University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh UNIVERSITY OF GHANA COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH ISSUES OF EQUIVALENCE: A TRANSLATION OF « LES BANQUES CENTRALES DANS LA TEMPÊTE POUR UN NOUVEAU MANDAT DE STABILITÉ FINANCIÈRE » (TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH TO ENGLISH) BY JOYCELYN NAA AMERLEY ARMAH (10371770) A THESIS/DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, LEGON, IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MA TRANSLATION DEGREE JUNE, 2019 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DECLARATION I, Joycelyn Naa Amerley Armah, hereby declare that with the exception of cited references, all the information in this work is a presentation of my original dissertation. This dissertation has never been presented in part or in whole to any institution for the award of any degree. Joycelyn Naa Amerley Armah (Student) Date: Professor Robert Yennah (Supervisor) Date: i University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh DEDICATION I dedicate this work to all incoming MA Translation students of the University of Ghana. ii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My utmost gratitude goes to the Almighty God for the strength and grace he gave me to go through this programme and to complete this work. Completing this work would have been all the more difficult and not seen the light of day without the professional guidance of Prof. Robert Yennah. I am colossally indebted to you for taking time off your busy schedule to correct my work and your prompt responses to my emails. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my parents, Mr. Okyere Senyo, Miss. Abigail Ameley Quaye and the God is Able Family for their prayers, support and well wishes throughout this period of study. I wish to acknowledge Dr. Roger Kouakou and Dr. Sindou Soumahoro of TRADU-CO, where I undertook my internship for the ideas and experiences they shared with me which have shaped my view on the translation activity. Finally, I would like to recognize all lecturers of the Department of French. Your invaluable knowledge and thought-provoking lectures have helped me finalize this work. iii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate issues of equivalence in translating the source text (ST) from French to English. The ST – Les banques centrales dans la tempête pour un nouveau mandat de stabilité financière was selected as a primary source material. The design in the work was primarily analytical and contrastive, as it analyzed issues of equivalence owing to linguistic and extra- linguisitic factors, such as false friends, ambiguity, non-equivalence and context. Translation strategies and theories served as a guide to explain and overcome the challenges of equivalence encountered that were a threat to translatability. The study found that formal equivalence like dynamic equivalence, as a strategy, was capable of producing equivalent effect so that meaning is not distorted. On the other hand, it may be a fertile ground for false friends. Additionally, replacing SL textual material with TL textual material was found to lead to a loss in information content although the message was fully conveyed. Finally, full equivalence was not always achieved. This was evident in some cases of idiomatic expressions where the best strategy was to understand the message of the author and to re-express it with the appropriate equivalents. Key words: Linguistic factors, extra-linguistic factors, non-equivalence, translatability, equivalent effect iv University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh RESUMÉ Cette étude visait à examiner les questions d'équivalence dans la traduction du texte source (TS) du français vers l'anglais. L’ouvrage Les banques centrales dans la tempête pour un nouveau mandat de stabilité financière a été choisi comme texte source. La méthode de l'étude était principalement analytique et contrastive, puisqu'elle analysait les questions d'équivalence en raison de facteurs linguistiques et extralinguistiques tels que les faux amis, l'ambiguïté, la non-équivalence et le contexte. Les stratégies et théories de traduction ont servi de guide pour expliquer et surmonter les problèmes d'équivalence rencontrés qui menaçaient la traduisibilité. L'étude a montré que l’equivalence formelle tout comme l’equivalence dynamique, en tant que stratégie de traduction était capable de produire un effet équivalent en raison du fait que la traduction ne déforme pas le sens. De plus, le remplacement du matériel textuel de la langue de départ (LD) par du matériel textuel de la langue d’arrivée (LA) est avéré entraîner une perte de contenu d'information bien que le message ait été entièrement transmis. Enfin, l'équivalence totale n'a pas toujours été atteinte. Ceci était évident dans certains cas des idiomes où la meilleure stratégie était de comprendre le message de l'auteur et de le ré-exprimer avec les équivalents appropriés. Mots clés : Facteurs linguistiques, facteurs extra-linguistiques, non-équivalence, traduisibilité, effet équivalent v University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION....................................................................................................................... i DEDICATION.......................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. vii ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................................... 1 1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.2. Problem statement ........................................................................................................... 3 1.3. Significance of Study ...................................................................................................... 4 1.4. Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 4 1.5. OBJECTIVES ................................................................................................................. 5 1.5.1. General Objective ..................................................................................................... 5 1.5.2. Specific Objectives ................................................................................................... 5 1.6. Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................... 5 1.7. Literature Review ............................................................................................................ 7 1.8. Methodology ................................................................................................................. 13 1.9. Introduction to the Source Text ..................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER TWO ................................................................................................................... 16 2.0. CORPORA ALIGNMENT ............................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER THREE ............................................................................................................... 63 3.0 Analysis and Discussion of Translation problems ......................................................... 63 3.1. Word Equivalence ......................................................................................................... 64 3.2. Equivalence Beyond the Word Level............................................................................ 73 3.2.1. Technical terms .......................................................................................................... 73 3.2.2 Idioms .......................................................................................................................... 75 3.2.2.1 Using an idiom with similar form and meaning ....................................................... 76 3.2.2.2 Using an idiom with similar meaning but dissimilar form....................................... 77 3.2.2.3 Paraphrasing ............................................................................................................. 78 3.2.3. Fixed expressions ....................................................................................................... 79 vi University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.4. Abbreviations ................................................................................................................ 80 CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................. 81 4.0 FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................... 81 4.1 Findings .......................................................................................................................... 81 4.2 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 84 4.3 Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 86 GLOSSARY............................................................................................................................ 87 REFERENCE ......................................................................................................................... 91 SITOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 93 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 ..................................................................................................................................... 65 Table 2 ..................................................................................................................................... 67 Table 3 ..................................................................................................................................... 74 Table 4 ..................................................................................................................................... 75 Table 5 ..................................................................................................................................... 82 Table 6 ..................................................................................................................................... 79 vii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ABBREVIATIONS Source Text – ST Target Text – TT Source Language – SL Target Language – TL Texte source - TS Langue de départ – LD Langue d’arrivée – LA viii University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER ONE 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1. Background Translation became necessary because of the proliferation of languages at the tower of Babel (Ladmiral, 1979). Although the actual study of translation as an academic discipline started in the twentieth century, translation has been used throughout history. This has made translation an indispensable aspect of human communication. The demand for translation services is undoubtedly on the increase and is more important than ever before in today’s world – commonly referred to as a global village. A global community where businesses cannot expand internationally or penetrate foreign markets without the translation of documents. This claim is based on Roger's (2017, CNBC news) assertion that “the number of people in the translation and interpretation industry has doubled in the past seven years” and is expected to “grow by 29%” through 2024. Translation is very essential to the development of literature. Translation gives new life to documents written centuries ago when they are reproduced in another language with the content remaining the same. Benjamin (2004) emphasized this idea by stating that a translation comes long after its original and therefore the translation of important works marks their stage of continued life. With regards to technical texts, Salama-Carr et al. (1995, p. 101) cited in (Krein-Kutiile, 2003, p. 10), posited that “technical and scientific translation, more than any other mode of translation perhaps, is an instrument of cross- fertilization, transformation and progress. Without translation, the modern phenomenon of “technology transfer” would not exist”. Leonardi (2000) avers that defining equivalence poses a challenge which may be due to the lack of a general approach to this notiom. Nevertheless, the concept of equivalence highlights that the source text and target text “share some kind of ‘sameness’” (Panou, 2013, p.2). 1 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Catford (1965) defines the translation activity in relation to equivalence. According to him, translation is “the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL) (p.20)”. In addition, Kenny (2009) cites (Pym 1992a:31) who evokes the notion of circularity in relation to translation and equivalence. He states that, “equivalence is supposed to define translation and translation, in turn, defines equivalence”. Nida (1964, p. 159) cites (Belloc, 1931), who argues that, “identical equivalents” do not exist and as such, a translator must look out for “the closest possible equivalent”. Issues of this nature draw attention to (Kenny, 2009) who described equivalence as both a “central concept” and a “controversial one.” Centuries ago, theoretists such as Cicero, Horace and St Jerome started the debate on what the focus should be in finding TL equivalents. Some argued that the focus should be on the lexical item, that is, rendering word for word, whereas others emphasized the meaning (Amparo; Munday, 1990; 2008). The former represents a literal translation and the latter, free translation. In the course of time, new theorists emerged and so did the transition of the concept of equivalence: Eugene Nida’s seminal concepts of Formal and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent effect, Peter Newmark’s Semantic and communicative translation, and Werner Koller’s Korrespondenz and Ǎquivalenz (Correspondence and Equivalence) (originally written in German but translated into English) served as percursors during the transistion period. According to Venuti (2004, p. 5), the concept of equivalence has been interpreted as “accuracy”, “adequacy”, “correctness”, “correspondence”, “fidelity” or “identity”. Baker (1992) points out the different levels at which a translator must achieve equivalence. However, achieving equivalence at word and beyond word levels will be the focus of this study. That is, single words and lexical patterns such idioms and fixed expressions. 2 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh She further claims that a threat to the translation activity is the issue of non-equivalence and that a translator may have to manipulate the linguistic system of the language in question to achieve equivalence in some contexts. This is because, at the end of the day, a message and not words have to be communicated to TL readers. Unlike the “straight jacket effect” (p.100) the grammar of a language produces on the translator, translating words and lexical patterns may make room for dynamism. This throws more light on Nida’s (1964) theory of dynamic equivalence where the focus is on conveying a message and not words. If indeed equivalence and translation go hand in hand, as Kenny (1998) has suggested, equivalence will continue to remain central to the practice of translation and will therefore remain a topic for discussion in the field of translation. 1.2. Problem statement The controversies surrounding equivalence as a concept in translation stress the claim of Catford (1965) that “the central problem of translation practice is finding TL translation equivalents (p.21)”. The differences that exist between French and English make the quest for equivalence at all levels challenging, since every language has its own rules for the formation of words and sentences. This poses a threat to the translation activity. Baker (1992) evokes the issue of non-equivalence which may occur at the word level and beyond the word level. This is because there might be no direct equivalence between two languages. She further states that in the translation of idoms and fixed expressions, it is unworkable for the translator to always expect to find equivalence. A translator who resorts to formal equivalence as a means of achieving equivalence may always be in the wrong although formal equivalence makes an attempt to convey the message of the author as well, but in both form and content. To this end, this study seeks to investigate translation strategies that will create equivalent effect in spite of all the challenges a translator may be faced with. 3 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1.3. Significance of Study The study is relevant due to an observed limitation posed by formal equivalence synonymous in the translation activity and therefore seeks to explore other methods that can be used to achieve equivalent effect. As Baker (1992) claims, a translator may also be faced with the issues of non-equivalence. Since every language has a system for naming concepts, issues of non-equivalence should not lead to untranslatability. This study identifies such instances in the source text and proposes meaningful strategies for translating them and which will in turn communicate the message intended by the author. As the focus of the translation activity is faithfulness to meaning and not words, the study will therefore be highly relevant to students and translators to inform pragmatic shifts on methods of translation - including literal translation, to create equivalent effect. 1.4. Research Questions 1. Do economic texts have any particular traits that influence a translator’s choice of equivalents? 2. How important is it to maintain the imagery an author creates in the source text as part of his style of writing? 3. If equivalence is beyond finding replacements for lexical and grammatical items between languages, as Bassnett (2002) claims, what are the other factors that come into play? 4. What techniques of translation can a translator resort to when faced with non- equivalence at the word level and beyong the word level? 4 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 1.5. OBJECTIVES Objectives are indispensable in a research work as they explain what the researcher hopes to achieve at the end of the project. 1.5.1. General Objective To translate the source text, Les banques centrales dans la tempête pour un nouveau mandat de stabilité financière from French to English and to explore the particular challenges it poses. 1.5.2. Specific Objectives 1. To identify what accounts for the difficulties of finding equivalence at both word and beyond word levels such idioms and fixed expressions. 2. To explore the challenges of equivalence with the help of translation techniques and theories proposed by translation experts. 3. To choose the appropriate equivalents which will preserve meaning and consequently create equivalent effect. 4. To investigate the limits and usefulness of formal correspondence as a method of finding equivalence in the translation activity. 1.6. Theoretical Framework Theories from linguistic and functionalist approaches will serve as a guide to overcome challenges faced in the course of the translation process. Firstly, the contrastive linguistic approach will be used as we will be reflecting on the similarities and the differences that exist between the two languages. Gast (2012), stated that contrastive linguistics can be considered as a branch of comparative linguistics. This highlights Catford’s (1965) reference to the theory of translation as a branch of comparative linguistics. Thus, in the process of analyzing the particular challenges faced in translating the source text from French to English, there will be an indirect comparison between the two languages as these challenges are due to the differences that exist between them. 5 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Moreover, the interpretative theory or theory of meaning established by Seleskovitch & Lederer (1984) cited in (Herbulot, 2014) is based on the principle that translation is an activity performed on the message or meaning and not on words or languages. No matter the kind of text a translator is translating, be it literary or technical, the translation involves two successive actions: Understanding and saying. After understanding, the translator must “de-verbalise and then re-express, and say things in another language” (Herbulot, 2014, p.309). This theory will influence this study as we aim at transferring meaning and not words. Thus, a deep understanding of the message will be required in order to de-verbalise and re-express what the author is trying to say. Furthermore, Vermeer (2004) propounds the skopos theory as an aspect of a theory of translational action which is based on a source text. Functionalist approaches, including Vermeer’s skopos theory, claim that the linguistic form of the target text is determined by the purpose it is meant to fulfill. Based on this theory, the source text under study has been identified as an informative text. Schäffner (2009, p.116) has avered that in translating informative texts, the translator’s goal should be “invariance of content” and a translation will be considered “successful if the information has been transmitted in full”. Thus, in finding the appropriate equivalents in the process of translating the source text from French to English throughout this work, there will be an attempt to transmit the message of the author in full, without disorting its meaning. This will highlight the fact that in translation, the only thing that changes is the language and not the message the author intends to carry across to his audience. In addition, Levý, (2004) posits that from the teleological point of view, translation is a process of communication. This stresses translation as “un acte de communication” [an act of communication] (Ladmiral, 1979, p.13), as it serves as a medium for transferring information to interlocuters who speak different languages. 6 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Consequently, this makes translation a decision process, as the goal of translating is to convey knowledge from the source text to the foreign reader. Levý (2004) adds that, the decision a translator will make can be compared to “moves, as in a game”. He opines that, the difficulties the translator faces in this process makes it possible to compare the translation activity to the game theory in which translators are referred to as the “players”. With this theory in mind, as players in this game of translation, there will be some brainstorming in the search for the best equivalent among a number of alternatives in translating the ST from French into English. The brainstorming process will be consistent with Larbaud’s (1946) description of the work of translators as « peseurs de mots » [weighers of words] cited in (Hurtado Albir, 1990). Nida (1964) propounds the theory of formal and dynamic (functional) equivalence. He states that formal equivalence stresses on the message in both form and content. That is, the message in the receptor language “should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language” (p. 159). The concept of dynamic equivalence is based on “equivalent effect” where “the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message” (p.159). Dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression. This theory will be relevant to our study, especially in the translation of technical terms. 