美世：2020年经济展望( 英文 16页)

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Economic Outlook 2020

The global economy slowed in 2019 and is now growing at below trend. This is mainly due to the slowdown in capital spending as the US-China trade war introduced significant uncertainty to business decision-making. The slowdown was also driven by the lagged effects from tighter financial conditions in 2018. 

We expect the global economy to recover from below-trend growth rates to around trend as manufacturing picks up a bit and easier monetary policy begins to feed through, provided the US-China trade war doesn’t escalate and global labor markets continue to be strong. Within the pickup in global growth, we expect emerging economies to do slightly better than the developed world. 

We expect the US economy to continue to do well, growing at close to trend. We doubt, however, that the labor market can improve much further and expect the unemployment rate to stabilize below 4%. That should continue to apply moderate upward pressure on wages, which should support household income growth and consumer confidence — a crucial factor in economic growth. If, as we expect, the trade war doesn’t escalate further, we should see a pickup in business confidence. However, for that to lead to much higher capital spending, we would need to see an improvement in company profit margins, which have been under both internal (wages) and external (trade) pressures. In Europe and Japan, we would expect economic growth to recover on the back of the strength in labor market and consumer balance sheets as well as external factors, such as a pickup in global trade activity. 

The outlook for China may be improving, as both the central bank and the government are taking measures to stimulate the economy and reverse earlier efforts to restrict credit growth. Thus far, China has been less aggressive in stimulating the economy than it was in 2016, and whether they will do something on a larger scale remains to be seen. Regardless, a lot depends on the next steps in the US-China trade war. At the time of writing, we were close to an interim “Phase 1” trade deal. Whether that is material and will undo the damage already done remains to be seen. It appears that the two sides might agree on some more straightforward deals, such as the buying of certain goods, and will delay the more difficult conversations around intellectual property to “Phase 2.” Also, as part of Phase 1, planned tariff increases may be removed. Most of the emerging world is showing broadly sound economic fundamentals; however, the trade-war narrative and the extent of the China stimulus are likely to be the ultimate deciders of whether the emerging economies move back to trend (and perhaps above) or stay at weaker levels.

全球经济在2019年放缓，目前正以低于趋势的速度增长。这主要是由于中美贸易战为商业决策带来了巨大的不确定性，资本支出放缓。放缓的原因还在于2018年财务状况收紧带来的滞后效应。

我们预计，随着美中贸易战不会升级以及全球劳动力市场持续强劲，随着制造业略有回升以及宽松的货币政策开始实施，全球经济将从低于趋势的增长率恢复至趋势附近。 。在全球增长回升的过程中，我们预计新兴经济体的表现将略好于发达国家。

我们预计美国经济将继续保持良好态势，并以接近趋势的速度增长。但是，我们怀疑劳动力市场能否进一步改善，并期望失业率稳定在4％以下。这将继续对工资施加适度的上涨压力，这将支持家庭收入增长和消费者信心，这是经济增长的关键因素。如果正如我们预期的那样，贸易战不会进一步升级，我们应该会看到商业信心有所回升。但是，要使这导致更高的资本支出，我们需要看到公司的利润率有所提高，这既受到内部（工资）压力又受到外部（贸易）压力的影响。在欧洲和日本，由于劳动力市场和消费者资产负债表的强劲增长以及全球贸易活动回升等外部因素，我们预计经济增长将恢复。

随着中央银行和政府都在采取措施刺激经济并扭转先前限制信贷增长的努力，中国的前景可能正在改善。迄今为止，中国在刺激经济方面的积极性不如2016年，他们是否会做更大的事还有待观察。无论如何，很大程度上取决于中美贸易战的下一步。在撰写本文时，我们已经接近临时的“第一阶段”贸易协议。那是否是实质性的并且是否会消除已经造成的损害还有待观察。看来双方可能会达成一些更直接的交易，例如购买某些商品，并将有关知识产权的较困难的对话推迟到“第二阶段”。此外，作为第一阶段的一部分，计划中的关税上涨可能会被删除。多数新兴世界都展现出广泛良好的经济基础；然而，贸易战的叙述和中国刺激政策的程度可能是新兴经济体回到趋势（或可能高于趋势）还是维持在较弱水平的最终决定因素。