| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
|
| 双语新闻 Bilingual News | 双语对照阅读 分级系列阅读 智能辅助阅读 在线英语学习 |
| [英文] [中文] [双语对照] [双语交替] [] |
| TOKYO — In the United States, everyone is talking about inflation. The country’s reopening from the coronavirus pandemic has unleashed pent-up demand for everything from raw materials like lumber to secondhand goods like used cars, pushing up prices at the fastest clip in over a decade. | 东京——在美国，人人都在谈论通货膨胀。从新冠疫情中重新开放的美国如今释放了一切被压抑的需求，从木材等原材料到二手车等二手商品无所不包，推动了物价以十几年来的最快速度上涨。 |
| Japan, however, is having the opposite problem. Consumers are paying less for many goods, from Uniqlo parkas to steaming-hot bowls of ramen. While in the United States average prices have jumped 5.4 percent in the past year, the Japanese economy has faced deflationary pressure, with prices dipping 0.1 percent in May from the previous year. | 然而，日本却面临着相反的问题。从优衣库(Uniqlo)的大衣到热气腾腾的拉面，许多商品的价格都在下降。美国的平均物价在过去一年中上涨了5.4%，日本经济却面临着通货紧缩的压力，5月物价同比下降了0.1%。 |
| To some extent, the situation in Japan can be explained by its continued struggles with the coronavirus, which have kept shoppers at home. But deeper forces are also at play. Before the pandemic, prices outside the volatile energy and food sectors had barely budged for years, as Japan never came close to meeting its longtime goal of 2 percent inflation. | 某种程度上，日本这一情况是持续抗击新冠病毒导致的，这让消费者无法出门。但更深层次的力量也在起作用。在疫情之前，日本从未接近其长期设定的2%的通胀目标，除了波动较大的能源和食品行业之外，其物价多年来几乎没有变化。 |
| It wasn’t for lack of trying. Over nearly a decade, Japanese policymakers have wielded almost every trick in the economist’s playbook in an effort to coax prices higher. They have juiced the economy with cheap money, spent huge sums on fiscal stimulus like public works and lowered interest rates to levels that made borrowing nearly free. | 这并不是因为没有尝试。在近十年时间里，日本政策制定者几乎用上了经济学家攻略手册里的所有方法，试图抬高物价。他们用低成本资金刺激经济，在公共工程等财政刺激项目上花费巨资，并将利率降至几乎可以免息借贷的水平。 |
| But as Japan has learned the hard way, low inflation can be an economic quagmire. And that experience carries a warning for the United States if its current bout of inflation eases, as many economists expect, and its economy falls back into the cycle of weak inflation that preceded the pandemic. | 但正如日本经历的教训，低通胀可能成为经济困境。如果当前的一轮通胀如许多经济学家预期的那样得到缓解，美国经济回到疫情前的低通胀周期，那么日本的经验也会给美国敲响警钟。 |
| “Most economists, me included, are pretty confident that the Fed knows how to bring inflation down,” including by raising interest rates, said Joshua Hausman, an associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan who has studied Japan’s economy. | “包括我在内的大多数经济学家都非常确信，美联储(The Federal Reserve)知道如何降低通胀，”密歇根大学(University of Michigan)研究日本经济的公共政策和经济学副教授约书亚·豪斯曼(Joshua Hausman)表示，这些措施包括提高利率。 |
| However, “it’s much less clear, partly because of Japan’s experience, that we’re very good at bringing inflation up,” he added. | 然而，“部分原因是考虑到日本的经验，我们是否还很擅长提升通胀就没那么确定了，”他补充说。 |
| For consumers, falling prices sound like a good thing. But from the perspective of most economists, they are a problem. | 对消费者来说，物价下跌听起来像是一件好事。但从大多数经济学家的角度来看，这却是个问题。 |
| Inflation, they like to say, greases the economy’s gears. In small amounts, it increases corporate profits and wages, stimulating growth. It can also reduce the burden of debt, bringing down the relative costs of college loans and mortgages. | 他们总喜欢说，通货膨胀润滑了经济运转的齿轮。少量通胀可以增加企业利润和工资，刺激经济增长。通胀还可以减轻债务负担，降低大学贷款和抵押贷款的相对成本。 |
| Japan’s inability to lift inflation is “one of the biggest unsolved challenges in the profession,” said Mark Gertler, a professor of economics at New York University who has studied the issue. | 日本无力提升通胀，“这是经济学家尚未解决的最大挑战之一，”研究这一问题的纽约大学(New York University)经济学教授马克·格特勒(Mark Gertler)表示。 |
| One popular explanation for the country’s trouble is that consumers’ expectations of low prices have become so entrenched that it’s basically impossible for companies to raise prices. Economists also point to weakening demand caused by Japan’s aging population, as well as globalization, with cheap, plentiful labor effectively keeping costs low for consumers in developed countries. | 对于日本这一棘手问题，一种流行的解释是，消费者对低物价的期望已经根深蒂固，以至于企业基本没有提高物价的可能。经济学家提出的理由还包括，日本的人口老龄化导致需求疲软，以及全球化带来的廉价充足的劳动力有效降低了发达国家消费成本。 |