1.7. Literature Review The aim of this section is to discuss pertinent views on the issues of equivalence across literatures which will serve as a point of reference in overcoming challenges of equivalence in the text. Baker (1992) presents the problems of equivalence at word and above word levels of translation. She claims that one-to-one correspondence between orthographic words and elements of meaning across languages is impossible. This questions the effectiveness of literal translation as an accurate method of translation. She adds that many orthographic words in one 7 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh language may be represented by one orthographic word in another and vice versa to communicate meaning. The choice of a suitable equivalent in a given context depends on a wide variety of factors; linguistic or extra-linguistic. Baker admonishes translators to be cautious when translating literally as they may be faced with non-equivalence in some contexts. What method of translation will a translator resort to in such situations? The author posits that at the word level, non-equivalence may be a challenge in the absence of a direct-equivalent for a word in the TT as the word may be culture-specific; the SL word which may express a peculiar concept may not be lexicalized in the TL; the SL word may be semantically complex; loan words used in the SL create difficulties as the translator may not find an equivalent loan word in the TL to express the same idea. Baker (1992) further states that some words never find their way into a dictionary and thus a dictionary may not always be a “final authority and depository of all the words of a language” (Nida, 2001, p.30). To tackle the issue of non-equivalence at word-level, the author suggests some translation strategies such as, translation using a more general word; translation using a less expressive word; translation by cultural substitution; translation using a loan word which may include an explanation and translation by omission. In addition, Baker states that words normally occur with others. However, every language has its own rules on how they can be combined to convey meaning. This makes literal translation a risky process. Mona Baker groups this lexical patterning in terms of collocations, idioms and fixed expressions. The first is not related to our study. Baker (1992, p. 76) considers idioms and fixed expressions as “frozen patterns of language” which allow little or no change in form. She avers that unlike idioms, the meanings of fixed expressions are more transparent. The author asserts that the major challenge that idiomatic and fixed expressions create in translation is linked to two factors: the capability to recognize and interpret an idiom accurately 8 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh and the difficulties in rendering the different aspects of meaning that an idiom or fixed expression conveys into the target language. They do not make sense when translated literally. The author draws our attention to the fact that an idiom may be used in the source text in both its literal and idiomatic senses at the same time. To overcome challenges in translating idioms and fixed expressions, Baker proposes some strategies. The translation can be carried out using an idiom with similar meaning and form; an idiom with similar meaning but dissimilar form; a paraphrase or they can simply be omitted. Additionally, the author explains that differences in grammatical structures of the SL and TL normally lead to some change in the information content when translating. This may either be in the form of adding a grammatical item to the TL or the ommission. Thereof, it is notwewortthy to state that this doesn’t create any change in meaning if the translator respects TL grammatical rules. Larson (1998) suggests that meaning, which is the constant in translation must be given priority over form (that is, the actual words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs). In her view, a translator must critically consider the lexicon, grammatical structure, communication situation and cultural context of the SL text, examining it to establish its meaning, and then reformulating this same meaning, resorting to the lexicon and grammatical structure which are suitable in the SL and its cultural context. Therefore, doing a literal translation in some contexts would produce a bad translation. She claims that, a one-to-one correlation between form and meaning exists only when a form is being used in its primary meaning or function. In the absence of this all lexical items and all grammatical forms would have a specific meaning; and a literal word- for-word and grammatical structure-for-grammatical structure translation would be possible. This then will make the translation a walk in the park. What then should be the goal of the translator? In response to this, the author states that the translator must produce a TL text which is “idiomatic” (Larson, 1988, p. 2). That is, it must 9 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh have equivalent meaning as the SL text but communicated in the natural form of the TL. She further states that literal translations of words, idioms, figures of speech and many others produce meaningless and unnatural translations. However, translations are normally a combination of literal transfer of the grammatical units together with some idiomatic translation of the meaning of the text. In order to maintain imagery, the author creates his text to produce a particular effect on his reader; the translator may want to translate these vehicles of imagery literally as seen in our ST. Baker suggests three alternative ways in dealing with lexical equivalents for objects or events which are not known in the TL. A translator may resort to a generic word with a descriptive phrase, a loan word or a cultural substitute. When a generic word is used, the translator may make the function, form or both explicit. S/he may also use comparison. Additionally, she confirms that translators may have great difficulty translating idiomatic expressions as they are usually based on stories or historical events. Larson cites Beekman & Callow (1974), who define idioms as expressions of “at least two words which cannot be understood literally and which function as a unit semantically.” The author suggests that an idiom may be translated with a nonfigurative expression or with an equivalent idiom in TL, provided such exists. One of the diverse ways Eugene Nida contributes to Translation studies is through his book - Contexts in Translating. Nida (2001) avers that the failure of translators to take the contexts of words or phrases into consideration accounts mainly for the most serious blunders in understanding and reproducing the meaning of a discourse. In his opinion, context not only affects the decoding of the meaning of a word, but how a word is to be translated. Most translation experts have stressed the importance of the notion of meaning in translation and state that it is a constant factor a translator must always focus on. Therefore, in finding equivalents, we must be careful not to distort meaning. Newmark (1988) defines translation 10 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh based on the notion of meaning by stating that, translation is “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text” (p.5). This undoubtedly puts us in the shoes of the author. Nida (2001, p. 33) advances that in some cases, words combine with context to produce meaning. He refers to this collaboration between a word and context as “semantic molecule”. Although context is just one of the numerous ways a translator adopts to deal with multiple meanings of words, it will serve as one of the essential tools in confronting challenges faced with equivalence in our ST. The author mentions that, although there exists no direct mapping between a ST and a TT, there should be sufficient similarity that it can be classified as “having some significant measure of equivalence described either as “the closest natural equivalent or as sufficiently similar” (Nida, 2001, p. 6). Munday (2008) discusses the concept of equivalence based on books written by authors such as Roman Jakobson (Jakobson, 1959), Eugene Nida and C.R. Taber (Nida, 1964), (Nida & Taber, 1969) and Peter Newmark (Newmark, 1981; 1988). The discussions show differences in the views of these authors on this central concept in translation. He cites Jakobson (1959) who states that that “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-units” (p.60). What then is the translator’s solution in this situation? Literal translation will certainly not be a solution if a translator cannot identify a word in the TL which corresponds to the SL word in question. Will this lead to untranslatability? Jakobson considers translation as an act of replacing messages and not words, in one language, with equivalent messages in another language. Additionally, Nida (1964) makes a distinction between formal and dynamic equivalence. The former focuses on the form and content of the message and the latter is based on the concept of equivalent effect. In this context, the same impact the ST has on the original receptors should 11 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh be the same as that of the TT on the receptors. Nida (1964) claims that equivalent effect is achieved when a text reads so naturally that readers cannot tell it has been translated. He states the goal of dynamic equivalence as finding “the closest natural equivalent to the source- language message (p.159).” Therefore, there will have to be adaptations of grammar, lexicon and cultural references to achieve naturalness. In describing the translation activity, Hoof (1994) in his book Traduire L’anglais, suggests that, linguistic knowledge is an indispensable instrument in the translation activity. However, in order to use this instrument, the translator must acquire the techniques and learn how to use them. His book is unique as he focuses only on French and English and identifies the major features of each, which in turn pose challenges in translating from one to the other. He develops four constants in the linguistic process which according to him are beneficial to the translation process. According to Hoof, the English lexicon is richer than that of French. This is very evident in the ability of English to express one concept with several words. Secondly, English is more concise and French is more analytical. In juxtaposing a French text and its translation into English, we will realize that the French text is longer than the English text. Thirdly, the author highlights the tendency of English to use concrete terms whereas French uses more of abstract terms. Lastly, English is dynamic whilst French tends to be static. Knowledge of such differences that exist between two languages as the above helps translators understand why they are confronted with difficulties when translating. The author considers the latter as a better solution to translation problems. In addition, literal translation is generally limited to relatively short and simple phrases whose meaning is not affected by extra-linguistic factors. Likewise, Vinay & Darbelnet (1977) state that direct translation becomes possible where there are parallel categories or structural parallelism between the SL and TL and SL and TL concepts are the same. They propose translation techniques and classify them under two 12 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh headings. Direct translation which includes borrowing, literal translation and indirect translation which comprises transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation. However, it is noteworthy that the concept of equivalence they evoke is different from that adopted by authors such as Nida (1964). Vinay & Darbelnet (1977) explain equivalence in terms of rendering the same situation using two texts with completely different stylistic and structural methods. An example of this is could be the case of proverbs, idioms, and clichés. Though issues of equivalence tend to be problematic in the field of translation, Hermans (2009, p. 300) states that, “different languages may package meaning differently, but ultimately all languages are able to convey all possible meanings”. A translator therefore has to equip himself with the various methods of translation proposed by different theorists in order to overcome such challenges and translate the right way without distorting meaning. 1.8. Methodology Research methodology is the systematic approach used to solve a research problem. The study design to be used will be qualitative but hinging on analytical and constrastive analysis (CA). Through this approach, the study will make an attempt to investigate the challenges of equivalence in translating a text from French to English owing to the differences that exist between the two languages. An economic text was chosen because of my personal interest in the field of Economics. The text will be studied and the particular challenges it poses will be identified and brought under one umbrella. Next, translation strategies and theories that will help to overcome these challenges and produce a target text that will read as naturally as possible will be used. The research will rely mainly on secondary source data. Data from secondary sources will be collected from information in books, archival materials at the University of Ghana French 13 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh departmental library, online articles and journals as well as offline and online monolingual and bilingual dictionaries will serve as a guide. 1.9. Introduction to the Source Text The source text is taken from the domain of Economics. It is a booklet entitled, Les banques centrales dans la tempête pour un nouveau mandat de stabilité financière translated as The struggle of central banks for a new financial stability mandate. The booklet is part of the collection of Centre pour la recherché économique et ses applications (CEPREMAP). The objective was to create an interface between the academic world, public and private policy makers. CEPREMAP partners with institutions such as the Bank of France, the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) and the French Development Agency (AFD). It was written by Xavier Ragot, an Associate professor at the Paris School of Economics and a researcher at CNRS. In summary, the booklet explains how the Central banks have contributed to the creation of financial fragility before the financial crisis began in 2007. The author argues that if the Central banks claim to be the silent guardians of price stability, the 2007 crisis higlights the need to rethink their role more generally. The source text is made up of seventy-eight pages and is divided into 4 main sections. These four sections are made up of the main headings and with sub-headings that explain specific economic issues. The total number of words translated from the booklet is eight thousand four hundren (8,400) - per the requirements of the MA Translation programme. The target text is made up of seven thousand three fifty words (7,350), all making a total of fifteen thousand seven fifty words (15,750). With regards to the author’s style of writing, one peculiarity of the source text is that some economic terms were borrowed from English. Some examples could be identified as; 14 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh “repurchase-agreement”, “hair-cut”, “commercial paper funding facility”, “sub-primes”, “money market funds”, “put option”, “gambling for resurrection” and “quantitative easing”. Interrogating why the author of the source text decided to borrow these economic terms, we made an observation in the course of translating the source text from French to English that these technical terms have no equivalents in French. This is consistent with Baker’s (1992) concept of non-equivalence - where she emphasizes that it is unrealistic for a translator to always expect to find equivalences between two languages and proposes the strategy of borrowing as one of the techniques to overcome challenges of non-equivalence. In the same vein, some abbreviations were left untranslated by the author, notably, “MMFs (Money Market Funds)” and “RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities)’’. This, in a way, facilitated the translation process, as they were maintained in the target text. 15 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER TWO 2.0. CORPORA ALIGNMENT Les Banques centrales dans la tempête The struggle of Central banks for a new pour un nouveau mandat de stabilité financial stability mandate. financière. Introduction Introduction Les banques centrales sont en principe les Central banks are in principle to ensure gardiennes silencieuses de la stabilité economic stability: price stability, payment économique : stabilité des prix, stabilité du system stability and stability of the banking système de paiement et stabilité du système system. These various functions came bancaire. Ces différentes fonctions sont about crisis after crisis. The modern apparues crise après crise. La pratique practice adopted by central banks is as a moderne des banques centrales est le fruit result of lessons learnt the hard way from des leçons chèrement payés des crises the 19th and early 20th century banking bancaires du XIXe et du début du XXe crises. siècle. La Réserve fédérale américaine, la FED, a The Federal Reserve System (FED) was été créée en 1913 pour mettre fin à des established in 1913 to end the cyclical crises bancaires cycliques. L’objectif banking crises. The current low inflation actuel d’inflation faible visé par les target set by Central banks is a lesson from banques centrales est une leçon des années the 1970s during which inflation was high 1970 pendant lesquelles l’inflation était and economic growth was slow. forte et la croissance faible. 16 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Dans les années 1980, le coût en termes de In the 1980s, costs of unemployment and chômage et de croissance de l’effort de increased efforts to reduce inflation raised diminution de l’inflation a fait prendre awareness of the advantages of a stable and conscience des mérites d’une inflation moderate inflation. The 2007 financial stable et modérée. À n’en pas douter, la crisis will undoubtedly be a new step in crise financière commencée en 2007 sera defining the role of Central banks in a une nouvelle étape de la définition du rôle country’s economy. des banques centrales dans l’économie. Il est peu probable en effet que les As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that démocraties acceptent une nouvelle fois de governments will again agree to spend so consacrer autant d’argent à sauver des much money to help financial actors who acteurs financiers qui ont été à l’origine de were at the root of the crisis. Financial la crise. La réglementation financière va regulations, like the role of Central banks, changer, tout comme le rôle des banques will change. centrales. Avant la crise, la fonction des banques Before the crisis, the function of central centrales pouvait paraître assez simple. banks could seem quite simple. They Elles modifiaient leurs taux directeurs, modified their policy rates, that is, the rates c’est-à-dire les taux auxquels les banques at which banks lend to each other in se prêtent de l’argent entre elles, en relation to expected inflation and economic fonction de l’inflation anticipée et de activity, based on their mandate. l’activité économique, suivant leur mandat. 17 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Les banques centrales ont mis en place, In emergency situations, Central banks dans l’urgence, de nouveaux outils pour have created new measures to prevent the éviter la désagrégation du système disintegration of the financial system. They financier. Elles ont dû gérer à la fois des had to simultaneously manage bank crises, crises bancaires, l’implosion de certains implosion of markets beneficial to the marchés essentiels au fonctionnement de running of the economy, financing l’économie, les difficultés de financement difficulties of Greece and Ireland, de la Grèce et de l’Irlande, les risques de recession risks and obviously, risks of récession et, évidemment, les risques de deflation or rise in inflation déflation ou d’augmentation de l’inflation. simultaneously. We must admit that this is Reconnaissons que cela fait beaucoup pour too much for one institution. une seule institution. Aujourd’hui que le rôle des banques Now that the role of central banks has centrales, notamment leur détention des become clearer; particularly, their holding dettes publiques, est devenue plus visible, of public debt, many economists wonder if nombre d’économistes se demandent si their mandate should not change. Thus, the leur mandat ne devrait pas évoluer. Ainsi, European Central Bank (ECB) is primarily la Banque centrale européenne (BCE) est to ensure price stability with a low inflation principalement la gardienne de la stabilité of about 2%; but it had a lot more during des prix, avec une inflation faible, proche the crisis, as we will discover later de 2 % ; or son action durant la crise a eu une portée bien plus large, comme nous le verrons plus loin. Cependant, un rapport récent du Centre However, a recent report by the Center for d’analyse économique sur les banques Economic Analysis on Central banks and centrales et la stabilité financière montre financial stability shows differences des divergences entre les économistes. between economists 18 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Si certains continuent d’insister sur le rôle Whiles some continue to emphasize price clé de la stabilité des prix dans le mandat stability as the major role of Central banks, des banques centrales, d’autres estiment others think that they must influence qu’elles doivent peser sur la stabilisation macroeconomic and financial stabilisation. macroéconomique et financière. Les marchés financiers étant aujourd’hui As financial markets are unstable today, we instables, on ne peut écarter l’idée qu’ils cannot rule out the idea that they will lead développeront de nouveau les germes to a future crisis. Faced with such a risk, d’une crise future. Face à un tel risque, les Central banks must henceforth be banques centrales doivent désormais être responsible for financial stability and the en charge de la stabilité financière et de la overall stability of liquidity in the stabilité globale de la liquidité dans economy. l’économie. Même si de nouvelles institutions sont en Even if new institutions are being cours de création afin d’assurer la stabilité established to ensure financial stability and financière et le financement des États, les State funding, Central banks will always banques centrales auront toujours un rôle have a decisive role in this stability by their décisif dans cette stabilité par leur capacité ability to create money and therefore, à créer de la monnaie et donc de la liquidity liquidité. Ce constat se fonde sur trois This assertion is based on three observations : observations: • Les marchés financiers sont instables et • Financial markets are unstable and leur liquidité peut brusquement their liquidity can suddenly disappear, disparaître, entraînant des effets réels causing profoundly destabilizing real profondément déstabilisants. La effects. Central banks’ policy can politique des banques centrales peut negatively or positively affect financial affecter, en positif ou en négatif, la stability. stabilité financière. 