Delaying a final solution in this way would provide time to verify Kosovo’s prospects of joining the EU and thus eventually sharing “sovereign authority” with other independent states, which could deflate Kosovars’ dangerously robust nationalistic demands.

以这种方式延后一个最终的解决方案可以为验证科索沃加入欧盟的前景从而最终享有与其他独立国家同等的“主权权力”提供时间，也可以给科索沃危险的高涨的建立国家的要求降降温。


A Cool Calculus of Global Warming

全球变暖的成本计算


The British government recently issued the most comprehensive study to date of the economic costs and risks of global warming, and of measures that might reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the hope of averting some of the direst consequences.

英国政府最近发布了迄今为止关于全球变暖的经济成本和风险最为全面的研究报告，并提出了可能减少温室气体排放的措施，希望藉此避免一些最可怕的后果。


Written under the leadership of Sir Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics, who succeeded me as Chief Economist of the World Bank, the report makes clear that the question is no longer whether we can afford to do anything about global warming, but whether we can afford not to.

这份报告在继任世界银行首席经济学家的，伦敦经济学院尼古拉斯▪斯特恩爵士的主持下完成。 它明确指出问题的关键不在于我们是否能够负担得起应对全球变暖的措施，而在于我们是否能够承受无所作为的后果。


The report proposes an agenda whose cost would be equivalent to just 1% of annual consumption, but would save the world risk equivalent costs that are five times greater.

该报告提出的计划其成本只等于年消费的1 % ， 但却能为世界节省5倍的风险等价成本。


The reported costs of global warming are higher than in earlier studies because it takes into account the mounting evidence that the process of global warming is highly complex and non-linear, with a non-negligible chance that it may proceed much faster than had previously been thought and that the extent of warming may be much greater than had previously been thought.

所报告的全球变暖成本比早先的研究中提出的要高，那是因为它将越来越多的新证据考虑在内，比如全球变暖是一个高度复杂且非线性的过程。 一种不可忽视的可能性是它发生的速度比我们先前想象的要快，而且变暖的程度也比我们先前想象的要高。


Indeed, the study may actually significantly underestimate the costs: for instance, climate change may lead to more weather variability, a possible disappearance or major shift of the Gulf Stream – of particular concern to Europe – and a flourishing of disease.

的确，这项研究实际上很可能还大大低估了相关成本：例如，气候变化会引起天气的更大可变性，可能造成墨西哥湾暖流的变化消失—欧洲特别担心的问题—并引发大量的疾病。


When I served in 1995 on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific group that periodically assesses the science of global warming, there was overwhelming evidence that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had increased markedly since the beginning of the industrial revolution, that human activity had contributed significantly to those increases, and that they would have profound effects on climate and sea levels.

当我在1995年任职于“政府间气候变化专门委员会 ” （ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ） ， 这个定期对全球变暖的科学研究进行评估的科学机构时，有令人震惊的证据表明温室气体在大气中的集中程度自工业革命开始已经显著增加。 还有证据表明人类活动在很大程度上造成了这种集中。


But few saw, for instance, the Artic ice cap melting as rapidly as now seems to be the case.

温室气体集中度的增加会对气候和海平面产生强烈的影响。 但几乎没有人认识到北极冰盖以现在的速度融化也与此有关。


Still, some suggest that because we are not certain about how bad global warming will be, we should do little or nothing.

可仍然有人建议说由于还不清楚全球变暖的情况究竟有多严重，我们应该静观其变甚至无所作为。


To me, uncertainty should make us act more resolutely today, not less.

在我看来，不确定性应该使我们今天更坚定地采取行动。


As one scientist friend puts it: if you are driving on a mountain road, approaching a cliff, in a car whose brakes may fail, and a fog bank rolls in, should you drive more or less cautiously?

正如我的一个科学家朋友所说：如果你在一条山路上开车，驶向一处悬崖，而汽车的制动系统可能有问题，又正逢山雾弥漫，你应该开得更谨慎还是更随意呢？


Global warming is one of those rare instances where the scientific community is more fearful of what may be happening than the population at large.

全球变暖是少数几个令科学界比令大众更担心的问题。


Scientists have glimpsed what the future may portend.

科学家们已经窥见了未来。


As the Stern report points out, as usual, the poor are the most vulnerable.

正如斯特恩的报告中所指出，和很多情况下一样穷国是最脆弱的。


A third of Bangladesh will be underwater by the end of this century.

到本世纪末孟加拉国三分之一的国土会被海水淹没。


The Maldives and a host of Pacific Island states will disappear: our twenty-first-century Atlantis.

马尔代夫和一些太平洋岛国会消失：成为我们二十一世纪的亚特兰蒂斯。


To an economist, the problem is obvious: polluters are not paying the full costs of the damage they cause.

对于一位经济学家而言，问题是明显的：污染的制造者们没有为自己造成的破坏完全买单。


Pollution is a global externality of enormous proportions.

污染是一项比例巨大的全球性外部因素。


The advanced countries might mean Bangladesh and the disappearing island states no harm, but no war could be more devastating.

发达国家可能并非有意危害孟加拉国和那些正在消失的岛国，但即便是战争也没有这样的破坏力。


A global externality can best be dealt with by a globally agreed tax rate.

应对一项全球性外部因素的最佳方式是通过一个全球认同的税率。


This does not mean an increase in overall taxation, but simply a substitution in each country of a pollution (carbon) tax for some current taxes.

这并不是意味着总体税收的增加，而仅仅是在每一个国家以一项污染（碳）税取代现有的某些税种。


It makes much more sense to tax things that are bad, like pollution, than things that are good, like savings and work.

对污染这样的不良现象征税比对储蓄和工作等良好的事物征税更有道理。


Although President George W. Bush says he believes in markets, in this case he has called for voluntary action.

虽然布什总统声称他相信市场的作用，但在这一问题上他还是呼吁自发的行动。


But it makes far more sense to use the force of markets – the power of incentives – than to rely on goodwill, especially when it comes to oil companies that regard their sole objective as maximizing profits, regardless of the cost to others.

但更为明智的做法的利用市场的力量—激励机制的力量—而不是依靠善意，特别是当情况涉及那些将利益最大化作为唯一目标而不顾其行为对他人的影响的石油公司。


Exxon has reportedly been funding so-called think tanks to undermine confidence in the science of global warming, just as the tobacco industry funded “research” to question the validity of statistical findings showing the link between smoking and cancer.

据报道埃克森公司对一些所谓的“智库”提供支持以削弱公众对全球变暖的科学的信心，正如烟草工业资助质疑吸烟与癌症之间的联系的“研究”一样。


Some companies even seem to celebrate the melting of the polar ice cap, because it will reduce the cost of extracting the oil that lies beneath the Arctic Ocean.

有些公司甚至似乎在庆祝极地冰盖的融化，因为这会降低它们在北冰洋开采石油的成本��


The good news is that there are many ways by which improved incentives could reduce emissions – partly by eliminating the myriad of subsidies for inefficient usages.

好消息是我们有很多办法可以通过改善后的激励机制减少（温室气体的）排放—其中一个办法是取消对低效使用能源的种种补贴。


The US subsidizes corn-based ethanol, and imposes tariffs on sugar-based ethanol; hidden in the tax code are billions of dollars of subsidies to the oil and gas industries.

美国对用玉米为原料制备的乙醇提供补贴，而却对以糖为原料的乙醇征收关税，被这一税则掩盖的是对石油和天然气工业的巨额补贴。


Most importantly, price signals that show the true social costs of energy derived from fossil fuels will encourage innovation and conservation.

最为重要的是，显示来自化石燃料的能源所造成的真实成本的价格信号会鼓励创新和节能。


Small changes in practices, when replicated by hundreds of millions of people, can make an enormous difference.

日常行为的小小改变如果被成千上万的人实践就能扭转局面。


For example, simply changing the color of roofs in warm climates to reflect sunlight or planting trees around houses can lead to great savings on energy used for air conditioning.

例如，仅仅改变气候温暖的地区的房屋顶部颜色以反射阳光，或在房屋周围植树就能实现空调耗能的大量节省。


We have but one planet, and should treasure it.

我们只有一个地球，我们应该珍爱它。


Global warming is a risk that we simply cannot afford to ignore anymore.

全球变暖是一个我们无论如何都不能再忽视的风险。


A Cool Head for the Hottest Issues

每临大事有静气


LONDON – Reading Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father, the US president’s beautifully written reflections on his early life and identity, most people are struck by his cool and intellectual approach.

发自伦敦 — — 当读到《我父亲的梦想》这本美国总统奥巴马用优美的文笔叙述自己早年生活以及个人身份定位的自传时，许多人都会惊讶于他那种冷静而理智的做事方式。


This is not to say that he is unemotional.

但这并不是说奥巴马就是个毫无感情的人。


Obama can rage and weep.

他这个人可以表现得狂野暴躁，有时也会软弱无力。


But he rarely seems to act on the basis of raw sentiment or instinctive prejudice.

但奥巴马似乎很少由着自己不加掩饰的情感或者本能的偏见行事。


Pragmatic and highly intelligent, sooner or later every issue receives the full attention of his forensic curiosity.

得益于他的务实和睿智，所有事物迟早都会被奥巴马仔细研究和审视。


Recalling Hillary Clinton’s famous Democratic primary television advertisement, Obama, it turns out, is exactly the sort of president that most of us would want to have in the post for that 3 a.m. phone call about an international crisis.

再回想到希拉里·克林顿在民主党总统初选时发布的著名电视广告，每个人都会毫不犹豫地认为奥巴马就是他们所期望的那个能在凌晨3点钟拿起电话处理国际危机的总统。


He would not be afraid to act, but he would be prepared to think first.

在行动面前他从不缩手缩脚，但在此之前，他必会三思。


I do not think, therefore, that Obama will be too vexed by some of the criticism he faces at the end of his first year in office, though he will undoubtedly grimace at the defeat of the Democratic candidate in the special election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy’s old seat.

因此我觉得奥巴马大概也不会被自己第一任任期即将结束时所面临的种种批评所困扰，虽然他肯定会对马萨诸塞州因泰德·肯尼迪参议员过世而举行的特别选举中民主党候选人的落马而感到有点恼火。


Obama was praised extravagantly a year ago; 12 months on, the criticism is over the top, too.

一年之前，这位总统承受了过度的赞誉；如今12个月过去了，他所背负的批评自然也会登峰造极。


Obama inherited a terrible legacy – recession, financial meltdown, Iraq, Afghanistan. He has not solved all of these problems.

奥巴马继承的是一笔非常糟糕的遗产 — — 经济衰退，财政崩溃，伊拉克，还有阿富汗。


But it is difficult to see any really bad mistakes, except perhaps allowing himself to be pushed around by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and giving China the impression that he was prepared for a bilateral relationship entirely on China’s terms.

他还未能解决上述所有问题，然而除了允许自己任由以色列总理内塔尼亚胡摆布，以及令中国人相信他正在照中国的意思构建一个新的中美双边关系之外，似乎也没有出什么大的纰漏。


That seems to be changing now.

但事情如今也有了转机。


Obama may have come to understand that when you are the leader of the world’s only superpower, you need to be feared just a little if you are to be respected.

奥巴马可能会意识到，当自己是世界唯一超级大国的领袖时，如果想得到人们的尊敬，就得至少要让别人有点害怕你。


The left in America criticizes Obama for not turning the economy around already.

美国左派批评奥巴马至今没有令经济完全复苏。


The right angrily denounces him as a crypto-communist because he wants every American to have health care.

右派则愤怒地宣称他是个共党地下党员，因为他试图令每个美国人都享受医疗保险。


With a dispassionate eye on the long game, what will the president himself be thinking?

但不知道这位用平和的心态去看待这个漫长过程的总统，自己又在琢磨些什么呢？


One issue that Obama is certain to have in his sights is a problem that shadowed the world for years.

对此，奥巴马肯定会考虑的一个问题就是那个笼罩了世界多年的阴影。


When I was growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, world peace was based on the nuclear standoff between the US and the Soviet Union.

在我成长的那个1950~1960年代，世界和平是构筑在美苏之间核力量的均衡之上的。


The main strategic assessment on both sides of the Berlin Wall was that if either side made a wrong move, all of us might end up consumed in the flames of a nuclear holocaust.

柏林墙对面双方的主要战略形势评估就是如果任何一方走错了一步，那么我们所有人都会在一场核浩劫中化为灰烬。


This was called, in the geostrategic jargon of the day, “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD. The acronym was entirely appropriate.

在当时干地缘政治这行的人口中，这叫“保证互相毁灭 ” （ Mutually Assured Destruction，亦称“共同毁灭原则 ” ） ， “ MAD(癫狂 ) ” 这个缩写堪称神来之笔。


We have forgotten those days.

如今人们已经淡忘了那些年月。


Yet there are still 23,000 nuclear warheads on our planet, with the explosive power of 150,000 Hiroshima bombs.

但这个星球上依然有2万3千枚核弹头，破坏力相当于15万枚广岛原子弹。


Terrorist groups would undoubtedly like to get their hands on one.

而那些恐怖组织也肯定很想搞到其中的一两枚。


In all, there are eight nuclear-weapon states – the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan.

世界上总共有8个核武国家 — — 美、俄、英、法、中，还有印巴两国以及以色列。


North Korea may also have a few bombs. Iran is believed by many to be trying to develop one.

朝鲜可能也有几枚原子弹，很多人也相信伊朗正在努力发展核武器。


Other states, which have their own civil nuclear capacity, have the potential to develop a weapon. The number of countries in this category is bound to increase as the number of nuclear power reactors doubles over the next 20 years.

其它拥有民用核技术的国家也有制造原子弹的潜力，而这些国家正计划在未来20年内将核反应堆的数量增加一倍。


The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has contained the number of nuclear states.

《核不扩散条约》文本中列明的核国家数目已经过时。


A conference is to be held in May to renew and review it.

因此将在今年五月召开一个会议对条约重新进行审议和修订。


Obama clearly recognizes that the NPT needs to be strengthened in order to prevent countries from turning their civil nuclear-power capacity into weapons.

奥巴马清楚地明白到必须加强这一条约，否则就难以阻止那些拥有民用核技术的国家将自己的科技转化为杀人武器。


But Obama also knows that if the existing nuclear states want others to accept tougher restrictions, they will have to cut back their nuclear arsenals.

但奥巴马也同时意识到，如果现有的核武国家希望其他国家接受更严格的管制，他们就必须削减自己的核武器数量。


This is principally an issue for the US and Russia, which possess 95% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

而这主要是美俄两家的事情，因为两国手中握有占全世界总量95%的核弹头。


In addition, it would help if the US could take a strong lead by ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

此外，如果美国能批��《全面禁止核试验条约》的话，那么将起到一个强有力的示范作用。


The nuclear issue is one of the biggest items on the Obama agenda. How it is handled will help to define his presidency.

