Shame fills a vacuum in China's financial law enforcement
中国金融法律执行力度的空缺由名誉惩罚来弥补
THE vast gaps in the regulations governing China's financial markets are nosecret. The risks are spelled out in mind-numbing detail in every Chinese shareprospectus issued to Western investors. They run the gamut from the possibilityof full-blown Communist expropriation to bad accounting, insider trading,market manipulation and fraud.
中国金融市场监管制度的巨大漏洞早已不是什么秘密。在呈现给西方投资者的中国股票计划书中，所有对风险细节的描述都让人大脑短路。这些风险从标准的共产主义式没收的可能性开始，一直到糟糕的会计，内部交易，市场交易和欺诈行为。
There are enough prosecutions to indicate that mischief-making goes on,but not enough to make enforcement appear credible. Even when there are rules,the line between acceptable and unacceptable conduct is often unclear, and someactions are patently unfair. There is, for example, no “full” disclosure law,no match of regulation FD in America.Companies frequently meet investors selectively. The information that emergescan include changes in senior management—and hence strategy—and be ofextraordinary value. In more developed markets, aggrieved shareholders kept inthe dark could fire off private lawsuits; but private litigation in Chinais allowed only after the state has determined malfeasance.
虽然足够多的说明书显示这些问题还在继续，但法律的执行力度却远远不够。即使是有相应的条文，其在可接受和不可接受行为之间的界线也通常不清晰，而且一些法律明显就不公平。比方说，中国没有和美国《反选择性披露法》类似的要求“全部”披露的法律。公司频繁地有选择性地为投资者提供信息。有些信息因为涉及到公司高层的变动——从而影响公司战略——而有很高的价值。在更加发达的市场上，那些被蒙蔽而愤懑的股东们可以发起私人诉讼；但在中国，只有政府认定了错误之后，私人的起诉程序才能启动。
Given these shortcomings, Chinamight well be shunned by investors, but it is not. Its Shanghaiand Shenzhen stockmarkets—though falling sharply this year—were togethermcapitalised at $3.9 trillion at the end of January, more than in any country inthe world except America andJapan.Despite their size, the markets are not efficient, however. Share-pricemovements, according to several studies, do not fit as closely with financialresults as in other large markets. That is not only bad for investors; it alsoundermines the stockmarket's broader economic job of channelling capital towhere it can best be used.
按理说，有这样大的缺陷，投资者应该尽量避开中国，但事实并非如此。上海和深圳的股市，尽管今年大幅下挫，但在1月底之前总共融资了3.9万亿美元，在所有的国家中仅此于美国和日本。然而，它的效率却和它的规模不合拍。一些研究表明，中国的股票价格波动与其他大型市场不同，和其财务状况没有紧密地相关性。这不仅不利于投资者，同样从根本上损害了股市所肩负的经济任务，即把资本引导到能发挥最佳效用的地方。
Name and shame 美名与恶名
Plenty of studies demonstrate the role of a good legal environment tofinancial markets. But Benjamin Liebman and Curtis Milhaupt, two professors at Columbia LawSchool, argue in a forthcoming paper*that, whatever the limitations of the scope and enforcement of China's laws,another form of regulation has quietly emerged. Drawing on China's traditions, the authoritiesnow also discipline wrongdoers using public criticism.
许多研究都证实了良好的法治环境在金融市场中的重要角色。但是Benjamin Liebman和Curtis Milhaupt，两位哥伦比亚法律学校的教授，在即将发表的论文上，将论证无论中国法律的限制范围和执行度如何，另一种管制方式已经悄然兴起。它源于一种中国传统，即权威机关正使用舆论批评来约束过错方。
Financial markets are usually regulated through well enforced securitieslaws, like the ones Americaintroduced during the Depression; or through self-regulation, as in America before the Depression and in London's AlternativeInvestment Market today. For many years academics focused more on laws,believing that exchanges pursued members' interests rather than those ofinvestors. But a landmark study by Paul Mahoney, of the University of Virginia,a decade ago began to shift support towards self-regulation. Privately runmarkets have an interest in safeguarding investors, because that is the bestmeans of increasing listing and trading volumes and thus of generating morefees. When exchanges were run by the state, it was not clear whether theself-interest worked in that way.
通常，金融市场的管制是通过高效执行的证券法来实现，比如美国在大萧条时期所展示的那样；或者通过市场自律来实现，比如美国在大萧条之前和在今日伦敦的可替换投资市场。许多年来，学术上把注意力更多的集中在法律上。但在10年前，来自维吉尼亚大学的Paul Mahoney的一项里程碑式的研究，却把支持力量转向了自律。当交易所由私人经营时，捍卫投资者就是它的一项自身利益，因为这样是最好方法以增加注册公司和交易额，并因此获得产生更多的收费。而当交易所由政府经营的时候，其自身利益是否能产生这样的效果就很难确定了。
When China'stwo stock exchanges were created in 1990, the chief goal was to use private savingsto restructure state-owned firms. Investors received only minority stakes andlimited sway over corporate governance. Equally important, both exchanges wererun by bureaucrats, so there were fewer incentives to increase their value byattracting companies and punters. There was little effective competitionbetween them.
