[2009.4.23] A glimmer of hope? 一丝希望？

 

The world economy
世界经济

A glimmer of hope?
一丝希望？

Apr 23rd 2009
From The Economist print edition

The worst thing for the world economy would be to assume the worst is over
对世界经济来说，再也没有比想当然地认为最糟糕的时候已经过去更糟糕的事情了。

Illustration by Jon Berkeley

THE rays are diffuse, but the specks of light are unmistakable. Share prices are up sharply. Even after slipping early this week, two-thirds of the 42 stockmarkets that The Economist tracks have risen in the past six weeks by more than 20%. Different economic indicators from different parts of the world have brightened. China’s economy is picking up. The slump in global manufacturing seems to be easing. Property markets in America and Britain are showing signs of life, as mortgage rates fall and homes become more affordable. Confidence is growing. A widely tracked index of investor sentiment in Germany has turned positive for the first time in almost two years.

虽然光线是漫射开来的，那一点点光亮的存在却是确凿无误的。股票价格正大幅上涨。尽管在这周前几天走低，本刊跟踪的42个股市中的三分之二还是在过去六周中上涨了超过五分之一。全球各地的各种经济指标均有所起色。中国经济正在复苏。全球制造业的衰退似乎也正在减缓。随着抵押贷款利率下调以及房价愈加处于可承受范围内，英美的房地产市场正表现出恢复生气的迹象。信心正在增长。德国一项受到广泛跟踪的投资者情绪指数已经由负转正，这还是近两年来的第一次。

All this is welcome—not least because the slump has been made so much worse by panic and despair. When the financial system was on the brink of collapse in September, investors shunned all but the safest assets, consumers stopped spending and firms shut down. That plunge into the depths could be succeeded by a virtuous cycle, where the wheels of finance turn again, cheerier consumers open their wallets and ambitious firms turn from hoarding cash to pursuing profits.

所有这些都是受欢迎的—尤其是因为恐慌和绝望如此严重地加剧了经济衰退。去年九月当金融体系处在崩溃的边缘时，投资者们避开除最安全资产外的任何资产，消费者停止消费，而企业则关门停产。虽然那时经济跌入深渊，现在却可能出现一种良性循环：金融巨轮再度开动，心情变好的消费者们打开钱包，而雄心勃勃的企业则不再窖藏资金，而是转而追逐利润。

But, welcome as it is, optimism contains two traps, one obvious, the other more subtle. The obvious trap is that confidence proves misplaced—that the glimmers of hope are misinterpreted as the beginnings of a strong recovery when all they really show is that the rate of decline is slowing. The subtler trap, particularly for politicians, is that confidence and better news create ruinous complacency. Optimism is one thing, but hubris that the world economy is returning to normal could hinder recovery and block policies to protect against a further plunge into the depths.

尽管乐观主义值得欢迎，却也要看到它包含的两个陷阱，一个比较明显，另一个却不容易被发现。那个明显的陷阱在于信心证明被放错了地方——几缕希望之光被错误地解读为强劲复苏的开始，而事实上它们代表的仅仅是下滑的速度开始放缓。另外那个更不容易察觉的陷阱，尤其是对政客们来说，在于信心和好消息往往创造出破坏性的自满情绪。乐观是一回事，认为世界经济正在回归正常的自大看法则可能阻碍复苏并导致那些旨在防止经济再次跌入深渊的政策难产。

Luminous indicators
带来希望的经济指标

Begin with those glimmers. It is easy to read too much into the gain in share prices. Stockmarkets usually rally before economies improve, because investors spy the promise of fatter profits before the statisticians document a turnaround. But plenty of rallies fizzle into nothing. Between 1929 and 1932, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared by more than 20% four times, only to fall back below its previous lows. Today’s crisis has seen five separate rallies in which share prices rose more than 10% only to subside again.

我们先来看看这些许的希望之光。人们容易夸大股票价格上扬所包含的讯息。股市在经济状况改善之前往往会上涨，这是因为投资者在统计人员记录经济触底反弹之前就已经发现了获得更高利润的希望。但是有许多反弹最终消失于无形。1929-1932年间，道琼斯工业指数曾四次暴涨超过20%，最后却跌回到原低点以下。目前的这场危机中已经出现了五次互相独立的股价上扬逾10%的大涨，每次之后股价却再次跌回原位。

The economic statistics are hard to interpret, too. The past six months have seen several slumps, each with a different trajectory. The plunge in manufacturing is in part the result of a huge global inventory adjustment. With unsold goods piling up and finance hard to come by, firms around the world have slashed production even faster than demand has fallen. Once firms have run down their stocks they will start making things again and the manufacturing recession will be past its worst.