19 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Par ailleurs, elles peuvent coordonner Moreover, they can coordinate les anticipations pour éviter les crises expectations to prevent self-fulfilling de dettes autoréalisatrices. debt crises. • Les banques centrales peuvent créer de • Central banks can create liquidity in a la liquidité de manière générale ou general or targeted way, for some ciblée, vers certains marchés ou vers markets or institutions. Indeed, the certaines institutions. En effet la nature nature of “missing liquidity” is not the de la « liquidité manquante » n’est pas same in the United States and in la même aux Etats-Unis et en Europe, Europe, for example. Central banks par exemple. Les banques centrales ont were able to define appropriate tools su définir les outils adaptés pour cela. for that. • Les banques centrales auront toujours • Central banks will always have a role un rôle à jouer pour assurer le to play in ensuring the normal fonctionnement normal des marchés operation of financial markets before, financiers, avant, pendant et après les during and after the crises. Their crises. Il convient donc de faire évoluer mandates therefore need to be changed. leur mandat. Les couts éventuels d’un The possible costs of such a change are tel changement sont inférieurs au gain lower than the gain that will result from qui en résultera : le renforcement de la it: enhancing the ability of Central compétence des banques centrales en banks to understand the operations of matière de compréhension du financial markets. fonctionnement des marchés financiers. Quelle a été l’action récente des banques What has been the latest activity of Central centrales ? Avant la crise de 2007, elles ont Banks? Before the 2007 crisis, they contribué à augmenter les déséquilibres contributed to the increase in imbalances produits par le système financier. Cette produced by the financial system. This période est analysée dans la première partie period is analyzed in the first part of our de notre étude. study. 20 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Le cœur de la crise financière a consisté en The climax of the financial crisis was the une implosion du secteur bancaire aux collapse of the banking sector in the United États-Unis et en Europe. Aux États-Unis, la States and Europe. In the United States, liquidité produite par le secteur bancaire liquidity generated by the shadow banking parallèle s’est évanouie ; en Europe, la sector vanished; In Europe, liquidity liquidité échangée sur le marché exchanged on the inter-bank market interbancaire a disparu. Dans les deux cas, disappeared. In both cases, the reaction of la réaction des banques centrales a été de the Central banks was to provide liquidity fournir des liquidités en quantité presque in almost unlimited amounts. We will illimitée. Nous décrivons ce moment de la describe this period of the crisis in the crise dans une deuxième partie. second part. La troisième période de la crise est celle des dettes publiques en Europe. La BCE The third period of the crisis is that of fournit très partiellement de la liquidité aux public debts in Europe. The ECB provides États pour leur donner le temps nécessaire some money to States to give them enough à la mise en place d’une consolidation time to implement fiscal consolidation. The fiscale. Les montants sont probablement amounts are probably too low. A default in trop faibles. Un incident de paiement de la payment by some great European countries part de certains grands pays européens like Italy had very destabilizing effects on comme l’Italie aurait des conséquences très financial markets. déstabilisatrices sur les marchés financiers. Il faut donc envisager la relation entre BCE It is therefore necessary to examine the et États sous l’angle de la stabilité relationship between the ECB and States financière et non directement sous celui de from the angle of financial stability and not la contribution fiscale. Notre troisième directly from that of fiscal contribution. partie étudie l’utilité d’un financement de Our third part studies the importance of certains États européens et les risques funding some European States and the associés. associated risks. 21 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Dans une quatrième partie, nous montrons In the fourth part, we will show the need to la nécessité de faire évoluer le mandat des change the Central banks’ mandate so that banques centrales pour qu’elles assument they could play their major role in financial leur rôle clé dans la stabilité financière. Ce stability. This role is to be thought of within rôle est à penser au sein d’une nouvelle a new financial architecture in which new architecture financière où de nouvelles institutions would also be in charge of institutions seraient aussi en charge de la financial market stability. In any case, stabilité des marchés financiers. Dans tous Central banks remain the institutions which les cas, les banques centrales demeurent les have the monopoly to create Federal institutions qui ont le monopole de la Reserve Notes and as such, liquidity. This création de billets de réserve, donc de la will always give them the decisive role in liquidité. Ce qui leur donnera toujours un financial stability. rôle décisif en matière de stabilité financière. Les banques centrales ont-elles favorisé Have the Central banks stimulated the la crise ? financial crisis La période de constitution de la « fragilité The United States experienced a period of financière » a lieu aux États-Unis entre “financial fragility” between 2003 or 2004 2003 ou 2004 et 2007. Ce terme de « and 2007. The term “financial fragility” fragilité financière » désigne un refers to an unprecedented debt and endettement et une exposition aux risques exposure of financial institutions to macroéconomiques sans précédent de la macroeconomic risks. It is not an external part des intermédiaires financiers. Il ne shock which shook all global financial s’agit pas d’un choc extérieur qui a fait markets; but on the contrary, mechanisms vaciller l’ensemble des marchés financiers created in the US markets, greatly internationaux, mais, au contraire, de destabilizing and not noticed by most mécanismes produits au sein des marchés observers. américains, profondément déstabilisants et non apparents pour la plupart des observateurs. 22 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Aujourd’hui encore, la nature des facteurs Till date, the nature of the factors which qui ont rendu possible l’élaboration d’un made the development of such a house of tel château de cartes fait débat. L’enjeu est cards possible is a subject of debate. The de taille : comment modifier les outils stakes are high: how do we modify public publics pour atteindre trois objectifs, c’est- tools to attain three objectives, that is, to à-dire éviter la constitution de avoid the creation of financial imbalances, déséquilibres financiers, agir efficacement act effectively during crisis and reduce the en cas de crise et limiter les conséquences negative effects of financial and banking les plus négatives des crises financières et crisis on economic activity. bancaires sur l’activité économique. Le rôle des banques centrales dans la The role of central banks in creating constitution de la fragilité financière a été financial fragility has been widely debated largement débattu et trois arguments ont and three arguments were made. Firstly, été avancés. Tout d’abord, les banques Central banks, and particularly the FED, centrales et notamment la FED ont have maintained an accommodating conservé trop longtemps une politique monetary policy for too long and have monétaire accommodante et ont tardé à delayed in increasing interest rates. remonter les taux d’intérêt. Ensuite les changements non anticipes de Secondly, unexpected monetary policy politiques monétaires ont accru la prise de changes increased risk-taking among risques des institutions financières en 2004. financial institutions in 2004. Finally, Enfin, les banques centrales ont eu le tort Central banks erred in promoting the de laisser penser qu’elles déploieraient un understanding that they could deploy an filet de sécurités efficace si une crise effective safety net in times of crises and advenait, ce qui a entrainé des prises de that caused excessive risk-taking. risque excessives. Ces arguments présentent une part de These arguments are partially true. vérité. Ils sous-estiment cependant le rôle However, they underestimate the major essentiel des innovations financières dans role of financial innovations in creating la constitution des déséquilibres financiers. financial imbalances. 23 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh La politique monétaire a accru des Monetary policy has increased already déséquilibres préexistants et non identifiés. existing and unidentified imbalances. UNE POLITIQUE MONÉTAIRE AN EXPANSIONARY MONETARY EXPANSIONNISTE POLICY La critique la plus fréquente de la politique The commonest criticism of the US monétaire américaine est connue. Elle monetary policy is known. It states that affirme que la FED a mené une politique the FED implemented an expansionary monétaire expansionniste pendant trop monetary policy for too long after the longtemps après l’éclatement de la bulle burst of the internet bubble which led to Internet, ce qui a conduit à des coûts de very low short-term financing costs and a financement à court terme extrêmement substantial injection of liquidity into the faibles et à une injection substantielle de economy. This liquidity enabled financial liquidités dans l’économie. Ces liquidités institutions to massively lend money to ont permis aux intermédiaires financiers de households which bought houses, thereby faire massivement crédit aux ménages qui increasing the size of the real estate bubble. achetaient des maisons, gonflant ainsi la bulle immobilière. Cette explication peut sembler séduisante, This explanation may appear convincing, car elle est simple et repose sur des because it is simple and depends on constatations empiriques. Cependant, elle empirical evidence. However, it fails to manque la question centrale : pourquoi les answer the central question: why have acteurs financiers ont-ils si mal apprécié les financial actors assessed risks so poorly? risques ? Des taux d’intérêt historiquement Historically low interest rates faibles Les taux d’intérêt de court terme décidés The short-term interest rates determined par la Réserve fédérale ont été by the Federal Reserve have been historiquement bas après 2001. John historically low after 2001. John Taylor Taylor a montré que l’on pouvait se showed that we can explain the behaviour 24 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh représenter le comportement de la FED of the FED as responding to inflation and comme répondant à l’inflation et à la production trends. dynamique de la production. Cette estimation, appelée règle de This assessment, called Taylor’s rule, is Taylor, est donc une règle simple de therefore a simple behavioural rule during comportement pendant une période où a period where inflation is stable while at l’inflation s’est révélée stable et pendant the same time production fluctuations were laquelle les fluctuations de la production considerably lower than previous periods. étaient considérablement inférieures à This reduction in macroeconomic celles des périodes antérieures. Cette fluctuations led economists to name this réduction des fluctuations period the “Great Moderation”. macroéconomiques a amené les économistes à appeler cette période la « grande modération ». L’écart entre les taux de la FED et les taux The gap between FED rates and rates impliqués par la règle de Taylor après 2001 implied by the Taylor rule after 2001 a atteint plusieurs pourcents en 2005 : le reached several percentage points in 2005: taux décidé par la FED était de moins de 2 FED’s rate was less than 2% in 2005 % en 2005, alors que le taux de la règle de whereas the Taylor rule rate was higher Taylor était supérieur à 5 %. La FED a than 5%. FED chose low rates compared to choisi des taux bas comparés à son its average behaviour during the Great comportement moyen pendant la grande Moderation. modération. Ces faibles taux d’intérêt sont These low interest rates are actually linked effectivement associés à une croissance to a rapid credit increase beyond its rapide du crédit au-delà de sa moyenne historical average. This trend has not historique. Ce dynamisme n’a pas entraîné resulted in an increase in the prices of une hausse des prix des biens consommés consumer goods. par les ménages. 25 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh L’inflation mesurée par le prix du panier de The inflation measured by the prices of a bien des ménages est restée stable, autour basket of household goods remained stable de 2 %. En revanche, les prix immobiliers around 2%. Contrarily, housing prices have se sont considérablement accrus. Le prix considerably increased. The price of des maisons au États-Unis a quasiment houses in the United States almost doubled doublé entre 2000 et 2007. between 2000 and 2007. L’affirmation d’une relation entre taux bas The assertion of a link between low rates et bulle financière existe dans une version and the financial bubble has been further affinée. En effet, il est difficile de elaborated. As a matter of fact, it is difficult comprendre comment les taux d’intérêt bas to understand how short-term low interest de court terme peuvent expliquer à eux rates alone can cause financial instability. seuls la création d’une instabilité Low interest rates generally lead to demand financière. Les taux d’intérêt bas induisent for loans which can result in inflation généralement une demande de crédit qui se pressures. solde par des pressions inflationnistes. Si tel n’a pas été le cas, c’est que les taux If that didn’t happen, it is because low d’intérêt bas se sont conjugués à une vague interest rates have merged with a wave of d’innovation financière entraînant une financial innovation bringing about demande de crédit essentiellement demand for loans, particularly housing immobilier, qui a eu un impact faible sur le loans, which had a low impact on general niveau général des prix. Les prix price levels. Housing prices rose because immobiliers ont augmenté car la demande of increased demand for housing which has de maisons a augmenté, ce qui a entraîné caused an increase in housing loans. un accroissement de la demande de crédit immobilier. 26 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh FRENCH ENGLISH Ce premier mécanisme a été rendu This first mechanism was made possible by possible par des innovations financières financial innovations that became qui se sont largement répandues dans les widespread in the 2000s and are financial années 2000 et qui sont des titres securities backed by mortgages: the financiers adossés à des crédits famous subprimes, or RMBS. immobiliers : les fameux subprimes, ou encore les RMBS. Ainsi, une première critique de l’action Thus, an initial criticism of the Central des banques centrales montre qu’elles banks’ action shows that they have not n’ont pas remonté leurs taux d’intérêt increased their interest rates quickly suffisamment vite pour freiner la hausse enough to curb the increase in demand for de la demande de crédit immobilier mortgage caused by financial innovations. induite par les innovations financières. La The Central banks’ response to this réponse des banquiers centraux à cette criticism is simple. critique est simple. La demande de crédits immobiliers était The demand for mortgage was initially d’abord alimentée par des innovations fueled by financial innovations and financières et des mouvements de international capital flows which made the capitaux internationaux qui rendaient la demande for credit less dependent on recherche de crédit peu dépendante de la monetary policy. Since this policy has little politique monétaire. Cette politique ayant effect on long-term rates, it is therefore not peu d’effets sur les taux de long terme, elle responsible for the increase in demand for n’est donc pas responsable de la credit. dynamique du crédit. Cet argument de l’inefficacité de la This argument about the monetary policy’s politique monétaire est exagéré. Car les inefficiency is exaggerated as distributed crédits distribués étaient titrisés et loans were securitized and resold to revendus à des institutions financières qui financial institutions which were financing se finançaient à très court terme sur le themselves in the very short-term on the marché monétaire. money market. 27 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Ainsi, si une hausse des taux courts Thus, if an increase in short-term rates pouvait avoir un effet limité sur la could have a limited effect on household demande de crédit par les ménages, ils demand for credit, they would have auraient considérablement réduit la considerably reduced demand for demande de produits titrisés par les securitized products through financial intermédiaires financiers. institutions. D’un point de vue théorique, O. Loisel, A. From a theoretical point of view, O. Loisel, Pommeret et F. Portier montrent que de A. Pommeret and F. Portier show that petites variations de taux d’intérêt peuvent minor changes in interest rates can have entraîner des effets importants sur les significant effects on agents’ portfolios portefeuilles des agents, lorsque les agents when they have mimetic behavior and try ont des comportements mimétiques et to extract information on the actions of essaient d’extraire de l’information des others. actions des autres. La seconde réponse à cette mise en cause The second answer to this question is more est plus profonde car elle concerne le profound because it concerns the actual fonctionnement même des marchés operation of financial markets. Basically, financiers. Au fond, personne ne savait no one really knew what the reasonable vraiment quel était le niveau raisonnable level of real estate asset prices was. du prix des actifs immobiliers. Les débats Current debates on Parisian real estate actuels sur les prix de l’immobilier prices clearly show the difficulty of parisien montrent bien la difficulté assessing the price of these assets, which is d’évaluation du prix de ces actifs, ce qui moreover a simple outcome of economic est d’ailleurs une conclusion simple de la theory. théorie économique. Comme les banques centrales n’ont pas Since Central banks are not mandated to pour mandat d’évaluer les prix des actifs evaluate asset prices or try to detect ou d’essayer de détecter des bulles financial bubbles, they depended on financières, elles se sont reposées sur les financial markets to assess the real estate marchés financiers pour évaluer les price risks. It is this excessive outsourcing 28 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh risques des prix immobiliers. C’est cette of risk assessment at the general level externalisation trop importante de which was problematic, and questions this l’évaluation du risque au niveau global qui response today. a posé problème, et qui remet en cause aujourd’hui cette réponse. Une mauvaise appréciation du risque par Poor risk assessment by markets les marchés L’évaluation du risque par les The risk assessment by financial insitutions intermédiaires financières a été un échec, was a failure, which is a financial lesson ce qui constitue une leçon financière de la from the crisis, even for A. Greenspan. crise, même pour A. Greenspan. Les Financial and accounting innovation, innovations financières et comptables, opaque balance sheets and technical l’opacité des bilans, la créativité technique creativity have not led to an efficient n’ont pas abouti à une division et à une division and distribution of risks, but have répartition efficiente des risques, mais ont made it impossible for financial actors to rendu impossible leur évaluation par les assess them. acteurs financiers. Ces évolutions financières conjuguées These financial developments combined avec le bas niveau des taux d’intérêt with low interest rate levels may explain peuvent expliquer une prise de risque excessive risk-taking. This poor risk excessive. Cette mauvaise évaluation du assessment can be highlighted by risque peut être mise en lumière en considering various credit risk measures on considérant différentes mesures du risque the debts of financial institutions. These de crédit sur la dette des intermédiaires measures capture market players’ financiers. Ces mesures captent assessment of financial institutions’ l’appréciation portée par les acteurs de bankruptcy risk. marché sur le risque de faillite des intermédiaires financiers. Ces mesures restent désespérément plates In addition, these measures remained jusqu’en juillet 2007, lorsque les premiers hopelessly ineffective until July 2007 when fonds sont fermés. De manière plus fine, the first funds were closed. In greater 29 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh en écart par rapport aux autres secteurs et detail, deviating from other sectors and mesuré par les Credit Default Swap measured by Credit Default Swap (CDS), (CDS), le secteur financier n’a pas connu the financial sector has not experienced any d’augmentation de primes de risque. increase in risk premiums. Ces dernières augmentent de manière The latter increased unprecedentedly in inédite en septembre 2008 après la faillite September 2008 after the bankruptcy of de Lehman Brothers’. Ces primes de Lehman Brothers’. These risk premiums risque ont donc largement suivi les effets have therefore largely followed the effects et ne les ont nullement anticipés. and in no way anticipated them. La prise de risque des intermédiaires était- Was risk-taking by financial institutions elle le résultat du bas niveau des taux the result of low interest rates? d’intérêt ? Des travaux universitaires montrent Academic work empirically and empiriquement et théoriquement la theoretically shows the potential for low possibilité que de faibles niveaux de taux interest rate levels to increase risk-taking d’intérêt accroissent la prise de risque des by financial institutions. This effect is intermédiaires financiers. Cet effet est currently called “monetary policy’s risk- aujourd’hui appelé « canal de prise de taking channel.” risque de la politique monétaire ». Pour montrer cela de manière empirique, To show this empirically, there is first of all se rencontre tout d’abord une redoutable a formidable difficulty. Actually, low difficulté. En effet, les bas niveaux de taux interest rate levels may be the result of risk d’intérêt peuvent être le résultat de la prise taking and financial actors’ fragility. In this de risque et de la fragilité des acteurs case, they would be the result and not a financiers. Dans ce cas, ils seraient une cause of financial fragility. conséquence et non une cause de la To solve this problem of causality, V. fragilité financière. Ionnadou, S. Onega and J. Peydro studied Pour résoudre ce problème de causalité, the Bolivian case from 1999 to 2003. V. Ionnadou, S. Onega et J. Peydro ont étudié le cas de la Bolivie de 1999 à 2003. 