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谢丹阳：清理银行不良资产新思路
感谢网友"粉墨登场"把文章翻译成了中文，附中文译文录在后面
发布者 粉墨登场 
HOW TO DIVEST OF TOXIC ASSETS
Danyang Xie, Professor of Economics, HKUST
The US government's plan to soak up toxic assets from banks through a Public-Private Investment Fund, announced February 10, has left some important questions hanging in the air. Just who will be the investors? And how much will they invest? And how exactly will these toxic assets be valued?
The idea of spreading the risks and potential benefits among public and private investors has merit. No single investor group can afford to absorb the estimated US$2 trillion in bad debts. Opening up the investor pool could help to increase transparency, restore confidence and bring in a fair price. The challenge is finding the best system for achieving this.
Auctions, with their sealed or shouted bids, should be ruled out; the potential for collusion among bidders and the likelihood of shutting out smaller investors would make it difficult to reach a fair value. On the other hand, a sequential subscription of the bad loans could address these issues and enable the risk to be spread across a variety of investor types.
In sequential subscription, different investors would subscribe to the bad loans in stages, starting with governments, then small investors and finally big investors. The phasing would be organized so everyone gains or loses at the same rate. This framework would also provide a fair and reasonable way to determine the value of the bad loans by letting the best-informed investors have the final say, as the following example shows.
Any offloading of the toxic assets needs to start with a rough estimate of their worth in a few years time when the economy recovers, so investors have some idea what they are investing in and what they might stand to gain (or lose if the assets under-perform). Currently, the US government is in the best position to provide that estimate. Let's say for illustrative purposes that it projects the assets to recover US$900 billion -$1.3 trillion of their $2 trillion face value.
In the first subscription stage, the US Federal Reserve and foreign governments with sovereign wealth funds would submit their bids – say, $400 billion for the Fed and $200 billion for foreign governments. They would not know at this point what share of the total they would get because that would depend on subsequent investors. Nonetheless, their participation would be a confidence booster by demonstrating that the investment has institutional backing.
In the second stage, small investors could come in, ideally through online subscriptions where they would be issued with an identity number and be allowed to make one bid each. There would be a cap on their total collective bid, say $300 billion, to protect them from heavy losses that could result if the combined investments from stage one and stage two exceed the predicted $900 billion minimum return. In this example, they invest a total $250 billion.
In the third and final stage, big investors, such as Warren Buffett and large, reputable mutual funds, would be allowed to closely examine the books on the banks' bad loans and make their bids based on this information plus the sum total of the previous bids ($850 billion). Unlike the government assessors, they would be motivated by profit-making. If they think the toxic assets will earn, say, $1 trillion, they might invest $72 billion. If they think the assets will earn only $900 billion, they invest $25 billion. By investing less, they would get a smaller share of the total return so the motivation would be strong to find the best level of investment and balance risk and returns. That motivation could be bolstered by publicizing the names of big investors and bringing public scrutiny into play.
The attraction of a subscription scheme is that everybody is in the same boat – the rate of return is the same for each investor. Moreover, the process is transparent, it is open to small investors, and it lets these small investors piggyback on the know-how of larger investors. That is all good news but, of course, it will not address the whole $2 trillion problem of bad assets.
It seems inevitable that further capital injections from government will be needed and banks will have to take some of the losses on the chin. This can be seen in the context of the "bad bank" proposal that has been under discussion. Toxic assets would be transferred to the bad bank so the good banks – the banking system – could be cleansed and get credit flowing back into the economy. In the example I have used, the bad bank would be represented by the investments raised through subscriptions – let's assume a total of $1 trillion (based on the big investors subscribing $150 billion at stage 3 in the belief that $1.18 trillion can be recovered from the toxic assets). That still leaves a $1 trillion capital loss. A capital injection from the government could cover part of the loss while the banks would absorb the rest. Let's say the banks absorb $400 billion in losses. Although significant, it would be far better than being stuck with $2 trillion in toxic debts.
The example given here is a simple illustration of how to use sequential subscriptions to price and distribute toxic assets. It is conceivable these assets could be sliced into many more pieces, depending on the types of assets and/or the levels of risk involved. Nonetheless, the principles of this system hold. While some losses are inevitable, a subscription system would ensure that no single sector holds the risk alone. And it would help to clarify some of the more problematic issues with the bank bailout: how to spread the risk and potential long-term payoffs, and determine fair value for the toxic assets.
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下面是网友的译文
The US government's plan to soak up toxic assets from banks through a Public-Private Investment Fund, announced February 10, has left some important questions hanging in the air. Just who will be the investors? And how much will they invest? And how exactly will these toxic assets be valued?
The idea of spreading the risks and potential benefits among public and private investors has merit. No single investor group can afford to absorb the estimated US$2 trillion in bad debts. Opening up the investor pool could help to increase transparency, restore confidence and bring in a fair price. The challenge is finding the best system for achieving this.
