UK faces worst and longest recession in G7, say economists

经济学家称，英国面临七国集团中最严重、持续时间最长的衰退
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The UK will face one of the worst recessions and weakest recoveries in the G7 in the coming year, as households pay a heavy price for the government’s policy failings, economists say.

经济学家表示，英国明年将面临七国集团中最严重的衰退和最弱的复苏之一，因为英国家庭将为政府的政策失败付出沉重代价。

A clear majority of the 101 respondents in the FT’s annual poll of leading UK-based economists said the inflationary shock caused by the pandemic and the Ukraine war would persist for longer in the UK than elsewhere, forcing the Bank of England to keep interest rates high and the government to run a tight fiscal policy.

在英国《金融时报》对英国主要经济学家进行的年度调查中，101名受访者中，绝大多数人表示，疫情和乌克兰战争造成的通胀冲击在英国的持续时间将比其他地方更长，这将迫使英国央行维持高利率，并实施紧缩的财政政策。

More than four-fifths expected the UK to lag its peers, with GDP already shrinking and set to do so for much or all of 2023.

超过五分之四的人预计英国将落后于其他国家，英国GDP已经在萎缩，而且在2023年的大部分时间或整个2023年都将如此。
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The result is expected to be an intensifying squeeze on household incomes, as higher borrowing costs add to the pain already caused by soaring food and energy prices.

预计其结果将是对家庭收入的进一步挤压，因为更高的借贷成本加剧了食品和能源价格飙升已经造成的痛苦。

"The 2023 recession will feel much worse than the economic impact of the pandemic,” said John Philpott, an independent labour market economist. Others described the outlook for consumers — especially those on low incomes or mortgage deals that were set to expire — as “tough”, “bleak”, “grim”, “miserable” and “terrible”.

独立劳动力市场经济学家约翰·菲尔波特表示：“2023年的衰退将比大流行的经济影响严重得多。”其他人则将消费者的前景描述为“艰难”、“暗淡”、“严峻”、“悲惨”和“可怕”，尤其是那些低收入或抵押贷款交易即将到期的消费者。

“The combination of falling real wages, tight financial conditions and a housing market correction are as bad as it gets,” said Kallum Pickering, senior economist at Berenberg bank.

贝伦贝格银行高级经济学家卡勒姆·皮克林表示：“实际工资下降、金融环境趋紧以及房地产市场回调，这些因素加在一起已经够糟糕的了。”

The UK is not alone in facing these challenges: Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, warned at the weekend that a third of the global economy and half of the EU would be hit by recession this year.

英国并非唯一面临这些挑战的国家：国际货币基金组织总裁克里斯塔利娜·格奥尔基耶娃上周末警告称，全球经济的三分之一和欧盟的一半今年将遭遇衰退。

Most economists said the economy would at least return to growth by the end of the year as inflation ebbs, with Paul Dales, at the consultancy Capital Economics, asserting: “2024 will be much better than 2023.”

多数经济学家表示，随着通胀消退，美国经济至少将在年底前恢复增长。咨询公司凯投宏观的保罗·戴尔斯断言：“2024年将比2023年好得多。”

But Britain’s downturn looks set to be both deeper and more prolonged. Forecasts compiled by Consensus Economics show UK GDP shrinking by 1 per cent in 2023, compared with a contraction of just 0.1 per cent for the eurozone as a whole and growth of 0.25 per cent in the US.

但是，英国的经济低迷看起来将更加严重，持续时间也更长。共识经济编制的预测显示，2023年英国GDP将萎缩1%，相比之下，欧元区整体GDP将仅萎缩0.1%，美国将增长0.25%。

The UK is unusually exposed to the global surge n energy prices and interest rates — with a reliance on gas that is not matched by storage capacity, and a high proportion of mortgage obliged to renew fixed-rate deals in any given year.