30 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Durant cette période, la politique During this period, the Bolivian monetary monétaire bolivienne était ancrée sur celle policy was based on that of the dollar du dollar, alors que les choix de la whereas the choices of the United States politique monétaire des États-Unis ne Monetary policy did not consider the considéraient pas la situation bolivienne. Bolivian situation. The problem of the Le problème de l’exogénéité de la exogenous nature of causality can therefore causalité peut donc être résolu dans ce cas. be solved in this case. Les auteurs montrent que la qualité des The authors show that the quality of new nouveaux crédits a sensiblement diminué loans has declined significantly and that et que les banques ont donc pris plus de banks have therefore taken more risks. A risques. Une série de travaux empiriques series of empirical studies using other utilisant d’autres stratégies identification strategies tend to confirm the d’identifications tendent à confirmer existence of a risk-taking channel. l’existence d’un canal de la prise de risque. Après tout, cette prise de risque After all, is this additional risk-taking additionnelle est-elle nuisible ? Il n’est pas harmful? It is not surprising that banks étonnant que les banques financent plus de finance more projects when refinancing projets lorsque les coûts de refinancement costs are low and additional projects are sont faibles, et que les projets additionnels riskier. soient plus risqués. Des travaux récents concluent que la prise Recent work found out that additional risk- de risque additionnelle peut être taking can be destabilizing when combined déstabilisatrice, lorsqu’elle interagit avec with other financial frictions. d’autres frictions financières. Les travaux d’A. Shleifer et R. Vishny The works of A. Shleifer and R. Vishny étudient le comportement des banques study the behaviour of banks when they can lorsque celles-ci peuvent titriser leur securitize their loans and when they crédit et lorsqu’il existe une bulle sur les perceive an asset price bubble. In this case, prix des actifs, que les banques banks try to make the most of this profit 31 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh perçoivent. Dans ce cas, les banques opportunity because they know that asset essaient de profiter au maximum de cette prices differ from their base value. opportunité de profits car elles savent que les prix d’actifs sont différents de leur valeur fondamentale. Elles augmentent considérablement leur They increase their leverage considerabely, levier, font crédit et revendent les crédits. give credit and resell the credits. Short- Les facilités d’endettement de court terme term debt facilities increase the extent of accroissent l’ampleur de la prise de risque. risk-taking. It is therefore the thinking of C’est donc la rationalité des banques face banks faced with a market error that leads à une erreur de marché qui les conduit à them to knowingly take significant risks to prendre sciemment des risques importants maximize their profits. pour maximiser leurs profits. Les problèmes financiers qui aboutissent à The financial problems that lead to a un effet négatif des taux d’intérêt bas negative effect of low interest rates are due tiennent à la présence initiale d’une erreur to the initial presence of a risk assessment d’évaluation du risque et aux innovations error and financial innovations that allow financières qui permettent la titrisation. securitization. Pourquoi les acteurs se sont-ils à ce point Why were the financial actors so wrong trompés sur le risque agrégé ? En d’autres about aggregate risk? In other words, termes, d’où provient la bulle initiale ? where did the initial bubble come from? Les travaux que nous avons menés avec S. The studies we did with S. Dubecq and B. Dubecq et B. Mojon apportent un élément Mojon provide an answer to this question de réponse à cette question et montrent le and show the role of financial opacity in the rôle de l’opacité financière dans la formation of the bubble. The financial formation de la bulle. Les innovations innovations of the 2000s coincided with financières des années 2000 coïncident changes in the regulatory framework, the avec l’évolution du cadre réglementaire, transition to Basel 2 standards and the avec le passage aux normes Basel 2 et introduction of new accounting rules. l’introduction de nouvelles règles comptables. 32 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Ces évolutions conjointes ont rendu These joint developments have made it extrêmement difficile la compréhension extremely difficult to understand the des contraintes réglementaires pesant regulatory constraints actually influencing effectivement sur les banques et les banks and financial institutions in general. intermédiaires financiers en général. V. V. Acharya and P. Schnabl point out that Acharya et P. Schnabl soulignent que les financial institutions have played with intermédiaires financiers ont joué avec les regulatory exigencies to minimize the contraintes réglementaires pour diminuer amount of their capital and thus maximize au minimum le montant de leur capital et their leverage. pour maximiser ainsi leur levier. Quant à J.-C. Rochet, il insiste sur la As for J.-C. Rochet, he insists on the technicité des modèles d’évaluation du technicality of risk assessment models of risque des acteurs financiers, qui rend financial actors, which make it impossible impossible l’appréciation de leur to assess their robustness. This trend of the robustesse. Cette évolution de la regulatory exigencies facilitates risk-taking contrainte réglementaire facilite la prise and thus increases the demand for risky de risque et augmente donc la demande assets such as mortgages, which increases d’actifs risqués comme les crédits their price. If savers do not really immobiliers, ce qui accroît leur prix. Si les understand the game of financial épargnants ne comprennent pas vraiment institutions and their real regulatory le jeu des intermédiaires financiers et leur exigencies, they only observe the rise in réelle contrainte réglementaire, ils ne font risky asset prices and can thus believe that qu’observer la hausse du prix des actifs banks, like them, are richer than they really risqués et peuvent ainsi croire que les are. banques, tout comme eux, sont plus riches qu’ils ne le sont vraiment. This fallacious wealth effect tends to Cet effet de richesse fallacieux tend à conceal the fragility of financial dissimuler la fragilité des intermédiaires institutions, which explains the low risk financiers, ce qui explique les primes de premiums before 2007 and the low savings risque faibles avant 2007 et le bas taux rate of households, which thought d’épargne des ménages, lesquels se 33 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh croyaient riches. Dans ce cadre, une themselves rich. In this context, an politique monétaire accommodante accommodating monetary policy leads to conduit à une demande encore plus grande an even greater demand for risky assets by d’actifs risqués par les intermédiaires et institutions and increases the magnitude of augmente l’ampleur de cet effet de this fallacious wealth effect. richesse fallacieux. Les deux études que nous venons de citer The two studies just mentioned emphasize insistent sur le comportement the relatively sophisticated behavior of relativement sophistiqué des financial institutions dealing with much intermédiaires financiers en présence less informed stakeholders. However, a d’acteurs moins bien informés. doubt is difficult to dispel: have these Cependant, un doute est difficile à dissiper institutions been as insightful as that in : ces intermédiaires ont-ils été aussi assessing risk in times of financial perspicaces que cela dans l’appréciation innovations? du risque en période d’innovations financières ? Sans citer de noms, nous nous souvenons Without mentioning names, we recall de discussions avec d’excellents discussions with excellent economists économistes soutenant l’allocation supporting the optimal allocation of risks optimale des risques par les marchés by financial markets in 2007. We ourselves financiers en 2007. Et nous étions nous- were far from predicting the magnitude of même loin de prévoir l’ampleur des the financial imbalances. déséquilibres financiers. Ainsi il s’agit Thus, it is perhaps a collective intoxication peut-être d’une intoxication collective after unreasonable ingestion of financial après ingestion déraisonnable innovations. This hypothesis can be d’innovations financières. Cette described as Minskyan and is defended by hypothèse peut être qualifiée de the Economists, André Orléan or Michel minskyenne et est défendue par les Aglietta. économistes André Orléan ou Michel Aglietta. 34 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Il faut reconnaître que les analyses It must be acknowledged that Hyman d’Hyman Minsky semblent Minsky's analyses seem particularly particulièrement pertinentes pour la crise relevant to the current crisis. He highlights actuelle. Il insiste sur le caractère the intrinsically unstable nature of financial intrinsèquement instable de la dynamique trends. Under favorable economic financière. Par temps calme, les acteurs conditions, financial actors tend to financiers ont tendance à minimiser les minimize economic risks and produce risques économiques et à produire des financial innovations that circumvent innovations financières qui permettent de existing constraints to take more risks. contourner les contraintes existantes pour prendre plus de risques. Un réseau d’intermédiaires financiers A network of financial institutions différent du système bancaire classique et different from the conventional and less moins réglementé se développe, que les regulated banking system is developing, régulateurs comprennent mal. Les risques which regulators poorly understand. Risks s’accumulent là où on ne regarde pas. On accumulate where we least expect. Some of peut voir certaines des études citées plus the studies cited above can be considered haut comme des explicitations de as explanations of partial mechanisms mécanismes partiels décrits par Minsky. described by Minsky. Ainsi, optimisme, innovation et opacité Thus, financial optimism, innovation and financière ont pu créer des effets inédits de opacity could create unprecedented effects taux d’intérêt faibles. of low interest rates. De faibles coûts de financement ont Low financing costs have increased credit augmenté la demande de crédit d’acteurs demand by financial actors. The latter used financiers. Ces derniers utilisaient de new instruments to buy risky assets on a nouveaux instruments pour acheter large scale, increasing their prices without massivement des actifs risqués, having a visible effect either on risk augmentant leur prix sans avoir d’effet premiums or on inflation measured by the manifeste ni sur les primes de risque, ni consumer price index. sur l’inflation mesurée par l’indice des prix à la consommation. 35 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Alors, la politique monétaire apparaît dans Hence, monetary policy appears in worst le pire des cas comme ayant un effet case scenarios to have a multiplier effect on multiplicateur sur des déséquilibres pre-existing financial imbalances. These financiers préexistants. Ceux-ci sont avant are above all, the bad results of financial tout le fruit gâté des innovations innovations, ahead of the regulations financières, en avance sur la concerned. réglementation concernée. Ce sont donc bien les lacunes de la It is therefore the regulatory gaps that have réglementation qui ont permis à certains allowed some financial actors to use all acteurs d’utiliser toutes les ressources available resources to increase their disponibles pour augmenter leur exposure to risk. Thus, if monetary policy exposition au risque. Ainsi, si l’on is recognized as having a role, it is the more reconnaît un rôle à la politique monétaire, general belief of regulators in the relevance c’est la croyance plus générale des of risk assessment and in the stability of régulateurs dans la pertinence de financial markets that is in question. l’évaluation du risque et dans la stabilité des marchés financiers qui est en cause. Cette conclusion conduit naturellement à This conclusion naturally leads us to discuter prioritairement la réforme de la discuss the reform of financial regulation réglementation financière, mais il nous as a matter of priority, but we must first faut d’abord analyser d’autres critiques de analyse other criticisms of monetary la politique monétaire. policy. L’EFFET DE LA REMONTÉE NON THE EFFECT OF THE ANTICIPÉE DES TAUX D’INTÉRÊT UNEXPECTED RISE IN INTEREST RATES Des travaux récents sur le lien entre Recent work on the relationship between politique monétaire et instabilité monetary policy and financial instability financière insistent sur la remontée non emphasizes the unexpected increase in anticipée des taux d’intérêt effectuée par FED interest rates, rather than on their low la FED, plutôt que sur le niveau faible de level. Anticipating the Central bank's 36 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh ces derniers. L’anticipation du behaviour and thus the transparency of comportement de la banque centrale et debates within this institution would then donc la transparence des débats au sein de be an essential condition for financial cette institution serait alors une condition stability. essentielle de la stabilité financière. C’est ce qu’avancent par exemple This is what A. Landier, D. Sraer and A. Landier, D. Sraer et D. Thesmar en D. Thesmar, for example, claim by étudiant en détail le cas d’un intermédiaire studying in detail the case of a financial financier, New Century, qui a eu un rôle institutions, New Century, which had a important dans l’émission des titres de major role in the issue of subprime loan crédits subprimes et qui a fait faillite début securities and which went bankrupt in early 2007. L’intérêt additionnel de ce travail 2007. The additional relevance of this work est de montrer concrètement le is to show concretely the behavior of the comportement des intermédiaires dans la institutions in the bubble. bulle. Dans un premier temps, New Century a Initially, New Century retained a conservé à son actif une partie importante significant portion of the risky credit des titres de crédits risqués émis. Il est securities issued in its name. It is therefore donc erroné de croire que les acteurs au wrong to believe that the financial actors at cœur de l’émission des actifs financiers the center of the issuance of the riskiest les plus risqués se sont totalement financial assets have completely rid débarrassés du risque. Puis New Century themselves of risk. Then, New Century a changé de comportement de manière abruptly changed its behaviour in 2004 by brutale en 2004 en finançant des crédits de financing increasingly risky loans. plus en plus risqués. Cette année-là sont introduits de nouveaux That year, new variable-rate loan contrats de crédits à taux variables où les agreements were introduced where emprunteurs ne paient que les intérêts sur borrowers only pay interest on loans for a les crédits pendant une période fixée contractually specified period (interest contractuellement (contrat interest only). only contract). Then, in 2005, another type Ensuite, en 2005, apparaît une autre sorte of variable-rate contract appeared for 37 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh de contrats à taux variables pour lesquels which the principal amount is not fully le montant du capital n’est pas totalement repaid at the end of the loan agreement. remboursé à la fin du contrat de crédit. Ce This makes it possible to finance qui permet de financer des ménages au households whose income is even lower revenu encore plus faible par rapport au than the price of the house purchased prix de la maison achetée (contrat (Balloon contract). Balloon). Pour les auteurs de l’étude citée, le For the authors of the study cited, the changement de comportement en 2004 est change in behaviour in 2004 is linked to the lié à la hausse non anticipée des taux unexpected rise in interest rates which led d’intérêt qui a amené l’entreprise à the company to take more risks. Rising prendre plus de risques. La hausse des interest rates have led to a weakening of taux d’intérêt a entraîné une fragilisation balance sheets and a greater likelihood of des bilans et une probabilité de faillite plus bankruptcy. In such a case, it may be grande. Dans un tel cas, il peut être rational to still take more risks in order to rationnel de prendre encore plus de gamble everything. This gambling for risques pour jouer le tout pour le tout. resurrection strategy has been observed for Cette stratégie de gambling for companies close to bankruptcy. resurection a pu être observée pour des When we know that we are on the edge of entreprises proches de la faillite. Quand on the abyss, all that remains is leaping as far sait que l’on est au bord du gouffre, il n’y as we can with the hope of getting to the a plus qu’à sauter le plus loin possible other side. pour espérer arriver de l’autre côté. Cette explication met donc en avant la This explanation therefore highlights the hausse non anticipée des taux d’intérêt unexpected rise in interest rates with dans le changement des comportements regards to behavioral change of financial des intermédiaires financiers en 2004. Il institutions in 2004. It seems however semble cependant difficile d’adhérer difficult to really agree with this vraiment à cette explication. Car l’année explanation. This is because the year 2004 2004 est celle de la diffusion des was marked by the spread of financial innovations financières. Il y a peut-être innovations. There may be a simple une simple corrélation entre correlation between the development of 38 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh développement des innovations et innovations and changes in monetary modification de la politique monétaire. policy. Moreover, it was also the year of Par ailleurs, c’est aussi l’année des débats regulatory discussions on capital réglementaires sur les contraintes en constraints on securitized products. Thus, capital retenues pour les produits titrisés. change in regulations and financial Ainsi, changement de la réglementation et innovations are more credible innovations financières sont des explanations. explications plus crédibles. De manière plus générale, la fin des More generally, the end periods of périodes de bulles spéculatives coïncide speculative bubbles coincide with an avec une hausse des taux d’intérêt. Ces increase in interest rates. These increases hausses rendent plus évidentes encore la make the over-assessment of risky asset surévaluation des prix des actifs risqués en prices even more obvious by reducing faisant diminuer la demande et donc leur demand and hence their price, due to the prix, du fait de l’augmentation des coûts increase in refinancing costs. Thus, H. de refinancement. H. Minsky notait ainsi Minsky noted that speculative bubbles que les bulles spéculatives étaient were dynamic because financial actors dynamiques car les acteurs anticipaient anticipated a permanent increase in prices. une hausse permanente des prix. Plus que It was capital gains (rising prices) that les rendements des actifs, ce sont les gains justified the strategies more than asset en capital (la hausse des prix) qui returns. justifiaient les stratégies. Lorsque le coût de financement à court When short-term financing costs rise, terme augmente, la demande et les prix demand and prices fall. Speculative baissent. Les acteurs financiers spéculatifs financial actors sell their assets to reduce vendent leurs actifs pour diminuer leur their debt which contributes to a sharp fall endettement, ce qui contribue à une chute in prices. T. Adrian and H. Shin showed brutale des prix. T. Adrian et H. Shin ont that investment banks had an asset demand montré que les banques d’investissement that increased with prices and therefore avaient une demande d’actifs qui decreased when prices fell. This abnormal augmentait avec les prix et donc diminuait behaviour (demand should increase when lorsque les prix baissaient. Ce prices fall!) leads to destabilizing spiral 39 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh comportement anormal (la demande sales movements after an initial fall in devrait augmenter lorsque les prix prices. baissent !) conduit à des mouvements déstabilisants de spirale à la vente après une chute initiale des prix. Ainsi, si l’on peut observer que la hausse Thus, if we can observe that the rise in des taux d’intérêt coïncide avec la chute interest rates coincides with the fall in du prix des actifs financiers, cette relation financial asset prices, this relationship atteste plutôt l’existence d’une bulle attests more to the existence of a spéculative que le caractère dangereux speculative bubble than to the dangerous d’une hausse des taux. Cependant, nature of a rate hike. However, the analysis l’analyse du comportement des of financial institutions’ behaviour shows intermédiaires financiers indique the importance of monetary policy l’importance de la prévisibilité de la predictability. These actors take positions politique monétaire. Ces acteurs prennent that make them highly dependent on the des positions qui les rendent très risk of increasing short-term interest rates, dépendants du risque de hausse des taux essentially a short-term debt for a longer- d’intérêt court, essentiellement un term investment, in order to ride the yield endettement à court terme pour un curve. Central banks can create an placement à plus long terme, pour jouer la additional risk by changing their interest pente de la courbe des taux. Les banques rates unexpectedly. centrales peuvent créer un risque additionnel en changeant leur taux d’intérêt de manière non anticipée. La prévisibilité de la politique monétaire The predictability of monetary policy can peut donc contribuer à une plus grande therefore contribute to greater financial stabilité financière. Cette réflexion est au stability. This reflection is at the center of cœur d’un vaste débat sur la a broad debate on Central banks’ communication des banques centrales. communication. Should they be more Doivent-elles être plus transparentes pour transparent to be more predictable? Should être plus prévisibles ? Doivent-elles suivre they follow simple rules or be allowed des règles simples ou s’accorder le droit à discretionary interest rate movements? 40 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh des mouvements discrétionnaires des taux d’intérêt ? Sur ce dernier point, un consensus émerge On this last point, a consensus is emerging dans les pratiques des banques centrales in the practices of Central banks to follow pour suivre des règles flexibles. Suivre flexible rules. Follow a rule except when une règle sauf quand on a un intérêt there is a clear and justifiable interest in manifeste et justifiable à dévier de la règle deviating from the rule (for example, (par exemple de la règle de Taylor). En Taylor's rule). Indeed, there may be effet, il peut y avoir des situations non unforeseen situations that justify prévues qui justifient des déviations. Sur deviations. On the first point, that of le premier point, celui de la transparence, transparency and practices are more les pratiques sont plus différentes. different. Le degré de transparence des débats est First of all, the degree of transparency of tout d’abord très variable. Certaines debates varies greatly. Some Central banks banques centrales rendent publics les make the debates nominally public, such as débats de manière nominative, comme la the Riksbank (the Central Bank of Sweden) Riksbank (la Banque centrale de Suède). whereas others do not nominally do so. D’autres les rendent publics de manière Still others such as the ECB, do not non nominative. D’autres encore, comme communicate them. Furthermore, some la BCE, ne les communiquent pas. Central banks make public the simple rules Ensuite, certaines banques centrales on which monetary policy decisions are rendent publiques les règles simples sur based, such as the Central Bank of Canada. lesquelles se fondent les décisions de politique monétaire, comme la Banque centrale du Canada. Enfin, et c’est peut-être là le plus Finally, and perhaps this is most interesting intéressant pour les débats sur la stabilité for financial stability debates, others financière, d’autres publient chaque mois publish the short-term interest rate path le sentier de taux d’intérêt de court terme monthly. They therefore announce every qu’elles prévoient. Elles annoncent donc month what they think their future tous les mois ce qu’elles pensent être leurs decisions will be. These announcements do 41 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh décisions futures. Ces annonces ne les not commit them, but communicate to the engagent pas, mais communiquent au financial market the Central Banks’ own marché l’évolution anticipée des taux par anticipation of the trend in the rates. les banques centrales elles-mêmes. Les banques centrales de Suède, de The Central banks of Sweden, New Nouvelle-Zélande, de Norvège, d’Islande Zealand, Norway, Iceland and the Czech et de République tchèque annoncent ainsi Republic thus announce the rate paths. les sentiers de taux. Des évolutions en Developments with regards to Central terme de transparence des banques banks’ transparency will undoubtedly centrales permettront à n’en pas douter au enable the financial market to better marché financier de mieux anticiper les anticipate monetary policy developments. évolutions de politique monétaire. However, it is difficult to say that the Cependant, il est difficile d’affirmer que la financial crisis is linked to the lack of crise financière a quelque chose à voir Central banks’ transparency. avec l’absence de transparence des banques centrales. « PUT OPTION » “PUT OPTION” L’éclatement de la bulle Internet au début The bursting of the Internet bubble in the des années 2000 a marqué la fin de early 2000s marked the end of the old "new l’ancienne « nouvelle économie ». La economy". The FED substantially reduced FED a baissé substantiellement ses taux its interest rates in order to limit the effects d’intérêt afin de limiter les effets de la of the recession. As inflation remained low, récession. L’inflation étant restée faible, rates remained low for several years. The les taux sont demeurés bas pendant Central bank's counter-cyclical policy plusieurs années. La politique acted as a safety net for financial actors contracyclique de la banque centrale a who took excessive risks during the joué comme un filet de sécurité pour les Internet bubble, by allowing them to acteurs financiers qui ont pris des risques refinance themselves at a low cost. excessifs lors de la bulle Internet, en leur permettant de se refinancer à un coût faible. 