美国政府在2月10日宣布了一个通过一个公共-私人共同的投资基金来吸收银行有毒资产的计划，这随之而来产生了一些重要的问题，到底投资者是谁？他们会投资多少？以及这些有毒资金到底值多少？
通过公共和私人的投资者来分散风险和潜在的收益这一主意是有好处的。没有一个单独的投资者能承担吸收估计有2万亿美元的坏债。开放投资者能帮助提升透明度、恢复信心并且产生公平的价格，挑战是找到一个最佳的体系来实现之。
拍卖方式，即通过封闭或开放的投标，应该被排除。投标者潜在的冲突和类似的对小投资者的排挤会使得价格公平变得困难。另一方面，连续的（对坏账）认购能够应对这些问题并使得风险在不同投资者类型之间分散。
在连续认购这一方式之下，不同的投资者将分阶段对不良贷款进行认购，从政府开始，然后是小投资者，最后是大投资者；阶段的安排要让每一投资者的收益或损失保持相同。这一架构将通过对投资者进行最好的告知从而提供一个公平合理的方式以决定坏账的价值，通过以下的例子来表明：
(按：前段中的have the final say没有译出，感觉是不是作者打错了？）
Any offloading of the toxic assets needs
任何负担过重的有毒资产需要按几年内当经济恢复之后其价值进行大体的估计。这样投资者就会对其所投资的东西是否获益（或者在资产表现不佳时损失）心里有底。当前，美国政府处在最好的位置来提供初步估计。在此我们可以把面值2万亿美元的有毒资产按恢复到9千亿至1.3万亿的目标来粗略预计。
在第二个阶段，小投资者将能够参与进来，预想中通过在线认购的方式从而有标明的数量并允许他们进行单一投标。在此将对他们的投标总和有一个封顶，比如3000亿美元，从而保护他们在当第一阶段和第二阶段的投资者和起来超过预计9000亿美元最小回报的时候给他们带来巨大的损失。此例中，他们投资总和是2500亿美元。
在最后的第三阶段，大投资者，比如巴菲特和其他大的信誉良好的共同基金，将在基于前面投标总和的情况下（8500亿美元）对银行坏账进行最终的检查并提交他们的报价。和政府评估者不同，他们将是利益驱动的，如果他们认为有毒资产将会获益，比如，1万亿美元，他们可能会投7200亿美元。如果他们认为资产只值9000亿美元，他们就只投2500亿美元。投得越少，他们在总回报中所占份额就越少，这样就有很强的驱动让他们找到最佳的投资额度并平衡风险和收益。此外还将通过公布大投资者的名单来提供进一步的驱动力并使得公众监督参与其中。
看起来还需要政府的继续注资并且银行也要承担一些痛苦的损失。这可以从相关的正在讨论的"坏银行"提案中看到。坏账将转移到坏银行从而好银行---银行体系--将清洗干净并让信用得以流回到经济活动中。在我用到的例子中，坏银行将通过以认购方式产生的投资者来代表---让我假定总额为1万亿美元（基于第三阶段大投资者认购的1500亿美元，简单说来有毒资产能恢复出1.18万亿美元），这将留下1万亿美元的损失。政府注资将能弥补这部分的损失并把剩下的损失留给银行承担。比如说银行承担4000亿美元的损失。虽然这一数目很显著，但怎么也比被2万亿有毒资产困住要强。
这是一个如何用连续认购的方式对有毒资产进行定价和分配的简单示例，可以预想的是这些有毒资产能够被划分成很多小块，这取决于不同的资产类型及其包含的风险等级。由于一些损失是不可避免的，一个认购机制将确保没人会单独承担风险。并且这将有助于在拯救银行中使这些更麻烦的问题清晰化：怎样分散风险和潜在的长期回报，以及决定有毒资产的价值。
第八段中：There would be a cap on their total collective bid, say $300 billion, to protect them from heavy losses that could result if the combined investments from stage one and stage two exceed the predicted $900 billion minimum return.
这一句感觉说得有点混乱，容易产生歧义。谢老师在此想要表明的应该是在有毒资产最终的收益只有9000亿美元或更低的时候，小投资者认购过多有带来大量损失的风险；我觉得英文更好的朋友可以再对此句的表达方式润色一下。
另外，subsciption system 是否可以换作subsciption mechanism更合适？仅供参考。
任何负担过重的有毒资产需要按几年内当经济恢复之后其价值进行大体的估计。这样投资者就会对其所投资的东西是否获益（或者在资产表现不佳时损失）心里有底。当前，美国政府处在最好的位置来提供初步估计。在此我们可以把面值2万亿美元的有毒资产按恢复到9千亿至1.3万亿的目标来粗略预计。
在第一个认购阶段，美联署和外国政府及他们的主权财富基金将进行投标，比如：美联署认购4000亿美元，外国政府认购2000亿美元。在此他们并不知道在总额中占多少比重因为这取决于后续的投资者，不过，他们的参与将给其他投资者展示有大机构作后盾从而提振信心。
在第二个阶段，小投资者将能够参与进来，预想中通过在线认购的方式从而有标明的数量并允许他们进行单一投标。在此将对他们的投标总和有一个封顶，比如3000亿美元，从而保护他们在当第一阶段和第二阶段的投资者和起来的投资超过预计9000亿美元最小回报的时候给他们带来巨大的损失。此例中，他们投资总和是2500亿美元。
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