[2009.4.30] The butcher’s bill 屠夫的账单

The butcher’s bill
屠夫的账单

Apr 30th 2009 | LONDON AND MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition

Recession may dampen the economic cost of a swine-flu epidemic
经济衰退或许会降低猪流感大规模流行所造成的经济损失

THE scares over bird flu since 1997 and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 have spurred research into the economic costs of pandemics. Studies paint a grim picture of what swine flu could mean for the world economy. For example, World Bank economists estimated last year that a pandemic with death rates similar to those in the Spanish flu that swept the world in 1918-19 could shrink global GDP by 4.8%.

1997年以来对禽流感的恐惧和2003年以来对SARS的恐惧促使人们加紧研究世界性大规模疫病流行所造成的经济损失。多项研究都对猪流感对世界经济所造成的影响深表悲观。例如，世界银行的经济学家们去年预测一场死亡率接近1918-1919年席卷全球的西班牙流感的世界性大规模疫病流行将导致全球国内生产总值萎缩4.8%。

Although such research can help to identify the economic effects of swine flu, global recession means that some of the mechanisms it describes are already at work. The recession means, perhaps counterintuitively, that the incremental economic effect of a pandemic may be less dramatic than it would be in normal times.

尽管这样的研究能够帮助人们确定猪流感的经济影响，全球经济衰退意味着这种研究中描述的机制中的一部分已经运转起来了。或许跟人们的直觉相悖，经济衰退意味着世界性大规模疫病流行递增的经济影响也许不如经济运行正常时那么剧烈。

Economists argue that a pandemic would affect both global demand and global supply, but that the first of these is particularly vulnerable to the uncertainty and fear surrounding even the possibility of widespread disease. That would cause consumer spending to fall and businesses to put investment plans on hold.

经济学家们认为，一场世界性大规模疫病流行将影响全球需求和供应，其中前者对不确定性和哪怕是疾病大面积传播之可能性的恐惧尤其脆弱。这将导致消费支出下降及企业搁置投资计划。

Asia’s experience with SARS is a guide. The outbreak caused a sharp drop in private consumption in the economies it affected. People avoided going out—as they are doing in Mexico. On April 29th the country’s president, Felipe Calderón, announced a national suspension of non-essential activities from May 1st to May 5th. The cancelling of sporting events and concerts, the closing of bars and nightclubs, and people’s propensity to stay inside had already cost Mexico City’s service and retail industries $55m a day from April 24th, when authorities first closed schools. That sum was expected to double after a ban on restaurants seating customers.

亚洲受到SARS袭击的经历具有指南作用。SARS的爆发使得各受影响经济体的私人消费大幅下跌。人们避免外出——就像现在人们在墨西哥所作的那样。4月29日墨西哥总统费利佩•卡尔德隆宣布5月1日-5日暂停全国所有非必要活动。体育赛事和演唱会取消、酒吧和夜总会停业、人们则更倾向于呆在家里，这导致墨西哥城的服务和零售业从当局首先宣布学校停课的4月24日起每天的损失高达5500万美元。这一数字预计将在饭店不得接待客人的禁令生效后翻一番。

Financial markets have reacted sharply: the peso has fallen by 5.5% against the dollar since the emergency began. Mexico’s finance minister, Agustín Carstens, has said that he expects the economic cost to be 0.3-0.5% of GDP, based on Asian precedents. Luis Flores, an economist at IXE, a bank, reckons that the government’s budget deficit could increase by 0.7% of GDP.

金融市场也作出激烈反应：墨西哥比索兑美元汇率自从紧急措施实施以来已经下跌了5.5%。墨西哥财长Agustín Carstens表示基于亚洲国家的先例，他预计经济损失将达到国内生产总值的0.3-0.5%。墨西哥IXE银行的经济学家Luis Flores承认政府的财政赤字将可能上升，幅度将达到国内生产总值的0.7%。

This outbreak has happened when, worldwide, consumer confidence is low. So any further drops in demand because of a swine-flu pandemic may be smaller than those caused by SARS, when airline-passenger arrivals in Hong Kong fell by nearly two-thirds in a month. But a pandemic would dent hopes of a rapid recovery from recession, by providing yet another reason for gloom to continue.

这场疫病是在全球消费者信心处于低位的背景下爆发的。所以任何由世界性大规模疫病流行造成的需求进一步下降可能比SARS造成的需求下降更缓和一些。SARS疫情暴发期间香港的机场到港旅客人数一个月内骤降了将近2/3。但是世界性大规模疫病流行将提供一个相信经济持续不景气的额外理由，从而降低经济从衰退中快速复苏的希望。

The uncertainty caused by a pandemic could hit investment too. Risk premiums for countries affected by the pandemic might rise. And worries about safety, justified or not, pose risks to trade. Already, China has banned Mexican pork, though there is no evidence to suggest that meat spreads flu viruses. World trade is already plummeting. Widespread reactions of this sort could steepen its dive.

