[Economist] 下一次经济衰退（三）

Booms tend not to die of old age, and there are killers aplenty lurking in the shadows. Globally, policy is slowly but surely becoming less supportive of boom conditions. True, America only recently passed a budget-busting tax reform, which promises to swell its deficit and thus to boost American spending. But in most other rich countries government borrowing is flat to falling. Across much of the emerging world, too, deficits are expected to shrink in coming years. China’s government is trying to rein in the credit-dependency of its economy, with some success.

经济繁荣一般并不会因为保持时间过长而消退，在暗处潜伏着许多的杀手。从全球范围而言，经济政策正在缓慢却又坚定地改变支持经济繁荣的方针。确实，美国最近通过了一项会耗尽预算的税改方案，这个方案将要增加赤字来刺激美国的消费。在其他富裕国家，政府借贷正在平缓下降。其他许多国家也是同样，赤字在可预见的未来几年会下降。中国政府正在对其信用依赖性进行控制，并取得了一些成果。

Central banks are pitiless executioners of long-lived booms, and monetary policy has shifted. America’s Federal Reserve has slowly been raising its benchmark interest rate since late 2015. The Bank of England followed suit in 2017 and is expected to continue to increase interest rates slowly over the next few years. The European Central Bank (ecb) will probably conclude its stimulative bond-buying in December and may begin to raise its benchmark rate in late 2019. Global financial conditions, though still fairly relaxed, have become slightly less so recently. Most central banks have become less concerned about economic weakness and more worried about inflation. If they overdo their reaction, they could slow down the global economy more than intended.

中央银行是长期经济繁荣的无情终结者，货币政策也同样已经发生变化。美国联邦储备系统自 2015 年以来缓慢的增加其基准利率。英格兰银行在 2017 年跟进，并且在预期的未来几年内持续缓慢增加其基准利率。欧洲中央银行可能在十二月终结其刺激债权购买的政策，并可能在 2019 年晚些时候开始增加基准利率。全球经济环境，虽然仍较为宽松，但在最近已经开始慢慢缩进。大多数中央银行开始不再担忧经济下滑而开始关心通胀。而如果这些银行过分反映，就可能比预期的更多的减慢全球经济发展。

America’s Fed, in particular, is treading a difficult path. Over the past few decades economic and financial cycles in the global economy have become more closely connected. Some economists reckon that the link remains loose. Eugenio Cerutti of the imf, Stijn Claessens of the Bank for International Settlements (bis) and Andrew Rose of the University of California, Berkeley reckon that global financial factors explain no more than a quarter of the movement of capital across borders. Others disagree. Hélène Rey, of the London Business School, links the global financial cycle to worldwide swings in appetite for risk, which is in turn governed by the stance of American monetary policy. Òscar Jordà and Alan Taylor, of the University of California, Davis and colleagues have found cross-border wobbling in financial variables such as equity prices is at its most synchronised for more than a century.

尤其是美国联邦储备系统，正行走在艰难的道路之上。在过去的几十年中，全球经济和金融结合变得越来越紧密。有些经济学家认为这种联结仍然较为宽松。国际货币基金组织的 Eugenio Cerutti ，国际清算银行的 Stijn Claessens ，加州大学伯克利分校的 Andrew Rose 认为全球经济因素仅仅能解释不超过四分之一的国家间资本运作。而其他经济学家并不同意。伦敦商学院的 Hélène Rey 认为，全球经济周期与世界范围内对于风险的渴望，而这又是由美国货币政策所决定。加州大学的 Òscar Jordà 和 Alan Taylor 发现金融状况在不同国家间涨跌，诸如股本价格，在一个多世纪以来都是高度一致的。