发布时间： 来源：人大经济论坛

【出版时间及名称】：2010年4月全球宏观经济研究报告
【作者】：汇丰银行
【文件格式】：pdf
【页数】：98
【目录或简介】：
Battle scars
Some economic recoveries are strong and healthy. Others are a lot more laboured. The world economy
today can offer examples of both. The emerging nations continue to do well. We have, for example,
recently revised up our Chinese growth projection for 2010 from 9.5% to 10.0%. Meanwhile, despite
encouraging signs in the US, we remain cautious regarding the economic outlook in the developed world.
This polarised outcome is relatively easy to explain. For the most part, emerging nations were well-placed
to survive the crisis unscathed. They hadn’t succumbed to the leverage lunacy seen in the West. Many of
them had healthy balance of payments and fiscal positions. And in the aftermath of the crisis, they mostly
benefited from the spur to global liquidity as Western central banks slashed interest rates and adopted
unconventional quantitative measures.
The Western nations are nothing like as well placed. Private-sector debt problems have now become
public-sector debt problems. Some countries – notably the smaller nations within the Eurozone – are
under tremendous pressure to deliver austerity measures. Other countries are merely hoping for a strong
enough cyclical rebound to avoid having to make hard choices between tax increases and spending cuts.
All the while, simmering disagreements on the appropriate “next steps” in rebalancing the global
economy threaten to boil over.
Imbalances: dead and buried?
One piece of apparent good news to emerge from the crisis has been a narrowing of global imbalances.
China’s current account surplus has declined, as has the US current account deficit. However, the US
deficit is still large, at least compared with the experience of previous recessions when the deficit
typically disappeared, if only fleetingly. Moreover, although there are good cyclical reasons for
imbalances to unwind, it’s not obvious why this unwinding will prove to be permanent.
The issue relates not so much to the deficit nations but, instead, to those in surplus. We examine the
various arguments used to explain the persistence of surpluses in both Germany and China. Whether they
reflect undervalued real exchange rates or excessive national savings, we see little evidence to suggest
that surpluses are likely to disappear structurally any time soon. As a result, relations within the
Eurozone and between the US and China are likely to remain politically charged. With deficit nations
facing unprecedented austerity in the years ahead, it’s easy to see how imbalances could contribute to
increased protectionism and financial market turbulence.