解读经济统计数字也很难。过去六个月中有过数次衰退，每次的轨迹都不同。制造业大幅下滑部分是由于大规模的全球存货调整。由于未出售货物大量积存而融资却难以获取，世界各地的企业削减产量的速度甚至比需求下降的速度更快。一旦企业存货耗尽，它们将恢复生产，而制造业衰退的最高峰也将过去。

Even if that moment is at hand, two other slumps are likely to poison the economy for much longer. The most important is the banking crisis and the purge of debt in the bubble economies, especially America and Britain. Demand has plummeted as tighter credit and sinking asset prices have exposed consumers’ excessive borrowing and scared them into saving more. History suggests that such balance-sheet recessions are long and that the recoveries which eventually follow them are feeble.

即便这一刻即将到来，另外两场衰退却可能会毒害经济更久。这其中首要的便是银行业危机和泡沫经济中的债务清理，尤其是在英美两国。收紧的银根和下跌的资产价格暴露了消费者的过度借贷，迫使他们更多地积蓄，从而也导致了需求的急遽下滑。历史表明这样的资产负债表衰退不仅持续时间长，并且最终随之而来的复苏亦是软弱无力的。

The second slump is in the emerging world, where many economies have been hit by the sudden fall in private cross-border capital flows. Emerging economies, which imported capital worth 5% of their GDP in 2007, now face a world where cautious investors keep their money at home. According to the IMF, banks, firms and governments in the emerging world have some $1.8 trillion-worth of borrowing to roll over this year, much of that in central and eastern Europe. Even if emerging markets escape a full-blown debt crisis, investors’ confidence is unlikely to recover for years.

第二场下滑发生在新兴经济体国家，这些国家的经济由于跨国私有资本流的骤然减少而受到打击。2007年输入各新兴经济体的资本占其国内生产总值的5%，而眼下它们却不得不面对一个小心翼翼的投资者们把钱放在家里的世界。国际货币基金组织认为新兴经济体国家的银行、企业、政府今年内需延期支付的债务总额高达18000亿美元，其中大部分在中东欧国家。即便这些新兴市场能逃过一场全面的债务危机，投资者信心数年内都不可能恢复。

These crises sent the world economy into a decline that, on several measures, has been steeper than the onset of the Depression. The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook expects global output to shrink by 1.3% this year, its first fall in 60 years. But the collapse has been countered by the most ambitious policy response in history. Central banks have pumped out trillions of dollars of liquidity and, in rising numbers, have resorted to an increasingly exotic arsenal of “unconventional” firepower to ease credit markets and loosen monetary conditions even as policy rates approach zero. Governments have battled to prop up their banks, committing trillions of dollars in the process. The IMF has new money. Every big rich country has bolstered demand with fiscal stimulus (and so have many emerging ones). The rich world’s budget deficits will, on average, reach almost 9% of GDP, six times higher than before the crisis hit.

这些危机使世界经济陷入了一场衰退，其程度之深以某些尺度衡量甚至超过了大萧条初期。国际货币基金组织最新的《世界经济展望》预计全球产值今年将萎缩1.3%，这是60年来首次出现萎缩。但是各国采取了史上最雄心勃勃的政策反应来对抗这场崩溃，各国央行向市场注入了数万亿美元的流动性，更多的央行开始诉诸于各种越来越异乎寻常的“非常规”政策手段来安抚信贷市场，甚至在政策利率接近零的情况下仍努力宽松货币环境。各国政府均奋力支撑其银行，并在这一过程中为数万亿美元提供担保。国际货币基金组织也获得了新的资金。每个发达大国都采取财政刺激来促进需求（很多新兴国家亦是如此）。发达世界的平均财政赤字将几乎占国内生产总值的9%，这比危机来临之前高了6倍。

The Depression showed how damaging it can be if governments don’t step in when the rest of the economy seizes up. Yet action on the current scale has never been tried before and nobody knows when it will have an effect—let alone how much difference it will make. Whatever the impact, it would be a mistake to confuse the twitches of an economy on life-support with a lasting recovery. A real recovery depends on government demand being supplanted by sustainable sources of private spending. And here the news is almost uniformly grim.

大萧条的经验表明，政府在经济其他部分瘫痪之时袖手旁观将导致多么毁灭性的后果。但是眼下这种规模的行动从未在以前尝试过，没有人知道它将在何时产生效果——更不用说它将会有多大的作用。但不管影响有多大，将苟延残喘的经济的几阵痉挛误认为是持久的复苏都是一个错误。真正的复苏取决于可持久的私人消费取代政府需求。而这方面的消息却是无力例外都是黯淡的。

Searching for new demand
寻找新的需求

Take the country many are pinning their hopes on: America. The adjustment in the housing market began earlier there than anywhere else. Prices peaked almost three years ago, and are now down by 30%. Manufacturing production has been falling at an annualised rate of more than 20% for the past three months. And the government’s offsetting policy offensive has been the rich world’s boldest.

