In its relations with its most powerful clients, the International Monetary Fund possesses “the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn”. Walter Bagehot, the great Victorian economic journalist, gave this description of the role of the British monarch in the 19th century. I applied this phrase to the role of the fund in a paper I submitted to its 2011 triennial surveillance review. At the annual meetings in Tokyo, the fund fulfilled precisely this role. What matters, however, is that its members, above all, the US and Germany, act upon the warnings and encouragement they have received.
在与其一些最强大的客户打交道的过程中，国际货币基金组织(IMF)拥有“商量权、鼓励权和警告权”——维多利亚女王时期伟大的经济记者沃尔特•白芝浩(Walter Bagehot)曾用这三个词描述19世纪英国君主的作用。在为国际货币基金组织2011年度的三年工作评审提交的论文中，我也用这几个词来描述该组织的作用。IMF确实在东京年会上行使了这几种权利。但真正重要的是，其成员国，尤其是美国和德国，能够依据收到的警告和鼓励讯息采取行动。
The warning provided by the IMF’s World Economic Outlook was that: “The recovery continues, but it has weakened. In advanced countries, growth is now too low to make a substantial dent in unemployment. And in major emerging market economies, growth that had been strong earlier has also decreased.” The IMF revised its forecast for 2013 growth in advanced economies from the 2.0 per cent it forecast in April to 1.5 per cent. For developing countries, it cut its forecast from April’s prediction of 6.0 per cent to 5.6 per cent. The performance of the US, with forecast growth of 2.1 per cent next year (just 0.1 percentage points lower than forecast in July), is expected to be far better than that of the eurozone, where growth is forecast at 0.2 per cent next year (0.5 percentage points lower than forecast in July), after -0.4 per cent in 2012. Even Germany’s economy is forecast to grow by a mere 0.9 per cent in 2012 and 2013. Spain’s is forecast to shrink by 1.5 per cent and then 1.3 per cent. The eurozone is a cage for masochists.
IMF在其《世界经济展望》(World Economic Outlook)中发出警告：“经济还在继续复苏，但复苏的力度已经减弱。在发达国家，如今的经济增长率过低，无法明显地减少失业。而在主要新兴市场经济体，增长势头也不像先前那样强劲。”IMF将其对2013年发达经济体增长率的预测从4月份的2.0%下调至1.5%，将其对发展中国家的预测从4月份的6.0%下调至5.6%。美国的表现预计将远好于欧元区，IMF对该国明年增长率的预测为2.1%（仅比IMF7月份的预测低0.1%），而IMF对在2012年负增长0.4%的欧元区明年增长率的预测是0.2%（比7月份的预测低0.5%）。根据IMF的预测，就连德国在2012年和2013年的增长率也将仅为0.9%。IMF预计西班牙经济今年将收缩1.5%，明年进一步收缩1.3%。欧元区是一座牢笼，里面关满受虐狂。