美联储金融维稳报告

The Federal Reserve''s Framework for Monitoring Financial Stability 美联储金融维稳报告

It is a pleasure to be back at the Economic Club of New York. I will begin by briefly reviewing the outlook for the economy and then turn to a discussion of financial stability. My main subject today will be the profound transformation since the Global Financial Crisis in the Federal Reserve''s approach to monitoring and addressing financial stability. Today marks the publication of the Board of Governors'' first Financial Stability Report. Earlier this month, we published our first Supervision and Regulation Report. Together, these reports contain a wealth of information on our approach to financial stability and to financial regulation more broadly. By clearly and transparently explaining our policies, we aim to strengthen the foundation of democratic legitimacy that enables the Fed to serve the needs of the American public.

纽约经济俱乐部的老铁们，我鲍威尔又回来了。月初我们发布了监管报告，这一次的报告将是金融维稳报告，这两份报告都老重要了，大家得竖起耳朵听。

Outlook and Monetary Policy 前瞻与货币政策

Congress assigned the Federal Reserve the job of promoting maximum employment and price stability. I am pleased to say that our economy is now close to both of those objectives. The unemployment rate is 3.7 percent, a 49-year low, and many other measures of labor market strength are at or near historic bests. Inflation is near our 2 percent target. The economy is growing at an annual rate of about 3 percent, well above most estimates of its longer-run trend.

国会给我们（美联储）布置了两项任务：充分就业和物价稳定，很高兴我们两项都完成得差不多了。失业率现在是49年新低的3.7%，通胀也在2%目标附近。我们的经济正以3%的年增长率向前迈进，这可比我们的长期预测要快多了。

For seven years during the crisis and its painful aftermath, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept our policy interest rate unprecedentedly low--in fact, near zero--to support the economy as it struggled to recover. The health of the economy gradually but steadily improved, and about three years ago the FOMC judged that the interests of households and businesses, of savers and borrowers, were no longer best served by such extraordinarily low rates. We therefore began to raise our policy rate gradually toward levels that are more normal in a healthy economy. Interest rates are still low by historical standards, and they remain just below the broad range of estimates of the level that would be neutral for the economy‑‑that is, neither speeding up nor slowing down growth. My FOMC colleagues and I, as well as many private-sector economists, are forecasting continued solid growth, low unemployment, and inflation near 2 percent.

回顾（08年金融危机后的）7年血泪史，我们美联储一直用放水接近0的超低利率来支持我们的襁褓中的国民经济，直到三年前，我们认为是时候让这个婴儿自己学会走路了。之后，为了我们美国经济再度繁荣富强，我们开始加息。顺便提一句，现在的利率水平按历史标准来看仍然偏低，也达不到支持我们重返繁荣富强的标准。我和我的同事们（以及外边的一些经济学家兄弟）都认为我们的经济将继续增长，失业率低位无虞，通胀也将维持在2%附近。

There is a great deal to like about this outlook. But we know that things often turn out to be quite different from even the most careful forecasts. For this reason, sound policymaking is as much about managing risks as it is about responding to the baseline forecast. Our gradual pace of raising interest rates has been an exercise in balancing risks. We know that moving too fast would risk shortening the expansion. We also know that moving too slowly--keeping interest rates too low for too long--could risk other distortions in the form of higher inflation or destabilizing financial imbalances. Our path of gradual increases has been designed to balance these two risks, both of which we must take seriously.

这前瞻听起来令人激动吧？但我们都知道天有不测风云，因此，除了小心谨慎地预测以外，我们还得在决策中时时留意风险。现在你们应该了解我一直强调“渐进加息”的原因——加息过快，我们的婴儿会摔跤；加息过慢，我们的婴儿将患上高通胀与营养（经济）不均衡的巨婴症，所以我们做的无非就是在两者中寻找平衡。

We also know that the economic effects of our gradual rate increases are uncertain, and may take a year or more to be fully realized. While FOMC participants'' projections are based on our best assessments of the outlook, there is no preset policy path. We will be paying very close attention to what incoming economic and financial data are telling us. As always, our decisions on monetary policy will be designed to keep the economy on track in light of the changing outlook for jobs and inflation.

