美联储主席：美国经济前景黯淡

    实际上，金融危机以来，美联储估算的经济增长率一直偏高。下图由投资及金融咨询机构Guggenheim Partners提供。从中可以看出，越靠近2013年，美联储的经济增长预期就下降得越厉害。最终，美联储预计2013年美国经济将增长2.1%，但这样的预期依然显得乐观。原因是，去年美国经济只增长了1.8%。

    In fact, the Fed has consistently overestimated how quickly the economy would grow ever since the financial crisis. The following chart from Guggenheim Partners shows how the Fed’s economic growth expectations last year dropped precipitously as 2013 grew closer. In the end, even their final prediction of GDP growth of roughly 2.1% was optimistic, as the economy only grew 1.8% last year.

    现在，美联储又把2014年美国GDP增长预期削减了逾0.5个百分点，从2.8%-3.0%下调到了2.1%-2.3%。虽然听起来调整幅度不大，但要知道，GDP增长率每提高1个百分点，就业机会就会增加大约100万个。这是一条很准的规律。

    鉴于今年第一季度美国经济的年化增长率实际上降到了1%，预计全年经济增长2.1%就意味着后三个季度经济要有较大幅度的反弹。同时，美联储仍然预测2015年美国经济增长率为3.0%-3.2%。这也就是说，美联储认为今年损失的经济增长率不会在今后几年得到补偿。

    因此，如果第一季度的经济滑坡真的完全都是因为天气（许多人都这么说），那就应该认为绝大多数经济增长都会在天气情况更好的后三个季度中实现。人们通常认为，坏天气只会延缓经济活动，而不是完全把它扼杀。此外，美联储将自己的长期利率预期从4.0%下调到了3.75%。美联储主席珍妮特•耶伦在周三公布货币政策后的新闻发布会上说，这样做的原因是“长期经济增长预期略有下降”。

    总之，可以认为货币政策声明以及随后的新闻发布会表明，美联储认可了经济学家、美国前财政部长拉里•萨默斯最近提出的一项理论。他的理论认为，美国经济已经进入“长期萧条”阶段，在这期间，需求将不足以支撑美国已经习惯的那种增长水平。

    毕竟，人们都认为，衰退之后的经济增长率应该超过正常水平。然而，本次衰退过后，美国经济在任何一个年份的增长率都没能达到3.27%的长期平均水平。就连美联储的最乐观预期也只认为明年美国经济增速将勉强达到这个水平，而到2016年又将回落至3%，随后几年的增长率甚至更低，只有2.3%。

    对于美联储或者联邦政府怎样才能扭转这种趋势的问题，耶伦在周三的新闻发布会上没有做出正面回答。她说希望经济衰退的负面影响，比如长期失业率被夸大以及个人信誉受损，能随着时间的推移而减弱。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    And the Fed’s at it once again, as it reduced its estimate for GDP growth in 2014 by more than half a percentage point, from 2.8%-3.0% down to 2.1%-2.3%. While that may not sound like much, remember that a good rule of thumb is that a single percentage point of GDP growth leads to roughly 1 million new jobs.

    Given that the economy actually shrank at an annual rate of 1% in the first quarter of this year, a projection of 2.1% growth for 2014 implies a relatively large expected bounce back in the remaining quarters. At the same time, the Fed stuck with its projections for 2015 economic growth of 3.0%-3.2%, meaning it doesn’t expect lost economic growth this year to be made up in the years to come.

    So, if the first quarter contraction was really just about the weather (as many have said), you would expect the vast majority of that economic growth to be made up in later quarters when the weather was better. Bad weather is generally thought to simply delay, rather than kill, economic activity. Furthermore, the Fed cut its projections for long-term interest rates from 4.0% to 3.75%, a change that Fed Chair Janet Yellen attributed to “a slight decline in projections for longer term growth,” in a press conference following Wednesday’s policy announcement.

    All in all, the announcement and press conference could be taken as an endorsement of a theory that economist and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has recently put forward, which is that the U.S. economy is entering a period of “secular stagnation” in which there is insufficient demand to support the sort of growth rates the U.S. has become accustomed to.

    After all, economies are supposed to grow above typical trends following recessions, and the U.S. economy has failed to even reach its long-run growth rate trend of 3.27% for any year since the recession ended. Even the Fed’s best-case scenario has the economy growing at roughly that long-term rate next year before falling back to 3% in 2016 and 2.3% per year in the years thereafter.

    When asked what the Fed or the federal government could do to break out of this rut, Yellen evaded the question at the Fed’s press conference on Wednesday, saying that she hoped the damaging effects of the recession–like exaggerated long-term unemployment and damaged household credit worthiness–would wane as time passes.