英国不同寻常地受到全球能源价格和利率飙升的影响——它对天然气的依赖与存储能力不匹配，而且在任何一年，抵押贷款中有很大比例必须续签固定利率交易。

The UK is also unusual in the extent to which its workforce has shrunk since the pandemic. Charlie Bean, a former BOE chief economist, said high inflation was likely to be more persistent in the UK than elsewhere, because its labour market was “unsustainably tight even in the absence of the Ukraine shock”. Anna Leach, deputy chief economist at the CBI, said this would “continue to apply a brake to growth for companies, drive industrial unrest and push up domestically-generated inflation”.

自疫情爆发以来，英国劳动力缩减的程度也不同寻常。英国央行前首席经济学家查理·宾表示，高通胀在英国的持续时间可能比其他国家要长，因为英国劳动力市场“即使没有乌克兰冲击，也处于不可持续的紧张状态”。英国工业联合会副首席经济学家安娜·利奇表示，这将“继续抑制企业增长，引发行业动荡，推高由国内因素引发的通胀”。

“The UK suffers from an energy shock as bad as Europe’s, an inflation problem . . . as bad as the US and a unique problem of lack of labour supply from the combination of Brexit and the NHS crisis,” said Ricardo Reis, a professor at the London School of Economics.

伦敦政治经济学院教授里卡多·雷斯表示：“英国面临着与欧洲一样严重的能源冲击，还有通胀问题……与美国一样糟糕，以及英国脱欧和国家医疗服务体系危机共同导致的劳动力供应不足这一独特问题。”

But even once the recovery was under way, most said Britain would continue to lag because of fundamental problems that policy mistakes had made worse — poor productivity, weak business investment, government neglect of public services and the damage to trade done by Brexit.

但即使复苏已经开始，大多数人表示，英国仍将继续落后，因为政策失误导致的根本性问题更加严重——生产率低下、商业投资疲软、政府忽视公共服务，以及英国脱欧对贸易的损害。

“The UK is in a structural hole, not a cyclical downturn,” said Diane Coyle, professor at Cambridge university, who saw little prospect of an improvement in living standards “unless some sanity returns to our trade relations with the EU” and “until we have a government with an adequately long-term economic strategy it can get through parliament”.

剑桥大学教授黛安·科伊尔认为生活水平提高的前景渺茫，她表示：“英国正处于结构性困境，而不是周期性衰退。”她认为，“除非我们与欧盟的贸易关系恢复一些理智”，并且“除非我们有一个能够在议会获得通过的具有足够长期经济战略的政府”。

Many saw similarities with the policy missteps and industrial conflict of 1970s and said the recovery, once it began, would be a feeble one, unfolding “in the long shadow of Brexit” and in the absence of any plan to boost long-term growth.

许多人认为这与上世纪70年代的政策失误和产业冲突有相似之处，并表示，一旦开始复苏，将是微弱的，“在英国脱欧的长期阴影下”展开，而且没有任何提振长期增长的计划。
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More than a quarter of respondents said Brexit would be a continuing drag on growth, with Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College, London, calling it a “slow puncture for the UK economy”. Several said its corrosive effects would become increasingly clear to voters.

超过四分之一的受访者表示，英国脱欧将继续拖累经济增长，伦敦国王学院经济学和公共政策教授乔纳森·波特斯称这是“对英国经济的一次缓慢穿刺”。一些人表示，对选民来说，它的腐蚀性影响将越来越明显。
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“When they visit the EU on holiday, they will be surprised at how unable they are to afford things that they used to be able to,” said John Llewellyn, partner at the advisory group Independent Economics.

咨询集团独立经济合伙人约翰·卢埃林表示：“当他们度假访问欧盟时，他们会惊讶地发现，自己是多么无力负担过去能够负担得起的东西。”

A significant minority said the UK was suffering from ministers’ outright incompetence.

相当多的少数人表示，英国正遭受大臣们的彻底无能之苦。

“By now, the economy is in much deeper trouble than it needed to be if it had been competently managed,” said Panicos Demetriades, a former governor of the Cypriot central bank, calling the UK “the ‘sick man’ of the G7”.

