Last week, the S&P 500 charged to the 109th record high of the current bull market, now in it’s seventh year.

But the steady upward march of stock prices hasn’t calmed the skepticism of some investors, who have pointed to uncertainty in geopolitics, relatively sluggish economic growth, and unprecedented central bank stimulus as reasons why we shouldn’t assume that rising stock prices means that everything’s a-okay with the economy.

But a recent spate of big-bank earnings releases give us reason doubt the haters. If you look at the financials of four of the largest American banks, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America, they all show higher lending today than three months ago.

This is hugely important for the continued health of the U.S. economy, as there is a strong correlation between growth in bank lending and economic growth. In fact, one can argue that changes in lending by private banks is more important to the real economy than policy changes at the Federal Reserve. That’s because all Federal Reserve policy works through big banks before it makes it way to the broader economy.

Take for instance, the aggregate lending growth by the four largest banks from March through June. Collectively, they added close to $53 billion in new money to the economy, or more than the Federal Reserve was buying in government bonds per month at the height of its quantitative easing program. The difference, of course, is when the Fed was buying huge amount of government bonds from the banks, there was no guarantee that this money would find its way into the hands of the broad public. When big banks lend, on the other hand, that money is going to real people and business and is getting spent in the real economy.

In fact, weak bank lending is one reason economists believe the recovery following the Great Recession was so weak. The following chart, from a recent working paper by economists at the Hoover Institution, shows the difference in bank lending habits following the Great Recession compared with those following other recessions:

近来，标准普尔500指数，在长达七年的牛市中，几乎天天创下历史新高。

但股票价格的稳步上涨并未打消部分投资者的质疑，他们认为地缘政治的不确定性、相对低迷的经济增长速度和前所未有的央行刺激政策，均意味着我们不能假设股市上涨便意味着经济形势一切顺利。

但最近集中公布的大银行收入，却让我们有理由怀疑那些憎恨银行的人。美国四大银行富国银行、摩根大通、花旗集团和美国银行的财务状况，均证明当前的贷款规模高于三个月前。

这对于美国经济继续保持健康运行至关重要，银行银行贷款与经济增长之间存在密切的相互关系。事实上，我们可以认为，相比美联储的政策变化，私有银行贷款的变化，对于实体经济更加重要。这是因为，美联储的所有政策均需要通过大银行，才能对宏观经济产生影响。

以四大银行三至六月份累计贷款增长为例。四家银行合计为经济新注入资金约530亿美元，超过了美联储在其量化宽松政策的最高点，每个月买进的政府债券总额。当然，区别在于美联储从银行购买大量政府债券时，并不能保证这笔资金会落到广大民众的手中。而大银行的贷款则会真正投入到民众和公司，用于在实体经济中消费。

实际上，有经济学家认为，银行贷款疲软是导致大衰退之后经济复苏乏力的原因之一。下列图表摘自胡佛研究院（Hoover Institution）经济学家最近的工作论文。图中显示了此次大衰退之后与其他经济衰退之后银行贷款习惯的区别：

The authors of the paper argue that increased regulatory burden caused by Dodd-Frank reforms is at least partially to blame for muted bank lending following the recession. But this dynamic is also the reason given by many economists, including former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, for defending the hugely unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program, popularly known as the bank bailouts. If the banks weren’t bailed out, and thus were unable to continue to lend money to keep the economy growing, the U.S. economy would have been sent into a downward spiral much like that which we saw during the Great Depression.

So fret all you want about the coming U.S. recession, but as long as we continue to see big banks lending more, it’s likely not right around the corner.

论文的作者认为，多德-弗兰克改革导致的监管负担加剧，至少要为大萧条之后银行贷款低迷承担部分责任。但许多经济学家在为非常不得人心的“不良资产救助计划”进行辩护时，也会将这种变化作为理由，包括前美联储主席本·伯南克。该计划即众所周知的银行救助。如果银行得不到救助，便无法继续提供保持经济增长需要的贷款，而美国经济将会陷入严重下滑，类似于上世纪30年代大萧条期间的经济状况。

也许你会为美国陷入下一次经济衰退而感到不安，但只要大银行贷款继续增加，在短期内便不太可能再次发生经济衰退。 （财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