42 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh L’action des banques centrales fournit The action of Central banks provides l’assurance que les choses ne vont pas trop assurance that things will not go too wrong mal tourner si le système devient instable. if the system becomes unstable. This Cette description de leur action en cas de description of their action in the event of crise possède une part de vérité pour les crisis is partially true for major financial grandes institutions financières qui se institutions that know they are too big to savent trop importantes pour faire faillite. fail. Si les banques centrales interviennent If Central banks intervene to limit the pour limiter les conséquences des crises consequences of financial crises, they financières, elles rassurent, certes, les certainly reassure financial actors, but they acteurs financiers, mais elles les incitent also indirectly encourage them to take aussi indirectement à prendre des risques, risks, since they will be helped in the event puisqu’ils seront aidés en cas de récession. of a recession. Ce problème d’aléa moral standard est This standard moral hazard problem is formalisé par E. Farhi et J. Tirole dans le formalized by E. Farhi and J. Tirole in the cas des crises financières. Ils montrent que case of financial crises. They show that les intermédiaires financiers peuvent avoir financial institutions may have an interest intérêt à choisir des investissements pour in choosing investments to ensure that they être sûrs de bénéficier de l’aide de la receive help from the Central bank in the banque centrale en cas de crise. Ils event of a crisis. They therefore conclude aboutissent donc à une corrélation des on a correlation of risks so that all will risques pour bénéficier tous de l’aide benefit from Government assistance. publique. Ainsi, ce sont les stratégies d’aide au Thus, it is the Central banks' assistance secteur financier menées par les banques strategies to the financial sector which are centrales qui sont les racines de la prise the roots of the next excessive risk taking excessive de risque suivante et donc de la and hence, the subsequent crisis. More prochaine crise. Plus particulièrement, les particularly, the authors criticize the very auteurs critiquent les interventions très general interventions in the case of crisis générales en cas de crise qui aident toutes that help all financial institutions, such as les institutions financières, comme une lower policy rates. More targeted 43 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh baisse des taux directeurs. Des interventions, if possible, are more interventions plus ciblées, si elles sont effective. possibles, sont plus efficaces. Cet argument est différent d’une autre This argument is different from another forme d’aléa moral, souvent citée en form of moral hazard, often cited in économie bancaire, qui est le « trop gros banking Economics, which is "too big to pour faire faillite ». Les acteurs fail". Systemic actors, whose bankruptcy systémiques, dont la faillite mettrait en would jeopardize the entire financial péril tout le système financier, savent system, know that they will benefit from qu’ils bénéficieront de l’aide publique Government assistance in all cases and are dans tous les cas et sont donc incités à therefore encouraged to take too many prendre trop de risques. risks. Farhi and Tiroles’ argument also L’argument de Farhi et Tirole concerne concerns small institutions. aussi les institutions de petite taille. Il est difficile de confronter cette It is difficult to compare this explanation of explication de la prise de risque aux risk-taking with the data. At this stage, it is données. À ce stade, on ne voit pas unclear how to measure the anticipation of comment mesurer l’anticipation de l’aide Central bank assistance and crises. des banques centrales et des crises. Assessing beliefs about Central banks’ Apprécier les croyances en l’intervention intervention in times of crisis is already des banques centrales en cas de crise est difficult whereas measuring expectations déjà difficile. Mesurer les anticipations about the likelihood of a crisis is a little quant à la probabilité d’une crise est un easier. peu plus facile. La discussion menée plus haut sur la The discussion above on risk measurement mesure du risque par les intermédiaires by financial institutions rather shows an financiers montre plutôt une sous- overall underestimation of risk than a fair estimation globale du risque qu’une juste assessment of risk and Central banks’ appréciation de celui-ci et de intervention. l’intervention des banques centrales. 44 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh L’approche en terme d’aléa moral est à The moral hazard approach is the opposite l’opposé d’une approche que l’on a of an approach we have qualified as qualifié de minskyenne, reposant sur une Minskyan, based on an optimistic drift in dérive optimiste des anticipations. Au expectations. On the contrary, it is the very contraire, c’est la très grande rationalité high level rationality of expectations in the des anticipations en cas de crise qui event of crisis that explains risk-taking explique les comportements de prise de behaviour. The two explanations are risque. Les deux explications sont opposed but can coexist: underestimation opposées mais peuvent coexister : sous- of the probabilities of crisis and belief in estimation des probabilités de crise et the effective action of Central banks when croyance en l’action efficace des banques these probabilities are confirmed. centrales lorsque ces probabilités se confirment. Dans tous les cas, même si l’aléa moral In any case, even if the moral hazard engendré par l’action des banques generated by the action of Central banks is centrales n’est pas la cause première de la not the root cause of the crisis, it seems crise, il semble aujourd’hui évident que obvious today that Government action l’action publique ne doit pas donner de must not give too large safety nets (funded filets de sécurité trop importants (financés with taxpayers' money) to financial actors par l’argent du contribuable) à des acteurs who rake in profits without paying losses. financiers qui empochent les profits sans Efforts to change financial regulation are payer toutes les pertes. Les efforts moving in this direction. d’évolution de la réglementation financière vont dans ce sens. La critique que l’on peut adresser aux The criticism that we can level against banques centrales comme à beaucoup Central banks as well as many public d’institutions publiques est d’avoir pris institutions is that they have taken too trop au sérieux l’efficacité de l’évaluation seriously the effectiveness of risk des risques par les acteurs financiers. assessment by financial actors. Could they Auraient-elles pu mieux faire ? La have done better? The answer today is obviously, yes. 45 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh réponse est évidemment aujourd’hui affirmative. Cependant, concentrer les critiques sur la However, focusing criticism on monetary seule politique monétaire, c’est trop policy alone means limiting too much the limiter la réflexion sur la constitution de thinking on the constitution of financial l’instabilité financière. Si les causes instability. While the root causes of profondes des déséquilibres financiers financial imbalances are produced by sont produites par les marchés financiers financial markets themselves, we must not eux-mêmes, il ne faut pas demander à la expect monetary policy alone to ensure politique monétaire d’assurer à elle seule financial stability. la stabilité financière. Un autre outil réglementaire directement Another regulatory tool directly focused on concentré sur les zones d’instabilité doit areas of instability must be put in place. être mis en place. C’est la raison profonde This is the underlying reason for the de l’émergence des outils d’une politique emergence of macro prudential policy macroprudentielle. Mais ces nouveaux tools. Nonetheless, these new tools will outils laisseront toujours un rôle majeur always attribute a major role to Central aux banques centrales en cas de problème, banks in the event of a problem, as the comme le montre la crise actuelle. current crisis portrays. Après l’étude des effets de la politique After studying the effects of monetary monétaire avant la crise, nous entrons policy before the crisis, we focus on the dans la crise elle-même. Celle-ci permet crisis itself. This provides a better de mieux comprendre ce qu’est au fond de understanding of what is at the basis of the la politique monétaire : l’injection de monetary policy: injecting liquidity and liquidité et la modification des coûts de changing very short-term refinancing refinancement à très court terme. L’action costs. Central banks' action in this crisis des banques centrales dans cette crise marks the beginning of a new period. marque le début d’une nouvelle période. 46 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 2. Le jour où le marché s’arrêta 2. The day the financial market stopped operating Les études récentes permettent d’avoir Recent studies allow us to have a somewhat une vision un peu synthétique du système synthetic vision of the American financial financier américain avant la crise et de system before the crisis and to understand comprendre les principaux mécanismes de the main mechanisms of the financial la crise du système financier après la system crisis after the bankruptcy of faillite de Lehman Brothers’. Pour Lehman Brothers'. In a nut shell, the résumer, le système financier américain a American financial system has produced produit en son sein un « système bancaire within itself a "shadow banking system", parallèle », parfois appelé fantôme, en sometimes referred to as ghost, outside marge des réglementations existantes. existing regulations. Le terme ne doit pas être pris en un sens The term must not be taken too trop métaphorique : ce système émettait metaphorically: this system issued des titres très liquides et jugés sans risque, securities that were very liquid and qui étaient utilisés comme de la quasi- considered risk-free, which were used as monnaie par les ménages, les entreprises quasi-money by households, companies et des acteurs publics, telles les and public actors, such as American municipalités américaines. Le problème municipalities. The problem is that this est que cette liquidité émise finançait des issued liquidity financed risky securities titres risqués, adossés aux prix backed by American real estate prices, and immobiliers américains, et donc soumis à therefore subject to significant un risque macroéconomique important. Le macroeconomic risk. The heart of the crisis cœur de la crise est l’évaporation de la is the evaporation of liquidity produced by liquidité produite par le système bancaire the shadow banking system. parallèle. SYSTÈME BANCAIRE PARALLÈLE SHADOW BANKING SYSTEM AND ET BULLE IMMOBILIÈRE REAL ESTATE BUBBLE La bulle immobilière est en grande partie The real estate bubble is largely a une conséquence du développement du consequence of the development of the système bancaire parallèle, qui a masqué shadow banking system, which masked the la réalité des risques pris par une longue et reality of the risks taken by a long and 47 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh complexe chaîne d’intermédiation dont on complex intermediation chain whose comprend mieux maintenant le functioning is better understood now. fonctionnement. Pour illustrer l’absorption de l’épargne To illustrate the absorption of global mondiale par le système bancaire parallèle savings by the shadow banking system, la figure 1 montre l’évolution des Figure 1 shows the trend of resource ressources allouées au secteur bancaire allocation to the traditional banking sector traditionnel et au secteur bancaire and the shadow banking sector in recent parallèle dans les années récentes. L’unité years. The unit is trillion dollars. est le millier de milliards de dollars. Ainsi, le passif du système bancaire Thus, the liabilities of the shadow banking parallèle aux États-Unis, c’est-à-dire system in the United States, that is, the l’argent qui lui a été prêté, était proche de money lent to it, was close to 20 trillion 20 000 milliards de dollars, alors que le dollars, while the liabilities of the passif du système bancaire traditionnel traditional banking system amounted to 13 était de 13 000 milliards de dollars. trillion dollars. L’implosion du système bancaire parallèle The collapse of the shadow banking system est la conséquence de l’explosion de la is the result of the real estate bubble burst bulle immobilière qu’il a contribué à that it helped to generate. This process engendrer. Ce processus touche à une touches on a profound issue, which is the question profonde, développée plus loin, instability of private money, developed qui est l’instabilité de la monnaie privée. further in the booklet. A regulation and Une réglementation et une garantie public guarantee are necessary to ensure a publique sont nécessaires pour assurer stable banking system. As was pointed out l’existence d’un système bancaire stable. in the introduction, modern Central banks Comme il a été rappelé en introduction, are actually established based on lessons of les banques centrales modernes banking crises. proviennent justement des leçons des crises bancaires. 48 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh La crise en Europe est de nature The crisis in Europe is different in nature. différente. Elle ne touche pas le secteur It does not affect the shadow banking bancaire parallèle mais directement le sector but the regulated banking sector secteur bancaire réglementé, du fait de son directly, due to its exposure to American exposition aux risques des actifs asset risks, then to European public debt américains, puis au risque sur les dettes risks. This difference is explained by the publiques européennes. Cette différence fact that banks are very important for s’explique parce que les banques sont très financing the European economy, which is importantes pour le financement de not the case in the United States. l’économie européenne, ce qui n’est pas le cas aux États-Unis. In the United States, bank credit accounts Dans ce pays, le crédit bancaire représente for 40% of corporate financing and 75% in 40 % du financement des entreprises. Ce Europe. The action of the Euro Zone montant est de 75 % en Europe. L’action Central banks and the ECB was therefore des banques centrales de la zone euro et de more directly focused on the banking la BCE a donc été plus directement sector. concentrée sur le secteur bancaire. LA PRODUCTION D’UNE QUASI- THE PRODUCTION OF A PRIVATE MONNAIE PRIVÉE AUX ÉTATS- QUASI-MONEY IN THE UNITED UNIS STATES Le système bancaire parallèle peut être The shadow banking system can be représenté par une chaîne complexe represented by a complex chain of financial d’intermédiaires financiers, qui réalisaient institutions, which gave out long-term des prêts immobiliers risqués à long terme risky real estate loans and issued very et émettaient des dettes à très court terme short-term debts considered safe. This considérées comme sûres. Cette possibility is based on two innovations possibilité repose sur deux innovations which are securitization and risk slicing. It que sont la titrisation et le découpage en is not the detail of this chain of tranche des risques. Ce n’est pas le détail intermediation that interests us here, but the de cette chaîne d’intermédiation qui nous final links of the intermediation chain that intéresse ici, mais les maillons finaux de 49 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh la chaîne d’intermédiation qui émettaient issued quasi-money. This intermediation de la quasi-monnaie. Cette chaîne chain is described for example by d’intermédiation est décrite par exemple Z. Pozsar. par Z. Pozsar. La production de quasi-monnaie a été principalement réalisée par deux Two Institutions mainly carried out the structures. La première est le réseau des production of quasi-money. The first is the fonds monétaires américains, Money network of American Money Market Market Funds (MMFs), qui ressemblent Funds (MMFs), which are similar to aux OPCMs français. French UCITS. However, US funds have Les fonds américains sont cependant allés gone much further than their European bien plus loin que leurs homologues counterparts by issuing guaranteed européens en émettant des titres de valeur constant-value securities at $1. Before the constante garantie à 1 dollar. Avant la financial crisis, amounts invested in MMFs crise financière, les montants investis dans was about $ 6 trillion, and were therefore les MMFs atteignaient 6 000 milliards de very close to the $ 6.2 trillion of bank dollars environ, et étaient donc très deposits in the United States. The second proches des 6 200 milliards de dollars des establishment is the repurchase-agreement dépôts bancaires aux États-Unis. La market, or repo market, which is estimated seconde structure est le marché du at $10 trillion by G. Gorton and A. Metrick. repurchase-agreement, ou marché du repo, qui est estimé à 10 000 milliards de dollars par G. Gorton et A. Metrick. Les fonds monétaires MMFs Pourquoi le passif du système bancaire Money Market Funds (MMFs) parallèle était-il considéré comme de la Why was the shadow banking system's monnaie ? La nature des MMFs permet de liability considered as money? The nature comprendre le processus. Les MMFs of MMFs helps to understand the process. émettent aux États-Unis des actions d’une The MMFs issue $1 worth of shares to the valeur de 1 dollar, et gèrent activement le United States, and actively manage their cours de leur action de sorte que ce dernier share price so that it remains at $1. As a reste à 1 dollar. Les détenteurs d’action result, MMF shareholders do not make any 50 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh des MMFs ne font donc aucun gain en capital gains, which simplifies tax returns, capital, ce qui simplifie les déclarations and receive a dividend gain. fiscales, et reçoivent un gain en dividendes. Détenir une action d’un MMF, c’est Holding an MMF share is like holding comme détenir de la monnaie rémunérée remuneration because when you need car lorsque l’on a besoin de fonds, on vend funds, you sell your shares for $1, get your ses actions à 1 dollar, on récupère son money back and pocket the dividends argent et on empoche au passage les distributed in the process. dividendes distribués. Rémunération et Risk-free remuneration and liquidity: it is liquidité sans risque : on comprend que understandable that these securities ces titres aient attiré les ménages, les attracted households and companies that entreprises qui plaçaient leur trésorerie et invested their cash and public institutions les institutions publiques comme les villes such as American cities, which thus américaines qui accroissaient ainsi le increased their liquidity returns. There are rendement de leur liquidité. Il existe different types of MMFs. Some are différents types de MMFs, certains committed to holding only public s’engagent à ne détenir que des titres securities, others hold real estate-backed publics, d’autres détiennent des titres securities and offer higher returns. adossés à de l’immobilier et proposent des rendements plus élevés. L’engagement de maintenir la valeur de The commitment to maintain the share l’action à 1 dollar n’était pas un value at 1 dollar was not a contractual engagement contractuel mais un commitment but an implicit commitment engagement implicite des MMFs qui of the MMFs who based their sales strategy fondaient leur stratégie de vente sur leur on their ability to maintain a constant capacité à maintenir une valorisation valuation. The MMFs used their funds to constante. Les MMFs utilisaient leurs invest in mortgage-backed securities, fonds pour investir en titres adossés sur les whose return was therefore ultimately crédits hypothécaires, dont le rendement indexed to real estate price developments, était donc indexé in fine sur l’évolution and to short-term corporate securities, that des prix immobiliers, et en titres de court is, to commercial paper. 