前美联储主席本·伯南克在周三表示，他很困惑，投资者竟然对美联储抱有极大的信心。

伯南克在布鲁金斯学会的网站上发表了博客，他说：长期通胀预期表明美联储在最近一段时间会将通货膨胀控制在2%，尽管当前处于低利率时期。接下来就要由美联储来证实了。

这并不是新观点，在过去的好时光里，美联储能将短期利率提高到5%-6%。这为美联储提供了很大的利率削减空间以应对经济下行。

但是想从金融危机中恢复过来是十分困难的。2008年至今，美联储的短期利率始终在0线上苦苦挣扎，直到最近才逐渐接近1%。美联储官员认为，在2019年之前，短期利率都不会突破3%。

因此美联储的弹药已经不足以应对下一次危机了。换句话说，货币政策艰难意味着世界经济正处于低利率困境中。事实上，美联储经济学家的最新调查结果显示，在未来的一段时间内，短期利率无限接近于零的概率高达40%。

如果美联储不能提供足够的经济刺激，通胀率很难达到2%的目标。但是市场参与者们认为通胀率会在2%附近持续很长时间。
伯南克说：“市场参与者和专家预测员似乎都对美联储信心十足，相信他们会付出一切代价，反转不利的经济局面。

伯南克说：“这份信心让人感动，但政策制定者不能因此而沾沾自喜。”

圣弗朗西斯科联储主席约翰·威廉斯认为美联储真的需要好好考虑，推出更适用于零利率环境的政策。

Bernanke’s conundrum: Why do investors trust the Fed?

Former Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke said Wednesday he’s puzzled investors seem to have so much faith in the U.S. central bank.

Long-run inflation expectations reflect a belief the Fed will to be able to keep inflation near its 2% target even in the era of low interest rates, Bernanke noted in his latest blog post on the website of the Brookings Institution.

“It will be up to the Fed to prove worthy of that confidence,” he said.

The basic idea is not new. In past good times, the Fed was able to push short-term interest rates up to 5%-6%. This gave the central bank a lot of room to cut rates to combat an economic downturn.

But the recovery from the financial crisis has been different. Since 2008, the Fed is struggling to get short-term interest rates above zero and only lately has them close to 1%. Fed officials don’t expect short-term rates to hit 3% until 2019.

This leaves the Fed with little ammunition to fight the next recession. In other words, hobbled monetary policy means the economy is stuck in a low-rate world. In fact, new research from Fed economists suggests short-term interest rates could be “very close” to zero as much as 40% of the time going forward.

If the Fed cannot provide sufficient stimulus, then inflation should be expected to fall short of the central bank’s 2% target, Bernanke said. Yet market participants expect inflation to stay close to 2% over very long horizons.

“It appears market participants and professional forecasters believe that the Fed, perhaps in conjunction with fiscal policymakers, will ‘do what it takes’ to mitigate the adverse future encounters with the zero-lower-bound,” Bernanke said.

“That confidence is encouraging, but it should not be taken as license for policymakers to rest on their laurels,” he said.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams has said the Fed “really need[s] to think hard about our policy strategy that would be better suited for the zero-bound.”

本文翻译由兄弟财经提供
文章来源：http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernankes-conundrum-why-do-investors-trust-the-fed-2017-04-12