| The picture once looked very different. In the mid-1970s, Japan had some of the highest inflation rates in the world, approaching 25 percent. | 过去的情况看起来则完全不同。1970年代中期，日本的通货膨胀率在世界上名列前茅，接近25%。 |
| It wasn’t alone. Runaway prices set off by the 1970s oil crisis defined the era, including for a whole generation of economists who were groomed to believe that the most likely threat to financial stability was rapid inflation and that interest rates were the best tool to combat it. | 它也不是孤例。石油危机引发的物价失控是1970年代的主旋律，整整一代经济学家受到影响，都相信快速通胀是对金融稳定性最可能的威胁，而利率是应对它的最佳手段。 |
| But by the early 1990s, Japan began experiencing a different issue. An economic bubble, fueled by a soaring stock market and rampant property speculation, burst. Prices began to fall. | 但到1990年代初，日本开始遭遇另一个问题。股市飞涨和房地产投机猖獗所引发的经济泡沫破裂了。物价开始下跌。 |
| Japan attacked the problem with innovative policies, including using negative interest rates to encourage spending and injecting money into the economy through large-scale asset purchases, a policy known as quantitative easing. | 日本试图用创新性政策解决危机，包括用负利率鼓励消费，大规模收购资产，向经济注入资金，即所谓的量化宽松。 |
| It seemed to do little good. Still, economists at the time saw Japan’s experience not as a warning to the world, but as an anomaly produced by bad policy choices and cultural quirks. | 这似乎没起到什么作用。尽管如此，当时的经济学家并没有把日本的经验视为对全世界的警告，只认为这是糟糕的政策选择和特殊文化习惯造成的异常现象。 |
| That began to change with the financial crisis of 2008, when inflation rates around the world plummeted and other central banks adopted quantitative easing. | 随着2008年金融危机的爆发，情况开始发生变化。当时，全球通胀率大幅下降，其他国家的央行都采取了量化宽松措施。 |
| The problem has been most notable in Europe, where inflation has averaged 1.2 percent since 2009, economic growth has been weak and some interest rates have been negative for years. During the same period, U.S. inflation averaged just below 2 percent. The Federal Reserve has kept its main interest rate close to zero since March 2020. | 这个问题在欧洲最为突出，自2009年以来，这里的平均通胀率为1.2%，经济增长疲软，某些利率多年来一直为负。同一时期，美国的平均通胀率略低于2%。自2020年3月以来，美联储一直将其主要利率保持在接近于零的水平。 |
| Some prominent economists viewed the low inflation as a sign that the U.S. and E.U. economies might be on the brink of so-called secular stagnation, a condition marked by low inflation, low interest rates and sluggish growth. | 一些著名经济学家认为，低通胀标志着美国和欧盟经济可能处于所谓的长期停滞的边缘，其特点是低通胀、低利率和增长缓慢。 |
| They have worried that those trends will deepen as both economies begin to gray, potentially reducing demand and pushing up savings rates. | 他们担心，随着两个经济体开始老龄化，这些趋势会加深，这可能会减少需求并推高储蓄率。 |
| In 2013, under newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan began its most ambitious effort to tackle its weak economic growth and low inflation. | 2013年，在当时新选当的安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)首相带领下，日本开始以最雄心勃勃的努力，来解决疲软的经济增长和低通胀。 |
| The government embarked on a grand experiment of huge monetary and fiscal stimulus, buying enormous quantities of equities and lowering interest rates in hopes of encouraging borrowing and putting more money into the economy. As the supply of cash increased, the thinking went, its relative value would decline, effectively driving up prices. Flush with money, consumers and companies alike would spend more. Voilà, inflation. | 政府开始了大规模货币和财政刺激的宏大试验，大量购买股票并降低利率，以期鼓励借贷并为经济注入更多资金。随着现金供应的增加，人们会觉得金钱的相对价值下降，从而有效推高价格。有了大量资金，消费者和公司都会花更多的钱。这下就有了通货膨胀。 |
| To encourage spending, Japan adopted a policy, known as forward guidance, aimed at convincing people that prices would go up as it pledged to do everything in its power to achieve its inflation target of 2 percent. | 由于承诺将竭尽全力实现2%的通胀目标，日本为了鼓励支出，采取了一项称为前瞻指引的政策，旨在让人们相信物价会上涨。 |