51 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh terme des entreprises, c’est-à-dire en papier commercial. Lorsque la crise est survenue, les MMFs When the crisis occurred, MMFs backed by adossés à des titres immobiliers n’ont pas real estate securities could not meet their $1 pu tenir leur engagement de 1 dollar pour commitment for the share value, simply la valeur de l’action, simplement du fait because the asset value, backed by real que la valeur de leur actif, adossé sur estate, collapsed. They then experienced l’immobilier, s’est effondrée. significant outflows. Ils vécurent alors une décollecte massive. In the week of 15 September 2008 alone, Dans la seule semaine du 15 septembre after the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, 2008, après la faillite de Lehman they lost a value of $300 billion. Suspicion Brothers’, ils perdirent 300 milliards de towards MMFs became widespread. dollars de valeur. La suspicion envers les Investors invest their money in other MMFs devint générale. Les investisseurs products to minimize their exposure to real placèrent leur argent dans d’autres estate risk. supports pour minimiser leur exposition aux risques immobiliers. Cependant, comme les MMFs However, as MMFs also invested in short- investissaient aussi dans les titres à court term corporate securities, they were terme des entreprises, celles-ci se sont brutally left without funding and we retrouvées brutalement sans financement witnessed a near complete collapse of the et on assista à une disparition presque commercial paper market. Many complète du marché du papier companies that could not go into debt in the commercial. Nombre d’entreprises ne short term ended up on the brink of pouvant s’endetter à court terme se sont bankruptcy for reasons that had nothing to alors retrouvées au bord de la faillite pour do with their economic health. des raisons qui ne concernaient nullement leur santé économique. Pour éviter des faillites massives To avoid massive corporate bankruptcies d’entreprises du fait de la disparition du due to the disappearance of the commercial marché du papier commercial, la FED a paper market, the FED had to hastily 52 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh dû se substituer précipitamment aux replace the markets and buy private marchés et acheter des titres privés. Cela a securities. This was made possible by the été possible grâce au Commercial paper Commercial Paper Funding Facility funding facility (CPFF). La banque (CPFF). As a result, the Central bank was centrale a pû dès lors acheter pour able to purchase $350 billion worth of 350 milliards de dollars de papier commercial paper in January 2009. commercial en janvier 2009. The realization of real estate risks and the La réalisation des risques immobiliers et difficulty of fully understanding the la difficulté de bien comprendre la location of these risks have led investors to localisation de ces risques ont suscité une mistrust the MMF markets. The collateral méfiance des épargnants envers le marché problem has been the drying-up of short- des MMFs. Le problème collatéral a été term corporate financing. The MMFs are a l’assèchement du financement de court prototype of quasi-currency creation. terme des entreprises. Les MMFs sont une Another is the repo market. première forme de création d’une quasi- monnaie, une seconde est le marché du repo. Le marché du repo The repo market Le marché du repo est presque un substitut The repo market is almost a substitute for du marché monétaire dans son principe the money market in principle, with the avec en plus l’avantage de prêts de court added advantage of secured short-term terme sécurisés du fait de l’emploi d’un loans through the use of collateral. Imagine collatéral. Imaginons que j’aie I have $1,000 available for a three-month 1 000 dollars disponibles pendant une period; after which I want to buy a new période de trois mois, période après computer. I can invest these $1,000 in a laquelle je veux acheter un nouvel term deposit in my bank. I can also lend ordinateur. Je peux placer ces them to a financial actor hoping that the 1 000 dollars sur un dépôt à terme dans ma latter does not go bankrupt within the banque. Je peux aussi les prêter à un acteur three- month period. To compensate me for financier en espérant que ce dernier ne the credit risk, I then ask for additional fasse pas faillite dans les trois mois. Pour remuneration. me dédommager du risque de crédit, je 53 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh demande alors une rémunération supplémentaire. Une troisième option est d’aller sur le A third option is to go on the repo market marché du repo qui est sécurisé. L’idée est which is secured. The idea is that in qu’en échange du prêt de 1 000 dollars en exchange for the $1000 loan in three trois mois, l’acteur financier me donne des months, the financial actor gives me titres financiers d’une valeur sûre, le financial securities of a sure value, that is, collatéral. Dans trois mois, il me the collateral. In three months, he pays me rembourse 1 000 dollars plus des intérêts $1000 plus interests and takes back his et reprend ses titres. Pendant ces trois securities. During these three months, the mois les titres financiers sont ma financial securities are my property: propriété : donc si l’acteur fait faillite je therefore, if the financial actor goes peux revendre les titres pour récupérer de bankrupt I can resell the securities to l’argent. Cependant, le titre financier peut recover some money. However, the avoir une valeur fluctuante dans les trois financial security may have a fluctuating mois, je dois donc me couvrir contre les value in the three-month period. I must risques de variation de valeur du therefore hedge myself against collateral collatéral. value variation risks. Pour me couvrir des risques de faillite et To hedge myself against bankruptcy and de variation du collatéral, je demande un collateral variation risks, I ask for a haircut. haircut. Si la valeur des titres mis en If the value of collateralized securities is collatéral est de 500 dollars au moment du $500 dollars at the time of the loan, I can prêt, je peux décider de ne prêter que decide to lend only $ 480 – the haircut is 480 dollars – le haircut est alors de therefore $20. The financial actors in the 20 dollars. Les acteurs du système shadow banking system mainly financed bancaire fantôme se finançaient themselves on the repo market. They essentiellement sur le marché du repo. Ils borrowed by providing supposedly good empruntaient en fournissant comme quality mortgage-backed securities as collatéral des titres financiers collateral. When doubts on the value of hypothécaires supposés de bonne qualité. these securities arose in July 2007, the Lorsque les doutes sur la valeur de ces value of haircuts increased considerably. titres sont apparus en juillet 2007, la 54 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh valeur des haircuts a considérablement augmenté. Deux périodes apparaissent nettement : Two periods clearly came up: before July avant juillet 2007 le haircut est proche de 2007, the haircut was close to 0; the 0 ; le début de la crise des subprimes datée beginning of the July 2007 subprime crisis de juillet 2007 se marque par une hausse was marked by a significant increase in sensible des haircuts. La hausse haircuts. The spectacular rise is spectaculaire est contemporaine de la contemporaneous with the bankruptcy of faillite de Lehman Brothers’ en septembre Lehman Brothers’ in September 2008. 2008. Le marché du repo est de l’ordre de The repo market is in the range of $10 10 000 milliards de dollars. On ne connaît trillion. We do not know the amount of the pas le montant du marché du repo qui sert repo market used to refinance non-bank au refinancement d’acteurs non bancaires. actors. It seems that companies invested Il semble que des entreprises plaçaient their cash in this market. The revelation of leur trésorerie sur ce marché. La risks on collaterals has considerably révélation des risques sur les collatéraux a reduced its attractiveness and companies considérablement réduit son attractivité et have invested their liquidities elsewhere. It les entreprises ont placé ailleurs leurs is therefore the final risk on the real estate liquidités. C’est donc le risque final sur le sector that has considerably reduced the secteur immobilier qui a fait role of this quasi-money market, which is considérablement décroître le rôle de ce the repo market. quasi-marché monétaire qu’est le marché du repo. L’étude des Money Market Funds et du The study of Money Market Funds and the marché du repo montre que c’est, au final, repo market shows that it is ultimately the le risque immobilier qui a fait s’effondrer real estate risk that caused the system to le système. La complexité des collapse. The complexity of institutions hid intermédiaires a caché l’exposition au the exposure to the final risk. The real risque final. La bulle immobilière estate bubble allowed artificially increased permettait des rendements artificiellement returns, the complexity of interconnections 55 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh élevés, la complexité des interconnections hid the risk and gave the illusion of the a caché le risque et donné l’illusion de la production of an alternative liquidity to production d’une liquidité alternative à la money. monnaie. L’histoire des crises financières montre The story of financial crises shows that the que l’existence d’un système bancaire existence of a stable banking system is the stable est le fruit d’une réglementation fruit of a complex regulation for complexe pour les faillites et les prises de bankruptcies and excessive risk-taking. It risque excessives. C’est la leçon is the new lesson of the subprime crisis. renouvelée de la crise des subprimes. La réaction de la FED The FED’s response La réaction de la FED s’est faite en deux The FED’s response was in two parts. temps. Tout d’abord, du début de la crise Firstly, from the start of the crisis to the à la faillite de Lehman Brothers’, la FED bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers’, the FED a principalement aidé le système bancaire mainly helped the traditional banking traditionnel. Après la faillite de Lehman system. After the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers’, elle a dû aider globalement le Brothers’, it had to globally help the système bancaire parallèle et racheter des shadow banking system and purchase titres privés, comme du papier private securities, such as commercial commercial pour soutenir les entreprises. paper to support companies. The assistance L’aide a été réalisée avec la mise en place was carried out with the implementation of de nouveaux dispositifs après septembre new measures after September 2008. 2008. Cette évolution s’observe dans le bilan de This development is observed in the FED’s la FED (Bulletin mensuel de la BCE balance sheet. (for example, the October d’octobre 2009, par exemple). Jusqu’à 2009 edition of the ECB’s monthly septembre 2008, la FED fait tout pour newsletter). Until September 2008, the intervenir dans l’économie en gardant FED is doing everything it can to intervene constante la taille de son bilan. À partir de in the economy by keeping the size of its septembre 2008, son bilan a plus que balance sheet constant. Since September doublé. 2008, its balance sheet more than doubled. 56 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh La dernière action de la FED est le The last action of the FED is the QE 2 programme QE2, pour quantitative easing programme for quantitative easing 2, 2, commencé en novembre 2010. which began in November 2010. Soucieuse de la faiblesse de la reprise aux Concerned about the weakness of the États-Unis, la FED a décidé d’essayer de economic recovery in the United States, the faire baisser les taux d’intérêt de long FED decided to make an attempt to reduce terme afin de stimuler l’investissement. long-term interest rates in order to Pour ce faire, début novembre 2010, elle a stimulate investment. To achieve this, it acheté pour 600 milliards de dollars de bought $ 600 billion worth of long-dated titres publics de maturité longue, en public securities of long-term maturity in espérant que la hausse de la demande early November 2010, hoping that increase ferait baisser les taux d’intérêt. Le résultat in demand will reduce interest rates. d’une telle action a plutôt été une hausse Rather, the result of such an action has been des taux d’intérêt, ce qui est le contraire de an increase in interest rates which is the l’action désirée. Différents effets ont opposite of the desired action. Various contribué à cela, que nous ne détaillerons effects have contributed to this, which we pas dans cet opuscule, consacré plus will not treat in detail in this booklet, généralement aux banques centrales. dedicated more generally to Central banks. Pour résumer, la taille de la FED est To sum up, the size of the FED has passée de 800 milliards de dollars début increased from $800 billion at the 2007 à 2 400 milliards de dollars beginning of 2007 to $2.4 trillion today, aujourd’hui, soit une multiplication representing almost a threefold increase. proche de trois. Le montant de titres privés The amount of private securities linked to en lien avec le marché hypothécaire the mortgage market (mortgage backed (mortgage backed securities) est securities) is still estimated at $1.2 trillion. aujourd’hui estimé à 1 250 milliards de Public securities held exceed $1 trillion and dollars. Les titres publics détenus will therefore increase further. Thus, the dépassent 1 000 milliards de dollars et implosion of the shadow banking system vont donc s’accroître encore. Ainsi, compelled the FED to play a role of l’implosion du système bancaire parallèle financial intermediary of last resort by a obligé la FED à jouer un rôle lending simultaneously to banks, the State 57 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh d’intermédiaire financier en dernier and companies in order to prevent serial ressort en prêtant à la fois aux banques, à bankruptcies. l’État et aux entreprises afin d’empêcher des faillites en série. LA CONCENTRATION DES CONCENTRATION OF PROBLEMS PROBLÈMES SUR LE MARCHÉ ON THE INTERBANK MARKET IN INTERBANCAIRE EN EUROPE EUROPE L’éclatement de la bulle immobilière The bursting of the American real estate américaine a affecté différemment bubble affected Europe and the United l’Europe et les États-Unis. En Europe, le States in different ways. In Europe, there doute s’est porté assez tôt sur la solidité was doubt rather early about the stability of des banques commerciales elles-mêmes. commercial banks themselves. The ECB La BCE et les États ont d’abord réagi en and the States first reacted by assisting les aidant avant de se concentrer sur them before concentrating on certain certains segments de marché. segments of the market. La crise immobilière a initialement affecté The real estate crisis initially affected the le système bancaire européen par deux European banking system in two ways. canaux. Tout d’abord des banques First of all, European banks invested européennes ont placé de l’argent dans le money in the American shadow banking système bancaire parallèle américain ou system or were even a part of it. They en ont même fait partie. Elles ont donc therefore suffered significant losses. Z. essuyé des pertes importantes. Z. Pozsar et Pozsar and his co-authors show that the ses coauteurs indiquent que les German Landesbanks, which are public Landesbank allemandes qui sont des regional banks were very active in the banques régionales publiques étaient très shadow banking system. The first channel présentes au sein du système bancaire is therefore exposure to American real parallèle. Le premier canal est donc estate prices whereas the second channel l’exposition aux prix immobiliers comprises the exposure of European banks américains. Le second canal est to European real estate prices. The Spanish l’exposition aux prix immobiliers and English real estate prices in particular européens des banques européennes. Les have undergone wide variations. 58 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh prix immobiliers espagnols et anglais As we shall see, new mechanisms resulting notamment ont subi d’amples variations. from the outcome of the financial crisis Comme on va le voir, à ces deux premiers were added to these first channels. The last canaux se sont ajoutés de nouveaux mechanism is the problem posed by the mécanismes provenant des conséquences sovereign debt of European countries like de la crise financière. Le dernier the public debt of Greece and Ireland, as mécanisme est le problème posé par la well as some others. It is difficult to resell dette souveraine des pays européens these public debts at a high price today comme la dette publique de la Grèce et because the economic actors fear a default celle de l’Irlande, ainsi que quelques by the countries concerned. The banks autres. Il est difficile de revendre ces which held a large number of these debt dettes publiques à un prix élevé securities therefore have a very weak aujourd’hui car les acteurs économiques balance sheet. redoutent un défaut des pays concernés. Les banques qui détenaient un grand nombre de ces titres de dettes voient donc leur bilan très fragilisé. La figure 3 montre l’étendue des Figure 3 shows the scale of problems and problèmes et représente l’écart entre deux shows the difference between two interest taux d’intérêt pour les mêmes maturités rates for the same maturities at which banks auxquels les banques se prêtent. Le lend to each other. The first rate is the swap premier taux est le taux swap qui est un rate, which is a rate used to hedge changes taux de couverture des variations des taux in short-term rates and is practically courts et est considéré comme considered risk-free. The second is the 3- pratiquement sans risque. Le second est le month Euribor rate, which is the rate at taux Euribor 3 mois qui est le taux auquel which banks lend unsecured funds to each les banques se prêtent en blanc, c’est-à- other, that is, without offering securities as dire sans mettre de titres en collatéral. En collateral. In other words, the Euribor rate d’autres termes, le taux Euribor est soumis is subject to credit risks whiles the swap à des risques de crédit alors que le taux rate is not. Thus the difference between the swap ne l’est pas. Ainsi la différence des two rates is a good measure of risk deux taux est une bonne mesure du risque perceived on the European banking system by the banks themselves. 59 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh perçu sur le système bancaire européen par les banques elles-mêmes. Avant le début de la crise, l’écart entre les Before the crisis began, there was no deux taux est nul. Avec le début de la crise difference between the two rates. With the des subprimes, il augmente de 75 points onset of the subprime crisis, it increased by de base, car les banques ne connaissent 75 basis points, as banks were not aware of pas l’exposition des autres banques au the exposure of other banks to real estate risque immobilier. La faillite de Lehman risks. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers’ Brothers’ conduit à une nouvelle hausse led to a further sharp increase of the risk brutale de la prime de risque sur le secteur premium in the European banking sector. bancaire européen. L’action de la BCE The ECB’s action in various forms sous différentes formes décrites plus loin described below helped to reassure markets a contribué à rassurer les marchés et à faire and lower risk premiums. Finally, the baisser les primes de risque. Enfin, la crise financial crisis also had repercussions on financière a aussi eu des répercussions sur certain market segments such as covered certains segments de marché comme celui bonds and UCITS. However, the scale of des obligations sécurisées (covered bonds imbalances remained much smaller in en anglais) ou celui des OPCVM. Europe than in the United States. Cependant, l’ampleur des déséquilibres est restée bien plus faible en Europe qu’aux États-Unis. Réaction de la BCE et des banques Reaction of the ECB and national Central centrales nationales banks La réaction de la BCE et des banques The reaction of the ECB and the Euro zone centrales de la zone euro a été d’abord Central banks was first directed towards dirigée vers les banques et, dans un second banks and secondly to some market temps, vers certains segments de marché. segments. Central banks played their role Les banques centrales ont joué leur rôle de as lenders of last resort in the heat of the prêteur en dernier ressort en inventant crisis by creating new instruments to dans le tourbillon de la crise de nouveaux massively inject liquidities into the instruments pour injecter massivement banking sector. des liquidités dans le secteur bancaire. 60 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh « Injecter des liquidités » signifie prêter “Injecting liquidity” means lending money de l’argent à des banques relativement to relatively solid banks so that they may solides pour qu’elles n’aient pas de not have short-term refinancing problems. problème de refinancement à court terme. The major innovation was to open a new La principale innovation a été d’ouvrir un window to lend money over a relatively nouveau guichet pour prêter de l’argent à long period (from six months to one year) un horizon relativement long (de six mois at a fixed rate, against a wider range of à un an) et à un taux fixe, contre une collateral including private securities of gamme élargie de collatéral incluant des sufficient quality. titres privés de qualité suffisante. La demande de collatéral permet de Asking for collateral helps to ensure that s’assurer que les banques sont solides, la banks are stable whereas the wider range of gamme élargie de collatéral utilisé permet collateral used enables banks to be de financer largement les banques. Ces substantially financed. The loans are prêts ont été réalisés à un taux fixe, très acquired at a very low fixed rate, and are bas, et égal au taux au jour le jour, la equal to the overnight rate, with full totalité des soumissions étant servie, c’est- allotment. This means that the ECB à-dire que la BCE a fourni autant de crédit provided as much credit as was requested que ce qui était demandé par les banques by the banks at that interest rate. à ce taux d’intérêt. Avec un tel mécanisme, les banques With such a mechanism, banks can be peuvent acquérir la certitude qu’elles certain that they will no more have liquidity n’auront plus de problèmes de liquidité. problems. Like the American FED, the Comme la FED américaine, les banques Euro Zone Central banks have repurchased centrales de la zone euro ont racheté des private securities, covered bonds, but for a titres privés, les obligations sécurisées, “small” amount of 60 billion euros. Thus, mais pour un montant « faible », à savoir the ECB became a central intermediary in 60 milliards d’euros. Ainsi la BCE est Europe during the crisis but mainly devenue un intermédiaire central en between banks and not between private Europe dans la crise mais principalement actors, as in the United States. entre les banques et pas entre les acteurs privés comme aux États-Unis. 61 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Que sont devenues les liquidités What happened to the injected funds? The injectées ? La BCE a permis aux banques ECB allowed banks to acquire funds in d’acquérir des fonds en quantité illimitée unlimited quantities at a low interest rate. à un taux d’intérêt faible. Elles ont The banks massively demanded funds but massivement demandé des liquidités mais continued to be wary of each other. Since continuaient à se méfier les unes des then, instead of lending the new funds autres. Dès lors, plutôt que de prêter aux received from the ECB to other banks, they autres banques les nouveaux fonds reçus have kept it for themselves in their bank de la BCE, elles les ont gardés pour elles, account. The banks’ bank account sur leur compte bancaire. Le compte corresponds to the ECB’s deposit facilities. bancaire des banques correspond aux facilités de dépôts de la BCE. En effet, la BCE accepte de recevoir Indeed, the ECB admits receiving money l’argent des banques et le rémunère à un from banks and paying back at an taux extrêmement faible. Ainsi, la extremely low rate. Thus, money created monnaie créée par la BCE à son actif s’est by the ECB to its credit, became its retrouvée en grande partie à la BCE à son liability. Excess liquidity in the inter-bank passif. L’excès de liquidité dans le marché market led to a fall in the rate at which interbancaire s’est traduit par une chute du banks lend their funds overnight, called taux auquel les banques se prêtent leur EONIA. This fell to levels close to liquidité au jour le jour, appelé EONIA, et remuneration rates on deposit facilities. celui-ci a diminué pour atteindre des niveaux proches des taux de rémunération des facilités de dépôts. Si l’on cumule les outils de politique If monetary policy tools are combined, the monétaire, la taille du bilan des banques size of the balance sheet of the Euro Zone centrales de l’eurozone est passée de Central banks increased from 400 billion in 400 milliards en janvier 2007 à 1 000 January 2007 to 1 trillion in January 2009. milliards en janvier 2009. Là encore, Here again, the increase in Central banks’ l’augmentation du bilan des banques balance sheet is very significant. centrales est très importante. 