我们也明白，每一次加息的后果都是不确定的，甚至需要一年或更久的时间来为市场所消化。我们不遗余力地去预测，但确实没有预设所谓的加息路线。我们将持续密切关注经济与金融市场数据，而判断标准依然以就业与通胀为准绳。

Under the dual mandate, jobs and inflation are the Fed''s meat and potatoes. In the rest of my comments, I will focus on financial stability--a topic that has always been on the menu, but that, since the crisis, has become a more integral part of the meal.

就业与通胀之于美联储，就好比油条和豆浆，但我们今天得点点其他菜——接下来，我的演讲将集中于金融维稳，这道菜其实一直在菜单上，但在08年的危机过后，这道菜越发成为了必点项。

Historical Perspective on Financial Stability 金融维稳的历史视角

The term "financial stability" has a particular meaning in this context. A stable financial system is one that continues to function effectively even in severely adverse conditions. A stable system meets the borrowing and investment needs of households and businesses despite economic turbulence. An unstable system, in contrast, may amplify turbulence and prolong economic hardship in the face of stress by failing to provide these essential services when they are needed most.

“金融维稳”是有定义的，一个稳定的金融系统应该在惊涛骇浪中仍能稳健前行，在金融震荡中不断满足家庭与企业日益增长的投融资需求。相比之下，一个不稳定的系统则因缺乏雪中送炭的供血能力，反而将放大震荡与困难。

For Economic Club of New York trivia buffs, I will note that the second ever presentation to this club by a Federal Reserve official was about this very topic. The date was March 18, 1929. Weeks before, the Fed had issued a public statement of concern over stock market speculation, and had provided guidance frowning on bank funding of such speculation. William Harding, a former Fed Chair and then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, defended the Fed''s actions in his talk. He argued that, while the Fed should not act as the arbiter of correct asset prices, it did have a primary responsibility to protect the banking system''s capacity to meet the credit needs of households and businesses. At the meeting, critics argued that public statements about inflated asset prices were "fraught with danger;" that the nation''s banks were so well managed that they should not "face public admonition"; and, more generally, that the Fed was "out of its sphere."1 Of course, Harding spoke just a few months before the 1929 stock market crash, which signaled the onset of the Great Depression.2

各位俱乐部会员们，曾记否，1929年3月18日，美联储官员在这的第二次演讲，讲的正是金融维稳主题。在那之前的几周，我们美联储就公开发文对股票市场的过度投机表示了质疑，并已经邀请各位银行大佬喝茶洽谈此事。William Harding，曾经的美联储主席与美联储波士顿银行的主席，当时怒斥了我们的做法，他认为美联储应该管好自己的事情，别对资产价格指手画脚，“美国的银行业好得不得了，岂容外人随意指点”。当然，这哥们的发言是在大萧条的几个月前。

Fast forwarding, a host of Depression-era reforms helped avoid, for the next three-quarters of a century, a systemic financial crisis and the associated severe economic dislocation‑‑the longest such period in American history. Those decades saw many advances in monetary policy and in bank regulatory policy, but the appropriate role for government in managing threats to the broader financial system remained unresolved. Periodic bouts of financial stress during this period--such as the Latin American debt crisis, the savings and loan crisis, and the Russian debt default--were met with improvised responses. Policymakers conjured fixes from a mixture of private-sector rescues, emergency liquidity, occasional implicit or explicit bailouts, and monetary accommodation. Outside of these crisis responses, however, systemic issues were not a central focus of policy.

接下来的75年内，萧条后的变革帮助我们免于系统性金融危机。在此期间，我们的货币政策与银行监管不断进化，但美国政府对泛金融威胁的管理职能依然缺位。拉美债务危机、储贷危机、俄罗斯债务违约等阶段性危机并未得到当局的妥善处理，私人部门纾困也好，紧急流动性注入也罢，往往是指哪打哪，不成体系。

The Global Financial Crisis demonstrated, in the clearest way, the limits of this approach. Highly inventive and courageous improvisation amid scenes of great drama helped avoid another Great Depression, but failed to prevent the most severe recession in 75 years. The crisis made clear that there can be no macroeconomic stability without financial stability, and that systemic stability risks often take root and blossom in good times.3 Thus, as the emergency phase of the crisis subsided, Congress, the Fed, and the other financial regulators began developing a fundamentally different approach to financial stability.

