2023年经济学人 欧元区经济将陷入困境

 

 

    Finance and economics

    财经版块

    Brace¹ for impact

    准备迎接冲击

    The Euro-zone economy increasingly looks to be heading for trouble.

    欧元区经济看起来越来越有可能陷入困境。

    Europe’s summer was a strange mixture of heavy rainfall and wildfires.

    欧洲的夏天是暴雨和野火的奇异混合。

    The continent’s economy was also plagued by extremes.

    欧洲大陆的经济也受到极端情况的困扰。

    Inflation remained hot: prices rose by 5.3% in August compared with a year earlier.

    通胀依然火热：与去年同期相比，8月份的物价上涨了5.3%。

    And officials are increasingly worried by the cloudy growth outlook.

    阴云密布的增长前景让官员们日益感到担忧。

    A recent drop in the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) suggests the bloc² is facing recession.

    最近采购经理指数下降，表明欧盟正面临经济衰退。

    Ahead of the next meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB) on September 14th, policymakers will be worried by the possible emergence³ of stagflation (a situation in which low growth is paired with entrenched⁴ inflation).

    在欧洲央行9月14日召开下一次会议之前，政策制定者担心可能出现滞胀(低增长伴随着顽固的通胀)。

    Christine Lagarde, the central bank’s president, recently reiterated⁵ her commitment to bringing down inflation and setting interest rates at “sufficiently restrictive levels for as long as necessary to achieve a timely return of inflation to our 2% medium-term target”.

    欧洲央行行长克里斯蒂娜·拉加德最近重申，将致力于降低通胀，并将利率设定在“有足够限制性的水平，保持足够长的时间，以实现通胀及时回到2%的中期目标”。

    In plain English: the ECB would much prefer a “hard landing”, featuring economic pain, than failing to reduce price rises.

    简单地说：欧洲央行宁愿出现“硬着陆”，即经济痛苦，也不愿遏制物价上涨失败。

    The problem is that the ECB risks crashing the plane.

    问题是这样的话欧洲央行面临着让飞机坠毁的风险。

    Euro-zone inflation is proving as stubborn as the American variety.

    事实证明，欧元区的通货膨胀和美国的通货膨胀一样顽固。

    In Europe, price rises were sparked by increasing energy costs; in America, they were more demand-driven.

    在欧洲，价格上涨是由能源成本上涨引发的，在美国，价格上涨更多地是由需求驱动。

    But in both places inflation has followed a similar path, with Europe slightly behind.

    但这两个地方的通胀都走上了相似的道路，欧洲略有落后。

    Now the question is whether core inflation, which excludes volatile⁶ energy and food prices, will come in to land.

    现在的问题是，剔除波动较大的能源和食品价格后，核心通胀能否回落。

    So far, it is staying stubbornly high.

    到目前为止，核心通胀仍然居高不下。

    This is in part because Europe has, like America, so far managed to dodge⁷ recession.

    这在一定程度上是因为，欧洲和美国一样，到目前为止设法躲过了经济衰退。

    At the end of last year, when many expected a European downturn, monetary⁸ tightening⁹ had yet to hit the economy and national governments offered generous handouts¹⁰ in order to counteract¹¹ the energy shock.

    去年年底，当许多人预计欧洲经济将陷入低迷时，货币紧缩政策尚未打击到经济，各国政府提供了慷慨的救济，以抵消能源方面的冲击。

    The service sector¹² showed decent growth, and industrial order books remained full from the post-covid boom.

    服务业显示出可观的增长，工业订单簿因后疫情繁荣而满满当当。

    Gloom is now spreading across the continent.

    现在，悲观情绪正在整个欧洲大陆蔓延。

    The global economy is weakening, and order books have plenty of blank pages.

    全球经济正在走弱，订单簿上有大量的空白页。

    State support for households is also running out.

    国家对家庭的支持也正在耗尽。

    Retail¹³ energy prices remain higher than before last year’s crisis; real incomes have yet to recover.

    能源零售价格仍高于去年危机前的水平，实际收入尚未恢复。

    Activity in the service industry contracted in August, according to the PMI survey.

    采购经理指数调查显示，8月份服务业活动收缩。

    The sector is at its weakest in two and a half years.

    该行业正处于两年半以来的最低水平。

    Higher interest rates have also started to affect the European economy, as intended by the ECB’s policymakers.

    正如欧洲央行政策制定者所希望的那样，更高的利率也开始影响欧洲经济。

    Construction, which is traditionally sensitive to interest rates, is feeling the pain.

    一直以来对利率敏感的建筑业正感受到痛苦。

    Stingier bank lending is leading to a 0.4 percentage-point reduction in GDP growth each quarter, according to Goldman Sachs, a bank.

    根据高盛银行的数据，紧缩的银行贷款导致每个季度GDP增长减少0.4个百分点。

    Corporate¹⁴ insolvencies rose by more than 8% in the year’s second quarter, compared with the first, and have reached their highest since 2015.

    与第一季度相比，今年第二季度企业破产数量增加了8%以上，达到了自2015年以来的最高水平。

    The impact of tighter monetary policy will peak in the second half of this year, predicts Oliver Rakau of Oxford¹⁵ Economics, a consultancy.

    牛津经济咨询公司的奥利弗·拉考预测，货币紧缩政策的影响将在今年下半年达到顶峰。

    A hard landing is thus almost guaranteed.

