The saver’s dilemma

储蓄者的困境

Low interest rates leave savers with few good options

低利率让储蓄者没有什么好的选择

The covid-19 pandemic has only sharpened the dilemma

新冠疫情加剧了这一困境

Oct 17th 2020 | 

IN THE 1980S comedy, “Trading Places”, Jamie Lee Curtis plays a prostitute who has been saving for her future; she has $42,000 “in T-bills, earning interest”. If she followed the same strategy today, she would be disappointed with the return. The one-year Treasury bill yields 0.13%, so her annual interest income would be just $55. If she reinvested the income, it would take more than 530 years for her money to double.

在20世纪80年代的喜剧《颠倒乾坤》中，Jamie Lee Curtis饰演一名#女，她一直在为自己的未来存钱;她有42000美元的“短期国债，可赚取利息”。如果她今天采取同样的策略，她会对回报感到失望。一年期美国国债的收益率为0.13%，因此她每年的利息收入只有55美元。如果她把收入再投资，她的钱需要530多年才能翻倍。

Savers around the world face the same problem. Bank accounts, money-market mutual funds and other short-term instruments used to offer a decent return. Not any more (see chart). Rates are lower in nominal terms than they were 30 years ago because of a long-term decline in inflation, but they are also lower in real terms. The pandemic has made the dilemma acute. This year American, British and German nominal ten-year bond yields have all touched their lowest levels in history.

世界各地的储户都面临着同样的问题。银行账户、货币市场共同基金和其他短期投资工具可以提供可观的回报。现在不再是这样了（见图表）。由于通货膨胀的长期下降，名义利率低于30年前，但实际利率也较低。流行病（今年疫情）使这一困境更加尖锐。今年，美国、英国和德国十年期债券的名义收益率都触及了历史最低水平。

Savers are likely to respond to this situation in one of three ways. They can save less, and spend more of their incomes. Another approach is to set aside more money, to make up for lower returns. A third option would be to put more savings into risky assets, such as equities, which should deliver a higher return over the long run.

储户可能会以三种方式中的一种来应对这种情况。他们可以减少储蓄，增加支出。另一种方法是留出更多的钱，以弥补较低的回报。第三种选择是将更多的储蓄投入风险资产，比如股票，从长期来看，这应该会带来更高的回报。

词汇

Equity/股票

So what will savers actually do? Unfortunately, history is not a particularly helpful guide. You might think that central banks had looked into the question, given their low policy rates are intended to boost consumption (and thus the economy) and reduce how much people stash under their mattresses. But the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have done surprisingly little research into the subject.

那么储户实际上会怎么做呢?不幸的是，历史并不是一个特别有用的指南。考虑到央行的低政策利率旨在刺激消费(进而刺激经济)并减少人们贮藏在床垫下的钱，你可能会认为央行已经对这个问题进行了研究。但令人惊讶的是，美联储(Federal Reserve)和英国央行(Bank of England)对这个问题的研究很少。

词汇

Stash/存放；贮藏

Mattress/床垫；褥子

More work has been done in Germany, where low interest rates are a hotter political issue. But this suggests that the impact of rates on savers’ behaviour is murky, at best. The Bundesbank has found that the level of returns has become less important over time as a determinant of savers’ behaviour. A study by Allianz, an insurer, also finds that other factors play a bigger role. The more money governments devote to social spending, for instance, the less people save, because they expect the state to help them in tough times. Demography also affects the saving rate: people tend to save more as they near retirement. But once retired, most live off their savings, so an increase in the number of retirees could cause the aggregate saving rate to fall. Research by Charles Yuji Horioka of Kobe University suggests that this has been the main cause of the long-term decline in Japan’s household-saving rate.

德国已经做了更多的工作，在那里，低利率是一个更热门的政治问题。但这表明利率对储户行为的影响充其量是模糊的。德国央行发现，随着时间的推移，作为储蓄者行为决定因素的回报水平已变得不那么重要。保险公司安联(Allianz)的一项研究也发现，其他因素发挥了更大的作用。例如，政府在社会支出上投入的资金越多，人们的储蓄就越少，因为他们期望政府在困难时期帮助他们。人口结构也会影响储蓄率:人们倾向于在临近退休时增加储蓄。但一旦退休，大多数人就靠储蓄生活，所以退休人数的增加可能会导致总储蓄率下降。神户大学的Charles Yuji Horioka的研究表明，这是日本家庭储蓄率长期下降的主要原因。

词汇

Murky/黑暗的；朦胧的

To the extent one can tell, the historical relationship between rates and the level of savings seems to be weak. The Allianz study finds that, across Europe as a whole, for every one-percentage-point drop in interest rates, saving rates increased by 0.2 percentage points. Even then cause and effect is hard to disentangle. Central banks cut rates in response to bad economic news, and such news, rather than lower rates, may be the main reason that savers become more cautious. America’s saving rate fell from more than 10% before 1985 to less than 5% in the mid-2000s. That could have been related to the downward trend in rates. But shorter-term fluctuations seem to have been driven by recessions.