核问题是奥巴马众多议程中的其中一个重中之重。


Even before the talking gets serious in May, there will be the question of Iran to sort out.

而如何处理这个问题甚至将决定人们对他总统任期的评价。


Iran says that it seeks no more than its own ability to produce nuclear power.

即便在五月进行正式谈判之前，伊朗的问题也亟待解决。


Disbelief grows with every revelation of secret Iranian facilities and plans, and with every refusal by Iran to negotiate safeguards that would allow for civil use while preventing weaponization.

随着伊朗秘密核设施和反应堆的不断曝光，以及德黑兰当局不断拒绝旨在保证核设施民用而非武器化的国际监察，不信任的情绪正与日俱增.


The US, the European Union, and Russia have tried to engage Iran on this issue, so far without success.

在这个问题上，美国，欧盟和俄罗斯都在努力和伊朗接触，但至今都无功而返。


China seems likely to block effective sanctions on Iran because of its close energy relationship with the country.

中国似乎出于两国之间紧密的能源关系考虑，希望阻止对伊朗进行有效制裁。


How China eventually handles this will profoundly affect its standing in the US and Europe.

而中国最终如何处理这个问题将深远地影响其在美国和欧洲心目中的形象。


These are going to be some of the major questions for Obama over the next year and more.

而上述就几个是奥巴马在今后几年中所需要面对的主要问题。


If he gets them right, he can forget about his short-term critics.

如果处理得漂亮，他就能把这些短期内的批评置诸脑后。


Fortunately, he is smart enough to know this.

幸运的是，他足够聪明，肯定会意识到这一点。


A Crisis in Full Flight

大逃亡危机


MUNICH – For a while, it looked as if the European Central Bank’s €1 trillion credit program to pump liquidity into Europe’s banking system had calmed global financial markets.

慕尼黑—曾经有那么一段时间，看上去欧洲央行向欧洲银行系统注资1万亿欧元信用以提振流动性的计划已让金融市场平静下来。


But now interest rates for Italian and Spanish government bonds are on the rise again, closing in on about 6%.

但眼下，意大利和西班牙国债利率再次开始上升，正在向6%靠近。


Of course, this may not be the breaking point beyond which the debt burden becomes unsustainable.

当然，这或许并不是债务负担变得不可持续的临界点。


After all, interest rates in Southern Europe were well above 10% in the decade before the euro was introduced.

毕竟，南欧国家的利率在欧元引入前要大大高于10 % 。


Even Germany at that time had to pay bondholders more than 6%.

即使是德国，当时也必须向债权人支付6%的利息。


Nevertheless, the markets are clearly signaling growing doubt about whether Spain and Italy will be willing to bear their debt burden.

尽管如此，市场清楚地标明，对西班牙和意大利是否愿意承担债务负担的疑虑正在与日俱增。


The main problem is Spain, where private and public-sector foreign debt is larger than that of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy combined, and, as in Greece, is in the neighborhood of 100% of GDP (93% to be precise).

主要的问题是西班牙，它的公私债务比希腊、葡萄牙、爱尔兰和意大利加起来还要多，已经达到了GDP的近100 % （ 确切地说，是93 % ） ，与希腊相仿佛。


A quarter of the labor force and half of Spain’s youth are unemployed, reflecting the country’s loss of competitiveness in the wake of the real-estate bubble inflated by cheap euro credit in the pre-crisis period.

四分之一的西班牙人口和一半年轻人没有工作，这表明危机之前由便宜的欧元信用引起的地产泡沫导致该国竞争力的流失。


The current-account deficit remains at 3.5% of GDP, despite the recession-induced decline in imports, while economic contraction will cause Spain to miss its budget-deficit target again.

经常项目赤字相当于GDP的3 % ， 这还是衰退导致进口大幅下降情况下的数字；而经济收缩将使西班牙再次脱离预算赤字目标。


Moreover, Spain’s debt with the ECB’s TARGET settlement system rose by €55 billion ($72 billion) between February and March, because capital outflows of that amount had to be compensated.

此外，今年2月—3月，西班牙在欧洲央行“目标 ” （ TARGET）清算系统中的债务增加了550亿欧元（相对于720亿美元 ） ， 这是因为大规模资本外流需要获得补偿。


Since July 2011, Spain’s TARGET debt has grown by €199 billion.

2011年7月以来，西班牙的“目标”系统债务增加了1990亿欧元。


Capital is in full flight, more than offsetting the inflows from 2008-2010.

资本蜂拥而出，比2008—2010年的流入量还要多。


The cumulative total since the beginning of the first crisis year (2008) means that Spain has financed its entire current-account deficit via the printing press.

从危机爆发首年（2008）以来的累计总量看，西班牙的全部经常项目赤字都是通过印钞来融资的。


The picture is little better in Italy, where the current-account balance has swung from a surplus of around 2% of GDP to a 3%-of-GDP deficit over the last ten years.

意大利的情况要好一些，过去十年来经常项目收支在2%GDP盈余和3%GDP赤字之间波动。


The country’s TARGET debt grew by €76 billion from February to March, with the total since July 2011 reaching €276 billion.

今年2月—3月，意大利“目标”系统债务增加了760亿欧元，2011年7月以来的总额为2760亿欧元。


Italy, too, is being drained of capital; in fact, the flight of investors accelerated after the ECB’s liquidity injection.

意大利也面临着资本枯竭的问题；事实上，投资者的外逃加速了欧洲央行的流动性注入。


It is now clear that the ECB itself has caused a large part of the capital flight from countries like Spain and Italy, because the cheap credit that it offered drove away private capital.

现在看来，显然欧洲央行自身压实资本从西班牙和意大利等国大量外逃的一大原因，因为它所提供的廉价信用驱走了私人资本。


The purpose of the ECB’s measures was to re-establish confidence and bring about a recovery of the inter-bank market.

欧洲央行行动的初衷是重塑信心并让银行间市场复苏。


In this, too, it has not really been successful, despite the huge amount of money that it put on the table.

但这个目的同样没有达到，尽管它抛出了巨额资金。


Indeed, now the French are looking wobbly.

事实上，现在法国看上去也开始动摇了。


As capital fled the country between July 2011 and January 2012, France’s TARGET debt increased by €95 billion.

2011年7月至2012年1月，资本从法国逃出，该国“目标”系统债务增加了950亿欧元。


France, too, has become uncompetitive, owing to the cheap credit brought by the euro in its initial years.

使用欧元最初几年的便宜信用同样拖累了法国的竞争力。


According to a recent study by Goldman Sachs, the country’s price level must drop by an estimated 20% vis-à-vis the euro average – that is, depreciate in real terms – if the economy is to regain competitiveness within the eurozone.

高盛公司最新研究称，据估算，法国价格水平必须较欧元平均水平下跌20 % — —即实际贬值 — — 才能让法国重新获得欧元区内的竞争力。


Italy will have to depreciate by 10-15%, and Spain by roughly 20%.

意大利必须贬值10 % — 15 % ， 西班牙必须贬值约20 % 。


While Greece and Portugal face the need for deflation totaling 30% and 35%, respectively, the figures for Spain and Italy are high enough to justify fears about the future development of the eurozone.

希腊和葡萄牙所需贬值幅度分别为30%和35 % ， 但西班牙和意大利的数字之高已足以引起人们对欧元区未来的担忧。


These imbalances can be redressed only with great effort, if at all, and only if one accepts a decade of stagnation.

这些失衡唯有通过付出巨大努力才能消除，而且必须接受长达十年的停滞。


For Greece and Portugal, staying in the eurozone will be a tight squeeze.

对希腊和葡萄牙来说，留在欧元区内将是活受罪。


There are many who would solve the problem by routing more and more cheap credit through public channels – bailout funds, eurobonds, or the ECB – from the eurozone’s healthy core to the troubled South.

对许多人来说，解决问题之道就是通过公共渠道（援助基金、欧元债券或欧洲央行）由欧元区坚挺核心国向疲软南欧国提供更多更便宜的信用。


But this would unfairly force savers and taxpayers in the core countries to provide capital to the South on terms to which they would never voluntarily agree.

但这对核��国的储蓄者和纳税人是不公平的，他们向南欧提供资本，所能获得的回报太低，他们不会自愿接受。


Already German, Dutch, and Finish savings amounting to €15,000, €17,000, and €21,000, respectively, per working person have been converted from marketable investments into mere equalization claims against the ECB.

德国、荷兰和芬兰的工作者人均分别有15000、17000和21000欧元储蓄由可交易投资变成了一视同仁的欧洲央行债权。


No one knows what these claims will be worth in the event of a eurozone breakup.

如果欧元区崩溃，没人知道这笔债权能有多大价值。


Above all, however, the permanent public provision of cheap credit would ultimately lead to a lingering infirmity, if not to Europe’s economic collapse, because the eurozone would become a central management system with state control over investment.

不过，最大的问题是，廉价信用的持续注入最终会导致旷日持久的虚弱（如果欧洲经济部崩盘的话 ） ， 因为欧元区将沦为一个中央管理系统，而投资掌控权则在国家手里。


Such systems cannot work, because they eliminate the capital market as the economic system’s main steering mechanism.

这样一个系统是无法运作的，因为它剥夺了资本市场作为经济系统主要导航机制的地位。


One cannot help but wonder how thoughtlessly Europe’s politicians have started down this slippery slope.

留给人们的只能是无尽的迷惑：无脑的欧洲政客为什么会选择走这样一条黑路。


A Crisis in Two Narratives

一个危机，两种解读


CHICAGO – With the world’s industrial democracies in crisis, two competing narratives of its sources – and appropriate remedies – are emerging.

芝加哥—世界发达民主国家陷入了危机，关于什么是危机的源头以及如何补救，出现了两种相互对立的声音。


The first, better-known diagnosis is that demand has collapsed because of high debt accumulated prior to the crisis.

第一种为人所熟知的诊断是需求因为危机前积累的高债务而崩溃。


Households (and countries) that were most prone to spend cannot borrow any more.

最具支出倾向的家庭（以及国家）再也无法借到钱了。


To revive growth, others must be encouraged to spend – governments that can still borrow should run larger deficits, and rock-bottom interest rates should discourage thrifty households from saving.

为了重振增长，必须鼓励其他家庭和国家来支出 — — 仍然能够借钱的政府应该扩大赤字，同时极低的利率应该阻止节约的家庭继续储蓄。


Under these circumstances, budgetary recklessness is a virtue, at least in the short term.

这种观点认为，粗犷的预算是一种美德，至少在短期看是如此。


In the medium term, once growth revives, debt can be paid down and the financial sector curbed so that it does not inflict another crisis on the world.

从中期看，只要增长能够得到提振，债务就能活得偿付，而金融部门得到了抑制，因此不会在世界上掀起另一场危机。


This narrative – the standard Keynesian line, modified for a debt crisis – is the one to which most government officials, central bankers, and Wall Street economists have subscribed, and needs little elaboration.

这种观点是标准的凯恩斯主义，只是根据债务危机做了些许修正。 该观点受到了大部分政府官员、中央银行和华尔街经济学家的支持，已无需再赘述了。


Its virtue is that it gives policymakers something clear to do, with promised returns that match the political cycle.

其优点在于向决策者明确指出了行动方向，还给出了符合政治周期的预期回报。


Unfortunately, despite past stimulus, growth is still tepid, and it is increasingly difficult to find sensible new spending that can pay off in the short run.

不幸的是，尽管已经实施了刺激措施，但增长仍然疲软，而且，从短期看，要找到给力的新支出之源越来越困难了。


Attention is therefore shifting to the second narrative, which suggests that the advanced economies’ fundamental capacity to grow by making useful things has been declining for decades, a trend that was masked by debt-fueled spending.

于是，人们的目光开始转移到第二种观点。 这种观点认为，发达经济体通过生产有用的东西获得增长的基本能力下滑已经持续了数十年之久了，其特征便是用债务来支撑支出。


More such spending will not return these countries to a sustainable growth path.

更多的同类支出无法给这些国家带来可持续的增长。


Instead, they must improve the environment for growth.

相反，它们必须改善增长环境。


The second narrative starts with the 1950’s and 1960’s, an era of rapid growth in the West and Japan.

第二种观点的着眼点始于20世纪五六十年代，当时正是西方和日本的高速增长期。


Several factors, including post-war reconstruction, the resurgence of trade after the protectionist 1930’s, the introduction of new technologies in power, transport, and communications across countries, and expansion of educational attainment, underpinned the long boom.

几大因素 — — 包括战后重建、20世纪30年代保护主义风潮过去之后的贸易复兴、电力、运输和跨国通信方面的新技术，以及教育程度的改善 — — 推动了长期繁荣。


But, as Tyler Cowen has argued in his book The Great Stagnation, once these “low-hanging fruit” were plucked, it became much harder to propel growth from the 1970’s onward.

但是，泰勒·柯万（Tyler Cowen）在其《大停滞 》 （ The Great Stagnation）一书中指出，这些“低处的果实”被摘取殆尽后，进入20世纪70年代以来，提振增长就变得日益困难了。


Meanwhile, as Wolfgang Streeck writes persuasively in New Left Review, democratic governments, facing what seemed, in the 1960’s, like an endless vista of innovation and growth, were quick to expand the welfare state.

与此同时，沃尔夫冈·斯特里克（Wolfgang Streeck）在《新左翼评论 》 （ New Left Review）中雄辩地写道，民主政府在20世纪60年代面临着看似永远光明的创新和增长前景，因此大踏步地进入了福利国家的行列。


But, when growth faltered, this meant that government spending expanded, even as its resources shrank.

但是，当增长开始放缓时，这意味着政府支出的膨胀（尽管此时其创收资源出现了萎缩 ） 。


For a while, central banks accommodated that spending.

在一定的时间里，央行承担起了支出的重任。


The resulting high inflation created widespread discontent, especially because little growth resulted.

由此产生的高通胀引起了广泛的不满，特别是在增长不见提振的情况下。


Faith in Keynesian stimulus diminished, though high inflation did reduce public-debt levels.

人们对凯恩斯主义刺激的信任度下降了，尽管高通胀确实降低了公债水平。


Central banks then began to focus on low and stable inflation as their primary objective, and became more independent from their political masters.

此后，央行开始将稳定的低通胀作为其首要目标，并越来越独立于行政。


But deficit spending by governments continued apace, and public debt as a share of GDP in industrial countries climbed steadily from the late 1970’s, this time without inflation to reduce its real value.

