【英语财经】全球性经济灾难不大可能发生 Why economic disaster is an unlikely event

There is a great deal of ruin in a nation. Thus did the wise Adam Smith rebuke a correspondent’s worry that ruin was bound to follow reversals in the war against the North American colonists. If there is a great deal of ruin in an individual country, there is even more ruin in the world economy. Somehow, it keeps on going.

Measured at purchasing power parity, the world economy has grown in every year since 1946, even (albeit barely) in 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis. The period between 1900 and 1946 was more unstable than the era of managed capitalism that succeeded it. Even so, the world economy grew in all but nine of those years. (See chart.)

The innovation-driven economy that emerged in the late 18th and 19th centuries and spread across the globe in the 20th and 21st just grows. That is the most important fact about it. It does not grow across the world at all evenly — far from it. It does not share its benefits among people at all equally — again, far from it. But it grows. It grew last year. Much the most plausible assumption is that it will grow again this year.

The world economy will not grow forever. But it will only stop when the economics of Thomas Malthus overwhelm those of Joseph Schumpeter — that is, when resource constraints offset innovation. We are certainly not there yet.

Since 1900, the world’s output has grown at a rate of just over 3 per cent a year. Such is the power of compound interest that world output has expanded more than 30-fold over this period. Output grew relatively slowly in the early part of the 20th century and relatively fast between 1947 and the early 1970s. Intriguingly, it grew a bit faster under postwar Keynesian economics than under the conservative revival launched by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Now consider the pattern of volatility. The marked volatility between 1914 and 1919 was due to the first world war; that of the 1930s to the Great Depression; and that of the 1940s to the second world war. The instability of the 1970s and early 1980s was due to the oil shocks, triggered (or augmented) by war (the Yom Kippur war of 1973 and Iraq’s 1980 invasion of Iran). Inflationary financing of the Vietnam war generated the inflationary backdrop to the instability. Ultimately, that led to disinflation by the Federal Reserve, under Paul Volcker.

The slowdown in 1990 and 1991 was again due to disinflation and the first Gulf war, which followed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. The slowdown in 1998 was triggered by the Asian financial crisis, that in 2001 by the bursting of a huge stock market bubble and that in 2009 by the western financial crisis.

This picture of the past indicates the kind of events one should worry about. In brief, there seem to be three: wars; inflation shocks (perhaps linked to wars or jumps in commodity prices); and financial crises. These phenomena can be linked: wars will trigger inflation if their finance is by inflationary means.

In this light, let us consider current risks. Some analysts have been convinced for years that high inflation must result from the expansion of central-bank balance sheets. They are wrong. It is quite possible for central banks to control the effects of their policies upon the expansion in credit and money.

A second set of risks, again ceaselessly promoted, is that of financial crisis. The biggest risks seem to be in emerging economies. But these risks are likely to be contained or prove manageable at the global level. If the worst came to the worst, the results are likely to be more like those of 1998 than of 2009.

The third set of risks is that of geopolitical upheaval and conflict. We can identify a daunting list of worries: the massive overloading of the EU’s capacity to act; the possible exit of the UK from the EU; the hollowing out of the western alliance; the rise of populist pressures in high-income countries, shown in the success of Marine Le Pen and the rise of “Trumpism”; uncertainty about China’s economic and even political future; the rise of global jihadism, and particularly of Isis, the “world’s most powerful terrorist organisation”; Russian revanchism; disputes among great powers, notably between Russia and the US and China and the US; friction in the Middle East, notably between Iran and Saudi Arabia; state failure; floods of refugees; and US retreat from its hegemonic role.

Beyond this is a decline in the legitimacy and effectiveness of many high-income democracies, the fragile self-importance of many other powers and the chaos in large parts of the world. Yet all this comes at the same time as a need for effective global governance in an integrated and interdependent world.

If one wants to worry, there is plenty to worry about. Yet, from the economic viewpoint, what matters is not so much whether the world will be well managed: it will not be. What matters more is whether a disaster will be avoided.

What would such an event look like? A war among great powers could be one. Election of a bellicose ignoramus to the US presidency could be another. A war between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be a disaster. The replacement of the Saudi regime by Isis would be another. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan would be another. Collapse of the EU could prove yet another.

The cumulative chance that at least one of all such disasters will occur is greater than the chance that any one of them will do so. Nevertheless, the likelihood that none of them will occur is surely bigger. Remember: there is a great deal of ruin in the world economy.

