油价下跌将显著提振世界经济

The world economy will receive a significant boost from lower oil prices this year despite fears of deflation and persistently weak spending, leading economists attending the World Economic Forum told the Financial Times.
Ahead of the gathering at the Swiss resort, which begins today, most economists had a more optimistic outlook than the International Monetary Fund, although they recognised that the recovery remained uneven and were less optimistic than a year ago.
But there were specific worries that advanced economies had lost the ability to share the proceeds of growth more widely across their populations, which could undermine future prospects.
In response to divergent prospects for the economies of the US and eurozone, the European Central Bank is tomorrow expected to unveil an ambitious programme of quantitative easing, while the US Federal Reserve is forecast to tighten monetary policy this year. However, a majority of economists, including four Nobel Prize winners, believed markets would take these potentially destabilising moves in their stride.
Since crude prices began to slide last year, most economists and policy makers have expected growth to accelerate because the boost cheaper energy would give to consumption in oil-importing countries would outweigh the negative impact on oil producing nations.
Yesterday, the IMF confounded some of these hopes, cutting its global growth forecasts for both 2015 and 2016 by 0.3 percentage points. The fund said deep underlying problems with the recovery would outweigh the “shot in the arm” from cheaper oil.
But many of the economists attending Davos are optimistic that, despite its troubles, the global economy can overcome these difficulties.
Michael Spence, economics professor at the Stern School of Business, New York University, agreed there were problems in parts of the global economy, but cheaper energy would boost economies with demand problems.
“With China still growing and the US improving . . . I doubt the [oil] price decline could be attributed to a sharply negative view of the global economy,” the 2001 Nobel laureate said.
Another Nobel winner, Professor Chris Pissarides from London School of Economics, was unconcerned about yesterday’s fall in China’s growth. “The slowdown was bound to happen and the Chinese are prepared for it,” he said.
Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at Oxford university, said: “Global prospects of aggregate growth above 3 per cent remain good by historical standards.” The IMF’s forecasts still predicted 3.5 per cent growth in 2015, rising to 3.7 per cent in 2016.
Some economists, however, thought the boost would be modest and the bigger effect would be a redistribution of income from oil producers to consumers.
“The distributional effects may come to dominate the news,” said Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Harvard Center for International Development at the Kennedy School of Government. “We may see financial disruptions triggered by overleveraged oil exporting countries and corporations that could then spread in unanticipated ways.”
Meanwhile Edmund Phelps, director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University, gave a gloomy assessment. “Europe has been imploding and Asia needs time to build a more innovative economy, so I do not expect appreciable global growth in the next couple of years,” he said. “The US may have got ahead of itself in the past year.”
In general, there was confidence that markets could cope with an expected loosening of monetary policy at the ECB at the same time as the Fed prepared to raise rates for the first time since 2006.
Lord Turner, former head of the UK financial regulator and now senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, said there was “no reason why 2.5 per cent interest rates in the US and zero per cent in the eurozone would necessarily produce huge instability”.
Robert Shiller, professor of Economics at Yale University, who won the Nobel Prize in 2013, said there might not be that much divergence in wider financial markets even with the two central banks moving in opposite directions. “Despite anticipation of tightening, long-term US interest rates have been declining for the past year, to really low levels,” he said.
One area of widespread concern, however, was how advanced economies had found it difficult to ensure the benefits of growth were widely shared. The exception was Kenneth Rogoff, of Harvard University. “As the recovery continues in places such as the US and UK, wages should begin to strengthen notably in 2015,” he said.
But other economists said rising inequality was perhaps the biggest challenge facing industrialised economies.

