China Tells

De-leverage is the word of fashion in 2009: according to most leading economists, the world is entering a lengthy period of de-leveraging. The main reason is that the leveraging has gone out of wire prior to 2008, when the financial crisis hit the world. A close look at the change of gross leverage ratio (Asset/Equity) across several countries, however, reveals that it is not a universal case applying to all the countries. For example, notably China’s leverage ratio actually has come down by about half during 2002 – 2007, which is a sharp contrast to that of US (up 40%+). This is probably one of the main reasons that China walks out the crisis relatively faster than anyone else.

去杠杆是当今最时髦的词语之一。与之对应的当然是金融危机之前最被追捧的扩张策略：杠杆化。大多数经济学家都预测全球各国在未来的几年都将不得不勒进裤袋进行去杠杆。然而对一些国家杠杆率变化的对比可以看出，并不是每一个国家都受到杠杆化的影响。比如说，美国在02-07年的杠杆率提高了40%强，而同期中国的杠杆率下降了50%。中国可以比其他国家更快的从容走出危机，在早先几年杠杆率的下降可谓功不可没。