全球金融危机的结构性原因：“新金融架构”的一个关键性评价

1. Introduction介绍

In the aftermath of the financial collapse in the USA that began in 1929, it was almostuniversally believed that unregulated financial markets are inherently unstable, subject tofraud and manipulation by insiders, and capable of triggering deep economic crises andpolitical and social unrest. To protect the country from these dangers, in the mid 1930sthe US government created a strict financial regulatory system that worked effectivelythrough the 1960s. These economic and political events found reflection in the financialmarket theories of endogenous financial instability created by John Maynard Keynes andHyman Minsky. Their theories generated a policy perspective supportive of the sharp shift from light to tight financial market regulation that took place after the Great Crash.Economic and financial turbulence in the 1970s and early 1980s led to both a paradigmand a policy regime shift. Efficient financial market theory and new classical macrotheory replaced the theoretical visions of Keynes and Minsky, and the existing system oftight financial regulation was deconstructed through radical deregulation pushed byfinancial institutions and justified by efficient financial market theory. These developmentsfacilitated the transition to a new globally-integrated deregulated neoliberalcapitalism.1The main thesis of this paper is that, although problems in the US subprimemortgage market triggered the current financial crisis, its deep cause on the financial sideis to be found in the flawed institutions and practices of the current financial regime, oftenreferred to as the New Financial Architecture (NFA). (While the global crisis clearly hasboth financial- and real-sector roots, this paper deals primarily with the former.) ‘NewFinancial Architecture’ refers to the integration of modern day financial markets with theera’s light government regulation. After 1980, accelerated deregulation accompanied byrapid financial innovation stimulated powerful financial booms that always ended incrises. Governments responded with bailouts that allowed new expansions to begin.These in turn ended in crises, which triggered new bailouts. Over time, financialmarkets grew ever larger relative to the nonfinancial economy, important financialproducts became more complex, opaque and illiquid, and system-wide leverageexploded. As a result, financial crises became more threatening. This processculminated in the current crisis, which is so severe that it has pushed the globaleconomy to the brink of depression. Fear of financial and economic collapse hasinduced unprecedented government rescue efforts that have been, to date, unable toend the crisis. In the next section of the paper we present a description of key structuralflaws in the financial institutions and practices of the neoliberal era that helped generatethe current crisis. This section is taken from a much more detailed analysis of thesestructural flaws (see Crotty, 2008).

2. Key structural flaws of the new financial architecture

2.1 The NFA is built on a very weak theoretical foundation 

2.2 The NFA has widespread perverse in2centives that create excessive risk, exacerbatebooms and generate crises

2.3 Innovation created important financial products so complex and opaque they could not be priced correctly; they therefore lost liquidity when the boom ended

2.4 The claim that commercial banks distributed almost all risky assets to capital markets and hedged whatever risk remained was false

2.5 Regulators allowed banks to hold assets off balance sheet with no capital required tosupport them

2.6 Regulators allowed giant banks to measure their own risk and set their own capitalrequirements. Given perverse incentives, this inevitably led to excessive risk-taking

2.7 Heavy reliance on complex financial products in a tightly integrated global financialsystem created channels of contagion that raised systemic risk

2.8 The NFA facilitated the growth of dangerously high system-wide leverage

3. Conclusion总结

The past quarter century of deregulation and the globalisation of financial markets,combined with the rapid pace of financial innovation and the moral hazard caused byfrequent government bailouts helped create conditions that led to this devastating financialcrisis. The severity of the global financial crisis and the global economic recession thataccompanied it demonstrate the utter bankruptcy of the deregulated global neoliberalfinancial system and the market fundamentalism it reflects. Many of its most influentialsupporters, including Alan Greenspan, have recanted. Senior Financial Times columnistMartin Wolf recently wrote: ‘The era of financial liberalisation has ended’ (Wolf, 2009).

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