歐元區物價指數下降引發通縮擔憂

PARIS — Europe’s economy has reached a psychological inflection point.

巴黎——歐洲的經濟已經到了一個心理轉折點。

On Wednesday, an official report showed that consumer prices in the eurozone fell 0.2 percent in December from a year earlier, the first time they have turned negative since the dark days of the global financial crisis in 2009.

週三，一份官方報告表明，歐元區12月的消費物價指數同比下降0.2％，是自2009年全球金融危機的黑暗歲月以來首次出現負增長。

It is an outcome that economists have been predicting for more than a year and a trend that has long been complicating Europe’s recovery.

在一年多的時間裏，經濟學家一直預測會出現這種局面，而且這種趨勢也不斷在讓歐洲經濟的復甦過程變得複雜。

Now, the latest data is adding concerns that Europe is headed for a new financial and economic crisis. Unemployment remains persistently high. The euro has been particularly weak. And the political upheaval in Greece is prompting talk about the stability of the 19-country euro currency union.

如今，這些最新數據讓人們更加擔心，歐洲正面臨着一場新的金融和經濟危機。失業率居高不下，歐元則是尤其疲軟。此外，希臘的政治動盪也引發了對有19個成員國的歐元區的穩定性的討論。

With the outlook deteriorating, pressure is mounting for the European Central Bank take more aggressive action to avoid a downward price spiral that could undermine the economy for years to come. Top officials have already been signaling that they could announce a major bond-buying program later this month.

隨着前景惡化，歐洲央行(European Central Bank)也面臨着越來越大的壓力，需要採取更激進的措施來避免消費價格持續下跌，從而不給經濟造成持續數年的破壞。高層官員已經表示，他們很可能會在本月晚些時候，宣佈一項重要的債券購買計劃。

But the question raised by many economists is whether the European Central Bank has waited too long to act, and whether its arsenal is powerful enough to address the eurozone’s fundamental problem — a dearth of demand from businesses and consumers for goods and services. Even the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, has said that it alone cannot shoulder the burden of restarting growth.

但是，許多經濟學家的問題是，歐洲央行是否等待了太久才採取行動，它的措施又是否足夠強大，能夠解決歐元區的根本問題——企業和消費者對商品和服務缺乏需求。就連央行行長馬里奧·德拉吉(Mario Draghi)都說，央行無法獨立承擔重啓增長的責任。

“The eurozone is suffering from a profound malaise,” said Simon Tilford, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, a think tank in London. “It’s already in a deflationary trap of the kind we saw in Japan in the 1990s, but it’s less well equipped than the Japanese to deal with it,” he added, citing the institutional challenges of managing a currency bloc of 19 nations.

“歐元區極其萎靡不振，”倫敦智庫歐洲改革中心(Center for European Reform)的副主任西蒙·蒂爾福德(Simon Tilford)說。“它已經陷入了我們上世紀90年代在日本看到的那種通縮陷阱，但是在應對這個陷阱的問題上，它的準備沒有日本那麼充分，”他補充道，指出了管理由19個國家組成的貨幣集團需要面對的制度上的挑戰。

The situation in Europe does not appear to meet the classical definition of deflation, a widespread, protracted and self-sustaining decline in prices. And the continued global collapse of crude oil prices contributed significantly to the decline, blurring somewhat the implications of the inflation report for the 19-country euro currency union.

歐洲的情況似乎並不符合通縮的傳統定義，即消費價格出現大範圍、長期的、具有內生動力的下跌。而且，原油價格在國際市場的持續暴跌也對經濟衰退產生了重大影響，這個由19國組成的歐元貨幣聯盟的通脹報告的意義也由此在某種程度上變得模糊不清。

But the trend is dangerous. The low inflation environment was already a signal of a listless economy, with consumers spending little despite low prices and companies having scant incentive to invest in their businesses.

