Alan Greenspanの『The Map and the Territory』

途中から流し読みですが、Alan Greenspanの『The Map and the Territory』を終えました。

個人的な感想としては5つ中、星2つといったところでしょうか。リーマンショックのきっかけとなった住宅バブルとSubprime loanの問題などを彼が現在どう捉えていて、何が必要だったと考えているのか知りたかったのですが、多少肩透かしという印象を持ちました。

マクロ経済学においても人間行動の心理要素をもっと勘案する必要がある(Behavioral Economicsの導入)、必要な規制の導入、事前のリスク分析といったことが挙げられていますが、あまり目新しいとは思いませんでした。

なぜならば、これらの問題とバブル崩壊の可能性はあちこちから警鐘が出されていたからです。

ただ私は当時を振り返った次の記述はやっぱり面白いと思いました。彼は「The Roots of Crisis」の中で次のように書きます。

ちょっと長いのですが、私自身の記録として引用しますね。

Size of the problem cloaked (覆い隠された)
p68

The true size of the American subprime problem was hidden for years by the defective bookkeeping of the GSEs (Government-Sponsored Enterprises) .

(中略)

Not until the summer of 2007 did the full magnitude of the subprime problem begin to become apparent. Fannie's third-quarter write-offs almost quadrupled relative to the second quarter. Moreover, the source of loss did not become fully evident until September 2009, when Fannie Mae very belatedly disclosed a significant reclassification of loans, from prime to subprime, dating back to loans that it had made and held in 2003 and 2004.More important, those revelations helped to explain how what was thought to be a relatively sound portfolio of prime conventional mortgages in mid-2007 could generate the huge losss Fannie and Freddie had been reporting. It is doubtful, however, even had such data been available in a timely manner, that regulators woudl have been able to head off the crisis, especially given our experiences with monetary tightening during the dot-com boom.

文章は次のように続きます。Lehman Brothersの破綻は2008年9月15日なので、in late October 2008というとその後の問答なのですね。

(中略)

I recollect getting a call in late October 2008 from HenryWaxman, a senior House Democrat, inquiring whether I agreed with the position that the housing bubble's primary cause was the heavy demand by the GSEs for subprime mortgages and securities, as some House members had argued. (The housing market had peaked and fallen in 2006.) I responded that I thought the GSEs did contribute to the crisis, but that their holding of subprime securities did not seem sufficiently large to account for the size of the bubble. With the new disclosures, it was obvious that Fannie and Freddie played a far more important role - perhaps even a key role - in the momentum that developed behind the housing bubble than many had therefore recognized.

Had Fannie and Freddie not existed, a housing bubble could still have taken hold. But had such a bubble developed, it is likely that in and of itself, it would not have wrecked such devastation in late 2008. The paths of Canada and Australia's house price gains, for example, were in fact quite similar to those of the United states. Yet in retrospect, those gains did not have the destabilizing bubble characteristics experienced by Americans. Their financial systems were not breached and neither experienced a severe financial crisis.

Analysts of such crises is subject to considerable uncertainties, and I have little doubt that longtime political explanations other than that which I have just offered. Many still claim the buildup of mortgage assets during 2003 and 2004 was simply a business decision on the part of the GSEs to regain lost market share (they are, after all, private corporations) and had little to do with the issue of affordable housing. But as Fannie Mae in December 2006, in political-speak, acknowledged, "We have also relax some of our underwriting criteria to obtain goal-qualifying mortgage loans and increased our investments in higher risk mortgage loan products that are more likely to serve the borrowers targeted by HDU's goals and subgoals, which could increase our credit losses." They sure did.

そしてさらりと次のようにまとめられています。

A classical euphoric bubble takes hold

The housing surge of the last decade had all the hallmarks of a classic euphoric bubble. Financial bubbles occur from time to time, and usually with little or no forewarning.

(中略)

At the point, as buyers finally become sated (満足する),　bids disappear, only sellers are left, and prices plunge.

さて、日本のAmazon等で調べましたが、(おそらく)この翻訳本は出ていないのですね。

アメリカのAmazonでも評価が大きく分かれています。下記の中で次のreviewはじめ、いくつか辛口なものを楽しみました。

Mr. Greenspan's inside-out view of the economy

By Alan F. Sewellon October 22, 2013

http://www.amazon.com/ss/customer-reviews/B00FM73DYQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_btm_link_1?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&ref_=acr_search_hist_1&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=all_formats&filterByStar=one_star&pageNumber=1

Greenspanを信奉する人、誰がFRB議長であってもバブル崩壊は防げなかったという擁護派も少なくないとは思いますが、昔のような神通力はもうないようです。

日本で翻訳本が出ていないのが真実であるとするとそれもうなづけます。そして、おそらく今回紹介した本のエッセンスは彼の前著に追加された部分に書かれているのでしょう。

波乱の時代特別版―サブプライム問題を語る

私も経済や金融といった分野は疎く、この分野の本はもう少し漁って読む必要があると思いました。