    因此，硬着陆几乎是无可置疑的。

    But the return of inflation to the ECB’s 2% target remains¹⁶ some way off.

    但要想通胀率重返欧洲央行制定的2%的目标，仍有一段路要走。

    Two forces are pulling prices in different directions.

    两股力量正将价格推向不同的方向。

    One is the situation in the labour market.

    其一是劳动力市场的情况。

    Unemployment remains at a record low.

    失业率保持在创纪录的低位。

    Although firms are hiring fewer workers, there is no imminent¹⁷ danger of mass lay-offs—in part because bosses want to hold on to workers that are increasingly scarce in an ageing continent.

    尽管公司雇佣的人越来越少，但并不会立刻出现大规模裁员，部分原因是随着人口老龄化，老板们希望留住日益稀缺的劳动者。

    As a result, wages across the bloc are rising, even if not by enough to make up for earlier inflation.

    其结果是，整个欧元区的工资都在上涨，尽管涨幅不足以弥补早先的通胀。

    The other force, which is pulling down inflation, is weakening demand for goods and services.

    另一股力量正拉低通胀，即对商品和服务日益减弱的需求。

    During the covid pandemic, price growth took off in advance of wage growth, causing companies’ profits to rise strongly alongside inflation.

    在新冠疫情期间，价格增长先于工资增长，导致企业利润与通胀一起强劲增长。

    If companies now find that demand is drying up, it is possible that inflation will fall at the same time as wage growth stays high, bringing profits back down.

    如果企业现在发现需求正在枯竭，那么通胀可能会在工资保持增长的同时下降，从而使利润减少。

    Indeed, prices on wholesale¹⁸ markets for goods are already falling fast, and import prices are also declining.

    事实上，批发市场的商品价格已经在快速下降，进口价格也在下降。

    At some point, these lower prices will be passed on to consumers.

    到某个时刻，这些较低的价格将传递给消费者。

    Which of these two forces will win out?

    这两种力量中哪一种会取胜？

    At the moment, it looks like the answer will be weak demand, since it has spread to the service sector, too.

    目前看来，答案似乎是需求疲软，因为需求疲软也已蔓延至服务业。

    This suggests that euro-zone inflation might fall in relatively¹⁹ short order.

    这表明欧元区的通胀可能会在相对较短的时间内回落。

    But the ECB appears unconvinced, and seems ready to lift its main rate to 4.5% from 4.25%.

    但欧洲央行似乎并不相信，而且准备将主要利率从4.25%上调至4.5%。

    Policymakers would be better off holding rates steady, so that they can assess the danger of a crash.

    政策制定者最好保持利率稳定，这样才能评估经济崩溃的危险。

1 brace   

n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备

参考例句：

• My daughter has to wear a brace on her teeth. 我的女儿得戴牙套以矫正牙齿。
• You had better brace yourself for some bad news. 有些坏消息,你最好做好准备。

2 bloc   

n.集团；联盟

参考例句：

• A solid bloc of union members support the decision.工会会员团结起来支持该决定。
• There have been growing tensions within the trading bloc.贸易同盟国的关系越来越紧张。

3 emergence   

n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体

参考例句：

• The last decade saw the emergence of a dynamic economy.最近10年见证了经济增长的姿态。
• Language emerges and develops with the emergence and development of society.语言是随着社会的产生而产生，随着社会的发展而发展的。

4 entrenched   

adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯)

参考例句：

• Television seems to be firmly entrenched as the number one medium for national advertising.电视看来要在全国广告媒介中牢固地占据头等位置。
• If the enemy dares to attack us in these entrenched positions,we will make short work of them.如果敌人胆敢进攻我们固守的阵地，我们就消灭他们。

5 reiterated   

反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• "Well, I want to know about it,'she reiterated. “嗯，我一定要知道你的休假日期，"她重复说。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some twenty-two years later President Polk reiterated and elaborated upon these principles. 大约二十二年之后，波尔克总统重申这些原则并且刻意阐释一番。

6 volatile   

adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质

参考例句：

• With the markets being so volatile,investments are at great risk.由于市场那么变化不定，投资冒着很大的风险。
• His character was weak and volatile.他这个人意志薄弱，喜怒无常。

7 dodge   

v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计

参考例句：

• A dodge behind a tree kept her from being run over.她向树后一闪，才没被车从身上辗过。
• The dodge was coopered by the police.诡计被警察粉碎了。

8 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

9 tightening   

上紧，固定，紧密

参考例句：

• Make sure the washer is firmly seated before tightening the pipe. 旋紧水管之前，检查一下洗衣机是否已牢牢地固定在底座上了。
• It needs tightening up a little. 它还需要再收紧些。

10 handouts   

救济品( handout的名词复数 )； 施舍物； 印刷品； 讲义

参考例句：

• Soldiers oversee the food handouts. 士兵们看管着救济食品。
• Even after losing his job, he was too proud to accept handouts. 甚至在失去工作后，他仍然很骄傲，不愿接受施舍。

11 counteract   

vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消

参考例句：

• The doctor gave him some medicine to counteract the effect of the poison.医生给他些药解毒。
• Our work calls for mutual support.We shouldn't counteract each other's efforts.工作要互相支持，不要互相拆台。

12 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

13 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

14 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

15 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

16 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

17 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

18 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

19 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。