然而，這種趨勢是危險的。低通脹的環境已經預示了疲軟的經濟狀況，雖然物價低廉，消費者的支出仍然很少，公司也缺乏對業務進行投資的動力。

If prices actually fall for an extended period, consumers might delay purchase in hopes of getting a better deal later, and businesses would see little reason to make products that would be worth less with each passing month.

倘若消費價格長時間下跌，消費者可能會因爲希望以後能看到更划算的價格而推遲購買商品的時間。既然產品的價格不斷在降低，企業也就覺得沒有什麼製造產品的理由。

"We’re not yet in a self-sustaining spiral,” said Gilles Moec, chief European economist at Bank of America in London. “But we’re close.”

“我們還沒有陷入一個具有內生動力的漩渦，”美銀美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)倫敦辦公室的首席歐洲經濟學家吉勒·莫埃克(Gilles Moëc)說。“但我們正在接近它。”

The labor market provides one illustration of what makes Europe’s situation particularly complicated to fix.

勞動力市場從一個方面說明了爲何歐洲的情況會特別複雜，難以修復。

A separate official report on Wednesday showed that the eurozone jobless rate remained at 11.5 percent in November, around the level at which it has been for the last year. But overall numbers don’t give a complete picture of what’s happening in each country, where fortunes are diverging.

週三的另一份官方報告顯示，歐元區11月的失業率仍爲11.5%，與去年的水平差不多。但是，總體數據並不能詳細說明每個國家的具體情況，而每個國家的形勢各不相同。

In Germany, which has the bloc’s biggest economy, unemployment fell to 6.4 percent in December from 6.5 percent in November. But in the second- and third-largest of the eurozone economies, France and Italy, the jobless rates climbed, with Italian unemployment reaching a new high of 13.4 percent.

德國是歐元區最大的經濟體，12月，其失業率從11月的6.5%下降到6.4％。但是在第二和第三大的歐元區經濟體——法國和意大利——失業率卻出現攀升，意大利的失業率達到13.4％，創歷史新高。

And in Greece and Spain, about a quarter of the population remains without work, a level consistent with economic depression.

在希臘和西班牙，大約四分之一的人口仍然沒有工作，與經濟衰退的水平一致。

Analysts said on Wednesday that it was now a certainty that the European Central Bank would announce aggressive new measures when it meets in Frankfurt on Jan. 22. They expect the central bank to say it is ready to begin effectively printing money that it would use to buy eurozone government bonds, even if it does not put the measures into practice for several months.

分析人士週三表示，現在可以肯定，歐洲央行1月22日在法蘭克福碰頭的時候會宣佈積極的新措施。他們希望央行能夠表示，已準備好開始採取相當於印鈔的行動，並藉此購買歐元區國家的政府債券，即便它在未來幾個月裏都不會馬上推行此類措施。

In doing so, the bank would follow an unconventional policy similar to the quantitative easing used by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the American economy.

假如這樣做了，歐洲央行將遵循的政策會一反常態，與美聯儲(Federal Reserve)用於刺激美國經濟的量化寬鬆類似。

But quantitative easing is a divisive issue in Europe because of questions about how to allocate the bond buying among eurozone countries, and who would pay if a government defaulted on bonds held by the central bank. That uncertainty is a main reason that Germany does not want to put its taxpayers at risk of having to bail out the bloc’s weaker neighbors.

不過，由於存在一些問題，量化寬鬆在歐洲爭議極大。這些問題包括：如何在歐元區國家中間分配債券購買額？以及萬一央行持有的債券遭一國違約的話將由誰來埋單？德國之所以不願意將本國納稅人置於援助歐元區經濟較弱的鄰國的風險之中，一個主要原因正是源於這種不確定性。

The central bank has an official goal of trying to keep inflation at just below 2 percent, which it considers an optimal level for a healthy economy. But the bank has not met that target in two years.

歐洲央行設立了將通脹率保持在略低於2%的官方目標，並認爲這是經濟健康的最佳水平。不過，該行已兩年未能達到這一標準。

Japan’s experience in the 1990s showed that traditional monetary policy instruments are largely ineffective with nominal interest rates at zero, as they essentially are now in the eurozone.

