There was a time when he International Monetary Fund was a byword for economic reaction. Governments were frequently told by IMF officials to tighten their budgets; monetary policy was often regarded as insufficiently anti-inflationary and, insofar as it dared, the fund would lecture trade unionists on the need for wage moderation.

国际货币基金组织(IMF)曾是“经济反动”的代名词。IMF官员频频告诫各国政府收紧预算；IMF常常认为货币政策的抗通胀力度不够，而且如果它有一定的勇气，它还会向工会会员宣传压低工资的必要性。

How things change. The latest IMF World Economic Outlook reflects fears that the world will be too contractionary; monetary and fiscal policy too tight; consumption depressed and unemployment unnecessarily high – and all to combat a much exaggerated inflation threat. But because the 190 or so governments that make up the membership can hardly agree among themselves – let alone with each other – the message has to be disguised in IMF-speak. It is rather like a previously overstrict father telling his adolescent offspring to lighten up a bit and have a few more nights on the town.

时过境迁，IMF最新一期《世界经济展望》(World Economic Outlook)报告却在担心世界经济会过度收缩、货币和财政政策过于紧缩、消费低迷和失业率无畏的高企——这种种因素将会抵消被严重夸大的通胀威胁。但由于约190个成员国的政府很难在内部达成共识——更不用说在彼此之间达成共识——报告的主旨必须用IMF的术语伪装起来。这很像一位之前过于严厉的父亲在告诉自己处于青春期的子女可以放松一下、在城里逍遥几个晚上。

The best way to look at the Outlook is to examine the summary forecast tables first and then inspect the text. This is not because the tables have any particular scientific merit but because it is more difficult for the politically appointed directors of the institution to interfere with them than with the text.

阅读《世界经济展望》的最佳方法是先审视概括性的预测图表，然后查看文本。这倒不是因为图表有什么特别的科学价值，而是因为相对文本而言，那些经政治途径上任的IMF董事更难对图表做手脚。

Moreover, text interpretation is not made easier by the plethora of introductions, including a foreword by economist Olivier Blanchard, an executive summary and an italic introduction to “Global Prospects and Policies”; country and regional perspectives; a more analytical chapter on spillovers and shocks; and a final chapter daringly entitled “The Yin and Yang of Capital Flow Management”.

报告的介绍性内容包括经济学家奥利维耶·布朗夏尔(Olivier Blanchard)撰写的序言，一篇摘要，以及“全球前景与政策”一章的斜体字简介，但这些冗长的介绍并没有方便人们解读文本。其他内容包括：对各国和各地区的观察；一章分析性较强、关于溢出效应和震荡的论述；以及大胆命名为“资本流动管理的阴与阳”(The Yin and Yang of Capital Flow Management)的最后一章。

The forecast tables show the growth of world output rising from 2.7 per cent last year to 3.1 per cent this year and 3.6 per cent in 2014. The advanced economies, which are meant to be if not leaders at least pacemakers, are expected to recover from an anaemic 0.9 per cent growth in 2012 to 1.8 per cent in 2013 to 2.1 per cent in 2014. This hides a dismal eurozone prospect of near zero growth over the 2012-14 period. British readers may be relieved to find UK growth shown to be rising from zero last year to an average of nearly 2 per cent in 2013-14. World inflation is expected to remain low and creeping, rising gently to 2 per cent in the advanced economies. Both oil and other commodity prices are expected to fall very slightly, expressed in US dollars.

预测图表显示，全球经济产出增长率从去年的2.7%升至今年的3.1%，2014年将达到3.6%。发达经济体（它们即便作不了全球经济的领导者，也注定至少会扮演“标杆”的角色）的增长率预计将从去年疲弱的0.9%升至今年的1.8%，2014年将达到2.1%。这掩盖了2012-14年间欧元区增长率将接近于零的惨淡前景。英国读者或许会感到欣慰，因为英国预计将走出去年的零增长，在2013-14年间实现年均近2%的增长率。全球通胀率预计仍将在低位匍匐前行，发达经济体的通胀率将小幅升至2%。以美元计，石油和其他大宗商品的价格预计都将出现很轻微的下滑。

The outlook could be described as OK but not brilliant compared with the heady postwar decades. I am not in the forecasting business, but for what it is worth I regard the IMF projections as more likely than not.