08年的金融危机证明了资本主义当局做法存在局限性，眼花缭乱的衍生品与麻痹冒进的风气帮我们避免了又一次大萧条，却无法阻止75年以来最严重经济衰退的到来。这场危机证明了，没有金融稳定，就没有宏观经济稳定，而系统性风险的恶之花往往在最好的年景盛开。于是，在度过危机的最艰难时刻之后，国会、美联储与其他金融监管者对于金融维稳问题，展开了一轮集体反思。

Instead of relying on improvised responses after crises strike, policymakers now constantly monitor vulnerabilities and require firms to plan in advance for financial distress, in a framework that lays out solutions in advance during good times.

比起亡羊补牢，政策制定者现在更倾向于未雨绸缪，在年景最好的时刻更是如此。

The New Approach to Financial Stability 金融维稳的新常态

This new approach can be divided into three parts. First, build up the strength and resilience of the financial system. Second, develop and apply a broad framework for monitoring financial stability on an ongoing basis. And third, explain the new approach as transparently as possible, so that the public and its representatives in Congress can provide oversight and hold us accountable for this work. Although I''ll focus mainly on the stability efforts of the Federal Reserve, a number of federal regulatory agencies have responsibilities in this area. All of these agencies are represented on the Financial Stability Oversight Council, or FSOC, which is chaired by the Treasury Secretary and which provides a forum for interagency cooperation in responding to emerging risks.

新常态可以分为三部分：第一，强化金融系统韧性；第二，开发与运用动态金融维稳框架；第三，尽可能公开透明地向国会与公众解释我们在做啥；尽管我个人主要负责美联储的内部稳定，几个联邦监管部门正在着手新常态的建立，他们被称为金融维稳委员会，为财政部长所领导，并负责风险出现时的跨部门合作。

Building Resilience of the Financial System 强化金融系统韧性

After 10 years of concentrated effort in the public and private sectors, the system is now much stronger, with greater capacity to function effectively in stressful times. In the banking system, we have implemented a post-crisis regulatory framework based on robust capital and liquidity requirements, a strong stress-testing regime, and mandatory living wills for the largest firms. As a result, banks now have much more high quality capital than before (figure 1).

在公共与私人部门超过10年的持续努力下，我们的金融系统看起来强壮多了。在银行系统中，我们以充分资本金与流动性为基础，设立了后危机时代框架，我们的风险测试机制，以及对大公司的底线思维，都使得我们的银行拥有比之前更优质的资本储备。

The most recent stress tests indicate that, even after a severe global recession, capital levels at the largest banks would remain above regulatory minimums, and above the levels those banks held in good times before the crisis.4 The most systemically important financial institutions also now hold roughly 20 percent of their assets in the form of high quality liquid assets--that is, safe assets that could be readily sold at short notice (figure 2). The share of these assets is about four times its pre-crisis level.

最近一次的风险测试显示，即使全球性衰退发生，我们最大的几家银行的资本充足率仍能满足监管要求。我们最具系统性战略意义的金融机构，现在有20%的资产是高质量的流动性资产——短期可以变现的安全资产，这是危机之前水平的4倍。

Compared with other economies, lending and borrowing in the United States depend less on bank loans and more on funds flowing through a wide array of capital market channels. The crisis revealed that this capital market centric system, despite its many benefits, also provides more places where systemic risks can emerge. In response, Congress and the regulatory agencies have made many stability-enhancing changes outside of the banking system. For example, many derivatives transactions are now required to be centrally cleared, which, through netting, has reduced exposures and enabled better management of counterparty risk. Tri-party repurchase agreement (repo) reforms have substantially improved the resilience of that marketplace, in particular by limiting intraday loans. Before the crisis, prime institutional money market funds were permitted to report a constant, $1 share price so long as the value of the underlying assets remained near $1. This reporting convention, combined with the implicit support of the plans'' sponsors, led investors to treat those funds like bank deposits, even though they were not likewise insured. These funds are now required to report floating net-asset values, and after this reform investors chose to migrate to government-only funds, which are safer and less susceptible to runs (figure 3).5 These and other measures have reduced the risk that key non-bank parts of the system would freeze up in the face of market stress.