日本在上世紀90年代的經驗表明，在名義利率爲零的情況下，傳統的貨幣政策工具基本不奏效。目前在歐元區，名義利率基本上就是零。

Another way to address the problem might be for eurozone countries to drop their insistence on balancing budgets and to instead use tax cuts and public spending to create demand.

應對這一問題的另一種方式或許是，歐元區國家放下對平衡預算的執念，轉而用減稅和增加公共開支的方式來創造需求。

So far, though, European officials appear to be holding their course.

不過，到目前爲止，歐洲各國的官員似乎還在沿着既定路線走。

“Yes, the eurozone is going through a period of low inflation,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister and president of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance officials, said in a statement in response to a New York Times query. “But one of the most important reasons for the current low inflation rate is the falling oil price. Core inflation — excluding oil prices — has recently slightly increased.”

“的確，歐元區正在經歷低通脹期，”荷蘭財政部長杰倫·戴塞爾布盧姆(Jeroen Dijsselbloem)在接到《紐約時報》問詢後做出此番聲明。他同時擔任歐元區財長組成的歐元集團(Eurogroup)的主席。“不過，引發當前低通脹率的最重要的一個原因是不斷下滑的油價。刨去油價的核心通脹率近期略有擡升。”

The core inflation rate, which excludes energy and food prices, ticked up to 0.8 percent in December from 0.7 percent the month before, according to Wednesday’s data.

核心通脹率不計算能源與食品價格。根據週三公佈的數據，12月份的核心通脹率從頭一個月的0.7%升至0.8%。

The German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which has taken a tough line against coordinated economic stimulus, indicated that the latest data had not altered its thinking. A spokesman for the Finance Ministry said in Berlin on Wednesday that Germany would not revise its analysis that there was no risk of deflation in the country. That statement came despite a report on Monday showing that German consumer prices rose 0.1 percent last month.

德國總理安格拉·默克爾(Angela Merkel)領導的政府一直對協同性的經濟刺激措施採取強硬立場。她放出信號，表明最新的數據並未改變自身的想法。週三，德國財政部的一名發言人在柏林表示，不會修改關於本國並未面臨通縮風險的評估結論。這一聲明出臺的背景是，週一的一份報告顯示，德國的消費物價指數上月僅增長了0.1%。

Consumer prices in the eurozone had not contracted on an annual basis since October 2009, when the slack global economy made the bottom fall out of the market for oil and other commodities. December’s negative rate was down from the 0.3 percent increase in November.

自2009年10月以來，歐元區的消費物價指數就沒有出現過同比降低的情況。那時，疲軟的全球經濟導致原油和其他大宗商品價格跌入谷底。去年12月的數據從11月的上揚0.3%轉爲了負增長。

Well before eurozone consumer prices tipped below zero, the region’s low inflation rate had been raising alarms.

在歐元區消費價格指數的增長率下探到負數之前，該地區的低通脹率早就拉響了警報。

Economists with the International Monetary Fund warned early last year that the difference between ultralow inflation, which they called lowflation, and outright deflation was mainly a matter of degrees, as the weak price pressures could “scupper the nascent recovery and pressure the most fragile countries.”

去年初，國際貨幣基金組織(International Monetary Fund)的經濟學家們警告，超低通脹——他們的用詞是“低通脹”(lowflation)——與真正的通縮之間主要的區別在於程度高低，而疲軟的價格壓力可能會“讓剛剛出現的復甦泡湯，並令最脆弱的那些國家承壓”。

Mr. Draghi, the central bank president, said last week in an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt that the risk of deflation “cannot be ruled out completely, but it is limited.”

歐洲央行行長德拉吉上週接受德國《商報》(Handelsblatt)採訪時表示，通縮的風險“不能完全排除，但較爲有限”。

“We are not there yet,” Mr. Draghi said. “But we need to tackle this risk.”

“我們還沒到那個地步，”德拉吉說。“但我們需要應對這一風險。”