但政府的赤字支出并没有放慢脚步，发达国家公债水平占GDP的比例从20世纪70年代末开始稳步攀升，这一次不再有通胀来帮它们拉低债务的真实价值了。


Recognizing the need to find new sources of growth, towards the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and then under Ronald Reagan, the United States deregulated industry and the financial sector, as did Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom.

美国从吉米·卡特任期后半段和罗纳德·里根任期内开始认识到需要寻找新的增长源，并对产业和金融部门实施了去监管化，与此同时，撒切尔夫人在英国也采取了相似的动作。


Productivity growth increased substantially in these countries over time, which persuaded Continental Europe to adopt reforms of its own, often pushed by the European Commission.

多年来，这些国家的生产率有了显著提高，受此影响，欧洲大陆国家也采取了改革（大多由欧洲委员会推动 ） 。


Yet even this growth was not enough, given previous governments’ generous promises of health care and pensions – promises made even less tenable by rising life expectancy and falling birth rates.

但由于此前政府承诺了过于慷慨的医疗和养老承诺，如此增长仍旧显得力不从心，而预期寿命的增加和出生率的下降使得政府愈加不堪重负了。


Public debt continued to grow.

公债水平继续增加。


And the incomes of the moderately educated middle class failed to benefit from deregulation-led growth (though it improved their lot as consumers).

而教育程度适中的中产阶级在去监管化带来的增长中并没有获得好处（尽管作为消费者，他们获益良多 ） 。


The most recent phase of the advanced economies’ frenzied search for growth took different forms.

发达经济体疯狂寻找增长的最新阶段，各国可谓八仙过海各显神通。


In some countries, most notably the US, a private-sector credit boom created jobs in low-skilled industries like construction, and precipitated a consumption boom as people borrowed against overvalued houses.

在有的国家（以美国为甚 ） ， 私人部门的信贷繁荣为低技能行业（如建筑业）带来了大量工作岗位，而居民则通过以价值高估的房地产作抵押，借钱来维持消费繁荣。


In other countries, like Greece, as well as under regional administrations in Italy and Spain, a government-led hiring spree created secure jobs for the moderately educated.

在其他国家（如希腊以及西班牙和意大利的部分地区 ） ， 政府领导的招工潮为教育程度不高者提供了就业保障。


In this “fundamental” narrative, the advanced countries’ pre-crisis GDP was unsustainable, bolstered by borrowing and unproductive make-work jobs.

在这一“基本面”观点看来，发达国家的危机前GDP增长是不可持续的，是用借贷和非生产性冗余工作岗位堆出来的。


More borrowed growth – the Keynesian formula – may create the illusion of normalcy, and may be useful in the immediate aftermath of a deep crisis to calm a panic, but it is no solution to a fundamental growth problem.

“借”来的繁荣 — — 即凯恩斯模式 — — 可以造成一种常态幻觉，在深度危机袭来后可以起到平息恐慌的作用，但绝非基本增长问题的解决办法。


If this diagnosis is correct, advanced countries need to focus on reviving innovation and productivity growth over the medium term, and on realigning welfare promises with revenue capacity, while alleviating the pain of the truly destitute in the short run.

如果这一诊断正确，那么发达国家就需要将注意力集中于重塑中期创新和生产率增长，同时根据收入能力重新定义福利承诺，在短期则致力于减轻真正赤贫者的痛苦。


For example, Southern Europe’s growth potential may consist in deregulating service sectors and reducing employment protection to spur creation of more private-sector jobs for retrenched government workers and unemployed youth.

比如，南欧国家的增长潜力或许在于放松服务部门的监管、减少就业保护以为丢掉工作的政府员工和失业青年创造更多的私人部门工作岗位。


In the US, the imperative is to improve the match between potential jobs and worker skills.

在美国，当务之急是改善潜在工作岗位和工人技能之间的匹配度。


People understand better than the government what they need and are acting accordingly.

个人要比政府更清楚知道他们需要什么，并据此行动。


Many women, for example, are leaving low-paying jobs to acquire skills that will open doors to higher-paying positions.

比如，大量妇女正在脱离低收入岗位，以便获得更好的技能叩开高收入职位之门。


Too little government attention has been focused on such issues, partly because payoffs occur beyond electoral horizons, and partly because the effectiveness of government programs has been mixed.

政府在这些方面的关注度远远不够，部分是因为其好处要在在任者任期结束后才会显现，也有部分是因为政府计划的效率不够高。


Tax reform, however, can provide spur retraining and maintain incentives to work, even while fixing gaping fiscal holes.

税收改革可以刺激人们参与再培训，也可以激励人们继续工作，且不耽误填补财政窟窿。


Three powerful forces, one hopes, will help to create more productive jobs in the future: better use of information and communications technology (and new ways to make it pay), lower-cost energy as alternative sources are harnessed, and sharply rising demand in emerging markets for higher-value-added goods.

有三大力量有助于在未来创造更多的生产性岗位：对信息和通讯技术的更好的使用（以及新的收费方式 ） 、 随着替代资源的开发而实现的低成本能源，以及新兴市场快速增长的对高附加值产品的需求。


The advanced countries have a choice.

发达国家有的选择。


They can act as if all is well, except that their consumers are in a funk, and that “animal spirits” must be revived through stimulus.

它们可以若无其事（尽管消费者如同惊弓之鸟 ， “ 动物精神”也需要刺激来予以提振 ） 。


Or they can treat the crisis as a wake-up call to fix what debt has papered over in the last few decades.

它们也可以将此次危机视为修正过去数十年来产生债务的问题的契机。


For better or worse, the narrative that persuades these countries’ governments and publics will determine their future – and that of the global economy.

无论如何，政府和公众选择相信哪种观点将决定它们的未来 — — 以及全球经济的未来。


Financing the Next Development Agenda

为下一个发展日程融资


WASHINGTON, DC – As the 2015 target date for the Millennium Development Goals approaches, the United Nations is intensifying its efforts to foster debate about what comes next for promotion of development worldwide.

华盛顿—随着千年发展目标2015年到期日的临近，联合国抓紧了关于下一轮促进全球发展措施的争论。


The outcome of these discussions will shape policies and investment aimed at spurring GDP growth, strengthening human capital, and promoting more inclusive prosperity.

这些讨论的结果将决定旨在刺激GDP增长、强化人力资本和促进更具包容性的繁荣的政策和投资。


With the global population expected to reach nine billion people by 2050 – a significant proportion of whom will reside in developing or underdeveloped countries – the international community must improve access to education, health care, and employment opportunities worldwide.

2050年，世界人口预计将达到90亿 — — 其中很大一部分将居住在发展中或欠发达国家 — — 国际社会必须改善全球教育、卫生和就业机会的普及。


Meanwhile, the prospect of a rise in global temperature of more than 2°C (3.6°F) over pre-industrial levels by the end of this century (which would trigger global warming’s most damaging effects) calls for higher investment in sustainable urbanization, climate-smart agriculture, and social safety nets.

与此同时，全球气温预计将在本世纪末较工业化前水平升高2℃以上（这将触发全球变暖最危险的效应）意味着需要增加可持续城市化、气候智能型农业和社会安全网的投资。


Both factors challenge us to define, in the longer term, more sustainable patterns of production and consumption.

两大因素对我们构成了挑战，从长期看，我们需要更加可持续的生产和消费模式。


Governments, civil society, and the private sector must rise to the challenge, cooperating to find and implement creative solutions.

政府、公民社会和私人部门必须应对这一挑战，合作寻找并实施创造性解决方案。


But, first, they must anticipate the associated financing requirements, which will soon surpass the current capacities of governments and international donors, and take action now to activate new, reliable sources of financing.

但是，首先，我们必须预计相关融资要求 — — 融资要求很快就会超过政府和国际赞助者当前的能力；同时，我们还必须现在就采取行动激活可靠地新融资源。


To start, governments should design targeted, evidence-based policies and support the development of sound institutions.

首先，政府应该设计基于证据的定向政策并支持可靠机构的发展。


This would make government services more effective, while helping to catalyze additional development aid from traditional donors and mobilize private-sector resources.

这将让政府服务更加有效，同时有助于刺激传统赞助者提高发展援助以及动员私人部门资金源。


In many countries, there is considerable scope for domestic resource mobilization.

在许多国家，国内资源动员空间相当大。


Broadening the tax base, improving tax administration, and closing gaps in the value-added tax could make a significant difference in lower-income countries, where tax revenues account for only about 10-14% of GDP, compared to 20-30% of GDP in high-income countries.

扩大税基、改善税制以及缩小增值税差异能让低收入国家发生翻天覆地的变化，在这类国家，税收收入只占GDP的10—14 % ， 而高收入国家占GDP的20—30 % 。


More equitable taxation would have a positive impact on governance, another important tool for mobilizing domestic resources.

更平等的税收能对治理产生积极效应，而治理是动员国内资源的又一重要工具。


With improved corporate and public governance and clear transfer-pricing policies, resource-rich countries could shore up their capacity to negotiate fair contracts with extractive industries, balance revenues and expenditures over time, and manage their natural endowments more transparently.

改善公司和公共治理、明确移定价政策能让资源富裕国获得与开采业谈判公平合同的能力，逐渐平衡收入和支出，并更透明地管理其自然资源禀赋。


Progress in these areas would help governments to channel their spending more effectively toward those who would benefit the most.

这些方面的进步有助于政府有效地将钱花在受益最大的人群上。


For example, only 8% of the $409 billion spent on fossil-fuel subsidies in 2010 reached the poorest 20% of the population.

比如，2010年所发放的4090亿美元化石燃料补助中只有8%送到了最贫困的20%人群手中。


A targeted support program could increase substantially the efficiency of spending, freeing up resources for education, health, and poverty eradication.

定向支持项目能极大地增加支出的效率，解放资源用于教育、卫生和减贫。


Furthermore, promoting financial deepening and inclusiveness could accelerate private-sector growth, creating more opportunities.

此外，促进金融深化和包容能加速私人部门增长，创造更多机会。


Indeed, broader access to financial services would help the estimated 400 million micro, small, and medium-size enterprises in developing countries to prosper, while enabling the 2.5 billion people worldwide who currently lack access to such services to build their assets.

事实上，金融服务的普及有助于发展中国家约4亿家（估计值）微型、小型和中型企业繁荣，同时让全世界25亿目前无法获得金融服务的人建立自己的资产。


A deeper and more efficient financial sector would also reduce transaction costs and facilitate risk management.

更深化、更高效的金融部门还能降低交易成本、有利于风险管理。


Local-currency bond markets could help to develop domestic investor bases and mobilize domestic savings to support long-term investments.

本币债券市场有助于发展国内投资者基础病动员国内储蓄支持长期投资。


At the same time, the international community should work to improve the availability and effectiveness of official development assistance.

与此同时，国际社会应该致力于改善官方发展援助（ODA）的普及型和效率。


The ODA target of 0.7% of GDP – agreed in 2002 at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico – should motivate countries to increase their contributions.

2002年墨西哥蒙特雷国际发展融资会议（International Conference on Financing for Development）为ODA设定了GDP的0.7%的目标值，这应该能够刺激各国增加各自的贡献力度。


They can also take steps to make ODA more predictable from year to year.

它们还可以采取措施逐年增加ODA的可预测性。


Donors should structure aid to ensure that it supports sound national development policies and programs, rather than their own narrow interests.

赞助者应该设计好援助结构，以保证支持优质国民发展政策和计划，而不是满足它们自身的狭隘利益。


This is particularly relevant as emerging development partners, especially the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), offer new kinds of aid packages that incorporate investment and non-financial assistance.

这一点随着新兴发展伙伴 — — 特别是金砖国家（巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国和南非 ） — —提供结合了投资和非金融援助的新形式的援助方案而显得特别重要。


Private charities, which have been instrumental in promoting innovation in fields such as health care, the environment, and education, could provide valuable insight into channeling aid more effectively.

私人慈善机构 — — 它们一直是刺激卫生、环境和教育等领域创新的有力工具 — — 能提供关于如何更高效地使用援助的宝贵洞见。


More generally, improving coordination among donors would help to maximize the impact of aid on the ground.

更一般地，改善赞助者间的协调有助于援助项目影响的最大化。


While ODA remains an important source of financing for fragile and very-low-income countries, it represents only 7% of net financial flows to developing countries, where foreign direct investment, remittances, long-term debt, and portfolio investment have a larger impact.

ODA仍是脆弱的极低收入国家重要的融资源，但它仅占流向发展中国家的净金融流的7 % ， 外国直接投资、侨汇、长期债务和资产组合投资占比均高于ODA。


Donors should leverage aid to “grow the pie” and to diversify financing sources for the world’s poorest countries by providing risk guarantees, innovative investment vehicles, debt syndication, and co-financing arrangements.

赞助者应该利用援助“做大馅饼”并通过提供风险担保、创新性投资载体、债务承销团和共同融资安排实现世界最贫困国家融资源的多样化。


Attracting even a fraction of the assets held by institutional investors, sovereign-wealth funds, and public pension funds could boost development finance substantially.

吸引哪怕一小部分机构投资者、主权财富基金和公共养老基金所持资产也能够极大地提振发展融资。


Diaspora populations are another major potential source of development financing.

侨民是另一个发展融资的潜在主要来源。


Reducing transfer costs, which average an estimated 9% of the value of transactions, would put more money into the hands of those who need it most.

降低汇款成本 — — 据估计平均而言占交易价值的9 % — —将使更多的钱流向最需要它们的人的手中。


Tailoring financial products for diaspora communities could attract resources for investment, while reinforcing migrants’ ties – economic and otherwise – to their home countries.

为侨民社区量身定做金融产品能吸引投资源，同时加强移民与其祖国的经济和其他联系。


Finally, the international community bears a special responsibility for delivering global public goods.

最后，国际社会有实现全球公共品多样化的特殊责任。


The responsibility to preserve the environment, stem the spread of communicable diseases, strengthen the international financial architecture, enhance developing-country participation in the global trading system, and facilitate the exchange of knowledge lies at the intersection of national development priorities and global interests.

保护环境、阻止传染病传播、强化国际金融结构、促进发展中国家参与全球贸易体系以及增进知识交换的责任是国民发展优先项和全球利益的交汇点。


Duty-free, quota-free access to OECD markets, complemented by simpler, more transparent rules of origin, would raise GDP by 1% in the least-developed countries, lifting millions out of poverty.

免责、无限额地进入经合组织市场，并辅之以更简单、更透明的原产地规则能使最不发达国家GDP提高1 % ， 让千百万人摆脱平困。


Investment in statistical capacity would help governments and businesses worldwide to make better policy decisions, based on a more accurate accounting of the associated costs and benefits.

