政策、推高收益率的投资者。
That is precisely the wrong lesson to draw. India’s experience shows the importance of cleaning up public finances and letting central bankers fight inflation in peace. It is also trying to attract more foreign capital, even introducing a tax break for bond investors (vigilante or not). The country may be an imperfect test of what is going on with bonds. But it shows that institutions matter—and that investors know it.
但这恰恰是错误的结论。印度的经验表明，整顿公共财政、让央行官员不受干扰地抗击通胀至关重要。印度也在努力吸引更多外资，甚至为债券投资者推出了税收优惠，无论他们是否属于“债券义警”。印度或许不是检验债券市场变化原因的完美样本，但它表明，制度很重要——而投资者也明白这一点。
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Ithil，男， 胡辣汤爱好者，世界杯冠军、三星阿根廷球迷
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