就拿被很多人寄予厚望的美国来说吧。住宅市场的调整在美国来得较其他国家为早。房价几乎在三年前就见顶了，到现在已经降了三成。制造业生产在过去三个月中的下滑速度折算成年率超过20%。而政府采取的旨在抵消这些负面影响的政策攻势在发达国家中也是最为大胆的。

As the inventory adjustment ends and the stimuli kick in, America’s slump is sure to ease. Cushioned by the government, the economy may even begin to grow again before too long. But it is hard to see the ingredients for a recovery that is robust enough to stop unemployment rising. Weakness abroad will crimp exports. America’s banks are propped up with public capital, but their balance-sheets are clogged with toxic assets. Consumer spending and firms’ investment will be dragged lower by the need to pay back debt and restore savings. This will be a long slog. Private-sector leverage, which rose by 70% of GDP between 2000 and 2008, has barely begun to unwind. At 4%, the household savings rate has jumped sharply from its low of near zero, but it is still far below its post-war average of 7%. Higher unemployment and rising bankruptcies could easily cause a vicious new downward lurch.

随着存货调整地结束和财政刺激的起步，美国经济的衰退肯定将得到缓和。在政府的支撑下，不久之后经济甚至有可能重新开始增长。但是目前还看不到能创造出一场足以强劲到阻止失业率攀升的复苏的元素。世界其他地区的疲软妨碍了出口。美国各家银行虽然得到了公有资本的支撑，不良资产仍然堵塞着它们的资产负债表。偿还债务和恢复储蓄的需要拖累了消费支出和企业投资。这将是漫长、沉重而缓慢的前行。2000-2008年间私人部门的杠杆持续上升，上升幅度为国内生产总值的七成，而去杠杆化的过程几乎还没有开始。家庭储蓄率从接近于零的地点猛然跃升到4%，但仍然远低于二战后7%的平均值。失业率的攀升和破产的增多很容易就能导致新一轮的恶性经济下行。

In Britain, given the size of its finance industry, housing boom and consumer debt, the balance-sheet adjustment will, if anything, be greater. The weaker pound will buoy exports, but fragile public finances suggest that Britain has much less scope to use government spending to cushion the private sector than America does—as this week’s flawed budget made painfully clear (see article).

在英国，考虑到其金融产业、房地产繁荣和消费者债务的规模，资产负债表的调整幅度将更大。英镑的疲软将支撑出口，但是脆弱的公共财政意味着英国通过利用政府开支为私人部门提供缓冲的空间将远不及美国——本周出台的预算案漏洞百出就已经清楚得让人痛苦地说明了这一点（见文章）。

The outlook should in theory be brighter for Germany and Japan. Both have seen output slump faster than in other rich countries because of the collapse in trade and manufacturing, but neither has the huge private borrowing of the sort that haunts the Anglo-Saxon world. Once inventories have adjusted, recovery should come quickly. In practice, though, that seems unlikely, especially in Germany. As the output slump sends Germany’s jobless rate towards double-digits, it is hard to see consumers going on a spending spree. Nor has the government shown much appetite for boosting demand. Germany’s fiscal stimulus, although large by European standards, falls well short of what it could afford. Worse, the country’s banks are still in trouble. Germans did not behave recklessly, but their banks did—along with many others in continental Europe. New figures from the IMF suggest that European banks face some $1.1 trillion in losses, hardly any of which have yet been recognised (see article). This week’s German plan to set up several bad banks was no more than a down payment on the restructuring ahead.

理论上来说，德国和日本的经济前景应该会好一点。贸易和制造业的崩溃使得这两个国家经济产出下滑的速度比其他发达国家更快，不过德日都没有困扰盎格鲁-撒克逊世界的巨额债务。一旦存货调整结束，复苏将很快到来。但实际上，这似乎并不可能发生，尤其是在德国。随着经济产出的大幅度下滑导致德国的失业率攀升到两位数，很难期望看到消费者大肆消费。政府也没有多大兴趣刺激需求。德国的财政刺激计划尽管按欧洲标准规模算大的，却比该国所能承受的水平低得多。更糟糕的是该国的银行仍然身陷泥潭。虽然德国人并没有做出不计后果的行为，德国的银行家们——以及许多其他欧洲大陆国家的银行家们——却这么干了。国际货币基金组织新近公布的数字显示欧洲各家银行将面临高达1.1万亿美元的亏损，尽管眼下几乎没人承认有任何这样的亏损（见文章）。德国于本周公布的设立数个“坏账银行”的计划不过是日后银行重组的定金罢了。