| But the government’s efforts at persuasion fell short, so there was little urgency to spend, said Hiroshi Nakaso, a former deputy governor of the Bank of Japan and head of the Daiwa Institute of Research. | 但日本央行前副行长兼大和研究所(Daiwa Institute of Research)所长中曾宏(Hiroshi Nakaso)表示，政府的说服努力没有奏效，因此人们并不着急花钱。 |
| Japan found itself in a vicious circle, said Takatoshi Ito, a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, who served on Japan’s Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. | 曾在日本经济财政咨询会议(Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy)任职的哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)国际和公共事务教授伊藤隆敏(Takatoshi Ito)说，日本发现自己陷入了一个恶性循环。 |
| Consumers came to expect “stable prices and zero inflation,” he said, adding that as a result, “companies are afraid of raising prices, because that would attract attention, and consumers may revolt.” | 他说，消费者开始期待“物价稳定和零通胀”，因此“公司害怕提高价格，因为这会引起关注，可能会让消费者反感。” |
| The sluggish economy made companies reluctant to raise wages, he said, “and because real wages didn’t go up, probably consumption didn’t go up, so there was no increase for demand for products and services.” | 他说，经济不景气让企业不愿意提高工资，“而且由于实际工资没有上涨，可能消费也没有上升，所以对产品和服务的需求没有增加。” |
| As inflation hardly moved, some economists wondered if Japan’s stimulus had been too conservative, even as it racked up one of the world’s largest debt burdens. | 由于通胀几乎没有变化，一些经济学家怀疑日本的刺激措施是否过于保守，即使该国背负的债务负担位居世界首列。 |
| Policymakers, citing a need to pay off the country’s debts and meet the growing costs of caring for an aging population, hedged against the spending by twice raising the country’s consumption tax, apparently weakening demand. | 政策制定者以需要偿还国家债务、满足照顾老龄化人口日益增长的成本为由，通过两次提高该国的消费税来对冲支出，这显然削弱了需求。 |
| In the end, Mr. Abe’s experiment, known as Abenomics, may not have been as successful as hoped. But it has informed policymakers’ response to the pandemic, said Gene Park, a professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who studies Japan’s monetary policy. | 最终，安倍的实验，即“安倍经济学”(Abenomics)，可能并没有想象中那么成功。洛杉矶洛约拉马利蒙特大学(Loyola Marymount University)研究日本货币政策的政治学教授吉恩·朴（Gene Park，音）表示，但它为政策制定者应对大流行提供了信息。 |
| One takeaway, he said, is that governments could spend more than they had ever thought possible without setting off a rapid rise in inflation. Another is that they might have to spend considerably more than they had once considered necessary to stimulate growth. | 他说，从中得出的一个结论是，政府可以在不引发通胀迅速上升的情况下，花费比他们想象的更多的钱。另一个结论是，他们过去认为刺激增长所需的支出还不够，可能还必须再花费多得多的支出。 |
| Japan “has given the U.S. more freedom to experiment with bolder measures,” Mr. Park said. | 吉恩·朴说，日本“给了美国更多的自由来试验更大胆的措施。” |
| During the pandemic, Japan, too, has tried to apply the lessons learned since 2013. The government has paid shops and restaurants to stay closed, handed out cash to every person in the country and financed zero-interest loans for struggling businesses. | 在大流行期间，日本也试图借鉴2013年以来的经验教训。政府向商店和餐馆支付费用，让它们继续关店。它还向本国的每个人发放现金，并为陷入困境的企业提供零息贷款。 |
| Prices fell anyway. That was partly at the behest of the government itself, which recently pressured telecom companies to lower mobile phone fees it deemed too high. Most Japanese consumers are also still waiting to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, holding back economic activity. | 价格还是下跌了。这部分是出于政府本身的要求，政府最近向电信公司施压，要求降低其认为过高的手机费用。大多数日本消费者仍在等待接种新冠病毒疫苗，这阻碍了经济活动。 |
| Even after the pandemic wanes, however, Japan’s inflation rates are likely to stay low, said Sayuri Shirai, an economics professor at Keio University in Tokyo and a former member of the Bank of Japan’s board. | 然而，东京庆应义塾大学(Keio University)经济学教授、日本央行前董事会成员白井早由里(Sayuri Shirai)表示，即使在大流行消退之后，日本的通胀率也可能保持在低位。 |
| After all, the primary problem remains unchanged: No one is really sure why prices have stagnated. | 毕竟，首要问题依然没有改变：没有人确切知道价格停滞的原因。 |
| “The central bank probably doesn’t want to say that they cannot control inflation,” Ms. Shirai said. “Therefore, this issue has just been left without a clear discussion.” | “央行可能不想说他们控制不了通胀，”白井说。“因此，这个问题一直没有得到明确讨论。” |
OK阅读网 版权所有(C)2017 | 联系我们