从某种程度上说，利率和储蓄水平之间的历史关系似乎很弱。安联的研究发现，在整个欧洲，利率每下降1个百分点，储蓄率就会上升0.2个百分点。即便如此，因果关系也很难理清。中央银行降低利率以应对坏的经济消息，而这类消息，而不是低利率，可能是储蓄者变得更加谨慎的主要原因。美国的储蓄率从1985年前的超过10%下降到2000年代中期的不足5%。这可能与利率的下降趋势有关。但短期波动似乎是由经济衰退驱动的。

If history is an unreliable guide to what savers will do now, what signals can be gleaned from their behaviour so far this year? Anxiety about the pandemic helped push the saving rate in America to a record high earlier in the year; in August it was still relatively elevated, at 14.1%. The Investment Company Institute (ICI), a lobby group for American fund managers, reports that $115bn flowed into money-market (ie, short-term deposit) funds in March this year. “Fear came into discussions with clients,” says Andy Sieg, president of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. “Their concern was safety of principal.” If you are worried about losing your job, then the return on your savings is a minor concern. The main thing is to have some.

如果历史对于储蓄者现在的行为不是一个可靠的向导，那么从他们今年迄今的行为中我们能收集到什么信号呢?今年早些时候，对流感大流行的焦虑将美国的储蓄率推到了历史新高;8月份该指数仍相对较高，为14.1%。美国基金经理的游说团体——投资公司学会(ICI)报告称，今年3月有1150亿美元流入货币市场(即短期存款)基金。美林财富管理总裁Andy Sieg表示:“恐惧源于与客户的讨论之中。”“他们关心的是本金的安全。“如果你担心失去工作，那么储蓄的回报就不是什么大问题了。最重要的是要有一些储蓄。

词汇

Glean/收集（资料）

Principal/本金

 

Yet as the panic subsided some savers turned to another strategy, of piling on risk. The American stockmarket rallied, due in part to central-bank action. Many retail investors rushed in, buying shares through platforms such as Robinhood. With returns on bonds and cash so low, stocks seemed attractive, particularly as some offer a dividend yield that exceeds the return savers get in the bank. For investors who turned to shares in March, this wealth effect easily compensated them for the lower returns on other savings. This greater risk-taking is part of a longer-term trend. Mr Sieg says that, ten to 15 years ago, rich American retirees may have parked a lot of their savings in municipal bonds. Now they have a more diverse portfolio including equities and corporate debt.

然而，随着恐慌消退，一些储户转向了另一种策略，即增加风险。美国股市反弹，部分原因是由于央行的行动。许多散户投资者蜂拥而入，通过Robinhood等平台购买股票。在债券和现金回报率如此之低的情况下，股票似乎很有吸引力，尤其是当一些股票的股息收益率超过储蓄者在银行的回报时。对于3月份转向股票的投资者来说，这种财富效应轻松弥补了他们在其他储蓄上较低的回报。这种更大的风险是长期趋势的一部分。Sieg先生说，10到15年前，富有的美国退休人员可能已经把他们的大部分储蓄都投入到市政债券中。现在，他们的投资组合更加多样化，包括股票和公司债券。

词汇

municipal bond/市政债券

portfolio /投资组合

 

The approach of taking more risk to compensate for lower interest rates has not always paid off, though. America’s frothy stockmarket has been an outlier. Savers elsewhere have been less well compensated for risk. Britain’s FTSE 100 index is below its level in 1999. In Germany a boom in the 1990s did cause equities to rise from 20% to 30% of household assets. But when the bubble burst, retail investors’ enthusiasm waned. By 2015 shares were 19% of household assets. Japan’s stockmarket is still below its high in 1989. Around half of total household financial assets is still in cash and bank deposits, says Sayuri Shirai of Keio University.