出席世界经济论坛(WEF)的一些知名经济学家对英国《金融时报》表示，世界经济今年将从油价下跌得到一个可观的提振，尽管人们担忧通缩和持续疲软的支出。
论坛将从今日起在达沃斯这个瑞士度假胜地举行。开幕前夕，大部分经济学家对前景的看法比国际货币基金组织(IMF)更为乐观，尽管他们承认复苏仍是不平衡的，而且他们的乐观程度不如一年前的此时。
但也有某些人担心，发达经济体已经失去了在国内不同人群中间更广泛分享经济增长果实的能力，这可能破坏未来的发展前景。
针对美国和欧元区经济前景的分化，预计欧洲央行(ECB)明日将推出一项雄心勃勃的量化宽松计划，而美联储(Fed)今年将收紧货币政策。然而，大多数经济学家（包括四名诺贝尔奖得主）相信，市场会很好地应对这些潜在有损稳定的举措。
自原油价格去年开始下滑以来，多数经济学家和政策制定者预期经济增长将会加快，原因是更便宜的能源提振石油进口国消费的效果，将超出其对产油国的负面影响。
昨日，IMF给其中一些期待浇了冷水，将2015年和2016年全球经济增长预测分别下调0.3个百分点。该组织表示，此轮复苏的深层次问题将压倒更便宜石油带来的“强心针”。
但是，参加达沃斯论坛的很多经济学家乐观地认为，尽管面临种种困扰，但全球经济能够克服这些困难。
纽约大学斯特恩商学院(Stern School of Business, New York University)经济学教授迈克尔•斯彭斯(Michael Spence)承认，全球经济的某些部分存在问题，但更便宜的能源将提振存在需求问题的经济体。
“鉴于中国仍在增长，而美国不断好转……我怀疑（石油）价格下降可归因于对全球经济的一种强烈负面的看法，”这位2001年诺贝尔经济学奖得主表示。
另一位诺贝尔奖得主，伦敦政治经济学院(London School of Economics)的克里斯•皮萨里德斯(Chris Pissarides)教授对昨日中国增长数据下滑表示不担心。“经济放缓是必然要发生的，中国人做好了准备，”他说。
牛津大学(Oxford university)全球化和发展教授伊恩•戈尔丁(Ian Goldin)表示：“按照历史标准，3%以上的全球经济增长前景仍是不错的。”IMF仍预计全球经济2015年增长3.5%，2016年增长3.7%。
不过，一些经济学家认为，提振将是温和的，更大的效应将是从石油生产者到消费者的收入再分配。
“分配效应可能会逐渐主导新闻，”哈佛大学(Harvard)肯尼迪政府学院的国际发展中心主任里卡多•豪斯曼(Ricardo Hausmann)表示。“我们可能看到举债过度的石油出口国和公司引发金融混乱，这种混乱随即可能以意料之外的方式蔓延。”
与此同时，哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)资本主义与社会中心主任埃德蒙•菲尔普斯(Edmund Phelps)作出了悲观的评估。“欧洲已经开始内爆，亚洲需要时间来打造一个更具创新性的经济体，因此我不期待全球经济在未来两年出现显著增长，”他表示。“美国在过去一年可能超前了。”
总体而言，各方都有信心认为，在美联储准备自2006年以来首次提高利率的同时，市场可以应对欧洲央行预计将出台的货币政策放松措施。
英国金融监管机构前负责人、现任新经济思维研究所(Institute for New Economic Thinking)高级研究员的特纳勋爵(Lord Turner)表示：“2.5%的美国利率和百分之零的欧元区利率没有理由一定会引发巨大动荡。”
耶鲁大学(Yale University)经济学教授、2013年诺贝尔奖得主罗伯特•席勒(Robert Shiller)表示，即使这两个央行朝着相反的方向前进，广泛金融市场也未必会出现太大分化。“尽管预期会收紧政策，但过去一年里美国长期利率一直在下降，跌至非常低的水平，”他说。
然而，人们普遍担忧的一个方面是，发达经济体发现很难确保经济增长的好处得到广泛分享。唯一的例外是哈佛大学的肯尼斯•罗格夫(Kenneth Rogoff)。“随着美国和英国等地的经济复苏继续，工资应当在2015年开始显著上升，”他说。
但其他经济学家表示，不断加剧的不平等也许是工业化经济体面临的最大挑战。