“四速世界”风险加大

飞雪寒冰

During the worst days of the financial crisis, investors and policymakers talked of decoupling, asking if the rich countries crashed would emerging economies continue to grow. They did. But this spawned another mantra: the two-speed world, in which emerging markets surged even as the advanced nations stagnated. We believe it is time to start talking about another, more ominous moniker for the times ahead: the four-speed world, and the dangers it poses to global growth.
在金融危机最严重的时期，投资者和政策制定者都在谈论“脱钩”，询问富国经济崩溃后、新兴经济体能否继续增长。答案是肯定的。而这又催生了另一个口头禅：“双速世界”，即发达国家经济停滞之际，新兴经济体仍高速增长。我们认为对于未来，现在应当开始谈论另一个更加危险的词汇：“四速世界”，以及它对全球经济增长所构成的危险。

This world is one divided not just between countries with fast and slow growth, but also those with low and high inflation. The original two-speed world was the cousin of another hoped-for mantra, global rebalancing. This pushed emerging markets to stimulate domestic demand, and thus help sustain global growth, while the US and others took time out to fix the deficits that impaired their economic dynamism. But it is that same process that is now starting to stoke inflation in many parts of the world.
当今世界不仅可以按照增长速度的快慢划分，还可以按通胀水平的高低来区分。最初“双速世界”的说法往往与另一个人们渴望成真的流行语“全球再平衡”共同出现。它推动了新兴市场国家刺激内需，从而有助于维系全球增长，而美国和其他国家则拿出时间来解决损害其经济活力的财政赤字问题。不过也正是同一个过程，目前正开始在全球许多地区引发通胀。

飞雪寒冰

In a few countries, such as Venezuela, there is slow growth and high inflation. In a few others, such as Taiwan, there is fast growth and low inflation. But in most countries inflation and growth go together, as one would expect. In the slow-growing, advanced countries, inflation is contained at about 2 per cent, whereas in the fast-growing, developing countries it has become a threat, at 6 per cent or higher.
在委内瑞拉等一些经济体，经济增长缓慢，而通胀水平较高。而在台湾等其他一些经济体，经济增长迅猛，且通胀水平较低。不过与人们所想的一样，在多数国家，通胀与经济增长同进同退。在增长缓慢的发达国家，通胀率被遏制在2%左右，而在增长迅猛的发展中国家，通胀已成为一种威胁，达到6%或更高水平。

The larger developing countries, including China, India and Brazil, are among those now seeing inflation in excess of government targets. Higher prices, especially for food, cooking fuel and gas have also increased absolute poverty, according to the World Bank, while consumers in most advanced countries barely notice price increases in their personal expenditures.
通胀超出政府目标水平的国家中，包括一些较大的发展中国家，如中国、印度和巴西。世界银行(World Bank)称，物价上涨，尤其是粮食价格、厨用燃料价格和汽油涨价，也加剧了绝对贫困。而在多数发达国家，消费者们几乎注意不到自己个人支出中的价格上涨。

飞雪寒冰

As one emerging economy after another tightens fiscal and monetary policies to fight inflation, exchange rate appreciation and other symptoms of overheating, the notion that developing countries will keep the world economy motoring along even as the advanced countries slowly mend their broken economies is becoming harder to sustain.
新兴经济体为了遏制通胀、货币升值和其他经济过热的症状，一个接一个地收紧财政和货币政策。那种即使发达国家缓慢地修补破败的经济，发展中国家也能继续推动世界运转的观念，越来越难以为继。

And that is not all. As they try to deal with the repercussions of the four-speed world, advanced countries are showing signs of confusion too. One day they worry about how to ensure China and other fast-growing, developing countries contribute to global growth, the next day the same policy wonks in Washington agonise about these countries’ dangerously overheating economies.
这还不是问题的全部。发达国家在试图解决“四速世界”的不良影响时，也表现出了困惑的迹象。头一天他们还在忧虑如何确保中国和其他高速增长的发展中国家为全球增长做出贡献，而后一天，华盛顿同一拨负责制定政策的书呆子们又开始为这些国家的经济过热已到了危险地步而惴惴不安。

飞雪寒冰

The latest manifestation of this overheating anxiety is – in an ideological about-face – the International Monetary Fund’s recent embrace of capital controls. Another is the prodding to let exchange rates in emerging markets appreciate, to lower the prices of their imports and thus check inflation. This would make their exports less competitive and perhaps curb their growth.
这种过热焦虑最新的体现是一次意识形态逆转——国际货币基金组织(IMF)最近开始支持资本控制。另一个体现是试图推动新兴市场国家货币升值，从而降低他们的进口价格并遏制通胀。这可能会降低这些国家的出口竞争力，可能也会遏制其经济增长。

This intellectual instability is also seen in another flawed assumption of those backing rebalancing – namely that China and other emerging markets representing 20 per cent of global gross domestic product can continue to serve as the new locomotive that pulls the rest along. This would require a large and sustained expansion of their import bill, driven not only by public spending but also an even greater appreciation of their exchange rates. To boost the growth of the rest of the world by just half a per cent of GDP, China and others like it would have to increase their net imports by about 2.5 per cent of their economies every year.
在那些支持“再平衡”的人们另一个存在缺陷的假设中，也能看出这种思想上的波动——他们以为，占全球国内生产总值(GDP)20%的中国及其他新兴市场国家能够继续充当新的“火车头”，拉动其他国家前进。这将需要他们持续大幅扩大进口——不仅要靠公共开支推动，甚至还需要其货币更大幅度的升值。要将世界其他国家的GDP推高哪怕仅仅0.5%个百分点，中国和其他新兴市场国家的净进口额就需要每年提升经济总量的2.5%。

飞雪寒冰

While China and a few others could do – and are likely to do a little – more, the strategy is not viable in the long term. Several of the emerging markets menaced by inflation are already rejecting this approach. And why wouldn’t they? With fragile banks in the main financial capitals, sovereign debt crises in Europe, the US outlook downgraded to negative and international interest rates bound to rise from record low levels, there are strong incentives to play it safe.
虽然中国和其他一些国家能够（也可能会在一定程度上）做得更多，但这种战略从长期来看并不可行。几个面临通胀威胁的新兴市场国家已开始排斥这种做法。为什么不呢？在主要金融中心的银行仍然脆弱、欧洲面临着主权债务危机、美国债务前景被下调负面、而全球利率水平必将从创纪录低点回升之际，谨慎行事的理由十分充足。

The bottom line is that a four-speed world is one in which the advanced countries must bear the brunt of the adjustment to the mess that they themselves created. This means first and foremost re-establishing fiscal sanity. But it means doing this with little help from those friends in emerging countries upon whose vibrant economies we have come to rely.
归根结底，在一个“四速世界”里，面对针对自己造成的麻烦所进行的调整，发达国家必须承担主要责任。这首先意味着应当恢复财政政策的理性。但同时也意味着，虽然我们已开始依赖新兴市场国家充满活力的经济，但这件事情上新兴经济体的朋友们帮不上什么忙。