The Cypriot Haircut

By Paul Krugman

OK, I didn’t see that one coming. With all the problems in Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal I wasn’t watching Cyprus. But that’s where the big euro news is this weekend; in return for a bailout, Cyprus is supposed to impose a large haircut — that is, loss — on all depositors in its banks.

You can sort of see why they’re doing this: Cyprus is a money haven, especially for the assets of Russian beeznessmen; this means that it has a hugely oversized banking sector (think Iceland) and that a haircut-free bailout would be seen as a bailout, not just of Cyprus, but of Russians of, let’s say, uncertain probity and moral character. (I think it’s interesting that Mohamed El-Erian manages to write about this thing, fairly reasonably, without so much as mentioning the Russian thing.)

The big problem, however, is that it’s not just large foreign deposits that are taking a haircut; the haircut on small domestic deposits is a bit smaller, but still substantial. It’s as if the Europeans are holding up a neon sign, written in Greek and Italian, saying “time to stage a run on your banks!”

Tomorrow and the days immediately following should be very interesting.

克魯曼：歐盟領袖製造擠兌潮

諾貝爾經濟學獎得主克魯曼在紐約時報的部落格上說，歐盟領袖實際是在為自己的銀行業製造擠兌潮。

克魯曼在部落格上指出，歐盟紓困塞浦路斯銀行體系的方案要求對銀行存款徵稅，最終將讓其他歐洲民眾擔憂自己的銀行存款也會面臨相同的命運，並恐慌地去銀行提領存款。

歐盟領袖在塞浦路斯紓困案中，首度要求存款人分攤救援國家金融體系的重擔。此例一開後，未來紓困希臘、西班牙或義大利等更大型經濟體時，可能就會比照辦理。

克魯曼說：「歐洲領袖似乎自己舉起一個霓虹燈標示，上面以希臘文和義大利文寫著：『銀行擠兌時間到了！』」

原文參照：
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/the-cypriot-haircut/

2013-03-19．聯合報．A3．焦點．編譯陳澄和