当中国的两家股票交易所在1990年成立时，其主要的目的是利用私人存款以改建国有企业。投资者仅能得到很小的股权且对公司的运营的影响非常有限。同样重要的是，两家交易所均由政府机关运营，因而他们吸引公司和投机者以实现自身增殖的动机小得多。他们之间也几乎没有有效的竞争。
Over the past 18 years, Chinahas introduced rules against market manipulation, fraud and insider dealing,but enforcement remains patchy. The China Securities Regulatory Commissionseems competent but overwhelmed. Sometimes it takes years to issue penaltiesafter lengthy investigations—and along the way cases lose relevance.
过去的18年间，中国颁布了许多禁止市场操纵，欺诈和内部交易的法律，但执行度始终都不足。中国证监会表面上是合格的，但实际上基本是摆设。有时候它得花上几年的调查时间才能公布处罚，随着时间的流逝，这些案件都失去了相关性。
In the meantime, the exchanges have quietly begun to acquire authority.The power that they wield appears flimsy—the most serious penalty they can levyis a rebuke to firms and individuals through public notices. But it isremarkably effective in a country with a long history of punishment byhumiliation—think of the cangue, a rectangular slab around the neck, inpre-Communist times and dunce caps in the Cultural Revolution.
就在同一时间，证交所已经悄悄地开始获取威权。他们能实现的最严重的处罚是斥责公司和个人并引起公众的注意，看起来是个很脆弱的权力。但对于一个历史上长期将羞辱当作惩罚的国家，它非常的有效——想想共产主义之前的刑枷，把脖子围住的矩形木板和文化大革命时期的愚蠢的“高帽子”。
Messrs Liebman and Milhaupt write that between 2001 and 2006 the exchangespublicly criticised 205 companies and almost 1,700 people. They looked at theshare prices of the targeted firms both when they disclosed the conduct forwhich they were being criticised and when the criticism was published. Theadmissions typically preceded the rebukes, and in the few weeks that followedthe firms' share prices underperformed the Shanghai stockmarket by an average of up to6% (see left-hand chart). After the criticism, there was a further lag of up to3% on average (see right-hand chart).
Messrs Liebman和Milhaupt写到，在2001和2006年之间证交所公开批评了205家公司和近1700个人。他们观察目标公司的股票价格变化，包括它们披露其受到批评的行动的时候和针对他们的批评被发布的时候。正常情况下是公司承认在先，随后的几周内这家公司的股票价格平均低于上海市场近6%（见左图）。而随后的公共批评，在一定的延迟下又可以让它继续下跌平均3%（见右图）。
Using evidence from extensive interviews, Messrs Liebman and Milhauptpoint to other damage too. Raising money through equity markets and banksbecame more costly, and sometimes impossible, for companies that had beencriticised. Suppliers and customers also took a tougher line. Some people lost theright to be a director or senior manager, and suffered from pariah status in acountry where there is little pity for failure. The criticisms were sometimeseven a prelude to formal investigations by the regulatory authorities.
更广泛地调查取证后，Messrs Liebman和Milhaupt指出还存在着其他的损失。因为公司被批评，它从银行和股市融资将变得更加困难，有时候甚至无法融资。供应商和消费者也会更加决绝。有些人将失去成为总裁或高管的机会，还会在这个对失败者没有同情心的国家承受千夫所指的痛苦。批评有时候甚至是监管机关正式调查的前奏。
Criticism may count for a couple of reasons, the authors suggest. Amid thevacuum of information in China,any hint of bad news is likely to be seized upon. And, in a state-run economy,it is never good to be unpopular with the authorities.
作者表示，批评有如此威力是出于几个原因。在中国，因为信息空缺，任何一个关于坏消息的暗示都可能引起巨大的关注。而且，在政府经营的经济体里，得罪权威部门在任何情况下都不是好事。
From an academic point of view, more intriguing is that the exchanges havebegun to regulate themselves even though they are not private. This suggeststhat there is room, even in countries with authoritarian governments, for newforms of governance to emerge when laws fail. It is quite conceivable that theexchanges may become better regulators than the official ones.
从一个学术的观点来看，更加有趣的是，尽管证交所并非私人经营，但也开始约束自身。这显示，即使在威权主义政府的国家，当法律无从施力时，同样有空间让新的管理方式兴起。我们完全可以相信，相比起政府机关来，证交所将是更优秀的监管者。
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