一个国家里毁灭的东西多着呢。曾有一位记者担心，若是反抗北美殖民主义者的战争失败就面临毁灭，睿智的亚当?斯密(Adam Smith)说了这句话来反驳。如果说一个国家里有很多东西毁灭了，那么世界经济中毁灭的东西就更多了。不管怎样，世界经济还在继续运转。

以购买力平价衡量，自1946年以来，世界经济每年都在增长，包括全球金融危机爆发后的2009年（尽管只是略有增长）。1900年至1946年这段时期与之后“有管理的资本主义”(managed capitalism)时期相比更不稳定，但也只有9个年头没有出现增长（见图表。）

始兴于18世纪末和19世纪、并在20世纪和21世纪扩散到全球的创新驱动型经济至今仍在增长。这是最重要的事实。它并没有在全球范围内平均地增长——远非如此。它也根本没有让人们平等地分享它所带来的好处——同样远非如此。但它在增长。去年它增长了，一个非常合理的假设是今年它将再次增长。

世界经济不会永远增长。但它只有在托马斯?马尔萨斯(Thomas Malthus)经济学战胜约瑟夫?熊彼特(Joseph A. Schumpeter)经济学的时候才会停下脚步，即当资源约束抵消创新时。我们目前肯定还没到那一步。

自1900年以来，全球产出增速仅为每年略超过3%。复利的力量如此巨大，在这段时期全球产出增长了逾30倍。20世纪初叶，产出增速相对缓慢；1947年至上世纪70年代初之间，增速较快。有趣的是，战后凯恩斯经济学盛行时期的经济增速略快于上世纪80年代玛格丽特?撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)和罗纳德?里根(Ronald Reagan)推动保守主义复兴的时期。

现在来看看波动的模式。1914年至1919年间经济的明显波动是因为第一次世界大战；上世纪30年代的波动源于“大萧条”(Great Depression)；上世纪40年代的波动是因为第二次世界大战。上世纪70年代到80年代初的不稳定是源于石油危机，那是战争（1973年的赎罪日战争(Yom Kippur)以及1980年的伊拉克入侵伊朗战争）引起的（或者因为战争而加剧）。越南战争的通胀性融资造成了不稳定的通胀背景。最终，这导致保罗?沃尔克(Paul Volcker)领导的美联储(Fed)采取反通胀举措。



1990年和1991年的经济放缓也是源于反通胀以及第一次海湾战争，此前萨达姆?侯赛因(Saddam Hussein)入侵了科威特。1998年的经济放缓是由亚洲金融危机引起的，2001年经济放缓是因为股市巨大泡沫破裂引发的，2009年经济放缓是由西方金融危机引起的。

过去的经验说明了人们应该担心哪类事件。简而言之，似乎有3类：战争；通胀冲击（可能与战争或大宗商品价格飞涨有关）；以及金融危机。这些现象可能是联系在一起的：如果战争融资是通过通胀性手段获得的，那么战争将引发通胀。

让我们从这个角度考虑一下当前的风险吧。多年来，一些分析人士相信，央行资产负债表扩张肯定会造成高通胀。他们错了。央行是很有可能控制自身政策对信贷和货币扩张的影响的。

第二类风险人们也不停地提起，那就是金融危机。最大的风险似乎是在新兴经济体。但就全球来说，这些风险可能是受限或者是可以应付的。如果最坏的情形出现，结果可能更像1998年、而非2009年的危机。

第三类风险是地缘政治动荡和冲突。我们可以列出一系列长得令人生畏的担忧：欧盟背负过重职责；英国可能退出欧盟；西方联盟中空化；马琳?勒庞(Marine Le Pen)的成功以及特朗普主义(Trumpism)的兴起所体现出的高收入国家民粹主义压力上升；中国经济乃至政治未来的不确定性；全球圣战主义的兴起，尤其是“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国”(ISIS)这个“全球最强大的恐怖组织”；俄罗斯的复仇主义；大国争端，尤其是俄美以及中美之间；中东地区的冲突，尤其是伊朗和沙特之间的冲突；政府瘫痪；难民潮；美国放弃其全球霸主地位。

除此之外还有许多高收入民主国家的合法性和有效性下降、许多大国自视甚高但其实不堪一击，以及全球一大部分地区混乱不堪。然而在这一切发生的同时，我们有必要在一个一体化且相互依存的世界进行有效的全球治理。

如果你担忧的话，那就有很多可担忧的事情。然而，从经济学角度来说，重要的不在于是否会管理好这个世界——那是不可能的。更为重要的是能否避免灾难。

此类事件会是什么样子？大国间的战争可能是一个。好斗的无知者在美国大选中胜出可能是另一个。伊朗和沙特之间的战争将是一场灾难。ISIS取代沙特政权将是另一个。印度和巴基斯坦之间的核战争将是一个，欧盟解体可能也是一个。

上述灾难至少有一个发生的累积几率超过发生其中任何一个灾难的几率。然而，它们都不会发生的可能性肯定更高。别忘了，世界经济中毁灭的东西多着呢。

译者/何黎