每天一篇经济学人 | The world economy 世界经济（202...

Predicting a global recession usually means standing out from the crowd. Today it is those saying the world economy will avoid a downturn who are sticking their necks out. America’s Federal Reserve is leading a broad charge to tighten monetary policy, and has raised interest rates by 2¼ percentage points since March. It is expected to impose another point of tightening by December. Europe is short of natural gas because of falling supplies from Russia. X growth has slowed sharply as a result of the lockdowns that stem from its zero-covid policy, and worries are mounting over its fragile property markets.

预测全球经济衰退通常意味着脱颖而出。如今，那些说世界经济将避开衰退的人正做出大胆猜测。美国联邦储备委员会(美联储)正在领导一项广泛的紧缩货币政策，自3月以来其已经将利率提高了2.25%个百分点。预计美联储将在12月之前实施新一轮紧缩措施。俄罗斯天然气供应减少导致欧洲天然气短缺。零新冠政策导致的封锁，使经济增长大幅放缓，并且人们对其脆弱的房地产市场的担忧日益加剧。

So gloomy is the mood that many investors are asking whether a recession has already arrived. It is a hard question to answer. The pandemic has played havoc with economic indicators. Inflation has caused consumer confidence to plunge, but when asked about their personal finances rather than the whole economy, people are much cheerier. America’s disappointing GDP figures do not tally with other measures of output or employers’ growing payrolls. Manufacturing surveys register their weakest results since the early days of the pandemic, but that may be because consumers are still rebalancing their spending after the worst phase of the pandemic (there is less buying of home-gym equipment, but more queuing in airports). Even X slowdown could help Europe narrowly, by reducing global demand for liquefied natural gas.

市场情绪如此悲观，以至于许多投资者都在问，经济衰退是否已经到来。这是个很难回答的问题。疫情严重影响了经济指标。通货膨胀导致消费者信心下降，但当被问及他们的个人财务状况而不是整个经济时，人们要高兴得多。美国令人失望的GDP数据与其他产出指标或雇主增长的工资开支不符。制造业的调查结果显示出其自疫情初期以来最差的“效益”，但这可能是因为消费者在疫情最严重阶段后仍在重新平衡他们的支出(家庭健身设备的购买减少了，但在机场排队的人更多了)。就连[...] 经济放缓也可能略微帮助欧洲，因为这将降低全球对液化天然气的需求。

Regardless of whether economies are already shrinking, it is hard to see how they can avoid a recession over the next year as monetary tightening bites and Europe heads into a bleak winter. The silver lining is that both higher interest rates and the energy shock will bring gains that should strengthen the world economy in the long run.

无论经济是否已经萎缩，随着货币紧缩的影响和欧洲进入一个寒冷的冬天，很难看到他们如何能在未来一年避免衰退。好消息是更高的利率以及能源冲击都将带来收益，从长期来看，这些收益应该会加强世界经济。

Some recessions feed on themselves as indebted households cut their spending or defaults cascade through a fragile financial system. With a few exceptions, such as Canada’s frothy housing market, today’s big economies suffer from few such vulnerabilities. In fact, households and companies look strong.

一些经济衰退是由负债家庭削减开支，或者脆弱的金融体系面临违约潮造成的。除了少数例外，如加拿大房地产市场泡沫，今天的大型经济体很少像它这样脆弱。事实上，家庭和企业看起来都很强劲。

The bank balances of the poorest American households are around 70% fatter than they were in 2019. Even the threat of an emerging-market financial crisis—the usual worry when the Fed raises rates—is not what it once was. That is in part because of a switch towards debts denominated in local currencies rather than dollars.

美国最贫困家庭的银行余额比2019年增加了约70%。即使是新兴市场金融危机的威胁（这是美联储加息时的常见担忧）也已不像从前那样。这在一定程度上是因为转向了以本币而非美元计价的债务。

The main global economic fault line is inflation. Thankfully, it is still short in the tooth. The last time the Fed tightened monetary policy so dramatically, in the early 1980s, prices had more than doubled over the previous decade. Today the figure is just 29%, because inflation only took off last year. Though America’s economy has badly overheated, long-term inflation expectations remain modest. The best historical analogy is probably not the prolonged battle with stagflation of the 1970s but the burst in consumer prices that followed the mass disruption of the second world war. The downturn that brought that inflation to an end was shallow and left few scars. A mild recession should squeeze price rises out of the economy this time, too. Already, markets are betting that American prices will rise by about 3.8% over the next year, less than half the current inflation rate.

全球经济的主要断层线是通货膨胀。值得庆幸的是，通胀时间还很短。上一次美联储如此大幅收紧货币政策是在上世纪80年代初，当时的物价在过去10年里上涨了一倍多。如今这个数字仅为29%，因为通货膨胀去年才开始加剧。尽管美国经济严重过热，但长期通胀预期仍然温和。和上世纪70年代与滞胀的长期斗争进行历史类比，不是最好的，而应该与二战大规模破坏之后消费价格的爆发进行类比。导致那次通货膨胀结束的经济衰退并不严重，几乎没有留下什么伤痕。这次，一场温和的衰退也会导致经济物价上涨。市场已经认定美国的物价在未来一年将上涨3.8%，还不到目前通胀率的一半。

Elsewhere the main impetus for inflation is soaring global food and energy prices and disrupted supply chains, which are raising the price of imported goods. Some shortages are already easing. Wheat prices are down by nearly 40% from their recent peak in May. Oil prices have also been falling lately. Supply chains are recovering. Unfortunately, Europe’s gas shortage is getting worse. Though governments are doing their best to shield consumers from the consequences, if rationing becomes necessary, industrial production and hence GDP will fall, perhaps steeply in exposed economies like Germany. Even as output shrinks, inflation will rise further.

在其他地方，通胀的主要推动力是全球食品和能源价格的飙升，以及供应链的中断，这就导致进口商品价格上涨。一些短缺已经有所缓解。小麦价格较5月份的峰值下降了近40%。最近油价也在下跌。供应链正在恢复。不幸的是，欧洲的天然气短缺越来越严重。尽管政府正在尽最大努力保护消费者不受影响，但如果定量配给成为必要，工业生产和GDP也将会下降，在像德国这样受影响的经济体中可能会急剧下降。即使产出萎缩，通胀也会进一步上升。

Yet in the same way that a downturn should purge the American economy of its inflation problem, so Europe could emerge from recession having overcome its complacency about the supply of energy. Policymakers have belatedly realised that a carefully managed shift to clean energy also eases their dependence on autocratic regimes.

然而，就像经济衰退会消除美国经济的通胀问题一样，欧洲也可以克服对能源供应的自满情绪，走出衰退。决策者们很晚才意识到，谨慎受控地向清洁能源转变也会减轻他们对专制政权的依赖。

Around the world, investment in renewable energy is surging and governments that were previously sceptical about nuclear power—an essential part of a low-carbon energy grid—are reconsidering their opposition to it. Even Japan, which suffered the Fukushima disaster in 2011, is hoping to restart more nuclear reactors. If the world emerges from the coming downturn with inflation under control and on the path to greener, more secure energy supplies, the pain will not have been for nothing.

在世界范围内，对可再生能源的投资正在激增，以及曾经对低碳能源网的重要组成部分，即核能持怀疑态度的政府也在重新考虑他们对核能的反对态度。就连2011年遭受福岛核灾难的日本，也希望重启更多的核反应堆。如果世界走出即将到来的经济衰退，通胀得到控制，并走上更环保、更安全的能源供应之路，那么这些痛苦就不会一文不值了。