投资于统计能力有助于全球政府和企业更好地做出政策决策，让计量相关成本和收益更加正确。


The challenge of the post-2015 development agenda lies in finding creative solutions to support prosperity, equality, and sustainability.

2015年后的发展日程的挑战在于找出创造性解决方案支持繁荣、平等和可持续性。


Together, governments, civil society, international organizations, and the private sector can improve the availability and quality of finance for development, and shape a better future for all.

政府、公民社会、国际组织和私人部门齐心协力就能改善发展融资的普及和质量，为所有人带来更美好的未来。


A Czech Moment

捷克风光时刻


PRAGUE – As I listened to what some Europeans were saying as my country prepared to take over the presidency of the European Union, I heard dim echoes of Neville Chamberlain’s infamous description of Czechoslovakia as “a faraway country of which we know little.”

布拉格 - - 当捷克准备接手成为欧盟轮值主席国的时候，有些欧洲人议论我国。 我听到他们言论好像是张伯伦对捷克斯洛伐克声名狼藉评论的回音，那也就是，我们是“一个很少听说的穷乡僻壤国家 ” 。


I suppose that Donald Rumsfeld’s misguided bid a few years ago to incite a divide between “new and old” Europe contributed to the re-emergence of that disdainful attitude.

几年前，拉姆斯菲尔德想要把欧洲分出“新欧洲”和“老欧洲”实为不智，但是他的这一言论确重新体现了这一令人厌恶态度。


The reality is that there is no such thing as “old and new” Europe, and there never was.

实际上，世上根本就没有什么“新欧洲”和“老欧洲 ” ， 历史上从来就没有这回事。


The break with communism and reunification of Europe is now almost two decades old.

欧洲重新统一并且与共产主义决裂目前已经将近二十年时间。


We Czechs are 100% European, and were even when the Iron Curtain cut us off from democratic Europe.

我们捷克人是100%的欧洲人，而且在铁幕把我们从民主欧洲分裂的时代更为如此。


Indeed, our pro-EU sentiments may be all the stronger because our membership in the Union, like our freedom, is so comparatively new.

确实，随着加入欧盟以及刚刚获得自由，我们的亲欧盟情感更为强烈。


So no one in Europe needs to fear that the Czech Republic has some nostalgic or idiosyncratic agenda that it wants to impose on the Union.

所以，欧洲没有必要担心捷克共和国有什么怀旧或者怪异的议程来施加在欧盟头上。


On the contrary, events have imposed an agenda on Europe that we cannot escape and for which solidarity – true union – will be needed.

相反，国际大事确给欧洲施加了我们所无法逃避的议程。 对此，我们需要真正的欧洲团结。


The primary, and most pressing, of the problems we face is the financial and economic crisis that is enveloping the EU.

我们面临的主要、也是最为迫切的问题是正在席卷欧盟的金融和经济危机。


Unfortunately, conditions across the Union will likely worsen before they begin to improve.

不幸的是，整个欧盟的形势在转好之前还要继续变坏。


The type of social unrest recently witnessed in Greece may spread, because the downturn is likely to take a disproportionate toll on Europe’s young people, who are seeking jobs at a time when hard-pressed European businesses will be able to offer them very few.

最近在希腊发生的社会动乱可能蔓延，这是因为经济衰退对欧洲年轻人的影响可能更加严重。 这些找工作的年轻人正好赶上不景气的欧洲企业无法提供多少就业机会。


It will fall to the Union, once again, to help transform despair into hope.

这样，欧盟就要再次帮助把绝望转化为希望。


We Czechs know something about this, as the wrenching economic transition that we underwent in the 1990’s taught us much about how the right policies can break the grip of hopelessness.

我们捷克人对此有所了解，因为我们在九十年代经历了艰苦的经济转型，告诉了我们许多道理，也就是正确的政策可以打破绝望钳制。


To contain today’s financial and economic crisis, Europe will also need to continue the cooperation that it has shown up to this point.

欧洲为了遏制当今的金融和经济危机就必须继续进行迄今为止的合作。


The very existence of our Union, and particularly of the euro, has already helped to prevent the competitive devaluations and beggar-thy-neighbor policies that ravaged Europe during the 1930’s – the last time the continent faced so brutal an economic downturn.

二十世纪三十年代，欧洲大陆面临同样残酷的经济衰退。 如今，欧盟、特别是欧元的存在本身就已经防止了当时破坏欧洲的各国货币竞相贬值以及让邻国贫困的政策。


But we cannot be complacent that the forces of national egoism will remain in check.

但是我们并不能自满，认为各国民族自我观念会受到限制。


For now, EU governments’ coordinated fiscal stimulus has deprived populists of their usual charge that the EU is indifferent to the fate of individuals.

目前，欧盟各国政府协调财政刺激政策，民粹主义者通常指责欧盟对单个个人的命运无动于衷也就不攻自破。


Even more policy coordination will be needed both to confront the crisis and to re-establish EU norms once the storm clouds begin to dissipate.

为了应对危机以及在暴风开始消失的时候重新建立欧盟规则，人们就需要更多的政策协调。


Although it is right that the Stability and Growth Pact has become more flexible in these extraordinary times, its rules did secure a successful first decade for the euro.

欧洲稳定和增长公约在这一特殊时期变得更为灵活，这是不假。 但是这一公约规则确保了欧元取得第一个十年的成功。


These rules must eventually be restored intact if Europe is to return to the path of sustainable growth, and a consensus will need to be forged now to make that happen.

欧洲要想回到可持续增长的道路上来，这些规则就必须最终得以恢复，而且人们必须就如何促成这一局面达成一致意见。


The second key challenge that we will face during our European presidency is that of Russia.

我们担任欧盟轮值主席国期间将要面临的第二个关键挑战就是俄国。


A new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) between the EU and the Russian Federation must be negotiated.

我们必须谈判制定一项欧盟与俄罗斯联邦之间新的伙伴关系和合作协议。


Those negotiations should have begun seriously last year, but the war in Georgia intervened to put them on hold.

谈判原本应该在去年就认真开始，但是格鲁吉亚战事却把这一工作陷于停顿。


Now those talks have resumed, but the background to the negotiations has changed dramatically.

现在这些谈判已经恢复，但是谈判的背景发生了剧烈的变化。


Russia’s economy is now in far worse shape than that of EU members.

俄国经济现在比欧盟国家的要糟糕许多。


The collapse of world oil and gas prices has wounded Russia’s budget, and lack of investment in the country’s energy sector over the years is now causing the declining production that economists have long predicted.

国际石油和天然气价格大跌损害了俄国的预算，而且俄国能源部门多年来投资不足正在造成经济学家们长久以来就预言的产量下降。


Until now, Russia has cared less about a new PCA than the EU, because two-thirds of Russia’s exports to the Union comprise natural resources, which bring in cash even without the strong rules that a PCA provides.

目前为止，俄国对协议的关心并不像欧盟那样强烈，因为俄国向欧盟出口的三分之二是自然资源。 因此，即使没有协议规定的硬性条款也能够带来现金收入。


Given the stark changes in economic conditions, however, it is now in Russia’s national interest to reassure international markets that it is a reliable place to do business, for which a new PCA would serve as an ideal signal.

但是，由于经济形势发生了剧烈变化，现在俄国向国际市场重新保证其是个经商的可靠地方符合自身的利益，而新的协议就是一个理想的信号。


Moreover, without a new PCA, individual European countries may feel it necessary to seek even more bilateral agreements with Russia.

而且，没有新的协议，欧洲各国就会感到有必要与俄国签订更多的双边协议。


Indeed, many EU members have been in a race with each other to see who will be Russia’s closest friend in the Union.

确实，许多欧盟成员国已经开展竞赛，看看谁成为欧盟中与俄国最为亲近的朋友。


But the bilateral deals that have emerged from this race sometimes come at the expense of other Union members, and may unbalance relations within the Union as a whole.  Only a rules-based EU framework can provide a firm foundation for both bilateral and Union-wide relations with Russia.

但是这一竞赛带来的双边协议有时候会损害其他欧盟成员国，而且可能破坏整个欧盟的内部平衡。 只有建立在规则基础上的欧盟框架才能够为对各国和整个欧盟对俄关系提供坚实的基础。


Europe’s main strength in foreign policy is not its commitment to a rules-based multilateralism, important as that undoubtedly is, but its unity.

尽管多边主义毫无疑问非常重要，但是欧洲外交的主要力量并不是其专心致志建立规则基础之上的多边主义，而是团结。


When the Georgia crisis erupted, Europe united around a single position on Russia’s withdrawal.

格鲁吉亚危机爆发之时，欧洲团结一致，要求俄国撤军。


It is the Czech Republic’s task, and that of the Swedish EU presidency that will follow our own, to maintain this unity as the PCA negotiations move forward.

捷克共和国的任务，以及随后担任主席国的瑞典的任务就是在协议谈判的时候维持团结。


During the 1990’s, the US and Europe erred in treating Russia with benign neglect.  It would be a mistake for Russia to respond in kind today by seeking to prolong the PCA negotiations in the hope that a possibly more amenable EU president may one day offer softer terms.

在九十年代，美国和欧洲善意忽略俄国犯下错误。 如今，如果俄国寻求拖延协议谈判，从而希望更为屈从的欧盟主席国会有一天提出更为软弱的条款，那就是错误。


We, like all EU presidencies, will be representing the wider Union interests when we negotiate.

我们和其他欧盟轮值主席一样，将会在谈判的时候推动广泛的欧盟利益。


In Praise of Fragmentation

赞美碎片化


LONDON – Emerging markets are back in the spotlight.

发自伦敦 — — 新兴市场再次成为了众人的焦点。


Investors and banks are suddenly unwilling to finance current-account deficits with short-term debt.

投资者和银行突然不愿为为经常账户赤字提供短期贷款融资。


South Africa, for example, has had to increase interest rates, despite slow economic growth, to attract the funding it needs.

例如南非尽管经济增长缓慢，但不得不提高利率来吸引资金。


Turkey’s rate increase has been dramatic.

土耳其的利率提升也非常引人注目。


For these and other emerging countries, 2014 may prove to be a turbulent year.

对它们以及其他新兴国家来说，2014年可能会被证明是动荡的一年。


If volatility becomes extreme, some countries may consider imposing constraints on capital outflows, which the International Monetary Fund now agrees might be useful in specific circumstances.

如果波动变得极端，一些国家可能会考虑限制资本流出，国际货币基金组织目前认为这个做法在特定的情况下可能有用。


But the fundamental question is how to manage the impact of short-term capital inflows.

但根本问题在于如何应对短期资本流入所带来的影响。


Until recently, economic orthodoxy considered that question invalid.

直到最近，正统经济理论认为该问题是不成立的。


Financial liberalization was lauded because it enabled capital to flow to where it would be used most productively, increasing national and global growth.

人们赞美金融自由化就是因为它能使资本流向生产力最高的地方，从而促进国家和全球的增长。


But empirical support for the benefits of capital-account liberalization is weak.

但对资本账户自由化优点的实证支撑相当薄弱。


The most successful development stories in economic history – Japan and South Korea – featured significant domestic financial repression and capital controls, which accompanied several decades of rapid growth.

经济史上最成功的发展故事 — — 日本和韩国 — — 就是靠着特色鲜明的国内金融管制和资本控制实现了数十年的高速发展。


Likewise, most cross-country studies have found no evidence that capital-account liberalization is good for growth.

同样地，大多数跨国研究发现表明没有证据证明资本账户自由化有利于经济增长。


As the economist Jagdish Bhagwati pointed out 16 years ago in his article “The Capital Myth,” there are fundamental differences between trade in widgets and trade in dollars.

正如经济学家贾格迪什·巴格沃蒂（Jagdish Bhagwati）16年前在他的文章《资本神话》中所指出的那样，在商品贸易和美元贸易之间存在着根本差异。


The case for liberalizing trade in goods and services is strong; the case for complete capital-account liberalization is not.

商品和服务贸易自由化会促进经济增长，而全面资本账户自由化则不会。


One reason is that many modern financial flows do not play the useful role in capital allocation that economic theory assumes.

一个原因是许多现代金融流动并非如经济理论假设的那样对资本分配发挥有益的作用。


Before World War I, capital flowed in one direction: from rich countries with excess savings, such as the United Kingdom, to countries like Australia or Argentina, whose investment needs exceeded domestic savings.

在第一次世界大战前，资本只在一个方向流动：从英国这样超额储蓄的富裕国家，流向澳大利亚或阿根廷这样投资需求超过国内储蓄的国家。


But in today’s world, net capital flows are often from relatively poor countries to rich countries.

但是在当今世界，资本净流动通常是从相对贫穷国家流向富裕国家。


Huge two-way gross capital flows are driven by transient changes in perception, with carry-trade opportunities (borrowing in low-yielding currencies to finance lending in high-yielding ones) replacing long-term capital investment.

巨大的双向资本流动总额由对瞬间变化的感知来驱动，使得套利交易机会（借入低收益的货币去投资高收益的货币）取代了长期资本投资。


Moreover, capital inflows frequently finance consumption or unsustainable real-estate booms.

此外，资金流经常会促进消费或非持续性的房地产繁荣。


And yet, despite the growing evidence to the contrary, the assumption that all capital flows are beneficial has proved remarkably resilient.

然而尽管有越来越多的反面证据，但认为所有资本流动都有利的假说却长盛不衰。


That reflects the power not only of vested interests but also of established ideas.

这反映了其力量不仅来自既得利益者，同时也来自已经建立的某些观念。


Empirical falsification of a prevailing orthodoxy is disturbing.

须知一个流行的正统理论被实证推翻是件令人不安的事情。


Even economists who find no evidence that capital-account liberalization boosts growth often feel obliged to stress that “further analysis” might at last reveal the benefits that free-market theory suggests must exist.

甚至是那些认为没有证据表明资本账户自由化能促进增长的经济学家，也会常觉得有必要强调“进一步分析”最终可能证实自由市场理论所说的好处一定存在。


It is time to stop looking for these non-existent benefits, and to distinguish among different categories of capital flows.

是时候停止寻找这些子虚乌有的好处，并区分不同类别的资本流动。


Some are valuable, but some are potentially harmful.

有些是有价值的，有些则是有害的。


Foreign direct investment (FDI), for example, can aid growth, because it is long term, involves investment in the real economy, and is often accompanied by technology or skill transfers.

例如外国直接投资（FDI）可以刺激经济增长，因为它是长期的，涉及到实体经济中的投资，并往往伴随着技术或技能转移。


Equity portfolio investment may involve price volatility as ownership positions change, but at least it implies a permanent commitment of capital to a business enterprise.