与其他经济体相比，美国的借贷远不仅限于银行，而是通过各种资本市场途径完成。然而危机表明，这种做法虽有诸多好处，却也为系统性风险的累积提供了温床。对此，国会与监管部门在银行部门之外想了许多办法。比如，更多的衍生品交易现在被要求中心化结算，这使得交易双方的风险得到了更好的监管。第三方的回购协议也极大地提升了市场的韧性。在危机之前，优先型机构货币基金净值只要在1美元附近，就可以持续以1美元对外申报，这样模糊的设定，加之机构的信用背书，使得投资者们一度将货币基金当作银行存款来看待。现在情况不一样了，货币基金一样得报告净值浮动，于是投资者们更多地涌向了更安全的政府型资产限定货币基金。包括这项措施在内的需多举措，已经降低了核心非银行部门在压力期的挤兑风险。

A New Framework for Monitoring Systemic Risks 监管系统风险的新框架

Innovation and risk-taking contribute to the dynamism of our financial system and our economy. As Hyman Minsky emphasized, along with the many benefits of dynamism comes the reality that the financial system will sometimes evolve toward excess and dangerous imbalances.6 This reality underscores the vital importance of the second part of post-crisis reform: monitoring for emerging vulnerabilities.

创新与风险承担对于我们金融系统的动态进化至关重要。但正如明斯基所说，动态进化好处诸多，但金融系统的过度进化，将可能带来危险与失衡。这为我们新常态中的第二点提了个醒，即如何监控潜在的市场薄弱环节。

As laid out in our new Financial Stability Report, we have developed a framework to help us monitor risks to stability in our complex and rapidly evolving financial system. The framework distinguishes between shocks, that is, trigger events that can be hard to predict or influence, and vulnerabilities, defined as features of the financial system that amplify shocks. The report is organized around four broad vulnerabilities that have been prominent in financial crises through the centuries. Each of these vulnerabilities is often found to some degree even in healthy market-based systems, and there is not, at present, any generally accepted standard for assessing at what level the vulnerabilities begin to pose serious stability risks. In lieu of such a standard, we flag cases in which the vulnerabilities rise well beyond historical norms, and then form judgments about the stability risks those cases present.

正如在我们新的金融维稳报告中所阐述的，我们已经开发出能够适应不断进化金融环境的风险监控系统，而这个系统可以将难以预测的冲击与放大冲击的薄弱环节区分开来。这份报告主要聚焦了四大薄弱环节，而截至目前，还没有具体标准来衡量这些环节薄弱到什么程度时，才会对市场稳定造成严峻风险。作为替代，我们以史为鉴，对超出历史情形的案例特别关注，并对这些案例是否构成稳定性风险做出我们的判断。

The first vulnerability is excessive leverage in the financial sector.7 If a highly leveraged segment of the financial system is buffeted by adverse events, the affected entities may all need to deleverage at the same time by selling assets, leading to what is called a "fire sale." Both the resulting decline in asset prices and the impaired ability of the segment to play its role in the economy can amplify the effects of a downturn. We saw this chain of events play out repeatedly in various parts of the financial sector in the weeks following the failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

第一个薄弱环节是过高的金融杠杆。如果一个高杠杆的金融系统收到负面事件的冲击，相关各方可能都得通过售出资产的方式来完成去杠杆，从而造成大范围抛售。这不仅将造成资产价格大幅度缩水，也将使相关板块在经济下行时陷入休克。雷曼兄弟事件发生时，我们见证过这种连锁反应在各大金融板块的快速蔓延。

In our surveillance, we examine leverage across many types of financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, and various funding vehicles. Currently, we do not detect a broad-based buildup of abnormal or excessive leverage. As with banks, capital levels at insurance companies and broker-dealers appear robust. In addition, securitization levels are far below their pre-crisis levels, and those structures that do exist rely on more stable funding (see figure 4). Our view into leverage and risk-taking outside the banking sector is admittedly incomplete, however, and we are always working to get a better view of emerging leverage excesses.8

我们通过对包括银行、保险、对冲基金与其他融资工具在内多种金融机构的排查，来确定我们的杠杆水平。就目前而言，我们并未发现任何异常的杠杆水平，银行与保险的资本充足率令人满意，证券化的水平也远逊于危机前水平，已存在的证券化架构也更多地依托于更为稳妥的融资方式。当然，我们对于非银部门的杠杆与风险承担水平尚有盲区，但我们一直努力掌控全局。

The second vulnerability is funding risk, which arises when banks or nonbank financial entities rely on funding that can be rapidly withdrawn. If depositors or market participants lose faith in the soundness of an institution or the system as a whole, unstable funding can simply vanish in what is called a "run." During the crisis, we saw widespread runs, including at broker-dealers, some segments of the repo market, and money market mutual funds. These runs did severe damage, contributing to a generalized panic at the time. Had the authorities not stepped in, the damage could have been even more severe.

