Time for a rethink

到了反思的时候了

The fund ponders fiscal consolidation

IMF重新审视各国财政整顿计划

PUSH a Japanese stand-up doll over, and it bounces back up. It is a symbol of optimism: the Japanese government included three Okiagari-koboshi dolls in the welcome pack for the IMF-World Bank meetings this week in Toyko. The opening message from the IMF was much less positive. A rebound in the global economy is looking less and less likely.

你将一个立着的日本玩偶推倒，它还能重新弹起来。日本政府借此传达乐观信号，他们在欢迎礼包中塞进了三个不倒翁玩偶，来迎接本周在东京召开的国际货币基金组织（IMF）-世界银行峰会。然而，IMF的开场白却显得消极的多，它认为世界经济回暖的希望日渐渺茫。

The first bit of gloom came when the IMF unveiled its new set of global forecasts. The world economy is weakening, and it is not just a euro-area problem. Emerging-market growth is slowing, too: the fund’s 2012 growth estimates for India and Brazil were slashed by one percentage point or more. Both Brazil and South Korea cut interest rates this week.

当IMF宣布其最新的全球经济展望时，人们心中不祥的预感便油然而生。世界经济正在走低，而这并非只是欧元区的问题，连新兴市场的经济也在放缓。IMF预计印度和巴西2012年的经济增速将至少减少1%。本周，巴西和韩国均下调利率。

Even so, emerging markets get a good bill of health overall. Growth rates are still higher than in advanced economies. And policy looks supportive, thanks to low interest rates and a gradual process of deficit reduction. Things look much gloomier in the rich world. Growth is more anaemic. To make things worse, policymakers are responding badly, particularly when it comes to fiscal matters.

尽管如此，新兴市场整体经济状况依旧良好，其经济增长率仍高于发达国家。维持低利率和逐渐减少赤字的政策看上去也帮了大忙。而发达国家却增长乏力，经济前景要暗淡地多。更要命的是，面对当前形势，发达国家领导人应对不力，这在财政问题上尤为明显。

Some prescriptions are obvious. The fund urges America and Japan, the largest and third-largest economies in the world, to end their budgetary politicking. But even if America’s “fiscal cliff” is avoided, and Japan’s budget deadlock broken, the IMF is also rethinking what constitutes good fiscal policy over the longer term.

针对发达经济体的症状，有些药方是显而易见的。IMF敦促作为世界第一大和第三大经济体的美国和日本终止预算相关的政治活动。然而，即便美国能够避免“财政悬崖”，日本能够打破预算僵局，IMF仍在反思一个问题，即就长期而言，什么才是行之有效的财政政策。

According to Olivier Blanchard, the fund’s top economist, the impact of fiscal consolidation is “large, negative, and significant”. The size of this effect is bigger than the fund previously thought. “Fiscal multipliers”—the change in GDP growth that results from a change in the government’s structural budget deficit—were thought until recently to be 0.5. New IMF research now suggests a multiplier effect of 0.9-1.7 is more likely. So deficit reduction of one percentage point could knock up to 1.7 percentage points off growth.

IMF首席经济学家奥利弗·布兰查德称，财政整顿的影响力“巨大，消极而且显著”，其规模之大令IMF也始料未及。财政乘数近期有望达到0.5，这一乘数衡量的是一国GDP增长受政府结构性预算赤字影响的程度。IMF最新研究显示，财政乘数达到0.9-1.7的可能性更大。这就意味着，预算赤字每减少1%，GDP增长最多可以减少1.7%。

This is bad news for countries such as Britain, France and the Netherlands, which plan to front-load their consolidation efforts. Rapid deficit reduction in these countries means that hits to output are now expected to be bigger than before, and are going to materialise in a weaker-than-anticipated global economic environment.

这对于英国、法国和荷兰等国而言可不是什么好消息，它们正计划进一步推行财政整顿。由于这些国家迅速削减赤字，其经济增长预计将受到更大冲击。如今全球经济环境出乎意料地糟糕，这一预期将会变成现实。

The chink of light is that—unlike peripheral euro-zone members—these countries have room to manoeuvre. Borrowing costs remain historically low for most G7 countries; overall interest payments are lower than in 2008, even in countries where debt is higher. That suggests many could buy some time, reducing deficits more gradually so as to spread out the hit to growth.

然而事情还有一线希望。这些国家不同于那些无足轻重的欧元成员国，它们有更多回旋余地。七国集团的贷款成本依旧很低，即便是在负债较多的国家中，整体利息支付也低于2008年水平。这意味着许多国家可以花钱买更多时间，从而更加从容地削减赤字，以分散其对经济增长的冲击。

The fund has thoughts on the substance of fiscal policy, as well as its timing. Shifting the balance towards increasing tax revenue, rather than cutting spending, would mean consolidation is less likely to increase inequality. Governments could use their spending power more cleverly, too. Evidence suggests that generous unemployment benefits tend to increase joblessness. A better approach would be to fund job-search programmes and switch towards in-work benefits, including subsidised child care. “Slower, fairer, smarter” might be one way of summing it all up.

IMF也考虑了财政政策的内容和时机。如果更多地增加税收收入，而不是削减开支，伴随着财政整顿的不平等现象将会被抑制。此外，政府花钱时也应该多动动脑筋。有证据表明，将大把的钱用于失业补助反而会增加失业。更好的方法是投资那些帮助人们找工作的项目，并且改善在职人员的福利，例如提供抚养子女的补贴。总结起来一句话：“ 更从容，更公平，更明智”。