62 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER THREE 3.0 Analysis and Discussion of Translation problems According to Vinay & Darbelnet (1977) , « La traduction est une discipline exacte, possédant des techniques et ses problèmes particuliers. . . » (p.7). [Translation is a specific discipline with its own techniques and challenges]. In view of this notion, we will in this chapter analyse the issues of equivalence encountered in the course of translating the source text from French to English. The chapter will explain how the issues were resolved based on the translation strategies and theories proposed in the theoretical framework and literature review. In the attempt of this work to replace textual material in the source language by equivalent textual material (Catford, 1965) or with the “closest natural equivalent” (Bell, 1991, p. 6), the approach is to communicate the message of the author (Pergnier, 1993) and not to merely translate words. Ladmiral (1979) has emphasized this by referring to translation as an act of communication. This will consequently reproduce the same impact created by the original text on its original receptors. Over a long period, a translator observes that each text he comes across, be it technical or general, poses particular challenges and as such requires different techniques to translate effectively in order for the translation to read natural. According to Philips (1953, p. 53) cited by Nida (1964, p.163), “the real test of a translation is that it should not read like a translation at all”. The source text was taken from the domain of Economics. Therefore, translating the text required some level of knowledge in the field of Economics. That notwithstanding, the knowledge gaps were filled with information gathered from extensive research. The analysis section will list, organise and analyse the difficulties that was encountered in the source text at the word level and beyond the word level. In order to facilitate this analysis, 63 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh words were placed in the context in which they appeared but with a focus on the boldened words. 3.1. Word Equivalence Baker (1992, p. 17) suggested that “if language were simply a nomenclature for a set of universal concepts, it would be easy to translate from one language to another.” However, each language has its own way of naming concepts and for the formation of concepts. Vinay & Darbelnet (1977) have also stated that literal translation becomes necessary when there are parallel concepts between two languages. With regards to economic texts, (Rollo, 2016, p. 81) has shared this notion: « la langue de l’économie est imprégnée d’expressions métaphoriques systématiques. . . le mécanisme métaphorique permet de conceptualiser les notions économiques en termes d’entité physique ». Rollo's assertion is that economic texts are full of metaphorical expressions which enable a reader to concretize economic notions. He further states that metaphorical expressions make economic texts lively and effective. In order to maintain the mental imagery these words create in the mind of readers, we found it necessary to translate these words literally but meaningfully based on Vinay & Darbelnet's (1977) strategy of literal translation. These literal translations, produced equivalents that equally create mental imagery. We will demonstrate how the assertion of Rollo (2016) influenced my choice of words in the lines below; A) i) « La bulle immobilère. . . qui a masqué la réalité des risques. . . » The boldened word in the phrase above is a typical example of a word, expressing parallel concepts between French and English. This is because they are both used as verbs and are employed metaphorically in the two languages to express the idea of something concealing another thing to the latter from being noticed. We observed that the author of the Economic text could have used a much simpler word such as « cacher » (to hide) which will equally convey the same message. However, as Rollo 64 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh (2016) stated, the Author may have chosen to use such a metaphoric word to make the text livelier and more effecting by creating an impact on readers in the form of a mental imagery which this word evokes. Therefore, translating this word literally as “masked” in English will maintain this same effect on target language readers. In table 1 we have listed other examples of every day words used metaphorically in the source text that were translated literally in order to create equivalent imagery in the minds of target text readers. Although literal, they are meaningful and read naturally. Table 1 Source Text Target Text ii) « . . .l’existence d’un système “. . . the existence of a stable banking bancaire est le fruit d’une system is the fruit of a complex regulation. réglementation complexe. . . » . .” iii) « . . .la liquidité. . .s’est évanouie » “. . .the liquidity produced. . .vanished” iv) « . . .la liquidité. . .a disparu » “. . .the liquidity. . .disappeared” v) « . . .la politique monétaire “. . .the bolivienne monetary policy was bolivienne était ancrée sur celle du anchored on that of the dollar. . .” dollar . . . » Based on the theory of meaning by Seleskovitch & Lederer (1984), cited in (Herbulot, 2014) which places emphasis on de-verbalization, some words which created an imagery in our minds, aided our understanding and enabled us to find the “closest possible equivalent” (Bell, 1991, p. 6) in order to convey meaning. However, they weren’t translated literally as their literal renditions will be meaningless and they will read unnatural. Nida (1964, p. 164) cites (Souter, 1920, p. 7) who expressed that, “our ideal in translation is to produce on the minds of our readers as nearly as possible, the same effect as was produced by the original on its readers. Below are some examples 65 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh B) i) « Les banques centrales dans la tempête . . . » A metaphor is again used in the above sentence. This could not be translated literally as “storm” as it will not read natural. This created a challenge, as care had to be taken in order not to choose an equivalent which will distort meaning. Words such as “struggle” and “battle” had to be weighed to determine which better conveys the message of the author. The imagery created by this word in the source language gives us the understanding of an ongoing “struggle”. Hence, the translation “The struggle of Central banks” was deemed more appropriate. ii) « La pratique moderne . . . est le fruit des leçons . . . » In this case, rendering the word « fruit » literally will be appropriate as the metaphorical meaning of the word “fruit” symbolizes “the effect or consequence of an action or operation” (www.merriam-webster.com). That notwithstanding we chose to translate this word with the closest equivalent, “result” which creates the same equivalent effect. iii) « Cette explication peut sembler séduisante » In as much as this word evokes imagery in our minds, it will not fit the context of the text to translate it literally. Our ability to visualize the message the author intends to carry across gave us a deep understanding of the word and facilitated the choice of the closest appropriate equivalent, “convincing”. Moreover, the literal rendition “seductive” does not collocate with the word “explanation” (« explication »). An explanation is described as “convincing” and not “seductive”. Thus, the word “explanation” collocates better with “convinving”. Therefore, we can say that the choice of the word “convincing” is also influenced by the word it occurs with. 66 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh More examples of the above are listed and bolden in the Table 2. Table 2 iv) « . . . freiner la hausse de la demande . . . » “. . . to curb the increase in demand . . .” v) « Les acteurs au cœur de l’émission. . . » “financial actors at the center of the issuance . . .” vi) « La demande . . . était alimentée . . . » “The demand . . . was fueled . . .” vii) « . . . les causes profondes . . . » “. . . root causes . . .” viii) « . . . au fond de la politique monétaire . . . » “. . . what is at the basis of the crisis . . .” ix) « . . . les racines de la prise excessive de risque. “. . . the roots of excessive risk-taking. . .” . . » C) Vinay & Darbelnet (1977) suggest that English may employ the strategy of expansion (étoffement) to fortify a word which is inadequate on its own and thus, may need to be supported by others. In translating the source text, we came across words that needed to be translated by this strategy. In this case, a single word unit was replaced by two words. This emphasizes Kade’s (1968) notion of equivalence relationship stated in (Kenny 2009) where there may be a one-to-one equivalence, that is, a word may be replaced by one word or a one-to-many equivalence, in which a word may be replaced by two or more lexical items. This approach was considered necessary to make the meaning clearer and to avoid the problem of ambiguity. Below are some examples of such words in the text; i) « . . . faiblesse de la reprise . . . » In the above, it was appropriate to expand the word « reprise » and replace it with the economic term, “economic recovery” and not “recovery” alone. This is because, rendering it by the latter will create the problem of ambiguity and target readers may be left to assume what kind of recovery the author is talking about. According to www.larousse.fr, the word « reprise » has multiple meanings and can be used in the field of Economics to specifically mean “(economic) recovery” in 67 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh English. The fact that this word has multiple meanings makes it obligatory to qualify it with the adjective “economic”. ii) « Pourquoi les acteurs se sont-ils à ce point trompés sur le risque agrégé ? » Similar to the above, instead of translating the word « acteurs » with the lexical item “actors” we decided to expand the word for clarification, so, the word « acteurs » was replaced with the multi word “financial actors”. Once again, without this strategy of expansion, confusion may be created in the minds of the readers. Expanding this word proved essential as the term « acteurs » occurred a number of times in the ST but meant differently in light of the context in which it appears. In another instance in the ST, « acteurs » alone was translated as “stakeholders” as in « acteurs moins bien informés ». Thus, not expanding the word « acteurs » will leave the readers wondering what actors the author is referring to at this point. iii) « . . . communiquent au marché » In (iii), the word « marché » was also expanded and translated as “financial market”. Just as in (ii), we deemed it necessary to expand in order to be specific about the kind of market the author is referring to as the word « marché » appeared in different contexts in the ST. Examples include: « marché interbancaire », translated as “interbank market”, « marchés américains » rendered as “American markets” and « marché du papier commercical » translated as “commercial paper market”. 68 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh We observed that the translation strategy of expansion does not distort the message the author intends to carry across, although this may lead to an increase in information content. It proved essential, in order to make the message of the author clearer and precise, especially in the case of technical texts. Based on Kade’s (1968) equivalent relationships cited in Kenny (2009) the words “reprise” and “acteurs” were replaced by more than one TL expressions. D) The extra-linguistic factor of context played a key role in the search for the appropriate equivalents. Nida (2001) highlighted the important role of context in understanding and reproducing the meaning of a word. He expressed that, the context does not usually only influence how a translator may understand a word but how the word needs to be translated. An observation was made that, a word may be polysemous but that notwithstanding, the environment in which it appears helps the translator to detect its specific meaning. This is illustrated in the lines below: i) « . . . place de l’argent dans le système bancaire parallèle . . . » The translation of this word is affected by the environment in which it occurs and the field of discourse involved, which is Economics. In the economic context, the word « placé » specifically means “invested”. Thereof, the translation, “. . . invest money in the shadow banking system. The same applies to the term « placement » as in « . . . un placement à long terme . . . » rendered as “investment” and not literally as “placement” which has a different meaning in another context. ii) « Les investisseurs placèrent leur argent dans d’autres supports. . . » Similarly, translating the French word « supports » into English posed a great challenge as this required some knowledge in the area of finance. 69 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In order to come up with the right equivalent, the introspective question asked was, “What do investors invest in?’ This required some research. From knowledge gathered at www.investopedia.com, the understanding was that, “an investment product” is a product offered to investors based on the underlying security or group of securities that is purchased with the expectation of earning a favorable return”. Therefore, inference could be made from this information that, by buying investment products, investors place their monies in “products” and not “supports” - as the latter will evoke the translation problem of false friends. iii) « . . . les démocraties acceptent une nouvelle fois de consacrer autant d’argent à sauver des acteurs financiers » Rendering the word « démocraties » as “democracies” will create the problem of false friends, particularly as we are not dealing with a political context. In overcoming this challenge, we had to resort to an extended context provided by the author. This extended context1 was provided as a reference in the foot note section. This text threw more light on the message the author intends to carry across and cleared all ambiguities. Nida (2001, p. 31) suggests that, “the answer to most problems of meaning come from extended contexts whether within the text in question or in other texts produced by the same writer on in text produced by other writers on the same subject.” In this extended context, the writer talks of the action of the US Government through the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, and the US Congress to bail out banks and securities firms in the wake of the financial crisis that hit the United States of America between 2008 and 2009. Thus, the nearest appropriate equivalent to replace the word « démocraties » is “Governments”. 1 See J.-P. Trichet, Wall Street Journal, 26 December 2010 70 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Some may argue that this word is too general. (Baker, 1992) suggests the strategy of using a more general word to describe a concept in cases where one cannot find a direct equivalent to replace a word. She refers to this general word as a superordinate. So far as meaning is not distorted, this strategy is valid. iv) « important(e)(s) » In another instance where context played a role was in the translation of « important (e)(s) ». The meaning changed based on the environment in which the word occured. A few examples of such are as follows; « effets importants » as “significant effects”, « externalisation trop importante » as “excessive outsourcing”, « risques importants » as “significant risks”, « role important » as “major role”, « une partie importante » as “significant portion”, « trop important pour faire faillite » as “too big to fail”, « filets de sécurité trop importants » as “large safety nets”, « pertes importants » as “significant losses”. v) “brutale” Likewise, the different renditions of the word « brutale ». « . . . a changé de comportement de manière brutale » rendered as “. . . abruptly changed its behaviour”, « chute brutale des prix » rendered as “sharp fall in prices”, « se sont retrouvées brutalement sans financement » rendered as “suddenly left without funding”, « hausse brutale » rendered as “sharp increase”. vi) « . . . confronter cette explication de la prise de risque aux données » The word « confronter » tends to be polysemous. Translating the word « confronter » as “confront” creates the problem of false friends. However, analyzing the specific context in which the word occurs gives it its specific meaning. The word « confronter » 71 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh was translates as “compare”. Thus, “. . . compare this explanation of risk-taking with the data”. The role that contexts plays in finding the appropriate equivalents is consistent with what Nida (2001, p. 3) posited that, “Professional translators need not only an excellent general vocabulary, but also a mastery of technical terminology . . .” vii) « Il ne faut pas demander à la politique monétaire d’assurer . . . la stabilité financière ». Translating the word « demander à » engaged the translation strategy of de- verbalization that was based on the interpretative theory or theory of sense (Herbulot, 2014). This required that the researcher understood the message the author intends to carry across and to re-express it. Based on this theory, we translated the verb « demander à » as “expect”. Therein, “we must not expect the monetary policy to ensure . . . financial stability”. viii) « Ces mesures restent désespérément plates jusqu’en juillet 2007 ». The word « plates » in the sentence is similar to (d). Foremost, the dictionary - according to www.wordreference.com, translate the words “dull” and “boring”. Since the noun « mesures » translated as “measures” does not collocate with neither “dull” nor “boring”, the closest natural equivalent to replace the word « plates » is “ineffective”, having understood the message the author intended to carry across. Thus, “These measures remained hopelessly ineffective”. 72 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.2. Equivalence Beyond the Word Level In addition to the above, the work will analyse challenges faced in finding equivalence beyond the word level. (Baker, 1992) refers to this as “lexical patterns”. She opines that words seldom occur alone and that every language possesses its rules for how they can be combined to convey a particular message. Since our source text was is in the area of Economics, we will examine economic terms according to (Nida's, 1964) theory of functional and dynamic equivalence as well as idioms and fixed expressions. 3.2.1. Technical terms One important fact this study has established about translating technical terms is the loss of information content. Most of the technical terms in the source language occur with prepositions and articles which the target language does away with. A few of these examples include: « canal de la prise de risque » translated as “risk-taking channel”, « sentier de taux d’intérêt » translated as “interest rate path” and « mesures du risque du credit » translated as “credit risk measures”. We can refer to this as zero articles and prepositions (Chuquet & Paillard, 1987). Kade (1968) in (Kenny, 2009, p. 97) refers to this as “nil expressions”. According to (Nida, 1964), formal equivalence aims to render a word from one language to another with a focus on both form and content without distorting the message. An observation was made in the translation process that this applies to most of the technical words in the source text. This is illustrated in table 3; 73 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 3 a) Innovations financières Financial innovations b) Banques centrales Central banks c) Acteurs financières Financial actors d) Secteur bancaire traditionnel Traditional banking sector e) Dettes publiques Public debts f) Fluctuations macroéconomiques Macroeconomic fluctuations g) Fragilité financière Financial fragility h) Politique monétaire Monetary policy i) Comportements mimétiques Mimetic behaviour j) Marchés financiers Financial markets k) Consolidation fiscale Fiscal consolidation The examples in the table 3 lend credence to (Nida’s, 1964) gloss translation that the translation has “attempted to reproduce as literally and meaningfully as possible the form and content of the original (p.159). From observation, the translation of technical terms that affirm Nida’s theory of formal equivalence like in table 3 was made up of ‘noun + adjective’ in the source text. This have been rendered noun for noun and adjective for adjective. A major challenge we encountered using formal equivalence is that it could lead to the problem of false friends (faux-amis). Examples in the source text include: « évolutions financières », « implosion », « valeur fondamentale », « dynamique du crédit », « architecture financière » and « intermédiaires financières ». Initially, they were translated as “financial evolutions”, “implosion”, “fundamental value”, “credit dynamics”, “financial architecture” and “financial intermediaries” respectively. After careful analysis and research in the Field of economics, the following were decided upon as more accurate equivalents respectively: “financial developments”, “collapse”, “base value”, “increase in demand for credit”, “financial framework” and “financial institutions”. This highlights the theory of dynamic equivalence which aims at equivalent effect and naturalness of expression. 74 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Hence, we may conclude that not all the technical terms can be translated based on the theory of formal equivalence. More instances in the source text which we translatetd based on the theory of dynamic equivalence are listed in the table below. Table 4 l) Titres financiers adossés à des crédits Financial securities backed by immobiliers mortgages m) Mouvements des capitaux International capital flows internationaux n) Mauvaise appréciation du risque Poor risk assessment o) Evolution de la contrainte réglementaire Trend of the regulatory exigencies p) Taux au jour le jour Overnight rates q) Dynamique financière Financial trends r) Contrat de crédit Loan agreement s) Système bancaire parallèlle Shadow banking system t) Titres de court terme Short term securites u) Taux directeurs Policy rates v) Externalisation Outsourcing Table 4 shows that technical texts are made up of both formal and dynamic equivalences as proposed by (Nida, 1964). It behoves on the translator to undertake extensive research in order to come up with the appropriate equivalents in order for his/her translation to read natural. 3.2.2 Idioms The first challenge encountered was recognizing whether a given expression in the source text was an idiom or not, but according to Baker (1992, p. 78) “the more difficult an expression is to understand and the less sense it makes in a given context, the more likely a translator will recognize it as an idiom” which we could attest to after analysis. Challenges in translating idioms were overcome by using the proposed idea of equivalence by Baker (1992) and Vinay & Darbelnet's (1977). 75 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.2.2.1 Using an idiom with similar form and meaning This approach entails “using an idiom in the target language that conveys roughly the same meaning as that of the source-language idiom (Baker, 1992)”. This kind of idioms have equivalent lexical items. Larson (1998) also proposed the use of TL equivalent idioms provided they exist. a) « Au bord du gouffre » was rendered with the equivalent expression, “on the edge of the abyss”. It is interesting to note that this idiomatic expression is used mainly in the area of Economics to talk about financial bankruptcy (www.linternaute.fr). We could have chosen the equivalent “on the brink of bankruptcy” that could have conveyed a similar meaning” but I rather opted for “on the edge of the abyss” for the purpose of maintaining the imagery « au bord du gouffre » that is related to the source language. The study discovered that « au bord du gouffre » created a mental imagery of someone close to falling into an abyss and consequently, the kind of fall s/he will never recover from (www.linternaute.fr). Moreover, the 2018 Cambridge online dictionary also described being “on the edge of the abyss” as “a difficult situation that brings trouble or destruction”. c) « Trop gros pour faire faillite » was translated with the TL equivalent idiom, “too big to fail”. The author of the source text explicitly stated that, the above expression was often used in banking Economics and was a form of standard moral hazard2. According to www.investopedia.com, the expression ‘“too big to fail” describes the concept where a business have become so large that a government will provide assistance to prevent its failure because not doing so would have a disastrous ripple effect on the economy’. 