第二个薄弱环节是融资风险。这项风险往往在银行或非银金融机构过分依赖不稳定融资方式时出现。如果存款人与市场参与者对某家机构或某个系统失去了信任，“挤兑”随时可能发生。在危机时期，我们见识过各式各样的挤兑现象，涉及交易商、部分回购市场以及货币市场共同基金等等。这些挤兑造成的恐慌影响恶劣，并在相关部门出手制止之前，往往会陷入恶性循环。

Today we view funding-risk vulnerabilities as low. Banks hold low levels of liabilities that are able and likely to run, and they hold high levels of liquid assets to fund any outflows that do occur. Money market mutual fund reforms have greatly reduced the run risk in that sector. More generally, it is short-term, uninsured funding that would be most likely to run in a future stress event, and the volume of such funding is now significantly below pre-crisis peaks.

我们同样认为融资风险目前处于低位，银行负债端可供挤兑的资产较少，且在资产端拥有大量可以应对挤兑的流动性资产。货币市场共同基金也大幅减少了挤兑风险。总体来说，在短期，未受保证的融资总额，以及它们造成未来挤兑事件的概率，都比危机前水平要低上许多。

Taken together, the evidence on these first two vulnerabilities strongly supports the view that financial institutions and markets are substantially more resilient than they were before the crisis. Indeed, the American financial system has successfully weathered some periods of significant stress over the past several years.9

结合前两大薄弱环节的现状来看，我们金融系统的韧性比危机前要强多了。事实上，我们美国的金融系统在这些年已经成功渡过了多个压力期的考验。

The third vulnerability is excessive debt loads at households and businesses. Credit booms have often led to credit busts and sometimes to painful economic downturns. When the bust comes, those who have overborrowed tend to sharply reduce their spending. Defaults typically rise faster than had been expected, which may put financial institutions into distress. These effects may combine to bring a serious economic downturn.

第三个薄弱环节是家庭与企业的过度负债。信贷繁荣往往催生信贷危机，并带来痛苦的经济下行。当危机来临时，过度借贷的家庭或企业迫于无奈，只能勒紧裤腰带，违约率突破天际的同时，金融机构也因此遭殃。

This boom-bust pattern was clear in measures of household debt around the crisis period, with mortgage debt rising far above its historical trend and then contracting sharply (see figure 5). After the contraction, household debt has grown only moderately. The net increase in mortgage debt has been among borrowers with higher credit scores. While heavily indebted households always suffer in a downturn, all of this suggests that household debt would not present a systemic stability threat if the economy sours.

繁荣与衰退在为基期的家庭负债中体现得淋漓尽致——抵押债务往往在大超历史趋势线后迅速下坠，而抵押债务的净增长往往来自于高信用分数的借贷者。尽管过度负债的家庭在经济下行期中最为凄惨，但只有经济处于上行，“击鼓传花”式的债务扩张就不会造成系统性风险。

Nonfinancial business borrowing presents a subtler story. With corporate debt, the United States has not faced a massive credit boom like that experienced with residential mortgages before the recent crisis. Instead, after controlling for its trend, business borrowing relative GDP has risen during expansions, no doubt reflecting business optimism, and then fallen when the cycle turned, as some of that optimism proved unfounded (see figure 6). By this measure, the ratio of corporate debt to GDP is about where one might expect after nearly a decade of economic expansion: it is well above its trend, but not yet at the peaks hit in the late 1980s or late 1990s. Further, the upward trend in recent years appears broadly consistent with the growth in business assets relative to GDP.

非金融企业借贷则有点微妙，公司债从未经历过住房抵押般的信贷高涨。实际上，公司债与GDP之比往往在经济繁荣期有所上升，而在下行周期有所收敛。我想在经历了本轮繁荣后，大家应该能猜到公司债与GDP之比的位置——明显高于趋势线，但尚未见顶。此外，这项数据的上升趋势和企业资产与GDP之比也始终保持一致。

There are reasons for concern, however. Information on individual firms reveals that, over the past year, firms with high leverage and interest burdens have been increasing their debt loads the most (see figure 7). In addition, other measures of underwriting quality have deteriorated, and leverage multiples have moved up. Some of these highly leveraged borrowers would surely face distress if the economy turned down, leading investors to take higher-than-expected losses--developments that could exacerbate the downturn. The question for financial stability is whether elevated business bankruptcies and outsized losses would risk undermining the ability of the financial system to perform its critical functions on behalf of households and businesses. For now, my view is that such losses are unlikely to pose a threat to the safety and soundness of the institutions at the core of the system and, instead, are likely to fall on investors in vehicles like collateralized loan obligations with stable funding that present little threat of damaging fire sales.10 Of course, we will continue to monitor developments in this sector carefully.

