经济学人双语 外汇储备-家底殷实才能迎战美元虐杀2023(精选/商情)

Big Asian economies take on the forces of international capital—and win

亚洲大型经济体与国际资本开展较量——并且占据上风

They 2023已更新(访谈/互动) are now rebuilding their arsenals

重建外汇储备

Battling currency markets used to be considered unwise by central bankers and policymakers. Burning foreign-exchange reserves to take on the forces that push and pull a currency's value was foolish, so the thinking went, and almost certainly futile. Orthodoxy held that a country seeking to defend its currency should raise interest rates, not sell reserves.

曾经，央行和政策制定者认为与货币市场作斗争是不明智的行为。因此，通过消耗外汇储备来对抗拉高或降低汇率的力量是愚蠢的，几乎可以确定是徒劳无功。主流观点认为：想要守住本币的国家应该提高利率，而非抛售外汇储备。

This was put through a real-world test last year as America raised rates and the dollar climbed in value. Officials in many emerging economies deployed their holdings 2023(即时/研究)to defend local currencies. According to the imf, global foreign-exchange reserves fell by $1.1trn between the end of 2020 and the third quarter of 2022, with holdings of dollar-denominated assets accounting for half the decline.

随着去年美国加息和美元升值，上述观点经历了现实世界的考验。许多新兴经济体的官员采用外汇储备资产来捍卫本币。国际货币基金组织（IMF）的数据显示，2020末至2022年第三季度，全球外汇储备减少了1.1万亿美元，其中一半以美元计价。

During the past few months, however, the process has begun to reverse, as the dollar has fallen and pressure on countries that intervene to defend their currencies has abated. The combined holdings of large Asian reserve holders—China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan—have risen by $243bn since October, through a combination of revaluation and new purchases, to a total of $5.6trn. India's foreign-exchange reserves are up by $42bn since October, too, recovering more than a third of their decline in the preceding 12 months.

然而，过去的几个月里，情势发生逆转：美元已经下跌，为保护本币而采取干预措施的国家面临的压力逐渐减弱。10月以来，通过资产价值重估和购买新的外汇，中国、日本、韩国和中国台湾等外汇储备较多的亚洲国家或地区—持有的外汇总额增加了2430亿美元，达到5.6万亿美元。印度外汇储备自10月以来也上升了420亿美元，相当于此前一年中跌幅的三分之一。

A recent paper by Rashad Ahmed of America's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and co-authors suggests that big reserve accumulators may, in fact, have reason to rebuild. Countries that entered 2021 with larger 2023已更新(网评/组图) reserves and greater credibility in their capacity to intervene saw smaller depreciations in their currencies, all else equal. The authors calculate that additional reserves worth ten percentage points of national gdp were associated with 1.5% to 2% less depreciation in the domestic currency, relative to the dollar.

Meanwhile, a number of countries which began this period with modest reserves have suffered deep depreciations. The Egyptian pound, which traded at 16 to the dollar at the start of 2020, now trades at 31. The official exchange rate of the Pakistani rupee has also weakened, from 154 to the dollar at the start of the covid-19 pandemic to 278 more recently. In both places black markets offer even weaker rates.

两相对比之下，同期，以较少外汇储备起手的国家都遭遇了严重的本币贬值。2020年年初，埃及镑兑美元汇率为16:1，现在已跌至31:1。巴基斯坦卢比的更新成功(现在/组图) 官方汇率也有疲软，从新冠疫情初期的154:1跌至近来的278:1。而在两国的黑市中，汇率报价甚至更低。

Mr Ahmed and co-authors note that healthy foreign-exchange reserves could have another benefit. Removing the need for interest rates to be used to defend the currency enables “domestic monetary policy to better target domestic objectives”.

艾哈迈德与合著者还指出，健康的外汇储备可能还有另一个好处，那就是无需再使用利率来捍卫本币，这使得“国内的货币政策能够更好地为达成国内目标服务”。

The danger, however, is that currency intervention comes to be seen as a way to avoid more painful interest-rate rises. Although the imf is not as vehemently opposed to foreign-exchange intervention as it once was, it still draws some limits. As recently as October, around the time when the dollar peaked, Gita Gopinath, the institution's deputy managing director, and Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, its chief economist, warned developing economies not to use currency 2023已更新(品牌/要闻) intervention in place of tighter monetary and fiscal policy.

然而，危险在于，货币干预开始被用来代替令人痛苦的加息。尽管IMF不再像从前那样强烈反对干预外汇市场，但仍然设定了一些限制。就在10月，美元见顶前后，IMF副总裁吉塔·戈皮纳特（Gita Gopinath）及首席经济学家皮埃尔-奥利维尔·古林查斯（Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas）警告称，发展中国家不应用货币干预来代替货币和财政紧缩。

The experience of large currency-reserve holders during the dollar's recent surge might give governments other ideas. Being able to resist the pressure to follow the Fed's interest-rate movements is a goal held by many developing economies—and the more reserves they hold, the more resistant they seem to become.

近期美元飙升期间外汇储备大户们的经历可能会给政府带来别的想法。能够顶住压力，不被美联储的利率变动牵着走是许多发展中国家的目标——而它们持有的储备越多，底气似乎就越大。