股票投资组合可能涉及价格波动作为所有权的位置变化，但至少它意味着对商业企业一个永久的资本承诺。


Long-term debt finance of real capital investment can play a useful role as well.

实际资本投资的长期债务融资可以发挥有益的作用。


By contrast, short-term capital flows, particularly if provided by banks that are themselves relying on short-term funding, can create instability risks, while bringing few benefits.

相比之下，短期资本流动，尤其是如果由本身就依靠短期资金运作的银行来提供的，会在带来少许好处的同时产生不稳定的风险。


What is less clear is the best policy response.

而最好的政策回应就是留下一点模糊空间。


Capital controls are invariably porous, and we cannot gain the benefits of free trade and FDI without creating some opportunities for short-term investor positioning.

因为资本管制永远有漏洞可钻，我们无法只是获得自由贸易和FDI的好处而不给短期投资者留下一些机会。


China has not liberalized its capital account, but short-term inflows are now driving stronger upward pressure on the renminbi (and larger offsetting reserve accumulation by the People’s Bank of China) than can be explained by the current-account surplus and FDI flows.

中国还没有开放其资本账户，但短期流入现在对人民币（以及中国人民银行更庞大的累积对冲储备）产生了超出经常账户顺差和FDI流动所能解释的更大升值压力。


A case can thus be made for capital-account liberalization that is based on the impossibility of effective control, not on any supposed benefits.

这可以作为基于不可能有效控制 — — 而不是基于任何假设的优点 — — 的资本账户自由化的一个案例。


But while perfect policy is unattainable, partly effective controls can still play a useful role if targeted at the interface between short-term inflows and domestic credit cycles.

虽然完善的政策是不存在的，但如果针对短期流入和国内信贷周期的临界点，部分有效的控制仍能发挥作用。


After all, capital inflows cause the greatest harm when they drive rapid increases in credit-financed consumption or real-estate speculation.

毕竟，当资本流入驱动信贷消费或者房地产投机快速增长时就会导致最大的破坏。


The required policy response should integrate domestic financial regulation with capital-account management.

所需的政策反应应该把国内金融监管与资本账户管理整合起来。


Tax instruments and reserve requirements that put sand in the wheels of short-term capital inflows should be combined with strong countercyclical measures, such as additional capital requirements, to slow domestic credit creation.

那些阻碍短期资本流入的税收工具和准备金要求应与反周期措施紧密结合，例如提出额外的资本要求以遏制国内的信贷活动。


The effectiveness of such measures can be undermined if global banks operate in emerging countries in branch form, providing domestic credit financed by global funding pools.

如果全球银行在新兴国家以分行形式运作，并利用全球资金储备提供国内信贷，那这些措施的效果将会受到破坏。


But this danger can be countered by requiring banks to operate as legally incorporated subsidiaries, with locally regulated capital and liquidity reserves, and strong regulatory limits on the maturity of their funding.

但这种危险可以通过要求银行以合法注册的子公司形式运作，局部调整资本和流动性储备，并对它们的资金期限进行强有力的监管来进行防范。


Such requirements would not prevent useful capital flows: global banking groups could invest equity in emerging markets and fund their subsidiaries’ balance sheets with long-term debt.

这样的要求不会阻止有用的资本流动：全球银行集团可以投资于新兴市场股票，并将长期债务来为子公司的资产负债表提供资金。


In banking, as in other sectors, investment that combines long-term commitment with skill transfer can be highly beneficial, which implies that foreign banks should be free to compete on the same basis as domestic banks.

在银行业，就像其他部门一样，结合长期技术转移承诺的投资是非常有益的，这意味着外资银行应该被允许在相同的基础上与国内银行自由竞争。


Neither mandatory subsidiarization nor tax- or regulation-based capital controls will solve all of the problems.

无论是强制性的子公司化，还是基于税收或法规的资本管制都不能解决所有的问题。


But, taken together, they can stem the volatility implied by short-term flows and help to smooth out domestic credit cycles.

但总的来说，它们可以遏止由于短期资本流动所引起的波动，并帮助缓和国内信贷周期。


Much of the financial industry resists such measures, as do the many economists who remain wedded to the old orthodoxy.

许多金融业坚持这些措施，就像许多经济学家仍然执着于旧的正统理论一样。


Renewed capital controls, they claim, would “fragment” the global financial market, undermining its ability to allocate capital efficiently.

他们声称，更新资本管制，将使得全球金融市场“碎片化 ” ， 削弱其有效配置资本的能力。


In the past, policymakers have been at pains to stress that no such fragmentation will be allowed.

过去，政策制定者一直在竭力强调，这样的碎片化是不会被允许的。


But we need to be blunt: Free flows of short-term debt can result in capital misallocation and harmful instability.

但我们需要直言不讳：短期债务的自由流动会导致资本配置不当和有害的不稳定性。


When it comes to global capital markets, fragmentation can be a good thing.

当全球资本市场来临，碎片化可能是一件好事。


The High-Tech, High-Touch Economy

高科技、高接触经济


LONDON – A recent report revealed that the five richest families in Britain are worth more than the country’s poorest 20% combined.

伦敦—最近的一份研究披露，英国最富的五个家庭的财富比最穷的20%英国人加起来还要多。


Some of the wealth comes from new business ventures; but two of the five are a duke and an earl whose ancestors owned the fields across which London expanded in the nineteenth century.

在他们的财富中，有一些来自新企业；但其中有两个家庭是公爵和伯爵，他们的祖先拥有伦敦在十九世纪所扩张的土地。


Urban land wealth is not just a London phenomenon.

城市和财富并不只是伦敦才有的现象。


As Thomas Piketty’s recent book Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows, accumulated wealth has grown rapidly relative to income across the advanced economies over the last 40 years.

托马斯·皮克提（Thomas Piketty）的新著《二十一世纪的资本主义 》 （ Capital in the Twenty-First Century）指出，在过去四十年中，发达经济体的累积财富增长相对要快于收入。


In many countries, the majority of that wealth – and the lion’s share of the increase – is accounted for by housing and commercial real estate, and most of that wealth resides not in the value of the buildings, but in the value of the urban land on which it sits.

在许多国家，大部分财富 — — 以及财富增量中的大头 — — 都由住房和商业地产贡献，并且这些财富的大部分并不在于建筑的价值，而在于建筑所在城市土地的价值。


That might seem odd.

这或许有些奇怪。


Though we live in the hi-tech virtual world of the Internet, the value of the most physical thing – land – is rising relentlessly.

尽管我们生活在高科技互联网虚拟世界，但最实实在在的东西 — — 土地仍在不停地上涨。


But there is no contradiction: The price of land is rising because of rapid technological progress.

但这其实并不矛盾：土地价格之所以上涨，正是因为快速的科技进步。


In an age of information and communication technology (ICT), it is inevitable that we value what an ICT-intensive economy cannot create.

在信息和通信技术（ICT）时代，我们难免会珍视ICT密集型经济无法创造的东西。


ICT has already delivered remarkable new products and services; but, as MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee argue persuasively in their recent book The Second Machine Age, the really dramatic changes are yet to come, with robots and software bound to automate out of existence a huge number of jobs.

ICT带给了我们令人瞩目的新产品和服务；但是，正如麻省理工学院的埃里克·布莱恩约弗森（Eric Brynjolfsonn）和安德鲁·麦卡菲（Andrew McAfee）在他们的近著《第二次机器时代 》 （ The Second Machine Age）中所令人信服地指出的，真正戏剧性的变化还没有到来，机器人和软件必将把大量工作岗位“自动化掉 ” 。


One consequence is the striking phenomenon of huge wealth creation with very little labor input.

一个结果是一个令人惊奇的现象：极少数劳动力投入就可以创造巨大的财富。


Facebook has an equity valuation of $170 billion but employs only around 6,000 people.


The investment that went into building the software that runs it entailed no more than around 5,000 software engineer man-years.

建设运行Facebook的软件的投资不过5,000软件工程师人年。


This remarkable technology has helped to deliver increasing average incomes and will continue to do so.

这一令人瞩目的技术推动了平均收入的增加，并将一直如此。


But the distribution of that bounty has been very unequal.

但这笔财富的分配是非常不平等的。


The lion’s share of the growth has gone to the top half, the top 10%, or even the top 1% of the population.

增长的绝大部分都流向了顶层的一半人、10%的人甚至1%的人。


As the better off become richer, however, much of their rising income will not be spent on ICT-intensive goods and services.

但是，尽管受益者变富了，其收入增幅的大头并没有花在ICT密集型商品和服务上。


There is a limit to how many iPads and smart phones one can need, and their price continues to plummet.

一个人需要的iPad和智能手机数量总归有限，并且它们的价格也一直在下降。


Instead, an increasing share of consumer expenditure is devoted to buying goods and services that are rich in fashion, design, and subjective brand values, and to competing for ownership of location-specific real estate.

相反，越来越大的消费支出比重被用于购买富于时尚、设计和主管品牌价值的商品和服务以及攀比房产地段上。


But if the land on which the desired houses and apartments sit is in limited supply, the inevitable consequence is rising prices.

但如果高尚别墅和公寓的地段供给是有限的，那么涨价便成为难以避免的结果。


Urban land is therefore rising in value – in London, New York, Shanghai, and many other cities – partly because of consumer demand.

因此，伦敦、纽约、上海和其他许多城市土地价值节节攀升 — — 部分是因为消费需求的推动。


But its rising value also makes it an attractive asset class for investors, because further price increases are expected.

但土地价值的上升让它们成为令投资者垂涎不已的资产类别，因为可以预期未来价格还会上涨。


Moreover, returns on real estate have been swollen by the dramatic fall in interest rates over the last 25 years, a decline that was far advanced even before the 2008 financial crisis.

此外，房地产回报因为过去25年来利率的大幅下降（远在2008年金融危机前便已开始）而节节升高。


The cause of those low interest rates is debated; but one probable factor is the reduced cost of business investment in hardware and software-based “machines.”

低利率的原因有待争议；但一个可能因素是基于硬件和软件的“机器”的商业投资的成本的下降。


If you can build a $170 billion company with just 5,000 software engineer man-years, you don’t need to borrow much money.

如果建立一个1,700亿美元的公司只需要5,000软件工程师人年的，那么就无需大量借钱。


The fact that technology is so powerful not only makes physical land more valuable; it also means that future employment growth will be concentrated among the jobs that cannot be automated, particularly in services, which have to be delivered physically.

科技如此强大，这一事实不但让实体土地变得更有价值；也意味着未来就业增长将围绕无法自动化的岗位，特别是必须实在提供的服务岗位。


The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that among the most rapidly growing occupational categories over the next ten years will be “healthcare support occupations” (nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants) and “food preparation and serving workers” – that is, overwhelmingly low-wage jobs.

美国劳动统计局估算，未来十年增长最快的职业分类将是“健康支持岗位 ” （ 护理、看护和侍从）以及“食品准备和服务工人 ” — —也就是说，绝大多数是底薪岗位。


In short, ICT creates an economy that is both “hi-tech” and “hi-touch” – a world of robots and apps, but also of fashion, design, land, and face-to-face services.

简言之，ICT创造了一��“高科技”和“高接触”的经济 — — 一个机器人和应用与时尚、设计、土地和面对面服务并存的世界。


This economy is the result of our remarkable ability to solve the problem of production and automate away the need for continual labor.

这个经济是我们解决生产问题能力高超以及连续劳动需要被自动化排除的结果。


But it is an economy that is likely to suffer two adverse side effects.

但这个经济可能带来两大副作用。


First, it may be inherently unstable, because the more that wealth resides in real estate, the more the financial system will provide leverage to support real-estate speculation, which has been at the heart of all of the world’s worst financial crises.

首先，它可能具有内在不稳定性，因为聚集在房地产的财富越多，金融系统为支持房地产投资所提供的杠杆也就越大，而这正是最糟糕的世界金融危机的核心原因。


Major changes in financial and monetary policy, going far beyond those introduced in response to the 2008 crisis, are required to contain this danger.

这需要金融和货币政策的重大变化来遏制，变化程度将令2008年危机所导致的应对措施黯然失色。


Second, unless we deliberately design policies that encourage and sustain inclusive growth, a highly unequal society is virtually inevitable, with rising land values and wealth magnifying the effects of the unequal income distribution that ICT produces directly.

其次，除非有意设计鼓励和维持包容性增长的政策，否则高度不平等的社会几乎是不可避免的，土地价值和财富的增加将放大ICT直接带来的不平等收入分配效应。


Indeed, the modern economy may resemble that of the eighteenth century, when the land owned by the Duke of Westminster and the Earl of Cadogan was still just fields to the west of London, more than the middle-class societies in which most developed countries’ citizens’ grew up.

事实上，现代经济可能更类似于十九世纪（当时威斯敏斯特公爵和卡多根伯爵所拥有的土地只不过是西伦敦的荒地 ） ， 而不是大部分发达国家公民所成长起来的中产阶级社会。


The Trade Delusion

贸易的迷思


LONDON – Since 2008, global trade has grown slightly more slowly than global GDP.

发自伦敦 — — 自2008年以来，全球贸易的增长幅度稍微落后于全球GDP的增长。


The Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations ended in failure.

世界贸易组织多哈回合谈判以失败告终。


Transatlantic and transpacific trade negotiations are progressing slowly, held back by the resistance of special interests.

在各特殊利益集团的阻挠之下，跨大西洋和跨太平洋的贸易谈判也步履维艰。


But, though many experts fear that protectionism is undermining globalization, threatening to impede global economic growth, slower growth in global trade may be inevitable, and trade liberalization is decreasingly important.

尽管许多专家担心保护主义会破坏全球化并威胁到全球经济增长，但全球贸易增长放缓很可能是无法避免的，而贸易自由化的重要性也在不断降低。


To be sure, for 65 years, rapid trade growth has played a vital role in economic development, with average advanced-economy industrial tariffs plummeting from more than 30% to below 5%.

可以肯定的是，过去65年以来，贸易的快速增长在经济发展中扮演了至关重要的作用，使得发达经济体的各行业平均关税从超过30%暴跌到5%以下。


The creation of Europe’s single market facilitated increased intra-European trade.

欧洲单一市场的建立促进了欧盟内部贸易的增长。


Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan achieved rapid economic catch-up on the basis of export-led growth.

日本、韩国以及台湾以出口主导型增长实现了经济的快速赶超。


China has followed the same path over the last 30 years.

中国在过去30年中遵循了同样的路径。


Trade grew about twice as fast as global output from 1990 to 2008.

从1990年到2008年，贸易增速相当于全球产出增速的两倍。


But there is no reason why trade should grow faster than GDP forever.