2 “Generally, moral hazard occurs when one party or individual in a transaction takes risks knowing that, if things don’t work out, another party or individual then suffers the burden of the adverse consequences” (www.investopedia.com). 76 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The expression « importantes pour faire faillite » was also translated as “too big to fail” because they conveyed the same message although the author used the word « importants » in place of « gros ». 3.2.2.2 Using an idiom with similar meaning but dissimilar form With this strategy, the translator finds an idiom in the target language that have a meaning equal to that of the source language idiom. However, they are made up of different lexical items. This strategy becomes consistent with Vinay & Darbelnet's (1977) technique of equivalence that is predominantly used in translating idiomatic expressions. They define equivalence as two texts reflecting the same situation but using different stylistic and structural means. An observation was made on these idioms that both the source and target language do not have the same lexical items. d) « . . . dans le tourbillon de la crise. . . » Translating this idiom required an understanding of the author’s message. The word « tourbillon » which means “whirlwind” in English, created a mental imagery of an agitation or a terrible condition that creates destruction. This imagery helped in the analysis of the expression. In the absence of a direct equivalent expression, we replaced « dans le tourbillon » with “in the heat of” that has a similar meaning. That is, “the most intense or active stage of some activity or condition” according to thefreedictionary.com. Hence, “in the heat of the crisis”. e) « jouer la pente de la courbe des taux ». This is an expression strictly used in economic contexts and was replaced with the equivalent economic expression “to ride the yield curve”. f) « L’enjeu est de taille » was also translated with its equivalent expression, “the stakes are high”. 77 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.2.2.3 Paraphrasing Baker (1992) advanced that, when a match cannot be found in the target language, paraphrasing is the best option. The interpretative theory proved useful here as these idioms required that thesis understood them and then, re-express with the appropriate equivalent lexical patterns. g) « . . . le fruit gâté des innovations financières » This is an expression that can also be described as a metaphor. Based on the interpretative theory, the closest natural equivalent that was used was, “bad results”. The word “fruit” metaphorically means “results” of an action (www.collinsdictionary.com). The adjective « gâté » connoted the idea of something undesirable. Thus, the English equivalent was “bad results”. h) « . . . de prendre encore plus de risques pour jouer le tout pour le tout » Before this expression « jouer le tout pour tout » was paraphrased I did an intralingual translation (Jakobson, 1959) to understand what the expression meant in the source language. According to www.languefrancaise.net, « jouer le tout pour le tout » signified, « prendre des risques, tenter quelque chosed’ audacieux », translated as (“taking risks, taking a bold step” ). In addition, dictionnaire.reverso.net defined this expression as « risquer tout », translated as “risking everything”. Putting all these explanations together, I reformulated and re-expressed the above idiomatic expression as “to gamble everything”. i) « Par temps calme » This is an expression used mainly in the field of meteorology to signify a calm weather. With regards to the economic context of our source text, the thesis had to rely on the interpretative theory in order to extract meaning and then re-express it using the appropriate equivalent. 78 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh The context in which the expression occured connotated that the author was referring to favorable economic conditions that will allow financial actors minimize risks. After much brainstorming we decided that the best way to render the above expression was, “Under favorable economic conditions”. The process applied the strategy of expansion as the thesis introduced more lexical items. j) « . . . a quelque chose à voir. . . » The above idiom was translated as “linked to” In place of using the equivalent expression “has something to do with” which was considered informal and inappropriate for the economic context therein the expression “linked to” was considered appropriate. k) In the same vein, « . . . ont eu le tort » was paraphrased and translated as “. . . were wrong”. 3.2.3. Fixed expressions Some fixed expression posed a challenge as their meaning could not be deduced from the sum of the individual words which constitute them. Baker (1992) stressed that it is unrealistic to always expect to find equivalent expressions in the target language. In dealing with such fixed expressions, we had to deverbalize in order to translate meaning. This involved understanding and rexpression. In the end these fixed expression were either replaced with a simple lexical item or paraphrased - illustration in table 5 Table 5 a) A n’en pas douter Doubtlessly b) A eux seuls Alone c) Une part de vérité Partially true d) Prendre sciemment Knowingly e) Pesant . . . sur Influencing f) Remet en cause Questions g) Profiter au maximum Make the most of h) Laisser penser Promoting the understanding that. . . 79 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 3.4. Abbreviations Another challenge encountered in translating the source text was finding equivalent abbreviations. An observation was made that it was relatively easier to find the equivalents for abbreviations whose meaning was indicated in the source text. Examples of such abbreviations included; BCE – Banque Centrale Européenne translated as ECB- European Central Bank. For abbreviations whose meanings were not stated in the source text, the only solution was to undertake extensive research with the help of online resources. The translation process became clearer that abbreviations left untranslated may cause the problem of ambiguity, as different organisations may translate the same abbreviation differently. Moreover, an abbreviation in a given area may mean differently in another field area. Therefore, before a translator leaves an abbreviation untranslated, s/he must make sure that the equivalents do not exist in the target language. “OPCMs” Since the meaning of the above abbreviation was not stated in the source text, the thesis had to undertake an intralingual translation (Jakobson, 1959) to find out what OPCM stands for in order to help in understanding. According to www.larousse.fr, O.P.C.V.M in the area of finance stands for « organisme de placement collectif en valeur mobilières ». The author of the source text did not include the letter “V” in the abbreviation thereby making it difficult to find its English equivalent. Moreover, the analysis found that the English equivalent of OPCVM according to iate.europa.eu is “UCITS” - “Undertaking for the Collective Investment of Transferable Securities”. 80 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh CHAPTER FOUR 4.0 FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter will discuss the findings of the work and make conclusions and recommendations. 4.1 Findings Challenges of equivalence are not limited to the level of words but also include what Baker (1992) refers to as lexical patterning. These lexical patterning include; idioms and fixed expressions. One major observation in our work was the ability of formal equivalence, also known as literal translation to equally produce an equivalent effect. The kind of equivalent effect produced by formal in the work was not consistent with Nida’s (1964) principle of equivalent effect. This was because formal equivalence did not produce a dynamic relationship between a source text and a target text as the form and content were maintained. However, formal equivalence was able to create an equivalent effect so far as it was meaningful and produced an equivalent message. Thus, a dynamic relationship between the source text and the target text was not the only solution to equivalent effect. A few examples could be noted as follows; the translation of some technical terms such as innovations financières translated as “financial innovations” and “dettes publiques” translated as “public debts”; the replacement of idioms with expressions having similar form and meaning, such as “au bord de gouffre rendered as “on the edge of the abyss”. However, we discovered that, formal correspondence may be a fertile ground for false friends if care is not taken. We observed this in the translation of some technical terms (pages 77-78) The ability to visualize and de-verbalize proved very used in the translation activity, particularly in cases where there was no direct equivalent in the source language. The expressions « fruit gâté » and « par temps calme », for instance, were translated based on 81 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh understanding the message of the author and finding the closest possible equivalent which will convey that same message. As already cited in (Delisle,1988), economic texts are full of metaphoric expressions, since the author may want to associate a concrete conceptual domain with an abstract domain. The study showed that it is necessary to maintain this imagery conveyed by metaphors in the target text in order to produce equivalent effect. Thus equivalent effect is not only limited to producing equivalent meaning and message but includes reproducing imagery as well (pages 67-68). Furthermore, the study showed that when parallel concepts exist between two languages, the words that denote them can be translated literally. This is evident in the translation of specific lexical items in the source text that were used metaphorically. English in the same vein makes use of these words metaphorically. They include « fruit » translated as “fruit”, « cœur » rendered as “heart”, and « masque » rendered as “masked”. It was observed that the extralinguisitc factor of context played a major role. The environment in which some words, such as « demander à » translated as “expect” and « séduisante » translated as “convincing” occurred, enabled us to detect the specific meaning of the word and to render it by the appropriate TL equivalents. Some words and expressions could be translated effectively only by consulting extended contexts, notably, the word « démocraties » rendered as “governments”. This confirms Nida’s (2001) assertion that meaning may be derived from an extended context instead of the immediate context. That is, their meanings were found in another text apart from the source text. The word and the context formed a “semantic molecule” (Nida, 2001, p.33). In the quest to transmit the message of the author or meaning from the source language into the target language, a loss of information content was observed. Notwithstanding, this did not distort the message. 82 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh In the analysis, it was noticed that this was due to the differences that exist between the two languages. For example, as English is more precise and can do away with articles and prepositions, French tends to be more verbose. This is emphasized by Hoof, (1994). Some technical terms and expressions in French occurred with prepositions and articles that were not repeated in the target language. This loss of information is evident in the source and target text alignment where we notice more words on the left column than on the right column. In the process of translating, the study observed that, it is not enough to consult monolingual or bilingual dictionaries. This is consistent to Vinay & Darbelnet's (1977) argument that dictionnaries alone cannot provide translators with solutions to all their challenges. Besides, not all words are found in the dictionary. Thus, indepth research was undertaken in order to find the appropriate equivalents, notably in the cases of abbreviations such as “RMBS” and “OPCMs” whose meanings have not been stated by the author in the source text as well as technical terms which could not be translated literally like « systeme bancaire parallele » translated as “shadow banking system” and « taux au jour le jour » rendered as “overnight rates”. This showed that research forms an integral part of the translation activity. It is necessary for a translator who is translating a technical text like an economic text to consult technical dictionaries as well instead of general dictionaries alone. 83 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 4.2 Conclusion Equivalence has proven to be a “central” and “controversial” concept in the translation activity that cannot be overlooked (Kenny 2009, p. 96). Finding equivalence between two languages is a herculean task as the translator needs to adhere to the rules of the languages involved and at the same time transmit the message of the author. In translating the source text from French to English in this study, there were challenges at both the word level and beyond the word level which is referred to as lexical patternings. These lexical patternings, notably idioms and fixed expressions that this work examined formed a unit of meaning. Difficulties in translating abbreviations were also briefly discussed. The specific aim of the study was to explore the appropriate theories and translation strategies that will serve as a point of reference for overcoming the challenges. Functional and linguisitic theories as well as strategies from translation theorists, such as (Nida, 1964; Lederer, 1969; Catford, 1965; Baker, 1992; Vinay & Darbelnet, 1977) proved essential to this work. Lingusitic factors such as ambiguity, polysemy, false friends and non-equivalence posed a threat to finding the appropriate equivalents. The characteristic of economic texts having metaphoric words and expressions, also influenced the choices of equivalents. This work has shown that equivalent effect is not created only when there is a dynamic relationship between the source text and the target text. A literal translation, when done meaningfully, especially in the case of metaphors, is capable of producing an equivalent effect. Besides, a technical text is made up of both formal and dynamic equivalence and the use of both can produce a translation that reads natural. Although a translator may not be fully knowledgeable in the domain the source text belongs to, the knowledge gaps can be filled through extensive research, particularly, with regards to abbreviations. Information content was lost in transferring the SL message into the TL due to the difference that exist between the 84 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh French and English languages. However, meaning was preserved. It is not surprising that Pergnier (1993) refers to meaning as the constant factor of the translation activity. The quality of the translation is measured by the equivalent effect it creates on both the source text and target text readers. J.B Philips (1953, p. 53), cited in Nida (1964) stated that, “The test of a real translation is that is should not read like a translation at all.” Thus, in finding TL equivalents, the translator must ensure that meaning is not distorted. The use of metaphors by the source text influenced the translation in this study, as we had to resort to TL equivalents that will equally maintain the imagery created in the source text. 85 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 4.3 Recommendations This study has showed that finding equivalence between two different langauges that possess their own rules for the formation and combination of words does not consist merely in the transfer of words but meaning. This confirms Bassnett's (2002) claim that finding equivalence is beyond replacing lexical and grammatical items. Based on the study, a few recommendations have been made; 1. Students should be wary of word-for-word translation. This is because, owing to the differences between languages, a SL expression may be renderend by a TL word and a SL word may be rendered by a TL expression. Examples include “a n’en pas douter” which was rendered as “doubtlessly”, and “reprise” which was rendered as “economic recovery”. These lead to a change in information content between the two languages. Therefore, students should read extensively to discover diverse methods and theories for coming up with meaningful equivalences between French and English. 2. Students must make it a point to undertake extensive research, as not all words and terms find their way into monolingual or bilingual dictionaries. Moreover, some words are left untranslated between two languages as there may be no replacements for them. Examples in our source text included the word “repurchase” in the term “repurchase market”, “haircut”, “subprimes”, “Euribor” and “EONIA”. Moreover, Proper nouns such as “Lehman Brothers’” weree left untranslated. 3. Considering the fact that understanding has proven to be the first step in the translation process, students of translation should focus on understanding the texts they are given to translate before they attempt translating. This will ensure that the message of the author, which is the constant factor in translating a text is not misrepresented. 86 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh Table 6 GLOSSARY FRENCH ENGLISH 1. Acteurs financiers Financial actors 2. Actifs immobiliers Real estate assets 3. Activité économique Economic activity 4. Aléa moral standard Standard moral hazard 5. Architecture financière Financial architecture 6. Banque centrale Central Bank 7. Banques d’investissement Investment banks 8. Bilan balance sheets 9. Bulle financière Financial bubble 10. Bulle immobilière Real estate bubble 11. Bulles spéculatives Speculative bubbles 12. Canal de prise de risque Risk taking channel 13. Centre d'analyse économique Center for Economic Analysis 14. Consolidation fiscale Fiscal consolidation 15. Contrat de crédit Loan agreement 16. Contribuable Tax payer 17. Contribution fiscale Fiscale contribution 18. Coûts de financement à court terme Short-term financing costs 19. Crédit immobilier Housing loan 20. Crédits suprimes Subprime loans 87 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 21. Crise financière Financial crisis 22. Demande de crédit immobilier Mortgage demand 23. Demande de crédit Credit demand 24. Déséquilibres financiers Financial imbalances 25. Dette souveraine Sovereign debt 26. Dettes autoréalisatrices Self-fulfilling debts 27. Dettes publiques Public debts 28. Dynamique de production Production trends 29. Eclatement de la bulle internet Burst of the internet bubble 30. Economie bancaire Banking Economics 31. Endettement Debt 32. Evaluation du prix Price evaluation 33. Evaluation du risque Risk assessement 34. Evolutions financières Financial evolutions 35. Externalisation Outsourcing 36. Faillite Bankruptcy 37. Filet de sécurité Safety net 38. Fluctuations macroéconomique Macroeconomic fluctuations 39. Fragilité financière Financial fragility 40. Gains en capital Capital gains 41. Indice des prix à la consommation. Consummer Price Index 42. Inflation faible Low inflation 43. Innovations financières Financial innovations 44. Instabilité financière Financial instability 45. Intermediaires financiers Financial institutions 88 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 46. Marché financier Financial market 47. Marché interbancaire Interbank market 48. Marche monetaire Money market 49. Marchés financiers Financial markets 50. Mesures du risque de crédit Credit risk measures 51. Mouvements des capitaux internationaux International captital flows 52. Mouvements déstabilisants de spirale à la Destabilizing spiral sales movements vente 53. Passif Liability 54. Politique contracyclique Counter-cyclical policy 55. Politique monétaire expansionniste Expansionary monetary policy 56. Pressions inflationnistes Infation pressures 57. Prime de risque Risk premium 58. Prise de risque Risk-taking 59. Prix des actifs risqués Risky asset prices 60. Prix immobilier Housing prices 61. Quasi-monnaie Quasi-money 62. Règle de Taylor Taylor's rule 63. Réglementation financière Financial regulations 64. Réglementation financière Financial regulation 65. Réserve Fédérale Américain Federal Reserve System 66. Risques de déflation Deflation risks 67. Risques de récession Recession risks 68. Secteur bancaire parallèle Shadow banking sector 69. Secteur bancaire traditionnel Traditional banking sector 89 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh 70. Secteur financier Financial sector 71. Sentier de taux d’intérêt Interest rate path 72. Stabilisation macroéconomique et Macroeconomic and financial stabilisation financière 73. Stabilité des prix Price stability 74. Stabilité économique Economic stability 75. Stabilité financière Financial stability 76. Surévaluation Overvaluation 77. Système bancaire parallèle Shadow banking system 78. Système financier Financial system 79. Taux d'intérêt Interest rate 80. Taux d'interet à court terme Short-term interest rates 81. Taux directeurs Policy rates 82. Titres de court terme des entreprises Short term corporate securities 83. Titres financiers Financial securities 84. Titres financiers adossés à des crédits Mortgage-backed securities immobiliers 90 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh REFERENCE Baker, M. (1992). In other words: A coursebook on translation. London and New York: Routledge. Bassnett, S. (2002). Translation studies. London and New York: Routledge. Bell, R. T. (1991). Translation and translating: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Longman. Benjamin, W. (2004). The task of the translator. In Lawrence Venuti (Ed.), The translation studies reader (2nd ed., pp. 15–22). London and New York: Routledge. Catford, J. C. (1965). A linguistic theory of translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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Paris: Didier. 92 University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh SITOGRAPHY https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/state-funding, Retrieved on 30 June, 2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_consolidation, Retrieved on 26 July, 2018 http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=fiscal-consolidation, Retrieved on 17 July, 2018 http://www.languefrancaise.net/Bob/39799, Retrieved on 27 July 2018 https://dictionnaire.reverso.net/francais-synonymes/jouer+le+tout+pour+le+tout , Retrived on 27 July, 2018 http://www.linternaute.fr/expression/langue-francaise/18194/etre-au-bord-du-gouffre/, Retrieved on 27 July, 2018 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/abyss, Retrieved on 2 August, 2018 https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/fruit, Retrieved on 2 August, 2018 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fruit, Retrieved on 2 August, 2018 https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+heat+of, Retrieved on 10 August, 2018 http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/repris/67749#665377, Retrieved on 3 September, 2018 http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/O_P_C_V_M_/55616, Retrieved on 2 October, 2018 http://context.reverso.net/translation/french-english/OPCVM, Retrieved on 2 Octobter 2018 http://iate.europa.eu/SearchByQuery.do, Retrieved on 2, October 2018 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/too-big-to-fail.asp, Retrieved on 2 October, 2018 93