这种前景可用不错来形容，但不如战后精彩的那几十年那般耀眼。我不是干预测这行的，但我的浅薄之见是，IMF的预测多半将成为现实。

A section in the report entitled “Downside Risks Persist” repays some attention. The short-term risks are seen as “backtracking” in the eurozone; the US budget imbroglio; tightening financial policy in the US and emerging market economies; an abrupt cut-off in capital flows to emerging markets; and a spike in oil prices that is not all that shortlived.

报告中题为“下行风险持续”(Downside Risks Persist)的一节值得我们的注意。该节给出的短期风险有：欧元区重陷深渊、美国的预算纠葛、美国和新兴市场经济体财政政策收紧、流入新兴市场的资本突遭切断、以及较长时间的油价飙升。

The “medium-term risks” are partly an extension of the short-term ones. But they also include a “more complicated than expected” shift in China towards consumption-driven growth; a failure of the Japanese reflation drive; and “overtightened” US financial conditions. The number of jobs lost compared with the main IMF projection might be 20m and “remain high for many years” in the eurozone periphery. Low growth rates “ultimately raise questions about the strength of the sovereign in the US and Japan”, which seems to me IMF-speak for the spectre of official debt repudiation.

“中期风险”一定程度上是短期风险的延续，但此外还包括：中国向消费驱动型增长的转型“比预想的要复杂”，日本的通货再膨胀努力未果，以及美国金融状况“过于紧张”。全球失业人数可能比IMF的基线预计值高出2000万，欧元区外围国家失业率可能将“多年居高不下”。低增长率“终将对美国和日本的主权实力提出质疑”，在我看来，这是IMF用自己的语言道出了对美日两国主权债务违约的隐忧。

The IMF was hardly original in calling for a resolution of the US debt negotiations – though, in my view, the fiscal policy deadlocks we have seen are a price worth paying for the checks and balances in the US constitution. Sooner or later, however, there will be an unresolved stand-off over fiscal policy. White House staff, world finance ministries and monetary authorities need to have contingency plans for that event – which I am far from sure they do on the scale required.

IMF绝不是第一家呼吁美国债务谈判各方应达成一项决议的机构，尽管在我看来，为了维护美国宪法中的权力制衡，出现现在这样的财政政策僵局是值得付出的代价。但无法解决的财政政策对峙迟早会出现。白宫官员、各国财政部和货币当局需要为这一局面制定应变计划——但我很怀疑它们有没有付出必要的努力。

I must admit I would give all the projections in the world for an updated version of John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1936. It argued there was not that much wrong with the way the capitalist system allocated resources, but that it was inadequate on its own to ensure these resources were reasonably fully employed without spiralling inflation. Unfortunately, but inevitably, at the time it was written, the analysis was in terms of a single national economy. What is desperately needed now is a rewrite in terms of the world economy.

不得不说，我愿意拿世界上所有的预测数字，来换约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes) 1936年出版的著作《就业、利息和货币通论》(The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money)的更新版。《通论》认为，资本主义体系分配资源的方式并无太大问题，但不足以在不推高通胀的前提下独自确保这些资源得到合理而充分的分配。令人遗憾但难以避免的是，凯恩斯在写这本书时只是对单个国家的经济进行了分析，现在急需的是从世界经济的角度出发，对他的著作进行改写。

More than one person may be needed for the task – after all Keynes had many helpers in putting together the General Theory. But please do not assign that task to a committee. In that case, it would be better not to start.

完成这项任务可能需要不止一个人——毕竟，凯恩斯在完成《通论》时也得到了不少人的帮助。但请不要将这项任务交给一个委员会。如果是那样的话，还不如不做。