但是贸易不可能永远比GDP增长得更快。


Indeed, even if there were no trade barriers at all, trade might grow significantly more slowly than GDP in some periods.

事实上，即使没有贸易壁垒，贸易增长也可能会在某些时期明显慢于GDP增长。


Several factors make it possible that we are entering such a period.

有几方面因素使得我们正在进入这样一个时期。


For starters, there is the changing pattern of consumption in the advanced economies.

首先，发达经济体的消费模式发生了变化。


Richer people spend an increasing share of their income on services that are either impossible to trade (for example, restaurant meals) or difficult to trade (such as health services).

富人越来越多的把收入份额花费在服务上，这些服务要么是不可能进行贸易（例如，外出用餐 ） ， 要么是难以贸易（如卫生服务 ） 。


Non-tradable sectors tend to account for a growing share of employment and economic activity.

非贸易部门在就业和经济活动中占据的份额越来越大。


For several decades, that tendency has been offset by ever more intensive trading of tradable goods, often passing through many countries in complex supply chains.

几十年来，这一趋势一直被越发频密的可贸易商品交易所抵消，这些交易往往通过复杂的供应链在许多国家之间流通。


In the future, however, the shift to non-tradable consumption may dominate.

然而在未来，非贸易消费可能转而占据主导地位。


Indeed, trade intensity may decline even for manufactured goods.

事实上，甚至制造业商品的贸易频密度也可能会下降。


Trade is partly driven by differences in labor costs.

贸易在一定程度上是由劳动力成本差异所驱动的。


China’s dramatic manufacturing growth reflected low wages up to now.

目前为止，中国制造业的急剧增长反映了其低工资水平。


But as real wages in China and other emerging economies grow, incentives for trade will decline.

但随着中国和其它新兴经济体实际工资的提高，贸易的激励因素将下降。


The more that global incomes converge, the less trade there may be.

全球收入越是趋同，贸易的次数就越少。


In addition, as the economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of MIT have argued in their book The Second Machine Age, rapid advances in information technology may enable increasingly extensive automation.

另外，正如麻省理工学院经济学家埃里克·布伦乔尔森（Erik Brynjolfsson）和安德鲁·麦卡菲（Andrew McAfee）在《第二次机器时代 》 （ The Second Machine Age）一书中所说，飞速发展的信息技术可以使自动化技术的应用日益广泛。


Some manufacturing activities, though few jobs, may well return to developed countries, as the advantages of proximity to customers and lower transport costs outweigh decreasingly important differences in labor costs.

一些生产活动，尽管只能很少的就业，很可能会回到发达国家开展，因为接近客户的优势和更低的运输成本更胜于重要性逐渐降低的劳动力成本差异。


Global trade as a share of GDP may therefore decline, but without adverse consequences for global economic growth.

全球贸易作为全球GDP的组成部分，其比例可能因此下降，但不会对全球经济增长产生不利影响。


Rising productivity does not require relentlessly increasing trade intensity.

生产率的提高无需不断增加贸易频密度。


Earth, after all, does not trade with other planets, yet its economy still grows.

毕竟，虽然地球没有跟其他星球进行贸易，其经济却仍然保持增长。


Optimal trade intensity depends on many factors – such as relative labor costs, transport costs, productivity levels, and economy-of-scale effects.

最优贸易频密度取决于许多因素 — — 如相对劳动力成本，运输成本，生产力水平，经济规模效应。


Trends in these factors might make reduced trade intensity not only inevitable but desirable.

这些因素的变化趋势会令贸易频密度的降低变得不可避免，但却是有利的。


Even if that is true, international trade will still play a vital role, and preventing any reversal of past trade liberalization is essential.

即使这是真的,国际贸易仍将发挥至关重要的作用，防止对过去贸易自由化进程的逆转是至关重要的。


But further trade liberalization is bound to be of declining importance to economic growth.

但进一步的贸易自由化对经济增长的重要性必然会下降。


With industrial tariffs already dramatically reduced most potential benefits of trade liberalization have already been grasped.

由于各行业关税都已大大减少，大多数贸易自由化的潜在好处已经被开发。


Estimates of the benefits of further trade liberalization are often surprisingly low – no more than a few percentage points of global GDP.

估计进一步的贸易自由化的好处往往出奇地低 — — 不超过全球GDP的几个百分点。


That is small compared to the cost of the 2008 financial crisis, which has left output in several advanced economies 10-15% below pre-crisis trend levels.

这相比2008年金融危机的影响来说极为微小，后者导致多个发达经济体的经济产出比危机前下跌了10~15 % 。


It is small, too, compared to the difference in economic performance between successful catch-up countries – such as China – and other countries that have enjoyed the same access to global markets but have performed less well for other reasons.

而这相对于那些成功实现经济追赶的国家 — — 比如中国 — — 与那些同样拥有通往全球市场渠道但因为其他原因未能充分发力的国家之间的经济表现差异来说也相对较少。


The main reason for slow progress in trade negotiations is not increasing protectionism; it is the fact that further liberalization entails complex trade-offs no longer offset by very large potential benefits.

贸易谈判进展缓慢的主要原因并不是贸易保护主义的日渐增加；而是因为进一步自由化导致的复杂权衡取舍无法再被非常庞大的潜在利益所抵消。


The Doha Round’s failure has been decried as a setback for developing countries. And some liberalization – say, of advanced economies’ cotton imports – would undoubtedly benefit some low-income economies.

多哈回合的失败被认为是发展中国家所遭遇的挫折���同时一些自由化行动 — — 比如发达国家的棉花进口 — — 无疑会令一些低收入国家受益。


But full trade liberalization would have a complex impact on the least developed economies, some of which would benefit only if compensated for the loss of the preferential access to advanced-economy markets that they currently enjoy.

但全面的贸易自由化会对那些最不发达的国家产生复杂的影响，其中一些国家可能会失去现在享有的通往发达经济体市场的优惠渠道，只有对此进行补偿才能让它们受益。


This implies that further progress in trade liberalization will be slow.

这意味着贸易自由化的进一步进展将会放缓。


But slow progress is a far less important challenge to growth prospects than the debt overhang in developed economies, or infrastructure and educational deficiencies in many developing economies.

但相对于发达国家所面对的债务，或者许多发展中经济体的基础设施和教育缺口来说，这一缓慢进展只能算是一个次要的发展障碍。


That reality often goes unacknowledged.

事实的真相往往会被忽视。


The importance of past trade liberalization has left the global policy establishment with a bias toward assuming that further liberalization would bring similar benefits.

过去的贸易自由化导致全球政策体制出现了一种偏见，以为进一步的自由化就能产生同样的结果。


But while the potential global benefits of trade liberalization have declined, reduced trade intensity might still impede economic development in some countries.

但虽然贸易自由化所带来的潜在全球利益在缩小，但贸易频密度的降低将依然阻碍某些国家的经济发展。


Only a handful of economies over the last 60 years have fully caught up to advanced-economy living standards, and all relied on export-led growth to drive productivity and job creation in manufacturing.

在过去60年中只有少数几个国家完全赶上的发达国家的生活水平，而这些国家都是依靠出口导向型增长并通过制造业提高生产力和创造就业。


Relying solely on that model will be more difficult in the future.

在未来，单纯依靠这一模式将变得更为艰难。


China is so big that it must develop domestic drivers of growth at an earlier stage of development than did Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea; as a result, its exports will inevitably decline (relative to GDP).

中国幅员辽阔，所以它必须比日本，台湾和韩国提早一个阶段去开发发展的国内驱动力；因此其出口将无可避免地（相对于GDP）下跌。


Meanwhile, for some low-income countries, increased manufacturing and service-sector automation of the sort described by Brynjolfsson and McAfee, whether within advanced economies or within China’s established industrial clusters, will make the path to middle- and high-income status more difficult to achieve.

与此同时，对某些低收入国家来说，布伦乔尔森和麦卡菲所提出的那种制造业和服务业自动化，无论是在发达经济体还是中国已经成型的产业集群之中，都将令它们迈向中等/高收入国家的路径更加坎坷。


That poses important challenges for development policy, which further trade liberalization can alleviate only marginally.

这对发展政策的制定提出了严峻的挑战，而进一步的贸易自由化只是杯水车薪而已。


Rethinking the Monetization Taboo

反思货币化戒条


LONDON – Now that the pace of the US Federal Reserve’s “tapering” of its asset-purchase program has been debated to death, attention will increasingly turn to prospects for interest-rate increases.

发自伦敦 — — 如今人们已经对美联储“缩减”资产收购计划的步骤进行了充分的讨论，而注意力也将逐渐转向对利率上升的预期方面。


But another question looms: How will central banks achieve a final “exit” from unconventional monetary policy and return balance sheets swollen by unconventional monetary policy to “normal” levels?

但同时又出现了另一个问题：央行们将如何达到一个退出非常规货币政策的最终“出口 ” ， 并把在非常规货币政策下过度膨胀的资产负债表恢复到“正常”的水平？


To many, a larger issue needs to be addressed.

对许多人来说，一个更大的问题必须得到处理。


The Fed’s tapering merely slows the growth of its balance sheet.

美联储的缩减仅仅是减缓了其资产负债表的增速。


The authorities would still have to sell $3 trillion of bonds to return to the pre-crisis status quo.

如果想回到危机前水平的话，当局还要发行价值3万亿美元的债券。


The rarely admitted truth, however, is that there is no need for central banks’ balance sheets to shrink.

但一个很少被承认的真相就是各大央行其实无需去缩减自己的资产负债表规模。


They could stay permanently larger; and, for some countries, permanently bigger central-bank balance sheets will help reduce public-debt burdens.

它们可以长期保持更大的规模；而对一些国家来说，这种长期大规模状况将有助于减轻公共债务负担。


As a recent IMF paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff illustrates, advanced economies face debt burdens that cannot be reduced simply through a mix of austerity, forbearance, and growth.

正如卡门·莱因哈特与肯尼思·罗格夫最近发表的一篇国际货币基金组织论文所指出的那样，那些发达经济都面临着一些无法仅仅借助一系列紧缩，拖延和增长就能消除的债务负担。


But if a central bank owns the debt of its own government, no net public liability exists.

但如果一家央行也持有本国债券的话，那就再也不存在什么纯粹的公共债务责任了。


The government owns the central bank, so the debt is to itself, and the interest expense comes back to the government as the central bank’s profit.

央行为政府所有，因此等于政府自己向自己借债， 而利息支出又以央行利息收入的形式返还给了政府。


If central bank holdings of government debt were converted into non-interest-bearing perpetual obligations, nothing substantive would change, but it would become obvious that some previously issued public debt did not need to be repaid.

即便央行持有的政府债券被转化成无息长期债券，也不会有任何实质性的改变，但很显然一些从前发行的公共债权都不再需要偿还了。


This amounts to “helicopter money” after the fact.

这等同于债务出现之后投放的“直升飞机货币 ” 。


In 2003, then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke argued that Japan, facing deflation, should increase public expenditure or cut taxes, funding the operation by printing money rather than issuing bonds.

在2003年，时任美联储主席的本·伯南克认为面临通缩的日本应当增加公共支出或者减税，并通过印钞而非发行债券的方式来为这些措施注入资金。


This, he argued, was bound to increase national income, because the direct stimulative effect would not be offset by concern about future debt burdens.

他认为这最终会增加国家收入，因为这种直接刺激的效应不会被对未来债务负担的担忧所抵消。


His advice was not followed; large Japanese deficits were in fact bond-financed.

但他的建议却没有被采纳；大量的日本财政赤字其实是通过发债支撑的。


But the debts held by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) could still be written off.

但日本银行所持有的债务却依然是可以被注销的。


In Japan’s case, this would reduce government debt by an amount equal to more than 40% of GDP today, and around 60% if implemented after the bond purchases planned for 2014.

对日本来说，这将可以削减相当于当前GDP总额40%的政府债务，如果在2014年计划的债权购买计划后实施的话甚至可以达到60 % 。


Objections focus on two risks: central-bank losses and excessive inflation.

反对的焦点集中在两大风险之上：央行的损失以及过度通胀。


But both of these outcomes can be avoided.

但这两点后果其实都是可以避免的。


Central banks have bought government bonds with money on which they currently pay zero or very low interest rates.

央行们用自身以零利率或者超低利率融来的钱去购买政府债券。


So, as interest rates rise, central banks might face costs exceeding their income.

因此随着利率上升，央行可能会面临支出超过收入的状况。


But central banks can choose to pay zero interest on a portion of the reserves that commercial banks hold with them, even when they increase the policy interest rate.

但即便央行提升了政策利率，它们依然可以选择去向那一部分由商业银行持有的储蓄支付零利息。


And they can require commercial banks to hold zero-interest reserves at the central bank equal to a defined proportion of their loans, thus preventing inflationary growth of private credit and money.

它们也可以要求商业银行在央行持有相当于其贷款特定比例的零利率储蓄，并因此防止私人信贷和货币的通胀性增长。


Permanent monetization of government debts is undoubtedly technically possible.

长期的政府债务货币化无疑是技术上可行的。


Whether it is desirable depends on the outlook for inflation.

而这是否可取则取决于对通胀的预期。


Where inflation is returning to target levels, debt monetization could be unnecessarily and dangerously stimulative.

当通胀恢复到目标水平时，债务货币化就可能变成一种不必要且危险的刺激手段。


Central-bank bond sales, while certainly not inevitable, may be appropriate.

央行债务出售，虽然注定无法避免，但也可以是恰当的。


But if deflation is the danger, permanent monetization may be the best policy.

但如果通缩是真正威胁的话，长期的货币化可能是最佳的政策。


I predict that Japan will, in effect, permanently monetize some government debt.

我预测日本会在事实上将一些政府债务实施长期货币化。


After two decades of low growth and deflation, Japanese gross public debt is now above 240% of GDP (and above 140% of GDP on a net basis); and, with the fiscal deficit at 9.5% of GDP, the debt burden continues to increase.

在经历了20年的低增长和通缩之后，日本的总公共债务已经超过了GDP的240 % （ 如果以净债务计算的话则超过GDP的140 % ） ；同时在相当于GDP9.5%的财政赤字之下，债务负担依然在不断增长。


According to the IMF, to reduce its net public debt to 80% of GDP by 2030, Japan would have to turn today’s 8.6% primary budget deficit (the balance excluding interest payments) into a 6.7% primary surplus by 2020 and maintain such surpluses continuously until 2030.

据国际货币基金组织统计，如果要在2030年将净公共债务总额降低到相当于GDP80%的话，日本必须在2020年将当前8.6%的基本预算赤字转变为6.7%的基本盈余，并维持这一状况到2030年。


That will not happen, and any attempt to reach that target would drive Japan into a severe depression.