不过，为弥补较低利率而承担更多风险的做法并不总是奏效。美国充满泡沫的股市是一个例外。其他地方的储户在风险方面得到的补偿就没那么好了。英国富时100指数低于1999年的水平。在德国，20世纪90年代的经济繁荣确实导致了股票占家庭资产的比例从20%上升到30%。但当泡沫破灭时，散户投资者的热情减退了。到2015年，股票占家庭资产的19%。日本股市仍低于1989年的高点。庆应义塾大学的Sayuri Shirai说，大约一半的家庭金融资产仍然是现金和银行存款。

词汇

 Frothy/泡沫的

 

Moreover, not all savers are the same. Even in America, stockmarket gains have mainly accrued to the rich. The wealthiest 1% owns 56% of the stockmarket, up from 46% in 1990; the top 10% own 88% of the market. One way of thinking about this is that most people set aside cash for emergencies. Poorer people may be unable to save any more than that; rich ones can afford to venture into equities.

此外，并非所有的储户都是一样的。即使在美国，股市收益也主要流向富人。最富有的1%拥有股市56%的股份，比1990年的46%有所上升;前10%的人拥有88%的市场份额。考虑这个问题的一种方式是，大多数人都留出现金以备不时之需。穷人可能无法存更多的钱;富有的人能够承担投资股票的风险。

 

Even if they don’t punt on stocks, ordinary workers in rich countries still have exposure to riskier assets through their pension schemes. But these tend to be quite small. The median balance in an American 401(k) plan for those aged 55 to 64 was only $61,738 in 2019. A pension of 4-5% of that pot amounts to just $2,500-3,100 a year. In Britain, where auto-enrolment has brought many low-income employees into the pension system, the median defined-contribution pot in 2019 was just £9,600 ($12,200). And the solvency of final-salary pension schemes has deteriorated as a result of the shifts in markets. When they calculate the cost of meeting their pension promises, funds have to discount the cost of their liabilities using bond yields; as yields have fallen sharply, these costs have risen. The average public-sector pension plan in America was 72.2% funded in 2019, down from 78.4% in 2009, according to the Centre for Retirement Research (CRR), despite the long bull market in shares.

即使富裕国家的普通工人不投资股票，他们仍然通过养老金计划持有风险较高的资产。但这些都是很小的。2019年，55至64岁的410000美国人计划的平均余额仅为61,738美元。其中4-5%的养老金相当于每年2500 - 3100美元。在英国，“自动登记”让许多低收入员工加入了养老金体系，2019年固定缴费的中位数仅为9600英镑(合12200美元)。而且，由于市场的变化，最终薪金养老金计划的偿付能力已经恶化。当他们计算满足养老金承诺的成本时，基金必须用债券收益率折现其负债成本;随着产量急剧下降，这些成本也随之上升。根据退休研究中心(CRR)的数据，尽管股市处于长期牛市，但美国公共部门养老金计划的平均资金投入从2009年的78.4%下降到2019年的72.2%。

词汇

Punt/推掉工作; 踢悬空球

solvency /偿付能力；溶解力

 

The danger is that individual savers faced with bewildering movements in markets and rickety pension schemes may choose to keep their savings in deposits. Many may lack access to financial advice, and are unaware of the scope for higher returns or indeed of the scale of savings they need to set aside to prepare for their old age. A worrying signal can be gleaned from Britain, where rules were changed in 2015 to allow people to withdraw money from their pension pots without using the proceeds to buy an annuity (which offers a guaranteed income). Annuity returns on bond yields were stingy, making them an unpopular choice.

危险在于，个人储户在面对市场混乱的波动和摇摇欲坠的养老金计划时，可能会选择将存款存进银行。许多人可能得不到理财建议，也不清楚有多大的空间可以获得更高的回报，也不清楚他们需要为养老准备多少储蓄。从英国可以得到一个令人担忧的信号，2015年，英国修改了相关规定，允许人们从养老金中提取资金，而不用使用收益来购买年金(这是一种有保障的收入)。债券收益率上的年金回报率很低，使得年金成为不受欢迎的选择。

词汇

rickety /摇晃的；虚弱的

 Annuity/年金，养老金；年金保险

With their savings stuck in cash elderly people around the world risk running out of money before they die. This is already happening in Japan. “The decline in interest rates to virtually zero has sharply reduced the interest income that the retired were counting on, requiring them to draw down their savings more than they had been planning to,” says Mr Horioka. Governments have long urged people to make provision for retirement, but low rates have made that harder to achieve. With society yet to square the circle, and rates going nowhere anytime soon, savers’ lives are set to get even more difficult.

由于他们的储蓄被困在现金中，世界各地的老年人都面临着死前钱就花光的风险。这已经在日本发生了。Horioka表示:“利率降至几乎为零的水平，大幅降低了退休人员所依赖的利息收入，迫使他们比原先计划的更多地动用储蓄。”长期以来，政府一直敦促人们为退休做好准备，但低利率使得这一目标更难实现。由于社会还没有做好万全之策，利率在短期内不会有任何变化，储蓄者的生活将变得更加困难。