Japan has acted more boldly. Its latest package of tax cuts and government spending, unveiled in early April, will provide the biggest fiscal boost, relative to GDP, of any rich country this year. Its economy is likely to perk up, temporarily at least. But its public-debt stock is approaching 200% of GDP, so Japan has scant room for more fiscal stimulus. With export markets weak, demand will soon need to be privately generated at home. But the past two decades offer little evidence that Japan can make that shift.

日本则行动得更加大胆。该国最新的包含减税和政府支出的一揽子措施在4月初出台，它提供的财政刺激相对于国民生产总值而言是今年所有发达国家中最强的。日本经济有可能因此而重振，至少暂时如此。但由于其公共债务接近国内生产总值的两倍，因此日本已经没有额外财政刺激的空间了。由于出口市场的疲软，很快将需要以日本国内的私人需求替代外部需求。但在过去的二十年中，没有证据表明日本能够完成这样的转变。

For the time being, the brightest light glows in China, where a huge inventory adjustment has exaggerated the impact of falling foreign demand, and where the government has the cash and determination to prop up domestic spending. China’s stimulus is already bearing fruit. Loans are soaring and infrastructure investment is growing smartly. The IMF’s latest forecast, that China’s economy will grow by 6.5% this year, may prove conservative. Yet even China has its difficulties. Perhaps three-quarters of the growth will come from government demand, particularly infrastructure spending.

目前来看，最耀眼的光明来自中国。在中国，庞大的存货调整夸大了外部需求下滑的冲击，而政府有资金也有决心支撑国内消费。中国的财政刺激已经见效。贷款激增，基础设施投资健康增长。根据国际货币基金组织最新的预测，中国经济今年将增长6.5%，但这也许过于保守了。但是即便是中国也面临着困难。也许3/4的增长将来自于政府需求，尤其是基础设施建设开支。

Not much to glow about
没什么可发光的

Add all this up and the case for optimism fades quickly. The worst is over only in the narrowest sense that the pace of global decline has peaked. Thanks to massive—and unsustainable—fiscal and monetary transfusions, output will eventually stabilise. But in many ways, darker days lie ahead. Despite the scale of the slump, no conventional recovery is in sight. Growth, when it comes, will be too feeble to stop unemployment rising and idle capacity swelling. And for years most of the world’s economies will depend on their governments.

把所有这些加在一起就会发现乐观的理由很快就烟消云散了。说最坏的时候已经过去也只是在最狭隘的意义上成立，即全球衰退的速度已经见顶。由于大规模——而无法持久的——财政和货币输血，经济产出最终将稳定下来。但在很多方面，更黑暗的日子还在后头。尽管此次衰退的规模很大，常规性的复苏还是遥不可见。即便能迎来增长，也不足以强劲到止住失业率的攀升和闲置产能的膨胀。在未来的数年内，世界上大部分经济体将依赖它们的政府。

Consider what that means. Much of the rich world will see jobless rates that reach double-digits, and then stay there. Deflation—a devastating disease in debt-laden economies—could set in as record economic slack pushes down prices and wages, particularly since headline inflation has already plunged thanks to sinking fuel costs. Public debt will soar because of weak growth, prolonged stimulus spending and the growing costs of cleaning up the financial mess. The OECD’s member countries began the crisis with debt stocks, on average, at 75% of GDP; by 2010 they will reach 100%. One analysis suggests persistent weakness could push the biggest economies’ debt ratios to 140% by 2014. Continuing joblessness, years of weak investment and higher public-debt burdens, in turn, will dent economies’ underlying potential. Although there is no sign that the world economy will return to its trend rate of growth any time soon, it is already clear that this speed limit will be lower than before the crisis hit.