世界性大规模疫病流行造成的不确定性也可能打击投资。在世界性大规模疫病流行肆虐的国家投资的风险溢价或将上升。而对安全的担心——无论有理也好，无据也罢——对贸易构成风险。中国已经禁止进口原产墨西哥的猪肉，尽管没有证据表明猪肉能够传播流感病毒。世界贸易已经大幅下滑。如果各国广泛作出类似反应的话将进一步加剧世界贸易的下滑。

More than fear itself
不止是恐惧本身

The potential supply-side effects of a pandemic come mainly because people fall ill or die. Infected people cannot work, and others must take time off to care for them. This has an immediate effect on the size of the labour force, but with consequences that last many years. The future output of those who die is lost. That is especially important when people of working age are taken. The worst economic consequences of AIDS have come from death and sickness among young adults.

世界性大规模疫病对供应面的潜在影响主要来自于人们染病或死亡。染病的人无法工作，而其他人必须挤出时间去照顾他们。这对劳动力规模产生立竿见影的影响，但其后果却可持续数年之久。死亡病人的未来产出就此失去。在处于工作年龄的人们病死的情况下这一点就尤其突出。艾滋病最具破坏性的经济后果源自年轻的成年人染病和死亡。

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As busy as it gets 忙碌依旧

The worldwide costs from deaths and hospitalisation are hard to calculate in the absence of information about medical costs in each country. However, Martin Meltzer, Nancy Cox and Keiji Fukuda, now deputy director-general of the World Health Organisation, did the sums for America in a paper in 1999. They found that a pandemic affecting 15-35% of the population would have cost between $71.3 billion and $166.5 billion (in 1999 dollars).

世界范围内由于病人死亡和住院而产生的损失在缺乏各个国家医疗费用信息的情况下难以计算。然而，Martin Meltzer，Nancy Cox 和现在担任世卫组织助理总干事的Keiji Fukuda在1999年发表的一篇论文中以美国为对象进行了相关计算。他们发现影响全美15-35%人口的一场世界性大规模疫病流行造成的损失将达到713-1665亿美元之间（以1999年的美元价值计算）。

The bulk of this would come from forgoing all that the sick and the dead would have produced. In other words, it is an estimate of the effect on the potential output of the American economy. Because of the global slump, many more people are already out of work than in normal times. This probably means that the immediate cost of additional losses in output would be smaller than in the estimates made by Mr Meltzer, Ms Cox and Mr Fukuda.

这一损失大部分来自失去病患者和死亡者本可以产出的价值。换句话说，这只是一项对美国经济潜在产值的影响的估计。由于全球经济衰退，眼下失业人数比经济正常运行之时要多得多。这或许意味着产值额外损失直接产生的影响比这项由Meltzer先生、Cox女士和Fukuda先生所作的研究要小。

Several studies have put all this together to estimate the overall impact of a pandemic on economic growth. In 2006 Warwick McKibbin and Alexandra Sidorenko found in a study for the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney that even a mild pandemic could shave 0.8% off world GDP. For the worst possibility they considered, the drop would be a staggering 12.6%. They reckon a pandemic similar to the one that began in 1918 would reduce growth in the American economy by 3 percentage points and in Japan by 8.3 points. Roughly comparable numbers emerge from a study by economists at America’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found that a Spanish-flu-like pandemic would lower real GDP growth in America by about 5 points. Even a milder episode would lead to a 1.5-point drop.

一些研究把所有这些加在一起来估算一场世界性大规模疫病流行对经济增长的总体影响。2006年Warwick McKibbin和Alexandra Sidorenko在一项为悉尼Lowy国际政策中心所作的研究中发现即便是一场温和的世界性大规模疫病流行也可造成全球国内生产总值萎缩0.8%。在最坏的情况下，全球经济下滑可达到令人瞠目结舌的12.6%。他们承认与1918年爆发的那场流感类似的世界性大规模疫病流行将导致美国经济萎缩3%，日本经济萎缩8.3%。美国国会预算办公室的经济学家们所作的一项研究也得出了大致相似的结果，该研究发现一场跟西班牙流感相似的世界性大规模疫病流行将导致美国实际国内生产总值下降五个百分点。即便是一场更为温和的疫病流行也能导致一个半百分点的经济下滑。

These are large declines. The CBO notes that a severe pandemic would be like a typical post-war recession. As it happens, the worries about swine flu come when the world is already in its worst slump since the war. That would dampen the economic effects of a pandemic. But if a pandemic does occur, this would be small comfort indeed.

这些经济萎缩的规模都不小。国会预算办公室认为一场严重的世界性大规模疫病流行的后果将无异于一场典型的战后经济衰退。事实上，对猪流感的担忧是在世界已经陷入战后最严重经济衰退的背景下来临的。这将减弱一场世界性大规模疫病流行的经济影响。但是如果一场世界性大规模疫病流行确实降临的话，这无疑将只是一个很小的安慰。