我们当然有理由担心：对个体户的数据统计显示，在过去一年中，高杠杆与高利率压力的公司加杠杆最积极。雪上加霜的是，抵押品的质量出现滑坡，而杠杆乘数正在放大——如果经济危机在此刻发生，这其中的一些公司可能难逃一劫。落实到金融维稳层面，我们关注的是公司破产案件的急升与企业的大规模失血，是否将从根基上动摇金融系统与家庭与企业服务的职能。截至目前，我的观点是，目前还不至于。当然，我们还会继续保持观察。

The fourth and final vulnerability arises when asset values rise far above conventional, historically observed valuation benchmarks--a phenomenon popularly referred to as a "bubble." The contentious term "bubble" does not appear in our work, however.11 Instead, we focus is on the extent to which an asset''s price is high or low relative to conventional benchmarks based on expected payoffs and current economic conditions. Historically, when asset prices soar far above standard benchmarks, sharp declines follow with some regularity, and those declines may bring economic misery reaching far beyond investors directly involved in the speculative boom. We, therefore, pay close attention when valuations get to the extreme ends of what we have seen in history.

最后一个薄弱环节在于，我们的资产价格是否存在泡沫？我们的词典里没有泡沫这个词，但我们非常关心在当前经济情势下，资产价格相对于历史的估值水平。回顾历史，当资产价格升至基准以上时，大幅下跌从未缺席，处于投机过程中的投资者们也都遭到重创。因此，我们对估值是否处于极端位置非常关心。

Looking across the landscape of major asset classes, we see some classes for which valuations seem high relative to history. For example, even after standard adjustments for economic conditions, valuations on riskier forms of corporate debt and commercial properties are in the upper ends of their post-crisis distributions, although they are short of the levels they hit in the pre-crisis credit boom. We see no major asset class, however, where valuations appear far in excess of standard benchmarks as some did, for example, in the late 1990s dot-com boom or the pre-crisis credit boom.

审视主要的几大资产类别，我们确实发现有些大类资产的估值有些高了。例如，在计入对经济情势的调整之后，高风险公司债与商业地产正处于危机前的估值高位区间。除此之外，我们并未观测到其他资产大类出现互联网泡沫与08年金融危机前的极端估值。

The asset class that gets the most attention day-to-day is, of course, the stock market. Today, equity market prices are broadly consistent with historical benchmarks such as forward price-to-earnings ratios (see figure 8). It is important to distinguish between market volatility and events that threaten financial stability. Large, sustained declines in equity prices can put downward pressure on spending and confidence. From the financial stability perspective, however, today we do not see dangerous excesses in the stock market.

大家每天关注最勤的当然是股市。按远期市盈率来计算，股市的估值仍在历史基准位置附近。更重要的是，我们必须区分市场波动与破坏金融稳定事件的区别。幅度大、持续久的股市下跌将压制消费与信心，但从金融维稳的角度看，我们还没有看到股市的危险迹象。

Monitoring Likely Triggers for Financial Distress 监控潜在的衰退催化剂

I mentioned the distinction between vulnerabilities and shocks, or triggers. In addition to monitoring vulnerabilities under our four-part framework, we also consult a broad range of contacts regarding sources of risk that might trigger distress at any given time. For example, discussions with contacts currently point to risks emanating from the normalization of monetary policy in the United States and elsewhere, the unsettled state of trade negotiations, Brexit negotiations, budget discussions between Italy and the European Union, and cyber-related disruptions.12

前边我提到了薄弱环节与冲击/催化剂的区别，为了更好地在我们的四分框架下监控我们的薄弱环节，我们也就“什么能催化衰退”做了广泛的社会调研，涉及领域包括大家广泛担心的：美联储以及其他央行的利率正常化，不安定的贸易摩擦，英国退欧谈判，意大利与欧盟之间的预算讨论以及电子信息系统紊乱等等。

Having identified possible triggers, we can assess how a particular trigger is likely to interact with known vulnerabilities. A good current example is that of Brexit. U.S. banks and broker-dealers participate in some of the markets most likely to be affected by Brexit. The Fed and other regulators have been working with U.S. financial institutions that have operations in the European Union or the United Kingdom to prepare for the full range of possible outcomes to the negotiations. In addition, the scenarios used in the stress tests routinely feature severe global contractions and show that U.S. banks have the capital to weather even highly disruptive events.

