瑞士达沃斯，全球经济精英们头脑中两个压倒一切的问题是：各国政府承诺提振国民经济的资金是否足以避免全球经济陷入持续下滑？一旦经济触底，增长动力将从何而来？
在为期5天的世界经济论坛开始之际，上述问题答案的总体轮廓正在成形。经济学家们表示，从华盛顿到北京的各国财政刺激计划将减轻经济下滑的冲击，但难以避免一场全球性的经济衰退。而未来全球经济再次实现增长，其推动力仍将部分来自于美国消费者，只不过相比此前经济热潮时期的负债消费，他们的消费水平会有显著下滑。

中国总理温家宝是达沃斯经济论坛38年历史上首位出席的中国领导人。他可能会致力于淡化外界对中国带动全球走出经济危机的预期。尽管中国已经跃居为全球生产中心，但中国和印度等新兴亚洲经济体一样，仍然太弱小、太贫穷、太依赖于出口，无法在未来数年为全球经济提供诸多缓冲。

亚洲经济无力抵御美国消费下滑带来的影响，这意味着任何全球经济复苏都将姗姗来迟，复苏后的增长率也会低于近年来的水平。

纽约金融和经济预测机构RGE Monitor负责人、达沃斯经济论坛常客鲁比尼(Nouriel Roubini)表示，我们曾认为全球经济可保持每年4%-5%的增长率，但这个速度是难以持续的。他所设想的最好情况是：在经历今年的衰退后，全球经济在2011年前恢复到3.5%左右的更为适中的增长率。

各国政府已经承诺投入数万亿美元（具体数字难以统计），以应对金融危机的影响。美国民主党议员希望在2月中之前通过总统奥巴马(Barack Obama)的8,250亿美元经济刺激议案，该议案计划在未来两年通过减税和支出提振经济，每年的规模达到美国年国内生产总值的3%。

去年11月，中国承诺投入5,860亿美元用于建设基础设施项目。本周二，德国政府批准了第二轮经济刺激计划；这是欧盟27国经济刺激计划的一部分，欧盟打算投入GDP的1.5%也就是约2,000亿欧元（2,600亿美元）左用于提振经济。

国际货币基金组织(IMF)建议各国政府投入GDP的2%用于刺激经济，目前的计划投资总额已经超过了这一数字。不过这还不足以为全球经济止血。预计国际货币基金组织周三将公布最新预期，预计今年全球经济增长率将不到1%。

哈佛大学经济学教授、达沃斯论坛发言人罗格夫(Kenneth Rogoff)表示，2009年全球经济不可避免地会遭遇深度衰退。他认为财政刺激计划是必要的，但只能带来暂时的提振。他说，我们已经目睹了一场资产泡沫破灭，无论政府投入多少资金，泡沫破裂不可逆转。

全球经济面临更大的风险是陷入一场持续数年的收缩。如果在财政刺激计划之外，各国政府不能采取同样积极的举措清除银行帐面上的问题资产，推动信贷市场解冻，那么这种情况就有可能成为现实。

罗格夫表示，回顾国际金融危机的漫长历史可以发现，如果你不能一举清除银行体系的混乱，你就不能走出经济长期停滞。
把希望寄托在中国等新兴市场身上，指望它们带动全球经济走出下滑，这恐怕是不现实的。中国经济半数的增长仍然依赖于出口推动，全球经济下滑也给中国带来了沉重冲击。随着需求萎靡，去年第四季度中国经济增长率已经下滑至6.8%，低于第三季度的9%，创下了7年低点。整个2008年，中国经济增长率已经从此前一年的13%放缓至9%，似乎难以维持多年以来年增幅达到8%的水平。

中国决策者面临着一个严峻挑战，即推动中国经济增长转向更大程度依靠内需。一个问题是，中国的失业人数正在不断上升。而中国薄弱的医疗保险和社会安保等保障体系仍不完善，使得中国消费者不得不将大量收入用于储蓄。

摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)亚洲区主席史蒂芬·罗奇(Stephen Roach)说，如果中国不能建立真正的社会保障网络，即便是像中国推出的庞大经济刺激计划也难以实现由消费推动的经济增长。我对在未来数年内实现这一目标抱乐观态度，但你不可能一夜之间创造出消费文化。

美国消费者已经开始收紧钱包了；据一些人预计，数十年来全球经济增长大约十分之一的推动力来自于美国消费者。去年第三季度，美国支出增长17年来首次出现下降。经济学家们表示，消费占美国GDP的比重未来五年可能会下滑5个百分点，这一比例在本世纪初达到了大约70%的二战后最高水平。

但经济学家们表示，如果美国经济刺激计划阻止经济大幅下滑，银行救助计划重启信贷市场，美国消费者会重新开始消费，只不过消费水平会有所下滑。

加州大学伯克利分校费舍尔房地产与城市经济中心(Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics)主任罗森(Ken Rosen)表示，这种复苏将建立在减少欠账和更谨慎地量入为出的基础上，但它也是复苏。

http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20090128/ecb144851.asp?source=UpFeature

Two questions preoccupy the world's economic elite here: Will the government money pledged to prop up national economies be enough to keep the world from going into a prolonged slide? And where will the growth come from, once bottom is touched?

