The 90% economy, revisited

再度审视“90%经济份额”

Is the world economy recovering?

世界经济正在复苏吗?

A recovery is taking shape—but it is extraordinarily uneven

经济复苏正在成形，但却极不平衡

Sep 16th 2020 | 

THE WORST day of the covid-19 pandemic, at least from an economic perspective, was Good Friday. On April 10th lockdowns in many countries were at their most severe, confining people to their homes and crushing activity. Global GDP that day was 20% lower than it would otherwise have been (see chart 1). Since then governments have lifted lockdowns. Economies have begun to recover. Analysts are pencilling in global GDP growth of 7% or more in the third quarter of this year, compared with the second.

新冠疫情最糟糕的一天大概就是耶稣受难日了；至少从经济角度来看是这样。4月10日，许多国家的封锁达到了最严重的程度，人们只能呆在家里，活动遭到破坏。那天的全球GDP比不这样做的时候低了20%(见表1)。自那以后，各国政府解除了封锁。经济已经开始复苏。分析师预计，今年第三季度全球GDP增幅将比第二季度达到7%或更高。

That may all sound remarkably V-shaped, but the world is still a long way from normal. Governments continue to enforce social-distancing measures to keep the virus at bay. These reduce output—by allowing fewer diners in restaurants at a time, say, or banning spectators from sports arenas. People remain nervous about being infected. Economic uncertainty among both consumers and firms is near record highs—and this very probably explains companies’ reluctance to invest (see chart 2).

这一切听起来可能都是明显的v型走势，但世界离正常仍有很长的路要走。各国政府继续实施社会隔离措施，以遏制病毒。这些措施减少了产出——比如，通过减少餐馆同一时间的用餐数量，或者禁止观众进入体育场。人们对被感染仍然感到紧张。消费者和企业的经济不确定性都接近历史最高点——这很可能解释了企业不愿投资的原因(见表2)。

词汇

at bay/陷入绝境；陷入困境

Calculations by Goldman Sachs, a bank, suggest that social-distancing measures continue to reduce global GDP by 7-8%—roughly in line with what The Economist argued in April, when we coined the term “90% economy” to describe what would happen once lockdowns began to be lifted. Yet although the global economy is operating at about nine-tenths capacity, there is a lot of variation between industries and countries. Some are doing relatively—and surprisingly—well, others dreadfully.

高盛银行的计算表明，社交隔离措施将继续导致全球GDP下降7-8%——这与《经济学人》在4月份提出的观点大致一致，当时我们创造了“90%经济”这个术语来描述一旦封锁解除后将会发生的情况。然而，尽管全球经济以90%的产能运行，但不同行业和国家之间存在很大差异。令人惊讶的是，一些团体做得相对不错，而另一些则做得非常糟糕。

词汇

 Dreadfully/ 可怕地；糟透地

Take the respective performance of goods and services. Goods have bounced back fast. Global retail sales had recovered their pre-pandemic level by July, according to research by JPMorgan Chase, another bank. Armed with $2trn-worth of cash handouts from governments since the virus struck, consumers across the world have stocked up on things to make it bearable to be at home more often, from laptops to dumbbells, which partly explains why world trade has held up better than economists had expected. Global factory output has made up nearly all the ground it lost during the lockdowns.

以商品和服务各自的表现为例。商品价格迅速反弹。另一家银行摩根大通的研究显示，到今年7月，全球零售额已恢复到大流行前的水平。自从病毒袭击以来，各国政府发放了价值2万亿美元的现金，世界各地的消费者囤积了从笔记本电脑到哑铃等各种物品，以便能更经常地呆在家里。这在一定程度上解释了为什么世界贸易的表现好于经济学家的预期。全球工厂产出几乎弥补了封锁期间损失的全部份额。

Services activity is a lot further below its pre-pandemic level, largely because such industries are vulnerable to people avoiding crowds. The number of diners in restaurants remains 30-40% lower than normal worldwide, according to data from OpenTable, a booking platform. The number of scheduled flights is about half what it was just before the pandemic struck.

服务业的活动远低于大流行前的水平，很大程度上是因为这类行业容易受到人们“避开人群”的影响。预订平台OpenTable的数据显示，全球餐厅用餐人数比正常水平低了30-40%。定期航班的数量大约是大流行爆发前的一半。

The variation in economic performance between countries is even more striking. It is common for growth rates to diverge in downturns. But the size of this year’s collapse in output means that the differences between countries’ growth rates are enormous. On September 16th the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, issued fresh economic forecasts. Like other forecasters—such as the Federal Reserve, which on the same day published new projections for the American economy—it has become less gloomy in recent months.