塞浦路斯央行前行长帕尼科斯·德米特里亚德斯表示：“到目前为止，如果经济得到有效管理，它所面临的麻烦要轻得多。”他称英国是“七国‘病夫’”。

Stephen King, senior economic adviser at HSBC, pointed to the “painful need to restore fiscal credibility in the light of the Truss/Kwarteng fiasco” and Ray Barrell, honorary professor of economics at Brunel university, said encouraging public sector strikes looked like “the last bid for middle-class votes by a failing government”.

汇丰高级经济顾问斯蒂芬·金指出“鉴于特拉斯/科沃滕的惨败，恢复财政信誉的痛苦需要”。布鲁内尔大学经济学名誉教授雷·巴雷尔则表示，鼓励公共部门罢工，看起来像是“一个失败的政府最后一次争取中产阶级选票”。

But while economists agreed on the UK’s bleak prospects, there was no consensus on what policymakers should do about it in the short term.

不过，尽管经济学家一致认为英国前景黯淡，但对于政策制定者在短期内应该采取什么措施，却没有达成共识。
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The Bank of England has warned that interest rates will probably need to rise again in 2023 to return inflation to the 2 per cent target, but by how much, or for how long, is less clear.

英国央行警告称，可能需要在2023年再次加息，以使通胀恢复到2%的目标，但加息多少、持续多长时间尚不清楚。

Jagjit Chadha, director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, said that with inflation set to fall rapidly from mid 2023, a “gradual” increase should be enough to hit the target in 2024, with “no need to jump in rapid steps to something much higher than 4 per cent”.

印度国家经济和社会研究所所长贾吉特·查达哈表示，由于通胀将从2023年中期开始迅速下降，“逐步”加息应该足以在2024年达到通胀目标，“没有必要快速跃升至远高于4%的水平”。

Some fear the central bank could go too far. Kitty Ussher, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said that because it took time for higher interest rates to take effect, people would not “fully believe that inflation is falling” until mid 2023. This could make the BOE feel “under pressure to keep taking action, running the risk of . . . an unnecessarily harsh recession”.

一些人担心央行可能会走得太远。英国董事学会首席经济学家基蒂·厄舍表示，由于加息需要时间才能生效，人们在2023年中期之前不会“完全相信通胀正在下降”。这可能会让英国央行感到“承受着继续采取行动的压力，冒着……不必要的严重衰退的风险”。
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Others warned that even if headline inflation fell rapidly, it would be a “slow grind” to reach the 2 per cent target. “The Bank will need to be tough to dampen core inflation,” said Jessica Hinds, economist at Fitch Ratings.

其他人警告称，即使整体通胀率迅速下降，要达到2%的目标也将是一个“缓慢的过程”。惠誉评级经济学家杰西卡·海因兹表示：“英国央行需要采取强硬措施抑制核心通胀。”

The consistent message from several former BOE rate-setters — including Charlie Bean, Kate Barker, Michael Saunders and founder MPC member DeAnne Julius — was that wherever interest rates peak, they are unlikely to fall quickly. “Crucially, the recent upward shift in inflation expectations needs to be reversed,” Barker said.

几位前英国央行利率制定者——包括查理·宾、凯特·巴克、迈克尔·桑德斯和英国货币政策委员会创始人迪安妮·朱利叶斯——传递的一致信息是，只要利率达到峰值，就不太可能迅速下降。“关键是，近期通胀预期上升的趋势需要扭转，”巴克称。

With elections approaching, the government will not want to raise taxes again after the massive fiscal consolidation announced in October.

随着选举的临近，政府在10月份宣布大规模财政整顿后，将不希望再次提高税收。

Some respondents felt this made big tax changes in 2023 unlikely, arguing that chancellor Jeremy Hunt had done enough to placate markets. “Its own fiscal rules are in no way constraining,” said Vicky Pryce, chief economic adviser at CEBR, while Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG, called it “counterproductive to increase the tax burden during a recession”.

