BEC商务英语高级阅读：欧元区经济如何走出衰退

　　The eurozone economy is stuck in a long and drawn-out recession. It will probably continue for the rest of the year. Unemployment has reached a eurozone-era record of 12 per cent, and will probably rise further. Inflation is at the lower end of the target range, and projected to fall. The risks to growth and inflation are both on the downside. So why on earth is the European Central Bank not cutting interest rates?

　　欧元区经济正陷入旷日持久的衰退当中。这种情形或许在今年剩余时间里也不会改变。失业率达到12%，创出欧元时代的新高，而且可能还会上升。通胀处于目标区间的低端，预计会继续下降。增长和通胀均存在下行风险。那么欧洲央行(ECB)到底为什么不降息?

　　This is a legitimate question, and an important one. But the most important question facing European monetary policy is how to fix the credit crunch in the southern half of the monetary union.

　　这是一个法律问题，而且是一个非常重要的问题。但欧洲货币政策面临的最重要问题是如何解决欧元区南部国家的信贷紧缺。

　　Nowhere is the situation more acute than in Italy, where small and medium-sized companies are being hit by austerity and the credit crunch at the same time. Mario Monti’s administration in Italy implemented austerity in such a way that it has prevented municipalities and other public entities paying bills to their suppliers. This has turned into an existential threat to the survival for many small companies, which face the simultaneous problem of not getting paid and not having access to credit to tide them over. Small Italian companies typically face interest rates of 10 per cent. Over the border in Austria, similar companies get credit for less than half that rate. Italian households, too, are credit constrained, as lending for mortgages and consumption goods has been steadily falling, and rates rising.

　　没有比意大利形势更为严峻的国家了，该国的中小企业同时遭受紧缩政策和信贷紧缺的冲击。马里奥蒙蒂(Mario Monti)领导的意大利政府实施的紧缩措施，使得市政当局等公共部门无法向供应商支付账单。结果造成许多小企业面临生死存亡的威胁——它们既得不到付款，同时又无法获得信贷来渡过难关。意大利小企业的贷款利率通常为10%。在与意大利接壤的奥地利，类似企业的贷款利率不到意大利的一半。意大利家庭也面临信贷紧缺的问题，抵押贷款和消费品贷款数量一直在稳步下降，同时利率不断上升。

　　Unlike in Italy, the fall in bank lending in Spain is mostly demand-driven. In Spain, lending to households was down 4.4 per cent year-on-year in February, while lending to firms was down by 10.6 per cent. Spain is the classic example, along with Japan in the 1990s, of a balance-sheet recession where the private sector deleverages irrespective of the level of interest rates. But even for Spain I would expect that a targeted programme to reduce the interest-rate premium would bring higher returns than an overall quarter-point rate cut.

　　与意大利不同，西班牙的银行贷款下降主要是需求导致的。在西班牙，向家庭提供的贷款在今年2月同比下降4.4%，而向企业提供的贷款同比下降10.6%。西班牙以及上世纪90年代的日本是“资产负债表衰退”的典型例子——私人部门不管利率水平如何坚持去杠杆化。但即便是西班牙，我仍然预计，如果出台一个降低息差的针对性项目，将会带来比整体降息25个基点更高的回报。

　　I am not against a rate cut. On the contrary, I think the ECB should cut policy rates to zero to counteract the fall in aggregate demand. But while this would have a small positive effect on average monetary conditions, it will be less effective than a programme designed to reduce real-world lending rates.

　　我并不反对降息。相反，我认为欧洲央行应该将政策利率降至零来抵消总需求下降的影响。但是尽管这对普通货币环境有一些积极影响，它却不如一个旨在降低真实世界贷款利率的项目有效。

　　A recent IMF working paper by Edda Zoli found a link between the size of the sovereign spreads and the funding costs for Italian banks, and ultimately, the rise in corporate borrowing costs. The high sovereign spreads thus indirectly created credit supply constraints in the private sector. But the process did not seem to have worked the other way round. Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, tried to fix the problem last year with the launch of a sovereign bond purchasing programme, known as Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT). It triggered a fall in sovereign bond spreads, but, unfortunately, had no effect on transmission mechanisms. On the contrary, they have deteriorated.

　　最近埃达 佐利(Edda Zoli)在为国际货币基金组织(IMF)撰写的工作报告中指出，主权债券息差水平与意大利银行融资成本存在关联，并最终导致企业借款成本上升。主权债券的高息差因此间接导致了私人部门的信贷供应紧张。但这种过程反过来似乎并不成立。欧洲央行行长马里奥 德拉吉(Mario Draghi)去年试图解决这个问题，推出了一个名为“直接货币交易”(OMT)的主权债券购买计划。它促使主权债券息差下降，但遗憾的是对传导机制没有任何效果。相反，传导机制进一步恶化。