国与国之间经济表现的差异更为惊人。在经济低迷时期，增长率出现差异是很常见的。但今年产出大幅下滑的规模意味着，各国之间的增长率差异巨大。9月16日，主要由富裕国家组成的经合组织发布了新的经济预测。像其他的预测机构一样，比如美联储，在同一天发布了对美国经济的新预测，近几个月来，它已经变得不那么悲观了。

Still, the growth gap between best and worst performers in the G7 group of countries in 2020 is expected to be 6.7 percentage points, far wider than that during the last global downturn a decade ago. Of the big economies, only China is set to expand in 2020. Some countries, such as America and South Korea, face a downturn but hardly a catastrophic one (see chart 3). Britain, by contrast, looks to be in line for its deepest recession since the Great Frost of 1709.

不过，在2020年，七国集团(G7)中表现最好的国家和表现最差的国家之间的增长差距预计将达到6.7个百分点，远高于10年前上一次全球经济衰退时的差距。在大型经济体中，只有中国将在2020年实现经济增长。一些国家，如美国和韩国，正面临经济衰退，但并不是灾难性的(见表3)。相比之下，英国似乎正处于自1709年大霜冻以来最严重的衰退之中。

Some economists contend that the huge gap between countries is a statistical mirage, reflecting different methods of computing GDP figures. In Britain, for instance, the way statisticians tot up government spending means that school closures and cancelled hospital appointments have a bigger impact on GDP than elsewhere. But this effect is small—the bulk of the fall in output has come from the private sector.

一些经济学家认为，国与国之间的巨大差距是统计上的海市蜃楼，反映了计算GDP数据的不同方法。例如，在英国，统计学家计算政府支出的方式意味着学校关闭和取消医院预约；而该做类做法对于GDP在其他任何地方的影响都大。但实际上该两类的影响很小——产出的大部分下降来自私营部门。

词汇

Mirage/海市蜃楼；幻想

tot up /合计

Instead, performance comes down to three factors. The first is industrial composition. Countries such as Greece and Italy, which rely on retail and hospitality, always looked more vulnerable than, say, Germany. Its large manufacturing sector has benefited from the global goods recovery.

相反，绩效可以归结为三个因素。首先是产业结构。像希腊和意大利这样依赖零售业和酒店业的国家，看起来总是比德国这样的国家更脆弱。其庞大的制造业得益于全球商品复苏。

Second is confidence, which appears to be determined by a country’s experience under lockdown. Britain’s poor economic performance is likely to be related to the government’s poor handling of the pandemic. Britons seem more nervous than other Europeans about venturing outside.

其次是信心，这似乎取决于一个国家在封锁期间的经历。英国糟糕的经济表现可能与政府对疫情处理不力有关。对于对外投机，英国人似乎比其他欧洲人更紧张不安。

Venture/冒险；投机（尤指经济层面）

The third factor is stimulus. America’s lawmakers may be unable to agree on a top-up, but they have already enacted the world’s largest rescue package, relative to the size of its economy. The OECD thinks it will be one of the better-performing rich countries this year.

第三个因素是刺激。美国的立法者可能无法就追加资金达成一致，但他们已经制定了相对于其经济规模而言世界上最大的救助计划。经合组织认为中国将是今年表现较好的【】国家之一。

What next for the 90% economy? Some authorities have been forced to order further lockdowns. But others may be able to calibrate social-distancing measures better without jeopardising output. That might bring the world closer to, say, a 95% economy. Indeed, the OECD expects global GDP to recover further this year.

90%的经济接下来会怎样?一些当局被迫下令进一步封锁。但其他团体可能能够更好地在不危及产出的情况下调整社交距离措施。这可能会让世界联系更紧密，或者更进一步说，95%的经济体。事实上，经合组织预计今年全球GDP将进一步复苏。

词汇

calibrate /校正；调整

Jeopardise/危及（等于jeopardize）；使…受危险

It may be tempting to think that a vaccine, if it could be rolled out widely enough, would quickly restore normality. But there will be scars. Firms’ reluctance to invest today will mean less productive capital in the future. A growing number of American workers believe they will not be returning to their old jobs. Reallocating redundant resources towards more productive firms will take time. The Fed’s rate-setters reckon unemployment will not return to its pre-pandemic rate of 4% until 2023; analysts at Goldman Sachs think it will do so only in 2025, even though they are optimistic that a vaccine will soon be widely distributed. Much as the disease itself has long-lasting effects, the covid-induced downturn will leave the world economy feeling subpar for some time to come.

如果一种疫苗能够在足够大的范围内推广，经济情况将很快恢复正常，这种想法也许很诱人。但疫情依旧会带来创伤。企业今天不愿投资，这将意味着未来的生产性资本减少。越来越多的美国工人认为他们不会回到原来的工作岗位。将多余的资源重新分配给生产力更高的公司需要时间。美联储的利率制定者估计，失业率要到2023年才能回到大流行前4%的水平;高盛的分析师认为，这种情况要到2025年才能实现，尽管他们对疫苗很快就会广泛分发持乐观态度。尽管这种疾病本身具有持久的影响，但新冠肺炎引发的经济低迷将使世界经济在未来一段时间内处于欠佳状态。

词汇

 Tempting/吸引人的；诱惑人的

 subpar /低于标准的；在平均水平以下的