【英语国际】美国经济会硬着陆吗？

About the first question I was asked when I started writing about political economy was: “Is there going to be a US recession?” If one takes the popular definition of two successive quarters of falling gross domestic product, the answer is most likely not. The last time this occurred was 16 years ago in the winter of 1990-91.

A more sophisticated approach is provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Any period in which economic activity is rising is treated as an upturn and a period in which it is falling is treated as a recession. Activity seems to mean the pressure of demand on supply – nowadays sometimes called the “output gap”. The bureau uses a variety of indicators to determine turning points and it will occasionally change its mind or defer a ruling. On its definitions recessions are short, averaging 10 months in the postwar period, while expansions average nearly five years. The last recession it recorded began in March 2001 and ended eight months later. It would not be surprising if it declared a cyclical peak near the end of 2006. But even NBER methodology has its limitations. It is indifferent, for instance, to the depth of any recession, or the extent, as distinct from duration, of any recovery.

What about the dollar? As Patrick Minford's Liverpool Investment Letter points out, US net foreign debt has hardly changed over the past two and a half decades, in spite of large payments deficits. This is a long way from the consensus view that the US needs a structural shift from growth based on consumer borrowing to growth focused on investment and net exports – a shift that has rarely been accomplished without an economic slowdown. The consensus among international forecasters favours a soft landing. This means a period of US growth falling from 3-4 per cent to, say, 2 per cent a year with some of the slack being taken up by an acceleration in Europe and Japan.

Many forecasters guard themselves by saying that the risks are on the downside. The domestic risk most frequently cited is the housing market. US consumer spending accounts for more than 20 per cent of world GDP; and a further housing shock could yet have an impact on the world economy. So far, however, the housing market has been the
dog that failed to bark, not only in the US but in English-speaking countries such as the UK and Australia. Consumer spending in these countries has decelerated, but not ground to a halt.

More interesting is the fact noted by Andrew Balls of Pimco that the oil exporters have taken over from developing Asian nations as the largest components of the global savings glut. He also points out that the scare about China is overdone. For all its rapid growth, in nominal dollars China's economy is still not much larger than the UK's.

If oil-exporting countries continue to park their surpluses with the US it could postpone even further the long-predicted dollar crisis. If, on the other hand, they try to shift some of their reserves to the eurozone, the euro could appreciate further and damp the developing European recovery. No doubt the Europeans would be pressed by the US to follow a more expansionary policy, as they have been in almost every past year. They have been answered in advance by Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central Bank president, in the December ECB monthly bulletin which states: “Following several years of robust monetary growth, the liquidity situation in the euro area is ample by all plausible measures.” This points to “upside risks to price stability over the medium to longer term”. The assessment is about right and applies to the UK as well, as the Bank of England has recognised with yesterday's rate increase, probably decided by majority vote.

None of this means that Europe can escape a world slowdown. Anyone who doubts that inflation and recession can coincide has only to look at the “stagflation” of the 1970s or the experience of Latin America over centuries. Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, will be reluctant to initiate interest rate cuts until he is confident inflationary expectations are under control and are not just being damped by a possibly short-lived shakeout in oil and commodity prices.

All these matters fade into insignificance compared with the repercussions of a strike by Israel against Iran, from which it would be difficult for the US to stand aside. Such an attack would have to be within the next two years while President George W. Bush is still at the White House. “This is improbable but not as remote a possibility as the market appears to think.” These words do not come from a cantankerous academic or a journalist looking for a headline but appear in a study by the highly respectable international banking firm of ING.

At the end of the day, my own “most likely” forecast is a semi-hard landing – say, average US growth of
1 per cent in 2007-08 – which may not amount to a recession under the popular definition but would still be pretty nasty.