这种情况不会发生，而且任何试图实现这一目标的举措都将把日本带入一场严重衰退之中。


But the government does not need to repay the ¥140 trillion ($1.4 trillion) of its debt that the BoJ already owns.

但日本政府不需要偿还日本银行已经持有的140万亿日元（折合1.4万亿美元）债务。


The BoJ will continue to increase its balance sheet until it achieves its 2% inflation target.

日本银行将继续扩大其资产负债表直到达到2%的通胀目标。


Thereafter, its balance sheet may stabilize in absolute yen terms and fall slowly as a percentage of GDP, but its absolute size will probably never decrease – a likelihood that should cause no concern.

此后其资产负债表的日元净值将趋向稳定并以GDP的一定比例稳步下降，但其绝对规模或许永远不会减少 — — 这是一种不会引发任何忧虑的可能性。


It is precisely what happened to the Fed’s balance sheet after its wartime and postwar buying of US government bonds came to an end in 1951.

而这也正是美联储的资产负债表在1951年结束购买美国政府战时和战后债券后所发生的情况。


Even as permanent monetization occurs, however, the truth may be obfuscated.

即便长期货币化的情况出现，但真相或许会被掩饰掉。


If government bond repayments to the BoJ continued, but were always offset by new BoJ bond purchases, and if the BoJ kept the interest rate on reserves at zero, the net effect would be the same as a debt write-off, but the fiction of “normal” central-bank operations could be maintained.

如果日本政府债券对日本银行的偿付持续存在，但却往往会被新的央行债券购买所抵消，同时倘若日本银行将储蓄利率保持为零，那产生的净效应就等于注销了这些债务，但一个“正常”央行运作的虚构表象将得到维持。


Central banks can monetize debt while pretending not to.

央行可以在假装没有的情况下把债务货币化。


That pretense may reflect a useful taboo: if we overtly recognize that debt write-off/monetization is possible, politicians might want to do it all the time and in excess, not just in circumstances that make it appropriate.

这种假装可能反映出一个有用的戒条：如果我们公开承认债务注销/货币化是可能的，政治家们就可能时刻想着怎样去滥用它，而不是选择适当的时机去实施。


The historical experience of Weimar Germany, or that of Zimbabwe today, illustrates the danger.

过去德国魏玛政府，当今津巴布韦的遭遇都反映了这种风险。


As a result, even when permanent monetization occurs – as it almost certainly will in Japan and possibly elsewhere – it may remain forever the policy that dare not speak its name.

因此，即便发生了长期货币化 — — 几乎可以确定日本会实施而其他国家也有可能 — — 但可能政策永远不会提到这一词汇。


Such reticence may serve a useful purpose.

这种沉默或许将有利于实现一个有益的目的。


But it must not blind central banks and governments to the full range of policy tools available to address today’s severe debt overhangs.

但这也不应令央行和政府们忘记还有这类政策工具是可以用来应对当前的债务暴增问题的。


The Perils of Financial Freedom

金融自由的弊端


LONDON – Back in 2007, China’s then-prime minister, Wen Jiabao, famously described his country’s economy as “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.”

发自伦敦 — — 2007年，时任中国国家总理的温家宝指出“中国经济存在着巨大问题，依然是不稳定、不平衡、不协调、不可持续的结构性的问题。


Today, the imbalance remains, with the economy too focused on investment and too dependent on credit.

”如今，不平衡状态依然存在，而中国经济则太过集中于投资领域并过度依赖于信贷。


China’s current leadership is committed to building a more balanced model, and believes that the market must play a “decisive role” in achieving that.

当前的中国领导层承诺要建立一个更为均衡的发展模式，并相信市场会在实现这一目标的过程中扮演“决定性的角色 ” 。


But, while stronger market discipline is needed in some areas, Chinese officials should be under no illusion that free markets are a panacea for the financial sector.

但当某些领域需要更强监管之时，中国官员们不应奢望自由市场会成为金融部门的一剂万能药。


Indeed, China’s current economic imbalances partly reflect the dangers created by competition in credit markets.

事实上，中国当前的经济不平衡状况在某种程度上正是反映出由信贷市场竞争所产生的危机。


Even before the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s annual investment/GDP ratio was running at an exceptionally high 40%, and economists were calling for a transition to more consumption-led growth.

即便是在2008年全球金融危机之前，中国的年均投资/GDP比率就达到极高的40%水平，而经济学家们也在呼吁向更消费导向的增长形势转型。


But the huge credit stimulus introduced in 2009 drove the economy further in the opposite direction.

2012年上述比率上升到47 % ， 而工程建设已经占到了全部产值的40 % 。


The investment ratio rose to 47% by 2012, and construction now accounts for 30% of all output. Total credit has risen from 130% of GDP to 200%, with both bank loans and “shadow bank” credit expanding rapidly.

总信贷量也从相当于GDP的130%飙升到200 % ， 无论是银行贷款还是“影子银行”信贷都急剧扩张。


Both China and the global economy benefited from that stimulus, which helped prop up overall demand in dangerously deflationary times.

中国和全球经济都从这一刺激行动中受益，而这也在危险的通缩时期推高了总需求。


But it has led to significant wasted investment in heavy industry, real estate, and urban infrastructure, and leaves China facing the challenge of deleveraging and working out bad debts.

但这也导致了在重工业，房地产以及城市基础设施建设方面的大量浪费，为中国留下了去杠杆化和坏账的挑战。


In many areas, improved market discipline does have an important role to play in addressing the structural causes of imbalance.

在许多领域，市场纪律的强化确实在应对失衡状况的结构性原因方面发挥了重要作用。


Wasteful construction investment is encouraged by the under-pricing of rural land.

压低价格的农村土地鼓励了过度浪费的建设投资。


The lack of a normal ownership relationship between the central government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) allows the latter to pay minimal dividends and over-invest in business expansion.

中央政府和国有企业之间正常所有权关系的缺失令后者可以只支付最低限度的红利并在业务发展方面过度投资。


Caps on interest rates on bank deposits result in household savers supplying a large subsidy to corporate borrowers.

对银行存款利率设定的上限导致家庭储蓄者实际上是巨额补贴了企业贷款者。


And SOEs have better access to credit from state-owned banks than private companies do.

国企也比私企更容易从国有银行得到贷款。


But the belief that financial liberalization will provide an easy route to a balanced and stable economy is a delusion, as Japan’s experience in the 1980’s illustrates.

但日本在1980年代的经验证明，那种认为金融自由化就能使经济走向平衡稳定的想法是错误的。


As Joe Studwell argues persuasively in his book How Asia Works, neither Japan nor South Korea based its successful economic development on free markets in credit supply; instead, they relied on the deliberate direction of credit toward industrial development rather than real estate or consumption.

正如乔·斯蒂维尔（Joe Studwell）在其著作《亚洲是如何运行》中证明的那样，无论是日本还是韩国都不是通过自由市场的信贷供应实现经济奇迹的，相反，它们是依靠有意将信贷导入工业发展而非房地产或消费实现成功的。


When Japan relaxed constraints on its banking system in the 1980’s, the result was an enormous real-estate boom and subsequent bust, followed by two decades of slow growth and deflation.

当日本在1980年代放松对银行系统的管制之后，借着就是一场巨大的房地产泡沫以及随后的经济破灭，结果就是持续20年的低速增长和通缩。


China’s per capita income is still only about a quarter of Japan’s in 1990; it would be a tragedy if it suffered a similar setback before completing the path to developed-country living standards.

中国的人均收入在1990年仅相当于日本的1/4，如果中国在实现发达国家生活水平出现了类似的挫折，那必将是悲剧性的。


One striking feature of the Chinese economy, however, is that real estate and urban infrastructure development – high-rise housing, grand transport projects, convention centers, sports stadiums, and museums – already play a far more important role than they did in Japan and South Korea at comparable stages of economic development.

然而中国经济其中一个引人注目的特点就是房地产和城市基础设施建设 — — 高层住宅、大型交通枢纽、会议中心，体育馆和博物馆都比在同一经济发展阶段的日本和韩国要扮演更重要的角色。


This reflects the interaction of two distinctively Chinese factors and one inherent feature of all banking systems.

这反映出两大中国特色因素和所有银行系统的一个内在特点的互动结合。


The first Chinese factor is the authorities’ focus on “urbanization” as an end in itself, rather than as a byproduct of industrialization.

第一大特色是当局强调“城市化 ” ， 但这种城市化本身就是目的，而非工业化的副产品。


The second is China’s decentralized approach to economic development, with strong competition between regions and cities often focusing on prestige urban infrastructure projects.

其二是中国实现经济发展的去中心化手段，区域之间不断竞争，各城市都以宏大华丽的城市基础设施项目为荣。


The universal feature in this mix is the fact that banks everywhere can create private credit, money, and purchasing power that did not previously exist, and they have a natural bias, if not constrained by public policy, to allocate it to fund real-estate developments, which drive rising land prices.

在这一混合体中的共有特点则是世界各地的银行都可以创造出原本不存在的私人信贷，资金以及购买力，而如果不受公共政策限制的话，这些银行都有一个天然的偏好，就是把上述��造物投入到房地产发展中去，并因此推高土地价格。


These factors will drive construction booms and busts even if obvious market distortions are removed and market discipline is tightened.

即便排除了明显的市场扭曲并强化市场纪律，这些因素依然会导致房产建设泡沫并最终破裂。


The pre-crisis Irish and Spanish banking systems proved just as capable as Chinese state-owned banks at funding excessive real-estate construction.

危机前的爱尔兰和西班牙银行都和中国的国有银行一样拥有资助过度房地产建设的能力。


So, even as China introduces greater market discipline to a largely positive effect, it must plan to constrain credit creation with policy tools that were missing in the advanced economies before the 2008 crisis.

因此，即便中国引入了更多的市场管制来取得一个积极的成效，它必须计划好用发达经济体在2008年危机前缺失的政策工具去限制信贷创造。


Caps on loan-to-value or loan-to-income ratios on real-estate loans should be used aggressively.

应当大规模应用对贷款额/价值比和贷款额/收入比设置上限的方法。


Capital requirements for banks should reflect higher risk weights for real-estate lending than banks’ private assessments of credit risks suggest are appropriate.

同时对银行资本金的要求应体现在对房地产贷款方面比银行内部信贷风险评估更高的风险权重。


The People’s Bank of China should maintain reserve requirements for commercial banks to contain credit creation, rather than reject them as old-fashioned, as occurred in the advanced economies in the decades before 2008.

中国人民银行应当维持商业银行的资本储备要求以限制信贷创造，而不是像2008年前的发达经济体那样将其视为过时的东西。


Credit provision by shadow banks needs to be tightly regulated.

影子银行的信贷供应必须严加规管。


The credit cycle is too important to be left to free markets.

对信贷周期的控制能力至关重要，不可拱手让给自由市场。


China thus faces a difficult challenge.

中国因此面对这一个严峻的挑战。


It must undergo a transition not to the Western model that produced the 2008 crisis, but to an entirely new model that combines elements of market discipline with strong public-policy constraints.

它必须实施一个转型，不是朝向导致了2008年危机的西方模式，而是实现一个将某些市场管制因素和强大公共政策限制相结合的全新模式。


How smoothly that transition occurs matters for the whole world.

这场转型能否平稳进行对全世界来说都非常重要。


By the early 2020’s, China’s GDP will be $20 trillion.

到2020年代初期，中国的GDP将达20万亿。


If the credit/GDP ratio reaches 250% by then, total loans and debt securities would equal $50 trillion, which is more than three times the total of US mortgage debt in 2008.

如果信贷/GDP比率在那时达到250 % ， 就意味着总贷款和债务证券价值将达到50万亿，比美国2008年是的次级贷规模还大3倍。


Today, much of that debt represents claims within the state sector – owed, for instance, by SOEs to state-owned banks.

如今，大多数债务的偿付都在国有部门以内，比如国有企业和国有银行。


But, as the private sector develops, SOEs are subjected to hard budget constraints, and the external capital account is opened, this huge credit mountain will create increasing global financial vulnerability.

但随着私人部门不断发展，国企受到严格预算限制，外部资本账户被放开，这一庞大信贷数额将导致全球金融风险不断增大。


One hopes that the Chinese authorities understand the dangers as well as the benefits of free financial markets better than advanced-economy policymakers did ahead of the 2008 crisis.

我们希望中国政府能比2008年危机前的发达经济体政策制定者们更好地认识到自由市场的优点和风险。


If not, another crisis – far more severe than the last – may become inevitable.

如果不是的话，另一场危机 — — 而且比前一场更加剧烈 — — 将不可避免。


The Great Credit Mistake

信用之谬大矣


LONDON – Before the financial crisis erupted in 2008, private credit in most developed economies grew faster than GDP.

伦敦—2008年前，大部分发达经济体的私人信用增长都快于GDP。


Then credit growth collapsed.

接着，私人信用增长崩了盘。


Whether that fall reflected low demand for credit or constrained supply may seem like a technical issue.

私人信用增长的崩盘反映了需求低迷还是供给受限或许是个技术性问题。


But the answer holds important implications for policymaking and prospects for economic growth.

但答案对决策和经济增长前景具有重要影响。


And the official answer is probably wrong.

而官方答案可能是错的。


The prevailing view has usually stressed supply constraints and the policies needed to fix them.

流行的观点通常强调供给受限以及纠正这一问题的政策。


An impaired banking system, it is argued, starves businesses, particularly small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), of the funds they need to expand.

该观点认为，受损的银行系统让企业困于缺乏扩张所需要的资金，特别是中小企业。


In September 2008, US President George W. Bush wanted to “free up banks to resume the flow of credit to American families and businesses.”

2008年9月，美国总统小布什希望“解放银行以使信用重新流向美国家庭和企业。 ”


The stress tests and recapitalizations of US banks in 2009 were subsequently hailed as crucial to the recovery of both the banking system and the economy.

2009年美国银行的压力测试和资本重组随后被称为是银行系统和经济复苏的关键。


By contrast, the European Central Bank’s inadequately tough stress tests in 2010 were widely panned for leaving eurozone banks too weak to provide adequate credit.

相反，2010年欧洲央行压力测试不够严厉被广泛指为导致欧元区银行太疲软而无法提供重组信用的原因。


In the United Kingdom, banks have been criticized for not lending the reserves created by quantitative easing to the real economy, leading the Bank of England to introduce its “funding for lending” scheme in 2012.