想一想这意味着什么。大多数发达国家将看到失业率攀升到两位数，并保持在那个高位。通货紧缩——债务缠身的经济体的恶疾——可能会随着创纪录的经济低迷拖低价格和工资而到来，尤其是在见诸报端的通胀率已经随着燃油价格下降而降低的情况下。低迷的增长、持久的刺激支出和不断上升的清理金融系统的成本将导致公共负债急剧上升。经合组织成员国在此次危机袭来之际的负债额平均为国内生产总值的3/4；到2010年将达到与国内生产总值持平。一项分析认为持续的经济低迷可能将最大几个经济体的负债推高至占国内生产总值的140%。持续的高失业率，数年的投资不足，再加上更加沉重的公共债务负担，将反过来削弱经济潜力。尽管没有迹象表明世界经济不久后就将重新恢复趋势增长率，有一点已经很清楚了，这就是经济增长速度的极限将低于危机前。

Start preparing for the next decade
开始为未来十年作准备

Welcome to an era of diminished expectations and continuing dangers; a world where policymakers must steer between the imminent threat of deflation while countering investors’ (reasonable) fears that swelling public debts and massive monetary easing could eventually lead to high inflation; an uncharted world where government borrowing reaches a scale not seen since the second world war, when capital controls ensured that savings stayed at home.

欢迎来到一个期望值降低而危险持续存在的时代；在这个世界里，政策制定者们在对抗投资者对膨胀的公共债务和大规模货币宽松政策可能将最终引发高通胀率的（合理）恐惧的同时又要应付通货紧缩迫近的威胁；在这个未知世界中，政府的债务达到了二战结束后前所未见的水平，而资本管制则确保了储蓄留在家中。

How to cope with these dangers? Certainly not by clutching at scraps of better news. That risks leading to less action right now. Warding off deflation, for instance, will demand more unconventional steps from more central banks for longer than many now seem to foresee. Laggards, such as the European Central Bank, do themselves and the world no favours by holding back. Nor should governments immediately seek to take back the fiscal stimulus. Prolonged economic weakness does far greater damage to public finances than temporary fiscal activism. Remember how Japan snuffed out its recovery in the 1990s by rushing to raise taxes.

那么如何应对这些危险呢？当然不是通过抓紧几小片好消息。那样做的风险在于它导致人们现在就减少行动。若要避免通货紧缩就需要采取更多的中央银行在比很多人现在预计的更长期间内采取更非常规的措施。在这方面落后的央行——例如欧洲央行——畏葸不前对它们自己和整个世界都没有好处。各国政府也不应该试图立刻收回财政刺激。持续的经济低迷对公共财政的破坏比临时的财政积极主义大得多。还记得上世纪90年代日本是如何通过匆忙增税而断送经济复苏的吧？

Japan also put off bank reform. Countries facing big balance-sheet adjustments should heed that lesson and nudge reform along, in particular by doing more to clean up and restructure the banks. Countries with surpluses must encourage private spending at home more vigorously. China’s leaders are still doing too little to boost private citizens’ income and their spending by fostering reforms, from widening health-care coverage to forcing state-owned firms to pay higher dividends.

日本当时还推迟了银行改革。那些面临大规模资产负债表调整的国家应该吸取教训并且推动改革，尤其是通过采取更多措施清理并重组银行。那些有盈余的国家必须更加积极地鼓励国内私人消费。中国领导人在通过改革——从扩大医疗覆盖范围到要求国有企业支付更高的红利——来增加私人公民的收入和消费方面仍然做得不够。

At the same time policymakers must give themselves room to change course in the future. Central banks need to lay out the rules that will govern their exit from exotic forms of policy easing (see article). That may require new tools: the Federal Reserve would gain from being able to issue bonds that could mop up liquidity. All governments, especially those with the ropiest public finances, should think boldly about how to lower their debt ratios in the medium term—in ways that do not choke off nascent private demand. Rather than pushing up tax rates, they should think about raising retirement ages, reining in health costs and broadening the tax base.

与此同时，政策制定者们必须给自己留出空间以便在未来改变策略。各国央行需要制定相关规则，从而在从各种非常规形式/异乎寻常的政策宽松中抽出身来时，有效地控制局面（见文章）。这或许将要求央行拿出新的政策工具：如美联储就将从能发行吸收流动性的债券中获益。所有国家的政府，特别是那些公共财政情况糟糕的国家政府，应该大胆思索如何在中期降低它们的负债率——并确保实现该目标的手段不会阻塞刚开始出现的私人需求。他们更应该考虑推后退休年龄、控制医疗费用成本、扩大税收基础，而不是提高税率。

This weekend many of the world’s finance ministers and central bankers will meet in Washington, DC, for the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. Amid rising confidence, they will be tempted to pat themselves on the back. There is no time for that. The worst global slump since the Depression is far from finished. There is work to do.

这个周末，很多国家的财长和央行行长将齐聚华盛顿参加国际货币基金组织和世界银行的春季峰会。随着不断上升的信心，他们将倾向于安心靠在椅背上。但是现在不是放松的时候。大萧条以来最严重的全球经济衰退还远未结束。还有很多工作需要作。

 

译者/premiermao:  http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=18844