【经济学人】2016成为政治经济的转折点丨2017.01.07丨总第776期

THANKS to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, 2016 is widely viewed as a political turning-point. But it may also come to be seen as an economic turning-point, marking the third big change of direction since the second world war.

由于英国脱欧和唐纳德·特朗普的总统选举，2016年被普遍认为是一个政治的转折点。但是它也逐渐会被看作是一个经济的转折点，成为自二战以来第三次大变革。

The post-war period from 1945 to 1973 was the era of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and capital controls. It was a time of rapid economic growth in the rich world as countries rebuilt themselves after the war and as the technological innovations of the first half of the 20th century—cars, televisions, and so on—came into widespread use. High taxes reduced inequality; fiscal policy was used to control the economic cycle. It all came crashing down in the early 1970s as the fixed-currency system collapsed, and an oil embargo imposed by Arab producers ushered in stagflation (ie, high unemployment combined with inflation).

从1945年至1973年的战后时期是制定固定汇率和资本管制的布雷顿森林体系时期。这段时期，发达国家的经济快速发展，因为世界各国在战后都在重建，而且20世纪上半叶的科技发明—汽车，电视机等等—广泛投入使用中。高税收减少不平等；财政政策用来控制经济周期。由于固定货币系统瓦解，加之阿拉伯石油生产国在经济滞涨时期（也就是说，高失业率加上通货膨胀）宣布执行的石油禁运政策，这一切在20世纪70年代全部都崩溃了。

• embargo n.禁运;贸易禁令

• usher v.引，领；陪同

By the early 1980s, a new system had emerged. Currencies floated, capital controls were abolished, the financial sector was liberalised, industry was privatised and tax rates on higher incomes were cut. In this system inequality widened again (although economists still debate how to parcel out the blame between technological change and globalisation, as China and other countries took a full part in trade). Growth was slower than in the Bretton Woods era but inflation was reined in . Monetary measures replaced fiscal ones as the main policy tool. This era suffered its defining crisis in 2007-08 and has come to an end.

在20世纪80年代早期，一项新的体系出现。货币浮动，资本管制被废除，金融业自由化，工业私有化，高收入者的税率减少。在这个体系中不平等又一次扩大了（尽管经济学家仍在争论，随着中国及其他国家参与世界贸易，技术革新和全球化谁的责任大）。经济增长的速度低于布雷顿森林体系时期，但是通货膨胀却被控制了。货币措施取代财政措施成了主要的政策工具。这个时期遭受了2007-2008年的特有的经济危机，已经走到尽头。

• parcel out  把……分成若干部分，分配

• rein in  控制;约束

The final years of both periods were marked by a degree of monetary experimentation. In the late 1970s many policymakers were converted to the doctrine of monetarism—the idea that by setting a target for the growth of the money supply governments could control inflation (and that controlling inflation should be the main aim of their policies). But monetarism proved harder to implement than its proponents thought; the monetary targets behaved unpredictably. By the mid-1980s, monetarism had been quietly dropped.

货币实验的程度标志着这两个时代的末年。在20世纪70年代晚期，许多政策制定者都改信货币主义学说-该学说认为通过设定一个货币供给增长的目标，政府就可以控制通货膨胀（而且控制通货膨胀应该作为其政策的主要目标）。但是事实证明，货币主义的执行要比其支持者想的更难；货币目标表现出不确定性。到20世纪80年代中期，货币主义已被悄然丢弃。

Since the 2008 crisis, monetary policy has had to be rethought again, with central banks grappling with the “zero bound” for interest rates. Their first move was to adopt quantitative easing , the purchase of assets to drive down longer-term borrowing costs. Some have since followed this up with negative rates on bank reserves.

自2008年危机以来，货币政策不得不被再次受到重新考虑，中央银行也在尽力解决其零利率。他们第一步是采用量化宽松，购买资产以压低长期的借贷成本。其他一些做法之后就继续跟着第一步在银行准备金方面采用负利率。

• grappling with  尽力解决；与……搏斗

• quantitative easing  量化宽松

Financial-market trends have played out against the backdrop of these two policy eras. Equities did very well for 20 years under the Bretton Woods regime, but started to falter in the mid-1960s, well before the system’s collapse. Perhaps investors already took fright at signs of inflation; bond yields