在英国，人们批评银行没有将量化宽松所创造出来的准备金贷给实体经济，导致英格兰银行在2012年引入“贷款专用资金 ” （ funding for lending）机制。


In the eurozone, it is hoped that this year’s asset quality review (AQR) and stress tests will finally dispel concerns about bank solvency and free up credit supply.

在欧元区，人们希望今年的资产质量检查（asset quality review）和压力测试最终能够打消关于银行偿债能力的疑虑，解放信用供给。


A “credit crunch” – particularly in trade finance – was certainly a key reason why the financial crisis generated a real economy recession.

“信用动荡 ” — —特别是贸易融资信用 — — 毫无疑问是金融危机导致实体经济衰退的一个关键因素。


Taxpayer-funded bank rescues, higher bank capital requirements, and ultra-easy monetary policy have all been vital to overcome credit supply constraints.

纳税人出资的银行援助政策、更高的银行资本要求以及极端宽松的货币政策都是克服信用供给受限的关键。


But there is strong evidence that once the immediate crisis was over, lack of demand for credit played a far larger role than restricted supply in impeding economic growth.

但充分的证据表明，一旦迫在眉睫的危机过去，信用需求不足对阻碍经济增长的作用就会远远超过供给受限。


That argument is persuasively made by Atif Mian and Amir Sufi in House of Debt, an important new book that analyzes US data on a county-by-county basis.

这一令人信服的观点由阿提夫·米安（Atif Mian）和埃米尔·苏菲（Amir Sufi）在《债务屋 》 （ House of Debt）中提出。


Mian and Sufi show that the recession was caused by a collapse of household consumption, and that consumption fell most in those counties where pre-crisis borrowing and post-crisis real-estate prices left households facing the largest relative losses in net wealth.

这部重要的新书逐县地分析了美国的数据。 米安和苏菲向我们表明，衰退由家庭消费崩溃引起，而家庭消费下降大部分发生在危机前的借债和危机后的房地产价格导致家庭面临的净财富相对损失最大的县。


It was in those US counties, too, that local businesses cut employment most aggressively.

地方企业削减人工最猛的也是这些县。


For SMEs, a shortage of customers, not a shortage of credit, constrained borrowing, employment, and output.

对中小企业来说，缺少客户，而不是缺少信用，制约了它的借贷、雇用和产出状况。


And the customers were absent because the pre-crisis credit boom had left them over-leveraged.

而之所以缺少客户，是因为危机前信用繁荣导致他们过度借贷。


In the UK, many business surveys from 2009-2012 told the same story.

在英国，2009—2012年的多项商业调查也给出了同样的结论。


Poor customer demand was ranked well ahead of credit availability as a constraint on growth.

客户需求萎靡在制约增长方面的作用远甚于信用易得性。


Economic growth can indeed continue to be severely depressed by a debt overhang even when credit supply is unrestricted and cheap.

即使在信用供给不再受限并且十分低廉的情况下，经济增长也确实有可能继续陷于深度萧条。


Many Japanese companies were left overleveraged by the boom and bust in credit and real estate in the 1980s and early 1990s.

20世纪80年代和90年代初，许多日本公司因为信用和房地产业的繁荣和萧条而陷于举债过度的境况。


By the late 1990s, the Japanese banking system was offering companies loans at near-zero interest rates.

到20世纪90年代末，日本银行系统以几乎为零的利率向公司提供贷款。


But, rather than borrow to invest, firms cut investment to pay down debt, driving two decades of stagnation and deflation.

但是，企业并未借钱投资，反而削减投资来偿债，因而助长了二十年的停滞和通缩。


Since 2011, the ECB’s analysis of weak eurozone growth has stressed the negative impact of an impaired and fragmented financial system, with high sovereign-bond yields and funding costs for banks resulting in prohibitive lending terms in the peripheral countries.

2011年以来，欧洲央行对欧元区增长萎靡的分析强调受损且分散的金融系统的消极影响，以及主权债务收益率高企和银行资金成本导致外围国贷款条件过于苛刻。


Major progress in fixing these problems has already been achieved.

纠正这些问题的主要进展已经实现了。


The ECB’s latest Monthly Bulletin documents this, citing multiple indicators of improved credit availability and pricing.

欧洲央行的最新《月报 》 （ Monthly Bulletin）肯定了这一点，指���多重指标表明信用易得性和价格都在改善。


Nonetheless, the rate of decline in private-sector loans has accelerated over the last year – from -0.6% to -2% – and low demand is acknowledged to be the main driver of depressed credit growth.

尽管如此，私人部门贷款收缩速度在去年仍出现了加快 — — 从-0.6%变为-2 % — —并且寻求低迷已被认定为信用增长受阻的主要原因。


Simultaneous private deleveraging and fiscal consolidation are restricting eurozone growth far more than remaining restrictions on credit supply.

私人去杠杆化和财政整合的同时进行对欧元区增长的限制远过于信用供给持续受限。


Despite the ECB’s own evidence, however, the policy focus remains on fixing the credit-supply problem, through the AQR and stress tests, and through the ECB’s own version of a funding for lending scheme, announced on June 5.

但是，尽管欧洲央行提出了证据，但政策焦点仍集中在通过资产质量检查和压力测试以及通过欧洲央行自身的贷款专用资金机制（6月5日宣布）来纠正信用供给问题上。


That reflects a recurring tendency in official policy debates, particularly in the eurozone, to concentrate on fixable problems to the exclusion of more difficult issues.

这表明官方政策争论（特别是欧元区内）再度集中于可解决的问题而不去顾及更加困难的问题。


Fixing impaired banking systems after a crisis is both essential and achievable.

在危机后修补受损银行系统至关重要并且可以实现。


Moreover, even when public rescue costs are inevitable, they are typically small change compared to the economic harm wrought by the financial crisis and post-crisis recession.

此外，虽然公共援助成本难以避免，但与金融危机和危机后衰退所带来的经济伤害相比，它们往往只是次要变化。


By contrast, a large debt overhang may be intractable unless policy orthodoxies are challenged.

相反，大量债务积压非常棘手，除非挑战政策正统。


Japan offset private deleveraging in the 1990s by running massive public deficits.

20世纪90年代，日本用大规模公共赤字抵消私人去杠杆化。


The US has pulled out of recession faster than the eurozone, not only – or even primarily – because it fixed its banking system faster, but because it pursued more stimulative fiscal policies.

美国之所以比欧元区更快地摆脱衰退，不仅是因为 — — 甚至并非主要因为 — — 它更快地修补了银行系统，也是因为它采取了更具刺激性的财政政策。


But fiscal stimulus is constrained within the eurozone, where member countries no longer issue their own currency and “sovereign” debt therefore carries a default risk.

但财政刺激却在欧元区受到了限制，欧元区成员国不再发行本国货币，因此“主权”债务有了违约风险。


Aggressive monetary expansion through quantitative easing is also far more complicated and politically contentious in a currency area with no federal debt for the central bank to buy.

通过量化宽松实现的激进的货币扩张在欧元区也更加复杂、更具政治正义性，因为作为货币区的欧元区不存在可供中央银行购买的联邦债务。


To survive and thrive, the eurozone will need to become more centralized, with some common fiscal revenues, expenditures, and debts.

要摆脱困境，实现复苏，欧元区就需要更加集中化，拥有一些共同财政收入、支出和债务。


Of course, this scenario implies immensely difficult political choices.

当然，这一情景意味着非常艰难的政治抉择。


But the starting point for debate must be realism about the nature and severity of the problems facing the eurozone.

但争论起点必须是现实地认清欧元区所面临的问题的性质和严重程度。


If eurozone policy assumes that fixing the banks will fix the economy, the next ten years in Europe could look like the 1990s in Japan.

如果欧元区政策认为解决了银行问题就能解决经济问题，那么欧洲的未来十年将和日本的20世纪90年代一样。


Inequality by the Click

鼠标带来的不平等


LONDON – Pope Francis warned in November that “ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace” are driving rapid growth in inequality.

伦敦—教皇方济各在11月时警告说 ， “ 捍卫市场绝对自治权的意识形态”正在导致不平等性的快速扩大。


Is he right?

他说得对吗？


In one sense, Francis was clearly wrong: in many cases, inequality between countries is decreasing.

从一个角度看，方济各显然是错误的：在许多情形中，国家间的不平等性在下降。


The average Chinese household, for example, is now catching up with the average American household (though still with a long way to go).

比如，中国普通家庭就在赶超美国普通家庭（尽管仍有很大差距 ） 。


But such examples do not negate the importance of rising inequality within countries.

但这样的例子并不能证明国家内部不平等性扩大的问题不重要。


Both China and the United States are dramatically unequal societies – and are becoming more so.

中国和美国都是非常不平等的社会，并且在变得越来越不平等。


In the US, the statistics are striking at both ends of the income distribution.

在美国，收入分布两端的数字都令人震惊。


The bottom quarter of US households have received almost no increase in real (inflation-adjusted) income for the last 25 years.

最底层四分之一的美国家庭在过去25年中的实际（经通胀调整的）收入几乎没有增长。


They are no longer sharing the fruits of their country’s growth.

他们不再能够共享国家成长的果实。


The top 1% of Americans, however, have seen their real incomes almost triple during this period, with their share of national income reaching 20%, a figure not seen since the 1920’s.

但是，同期最顶层1%美国人的实际收入几乎翻了三倍，占国民收入的比重达到了20 % ， 这是自20世纪20年代以来从未有过的现象。


In many emerging countries, rapid economic growth has raised living standards to at least some degree for almost everyone, but the share of the rich and ultra-rich is increasing dramatically.

在许多新兴国家，高速经济增长至少在某种程度提高了几乎所有人的生活水平，但富人和超级富人所占比重在显著增长。


Once these countries approach the average income levels of developed economies, and their growth slows to typical rich-country rates, their future may look like America today.

一旦这些国家达到发达国家的平均收入水平、增长下降到典型富裕国家水平，它们的未来可能将和美国的今天差不多。


Globalization explains some of the bottom-quarter income stagnation in the US and other developed economies.

全球化在一定程度上解释了美国和其他发达经济体低层四分之一收入为什么停滞不前。


Competition from lower-paid Chinese workers has driven down US wages.

来自收入更低的中国工人的竞争拉低了美国的工资。


But technological change may be a more fundamental factor – and one with consequences for all countries.

但技术变迁可能是更为根本的因素，也是影响到所有国家的因素。


Technological change is the essence of economic growth.

技术变迁是经济增长的源泉。


We get richer because we figure out how to maintain or increase output with fewer employees, and because innovation creates new products and services.

我们变得更富是因为我们学会了如何用更少的雇员保持和增加产出，也是因为创新创造出了新产品和新服务。


Successful new technologies always cause job losses in some sectors, which are offset by new jobs elsewhere.

成功的新技术总是会造成一些部门的就业损失，但其他部门的新岗位会抵消这一影响。


Tractors destroyed millions of agricultural jobs, for example, but tractor, truck, and car manufacturers created millions of new ones.

比如，拖拉机毁掉了数百万农业工作岗位，但拖拉机、卡车和汽车制造商又创造了几百万个新岗位。


But new technologies come in subtly different forms, with inherently different economic consequences.

但新技术略有不同，其经济后果也具有本质不同。


Today’s new technologies may have far more troubling distributional effects than those of the electromechanical age.

今天的新技术比电机时代的技术具有高得多的破坏性分配效应。


Imagine that 30 years ago, someone had discovered a set of magic words enabling us to speak to any friend anywhere in the world – “abracadabra John” and you were talking to John, wherever he was.

试想，30年前有人发明了能让我们与世界上任何一位朋友交谈的咒语 — — 只消念一句“约翰来 ” ， 你就能和约翰聊天了。


Provided she secured intellectual-property rights, the inventor would have become the richest person in the world; and her lawyers and those who provided her with luxury goods and services would have become pretty rich, too.

发明人获得了知识产权，于是成了世界首富；他的律师和为他提供奢侈商品和服务的人也将变得十分富有。


But, beyond that, no new jobs would have been created.

但是，除此之外，不会有新就业岗位被创造出来。


Information and communication technology is not costless magic; but it is closer to it than were the innovations of the electromechanical age.

信息和通信技术不是无成本的魔法；但与电机时代的创新相比，它们距离无成本魔法更近了。


The cost of computing hardware collapses over time in line with Moore’s law of relentlessly increasing processing power.

计算机硬件成本遵循摩尔定律下降，于是处理能力不断地上升。


And once software has been developed, the marginal cost of copying it is effectively zero.

而一旦软件被开发出来，复制它的边际成本几乎与零。


The consumer benefits of this technology are large relative to its price: the cost of each year’s latest computer, tablet, or smartphone is trivial compared to the cost of a new car in 1950.

这项技术的消费者好处相对于其价格来说很大：每年的最新款电脑、平板和智能手机成本比起1950年的最新款汽车来根本不值一提。


But the number of jobs created is trivial, too.

但创造的就业岗位数量同样也不值一提。


In 1979, General Motors employed 850,000 workers.

1979年，通用汽车公司雇用了850,000名员工。


Today, Microsoft employs only 100,000 people worldwide, Google employs 50,000, and Facebook employs just 5,000.

如今，微软公司全世界员工总数只有100,000人，谷歌是50,000人，Facebook只有5,000人。


These are mere drops in the ocean of the global labor market, replacing very few of the jobs that information technology has automated away.

如此规模在全球劳动力市场的汪洋大海中只算得上一片小浪花，只相当于被信息技术“自动化”掉的岗位数量的零头。


But increased unemployment is not inevitable.

但失业的增加并不是不可避免的。


There is no limit to the number of service jobs that we can create in retail, restaurants and catering, hotels, and an enormous variety of personal services.

我们可以在零售、餐饮、饭店和各种个人服务行业创造出无限量的工作岗位。


Walmart, for example, employs two million people, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that more than one million additional jobs will be created in America’s leisure and hospitality sector in the next decade.

比如，沃尔玛雇用了两百万人，而美国劳工统计局预测，未来十年美国休闲和酒店业能够创造一百万个新增岗位。


But the wages that the market will set for these jobs may result in yet greater inequality.

但市场为这些岗位准备的工资可能引起更大的不平等。


And there is no reason to believe that politicians’ all-purpose answer to the problem – “increase workforce skills” – will offset this tendency.

没有理由认为政客的通用答案 — — “提升劳动力技能”能扭转这一趋势。


However many people learn superior IT skills, Facebook will never need more than a few thousand employees.

不管多少人学习了尖端IT技能，Facebook永远也只需要几千名员工。


And access to high-paid jobs is likely to be determined not by absolute skill level, but by relative skill in a winner-take-all world.

而能否获得高薪岗位可能不但取决于绝对技能水平，也将取决于在赢家通吃世界中的相对技能水平。