At the start of the five-day World Economic Forum, the broad outlines of answers are emerging. Economists say the fiscal-stimulus packages from Washington to Beijing will cushion the downturn but fall short of preventing a world-wide recession. And global growth, when it comes, will still be powered in part by U.S. consumers -- though they'll spend far less than they did in the debt-fueled years of the recent boom.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the first Chinese leader to attend a Davos meeting in the event's 38-year history, will likely seek to lower expectations that China can extract the world from the economic crisis. Despite its rise as a global production hub, China -- like emerging Asian economies such as India -- is too small, too poor, and too export-dependent to provide much of a buffer for the global economy in the next few years.

Asia's inability to compensate for the drop in U.S. consumption means any global recovery will be slow in coming and marked by lower growth rates than the world has seen in recent years.

'We thought we could keep growing [globally] at rates of 4% and 5% a year, but that's unsustainable,' says Nouriel Roubini, a Davos regular who heads RGE Monitor, a financial and economic forecasting service in New York. Mr. Roubini's best-case scenario: After a recession this year, the world returns to more moderate global growth rates around 3.5% by 2011.

Governments around the world have pledged trillions of dollars -- a precise tally is hard to come by -- to blunt the impact of the financial crisis. U.S. Democrats hope to pass President Barack Obama's $825 billion economic-stimulus bill -- a package of tax and spending measures over two years amounting to 3% of annual U.S. gross domestic product per year -- by mid-February.

China in November pledged $586 billion in spending on infrastructure projects. On Tuesday, Germany's cabinet approved a second stimulus package, part of the 27-nation European Union's pledge to spend 1.5% of GDP, or about 200 billion euros ($260 billion).

In total, the funds surpass the International Monetary Fund's recommendation that governments world-wide spend 2% of GDP on stimulus. But it still won't be enough to stop the bleeding. The IMF is expected to issue projections Wednesday showing global growth will be less than 1% this year.

'A deep recession for 2009 is already baked into the cake,' says Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor and Davos speaker who calls the fiscal-stimulus packages a necessary but temporary boost. 'We've had an asset bubble burst that's not going to turn around no matter how much governments spend,' he says.

The greater risk is that the global contraction lasts several years -- a scenario that could materialize if governments don't complement fiscal stimulus with equally ambitious plans to clear banks' books of bad assets and get credit flowing through the system.

'The long history of international financial crises tells us if you don't clean up the mess in the banking system decisively, you're not going to escape a long stagnation,' Mr. Rogoff says.

Pinning hopes on emerging markets such as China to pull the world out of the downturn seems misguided. With about half of its growth still export-driven, China is also getting slammed by the global downturn. Amid fizzling demand, China's expansion slowed to an annual rate of 6.8% in the final three months of last year, down from 9% in the third quarter and marking a seven-year low. For all of 2008, growth slowed to 9% from 13% the year before -- making it unlikely China can maintain its longstanding 8% annual growth rate.

Chinese policy makers face a steep challenge in turning the country's growth more toward domestic demand. Job losses are mounting, for one. And patchy social protections such as meager health-care insurance and social-security funding, push Chinese consumers to save big chunks of their earnings.

Even China's massive stimulus program 'won't get consumer-led growth going until they really build out a safety net,' says Stephen Roach, Asia chairman for Morgan Stanley. 'I'm hopeful it can happen in the next few years. But you don't create a consumer culture overnight.'

U.S. consumers -- who by some estimates have powered around a tenth of global growth in recent decades -- have begun closing their wallets. U.S. spending growth in the third quarter of last year fell for the first time in 17 years. Economists say the share of consumption in U.S. GDP -- which hit post-World War II highs around 70% earlier this decade -- could fall by five percentage points in the next five years.

But if the U.S. stimulus puts a floor under the economy and a bank-rescue package restarts credit engines, economists say, U.S. consumers will start spending again, albeit at lower rates.

'It will be a recovery based on less credit and a more careful view of spending within one's means,' says Ken Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. 'But it will be a recovery.'

Joellen Perry / Shen Hong