So, more drugs to deal with our collective lack of growth. The Bank of England’s Funding for Lending extension is welcome: the scheme lasts longer than before, contains extra incentives to lend to cash-strapped small and medium-sized enterprises and has been widened to include non-bank sources of credit, including financial leasing corporations. And after some remarkably soggy eurozone data – including purchasing manufacturers index figures suggesting that the German economy is not quite as dynamic as Bayern Munich – investors are increasingly hopeful that the European Central Bank will come to the rescue, buying up equities as if the dark clouds are about to lift. 要治好经济增长集体乏力症，我们需要增加用药的品种和剂量。延长英国央行(BoE)的“融资换贷款计划”(Funding for Lending)是个受欢迎的做法：该计划持续时间比之前更久，增加了一些额外激励措施、鼓励金融机构向资金紧张的中小型企业放贷，涵盖范围扩大、纳入了金融租赁公司等非银行信贷来源。在一些极不乐观的欧元区经济数据（包括“采购经理指数”(PMI)数据，显示出德国经济并不像足球俱乐部拜仁慕尼黑(Bayern Munich)那样有活力）公布以后，投资者越来越觉得，欧洲央行(ECB)会出手相救、购买股票，笼罩在市场上方的乌云即将消散。

There can be no doubt that the drugs on offer from central banks can shift markets. But can they also shift economies? That, surely, is the big public policy question. In the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis, the answer was a decisive “yes”. Faced with rapidly melting confidence and a serious lack of liquidity, central banks stepped in to prevent what might otherwise have been a second great depression. The answer now is not so obvious. It is not so much that the drugs don’t work. Rather, they are acting more as pain killers than as antibiotics. They make some of us feel a bit better but the economic results are, to say the least, disappointing. Even in the US, which has done better than most, the pace of recovery is distinctly limp by historical standards. 无疑问，各国央行提供的药物能够提振市场。但这些药物也能提振经济吗？当然，这是公共政策方面最大的疑问。在金融危机刚刚爆发时，答案是斩钉截铁的“没错”。当时，面对迅速瓦解的信心以及流动性严重短缺，各央行介入，以防危机演变成第二次“大萧条”。如今，答案就不是那么明确了。这在很大程度上并不是因为药物无效。而是因为，这些药物更像止痛剂，而不是抗生素。止痛剂让我们中的一些人感觉好过点了，但就经济方面的药效而言，说它令人失望已经是口下留情了。即便是在经济表现比其他大多数地方都好的美国，复苏速度也远未达到历史平均水平。

This is not to criticise the actions of central banks. The Funding for Lending Scheme is better than nothing. An interest rate cut from the ECB would doubtless be welcomed. The Bank of Japan’s actions have already provoked a major change in sentiment. Without a sustained recovery in economic activity, however, the danger is simply that central banks are pumping up asset prices and creating a bigger and bigger gap between financial hope and economic reality. 这并不是在批评各国央行的行动。出台“融资换贷款计划”，总好过毫不作为。欧洲央行降低利率之举，无疑是受欢迎的。日本央行(BoJ)的举措已经令市场情绪焕然一新。然而，如果经济复苏无法持续，就会产生这样的危险：各央行会推高资产价格，令金融希望与经济现实出现越来越严重的背离。

One reason why this gap is opening up relates to the distributional impact of unconventional policies. Broadly speaking, quantitative easing in all its many forms lowers long-term interest rates, lifts the value of risky assets through the so-called portfolio channel, triggers a capital outflow and, thus, pushes the exchange rate lower. Those who happen to be financially asset-rich will do well. Those who depend on wage income alone – and thus are vulnerable to the impact of a falling exchange rate on import prices and inflation – will not do so well. If, as is likely to be the case, those in the first group have a lower marginal propensity to consume than those in the second group, the risk is that aggregate demand does not pick up as much as desired. 这种背离日趋严重的原因之一，与非传统政策对分配的影响有关。总体来讲，所有形式的量化宽松都会降低长期利率，通过所谓的资产组合渠道推高风险资产的价值，引发资本外流，并由此拉低汇率。那些碰巧拥有较多金融资产的人，日子会很好过。而完全依赖工资收入的人（因此容易因汇率下跌对进口商品价格的影响、以及通胀而受到冲击）处境就不那么妙了。如果第一组人群比第二组人群的边际消费倾向更低（事实很可能如此），那么风险就是，总需求增幅不会达到理想水平。

To be fair, those in the second group might initially do well if they happen to have large mortgages and interest rates are not yet at rock bottom. Once, however, rates are close to zero and the yield curve is broadly flat, those initial benefits will fade, as seen in the UK. 平心而论，如果第二组人群碰巧有大笔住房抵押贷款，而且利率尚未触底，他们最初可能会过得不错。然而，一旦利率接近零，收益曲线大体呈水平状态，最初的好处就会消失，正如英国的情况一样。

The rising value of financial assets thus says more about the ability of central banks to create financial bubbles than their chances of delivering healthy economic recoveries. Of course, if the alternative to a bubble is economic collapse then, perhaps, this is a risk worth taking. Unfortunately, bubbles are too often the prelude to economic collapse, as we discovered with the onset of the financial crisis. Yet, even in the absence of economic collapse, the increased dependency of financial markets on the whims of central bankers and, in some cases, their political masters may lead to increased volatility and dislocation: second guessing the intentions of the central banking community is, in many ways, now more important than offering an accurate forecast of future economic growth, one reason why the prices of all manner of financial instruments – from gold to the yen – are now so hard to predict. Is that healthy? Hardly. 因此，金融资产价值上升，更多地表明了央行制造金融泡沫的能力，而非成功推动经济健康复苏的可能性。当然，如果在泡沫出现之外的另外一种可能性是经济崩溃，那么，或许冒这样的风险是值得的。遗憾的是，正如金融危机的爆发所示，泡沫的出现往往是经济崩溃的序曲。然而，即便经济崩溃的情况没有出现，金融市场对央行官员（有时还包括对他们发号司令的政界头领）的依赖加深，可能导致自身更严重的动荡与混乱。如今，事后揣测各央行的意图，在很大程度上比准确预测未来经济增长情况更加重要。这正是如今各类金融工具（从黄金到日元）价格如此难以预测的原因之一。这种状况正常吗？恐怕不。

Underneath all of this is a trickier question. At some point, central banks may want to take our economies off painkillers. Yet if the addiction is widespread, that may be no easy task. Governments themselves may resist any such move: with large amounts of debt, they will not be keen to see a sustained increase in borrowing costs. More importantly, if elevated values of risky assets stem from the indiscriminate application of monetary drugs, the removal of those pain killers might only create a financial version of cold turkey. And as no one wants that, drug supplies will remain in abundance for the foreseeable future, whether or not our economies are transformed. 在所有这些现象背后，隐藏着一个更棘手的问题。某些时候，央行或许想断掉各经济体的止痛药。然而，如果各经济体普遍服食止痛剂成瘾，停药可能并非易事。政府本身或许也抵制这样的举措：由于债务高筑，政府不会愿意看到借款成本持续上升。更重要的是，如果风险资产的升值，源于不加区分地开出货币政策的药方，一下子断掉这些止痛药，可能只会在金融领域造成“戒断反应”。由于谁也不想看到这种结果，不管我们的经济状况是否改变，止痛药在可预见的未来仍将保持供应充足。