在确认了可能的催化剂之后，我们可以判断这些催化剂在多大程度上可以导致击穿我们的薄弱环节。退欧就是个好例子，美国银行与交易商都可能收到退欧波及，而美联储与其他监管者正在竭尽所能，为我们在欧盟与英国运营的金融机构提供一系列预案。此外，我们日常的压力测试显示，即使高危事件出现，目前美国银行的资本金也足以应付。

Bottom Line: Financial Stability Risks Are Moderate 小结：金融维稳形势乐观

I have reviewed a few of the key facts that inform our thinking about financial stability, and you will find a great deal more detail in our new report. You will also find that the report does not come to a bottom line conclusion. As I noted earlier, we have limited experience with this monitoring, and there is no widely accepted basis for reaching a bottom line. Thus, the purpose of the report is to provide a common platform and set of readings from which policymakers and other interested parties can form their own views. Individual policymakers will sometimes differ in their assessments and on the relative weight they put on particular vulnerabilities. My own assessment is that, while risks are above normal in some areas and below normal in others, overall financial stability vulnerabilities are at a moderate level.13

好了，到此为止我已经就金融维稳问题列举了多项事实，你们会在我们的新报告中发现更多。你们同样会发现，我们并没有得出确切的结论——正如之前所说的，我们对正在监管之物仍缺乏经验，且金融维稳本来就没有标准答案可言。因此，这份报告只是为政策制定者以及感兴趣的各方提供我们的观点。意见领袖们往往意见不一，且可能对某一个薄弱环节更为关心。我个人的判断是，部分领域的风险是有点高了，但同样也有部分领域的风险仍然较低，总体来说我们的金融维稳形势乐观。

In my view, the most important feature of the stability landscape is the strength of the financial system. The risks of destabilizing runs are far lower than in the past. The institutions at the heart of the financial system are more resilient. The stress tests routinely feature extremely severe downturns in business credit, and the largest banks have the capital and liquidity to continue to function under such circumstances. Because this core resilience is so important, we are committed to preserving and strengthening the key improvements since the crisis, particularly those in capital, liquidity, stress testing, and resolution.

我的观点是，金融系统的韧性是金融维稳的压舱石。我们目前面临的挤兑风险远逊于过去，而处于金融系统中心的机构们也远非吴下阿蒙。通过对极端情形的常规压力测试，我认为我们最大的几家银行有足够的资本金与流动性安然渡过下一次危机。由于这一核心韧性的存在，我们得以进一步打磨我们自危机以来，在资本、流动性、风险测试以及决心方面取得的进展。

Conclusion 结论

I''d like to conclude by putting financial stability and our two new reports in a longer-term context. To paraphrase a famous line, "eternal vigilance is the price of financial stability." We will publish these reports regularly as part of our vigilance.

Over time, some may be tempted to dismiss the reports entirely or to overdramatize any concerns they raise. Instead, these reports should be viewed as you might view the results of a regular health checkup. We all hope for a report that is not very exciting. Many baby boomers like me are, however, reaching an age where a good report is, "Well, there are a number of things we should keep an eye on, but all things considered you are in good health." That is how I view the Financial Stability Report out today.

We hope that this report and the Supervision and Regulation Report will be important tools, sharing Federal Reserve views and stimulating public dialogue regarding the stability of the financial system.

还是想要结论？好吧，将金融维稳与我们的两门新报告置于长期框架下，我简单说两句。正如杰弗逊所说，“永远警惕是自由的代价”，我要说的是“永远警惕是金融维稳的代价”。我们将以后续报告的形式，向大家展示我们的警惕。

很长一段时间以来，有些人不是忽视报告，就是对报告断章取义。在我看来，这些报告更像是一份份体检结果，内容越平淡越令人放心。当然，到了我这个岁数，“有几项指标值得你留意，但你的总体健康看上去不错”业已是好消息，这就是我看待今天这份金融维稳报告的方式。

最后，我们希望这份报告连同此前的监管报告一起，成为传播我们美联储观点的有力工具。激浊扬清，永远警惕。