当我开始撰写政治经济方面的文章时，被问到的第一个问题就是：“美国会发生经济衰退吗？”如果按照国内生产总值(GDP)连续两个季度下降即为经济衰退的普遍定义，那么答案最有可能是：不会。上一次美国出现经济衰退是在16年前，即1990-91年那个冬季。美国国家经济研究局(National Bureau of Economic Research)提供了一种更为复杂的方法。经济活动不断增加的任何时期都被视为扩张期，而经济活动持续减少的时期则被当作衰退期。经济活动似乎意味着需求对供应的压力——现在有时候被称作“产出缺口”(output gap)。国家经济研究局使用多种指标，确定经济周期的转折点，该机构有时会改变主意，或者推迟做出判断。根据其定义，经济衰退期比较短，在战后时期平均为10个月，而经济扩张期一般接近5年。该机构记录中的上一次衰退始自2001年3月份，于8个月后结束。如果该机构断言经济于2006年底出现周期性见顶，不会令人感到意外。但即便是国家经济研究局的方法论，也存在局限性。例如，该机构对于经济衰退的深度、或经济复苏的程度（其持续时间明显不同）都不予区分。

那美元又如何呢？正如帕特里克•明福特(Patrick Minford)的《利物浦投资信息》(Liverpool Investment Letter)所指出的，过去25年里，尽管美国在国际收支方面出现大量赤字，但其外债净额几乎没有变化。市场远未就一个观点达成共识：即美国需要进行结构性转移，从以消费者借贷为基础的增长，转型至重点放在投资和净出口上的增长——很少有哪个经济体能在不出现经济放缓的情况下，实现这种转移。国际经济预测人士普遍倾向于美国经济将出现软着陆的观点。这意味着会出现这样一个时期：即美国年增长率从3%-4%，降至2%上下，而这种放缓一定程度上将被欧洲和日本的经济提速所抵消。

许多经济预测家声称下行风险超出上行风险，以此保护自己。在国内风险方面，提到最频繁的是住宅市场。美国消费支出在全球GDP中所占的比例超过20%；而进一步的住宅市场危机可能对全球经济造成影响。不过到目前为止，住宅市场一直都是“一只不会叫的狗”，不仅在美国如此，在英国和澳大利亚等英语国家也一样。这些国家的消费支出已经减速，但并未陷入停顿。

更有趣的是太平洋投资管理公司(Pimco)的安德鲁•鲍尔斯(Andrew Balls)列举的一个事实：目前石油出口国已取代亚洲发展中国家，成为全球巨额储蓄最大的构成部分。他同时指出，对中国的恐惧有些过头。尽管中国经济增长迅速，但以名义美元计算，中国的经济规模仍不会比英国大多少。

如果石油出口国继续将它们的盈余投资于美国资产，可能进一步延缓人们长期预测的美元危机。此外，如果这些国家试图将部分外汇储备转移至殴元区，欧元可能会进一步升值，并遏制欧洲目前的经济复苏。毫无疑问，美国将迫使欧洲国家遵循一种更具扩张性的政策，就像过去所有年份那样。欧洲央行(ECB)行长让-克洛德•特里谢(Jean-Claude Trichet) 在该行去年12月份的月度声明中，已经提前对它们作出了回答，声明称：“在经历了数年的强劲货币增长后，按照所有解释得过去的标准衡量，欧元区的流动性都相当充沛。”这导致“中长期价格稳定存在上行风险”。这种评估很合理，也适用于英国，英格兰银行(Bank of England)已意识到了这一问题，上周采取了加息举措，这一决定可能是通过多数投票做出的。

上述种种，并不意味着欧洲能够逃脱全球放缓。那些怀疑通胀和经济衰退可能同时发生的人们，只需看看上世纪70年代的“滞胀”，或几个世纪来拉美的经历就可以了。在确信通胀预期得到控制、并且不会只是由于石油及大宗商品价格可能是短期的震荡影响之前，美联储(Fed)主席本•伯南克(Ben Bernanke)将不愿启动降息举措。

上述问题与以色列打击伊朗的后果相比，都算不了什么。美国很难对此袖手旁观。这类打击只能在布什总统(George W. Bush)执掌白宫的剩下两年内发生。“这不太可能，但可能性并不像市场似乎认为的那么小。”此话并非出自某位刚愎自用的学者，也不是一名写标题的记者，而是出自颇受尊敬的国际银行集团——荷兰国际集团(ING)的一项研究。

归根结底，我自己认为“最有可能”的预测，是美国将出现半硬着陆——比如说，2007年至2008年美国经济平均增长率为1%——按照普遍定义衡量，这可能不会造成经济衰退，但影响仍将非常严重。

译者/何黎