全球通胀何去何从

Evolution of Global Inflation

2021年7月15日,《国际经济评论》编辑部、中国世界经济学会联合组织召开"全球通胀何去何从"研讨会。短期来看,政策强刺激推动美国通胀走高,供需错配加大结构性压力,服务性价格上涨在更大范围疫情解封推动下值得关注。在外需热、内需冷、供给限的情况下,中国通胀的压力主要表现在生产端,猪价走低抑制国内CPI通胀水平。中长期来看,反不平等思潮的崛起、供应链的扰动、碳中和的压力仍然存在,在两三年时间内,通货膨胀率仍然会高一些,但持续时间不会太长,水平不会很高。但如果疫情以后全球需求异常弱,高通胀压力也很难显现。美国2020年货币增速是正常时候的4~5倍,财政扩张是传统上限的10倍,将来滞胀难以避免,但对美国滞涨的担心应该是在10年、15年之后的相当长时间段。最后,如果未来出现了尾部风险,对全球长期通胀的走向而言至关重要的是中央银行的应对。相信全球中央银行已经汲取20世纪70年代的教训,会在通胀的早期去干预。如果美联储不断发现通胀比想象得难以克服,就意味着通胀预期已经脱锚。

The editorial board of the International Economic Review journal and the China Society of World Economics jointly organized a seminar on July 15,2021,themed Where the Global Inflation Heading.In the short term,strong policy stimulus has pushed up US inflation,the mismatch of supply and demand has increased structural inflationary pressure,and the increase in service prices is worthy of attention as lifting of pandemic lockdown continues to expand in scale.Against the backdrop of strong external demand,cooling domestic demand,and limited supply,China’s inflationary pressure is mainly manifested on the production side.The declining pork price suppresses the domestic CPI inflation level,and the profit growth of commodities will lead to capital expenditures,thus offsetting the upward price movement.Without inflation,there would be no economic recovery.China should take advantage of the window period to reduce interest rates to a lower level as soon as possible.In the medium and long term,given the rise of anti-inequality sentiment,supply chain disturbances,the failure of supply capacity being restored in a timely manner,and the carbon neutrality pressure,within two to three years,the inflation rate will still be higher,but the high inflation will not last long and it will not be very high.However,if global demand becomes abnormally weak in the postpandemic era,it will also be hard for global inflationary pressure to intensify.The currency growth rate of the US in 2020 was four to five times that during normal times,and its fiscal expansion was ten times the traditional upper-limit level.Stagflation will be inevitable in the US in the future,but such concerns should occur and last for a fairly long time such as 10 or 15 years from now.Finally,if tail risks emerge in the future,it is the central bank’s response that is crucial to the evolution direction of global long-term inflation.It is believed that the global central banks have learned the lessons of the 1970 s.If they do not intervene in the early stages of rising inflation,the costs of intervention in the middle and late stages will increase by multiple orders of magnitude.If the US Fed continues to find that inflation is more difficult to overcome than expected,it would mean that inflation expectations have been de-anchored.