一些受访者认为，这使得2023年不太可能进行重大税收改革，他们认为财政大臣杰里米·亨特已经做了足够多的工作来安抚市场。英国经济与商业研究中心首席经济顾问维姬·普赖斯表示：“它自己的财政规则根本没有任何约束。”毕马威首席经济学家雅艾尔·塞尔芬则称，“在衰退期间增加税负会适得其反”。

But others said even a small downgrade to the relatively optimistic forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, could force the chancellor to reconsider, as it would erase his headroom against the target to set debt on a falling path as a percentage of GDP.

但其他人表示，即使是对财政监管机构——英国预算责任办公室相对乐观的预测进行小幅下调，也可能迫使财政大臣重新考虑，因为这将消除他实现债务占GDP比例下降目标的回旋余地。

The bigger question, say the economists, is whether the government can resist the growing pressure to raise public sector pay, given the spate of strike action, and prop up crumbling public services.

经济学家们表示，更大的问题在于，政府能否顶住不断增长的要求公共部门加薪的压力，并支撑起摇摇欲坠的公共服务。

“It’s likely that the government will eventually cave into public sector wage demands, in which case tax rises are inevitable,” said Martin Ellison, professor of economics at Oxford university.

牛津大学经济学教授马丁·埃里森表示：“政府很可能最终会屈服于公共部门的工资要求，在这种情况下，增税是不可避免的。”

Despite deep gloom over the UK’s long-term prospects, some respondents found silver linings. Silvia Ardagna, economist at Barclays, noted that unemployment was likely to stay low despite the recession, with employers hoarding labour after their recent struggles to recruit.

尽管对英国的长期前景深感悲观，但一些受访者发现了一线希望。巴克莱经济学家西尔维娅·阿达尼亚指出，尽管出现了衰退，但失业率仍可能保持在较低水平，因为雇主在近期招聘困难后纷纷囤积劳动力。

Bronwyn Curtis, a non-executive director at the OBR, was optimistic “that alternatives to Russian gas will accelerate”, while financial pressures could prompt labour market dropouts to return.

预算责任办公室非执行董事布朗温·柯蒂斯乐观地认为，“俄罗斯天然气的替代方案将加速出现”，而金融压力可能促使劳动力市场的退出者回归。

Meanwhile, Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, saw “tentative signs of greater co-operation with Europe”, while Ussher said that from spring onwards, there would be “a fillip to sentiment” from heating being turned off and benefits uprated in line with inflation.

与此同时，哈格里夫斯·兰斯多恩公司的分析师苏珊娜·斯特里特看到了“与欧洲加强合作的初步迹象”，而厄舍表示，从春季开始，由于暖气被关闭，福利将与通胀同步提高，“市场情绪将受到刺激”。

But despite these glimmers of hope, few expect the UK to lay the foundations for long-term growth in the year ahead. Ian Plenderleith, a former MPC rate-setter, said the recovery would look less like the emergence of green shoots, and more like “a bit of scrubland”.

然而，尽管出现了这些希望之光，但很少有人预计英国将为未来一年的长期增长奠定基础。英国货币政策委员会前利率制定者伊恩·普伦德莱斯表示，经济复苏看起来不太像复苏的萌芽，而更像是“一片灌木丛”。

Richard Davies, director of the Economics Observatory and a former Treasury adviser, predicted that even once inflation had receded, prices would remain high and households would be under intense pressure.

英国经济观察主任、前财政部顾问理查德·戴维斯预测，即使通胀有所回落，物价仍将居高不下，家庭将面临巨大压力。

He added: “The real roots of prosperity come from productivity rising consistently. I am less optimistic here.”

他补充说：“繁荣的真正根源在于生产率的持续提高。但我对此不那么乐观。”