美國經濟滑坡的速度可能超過了華爾街和美聯儲意識到的水平。今后的情況也許會再次讓人失望。

本周，美聯儲主席珍妮特?耶倫將和公開市場委員會的同事們再次召開會議。與六周前他們開會時相比，情況已經有了巨大變化。國際油價再次直線下墜，部分原因是人們對中國經濟迅速放緩感到擔心。歐洲和美國股市投資者也因此擔驚受怕。

不過，美聯儲官員一直在設法安慰投資者。他們表示，美聯儲今年及以后緩慢而堅定地提升利率的計劃沒有改變。上周，紐約聯儲行長威廉?達德利稱，盡管最近的一些經濟指標沒有達到預期，但他仍認為2016年美國經濟增速將“略高于長期趨勢值”，失業率將繼續下降。

然而，美聯儲和整個華爾街或許都低估了近期經濟增長率回落的幅度。

The economy could be falling apart faster than Wall Street and the Federal Reserve realize.Disappointment may be ahead, again.

Janet Yellen and her colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee are meeting again this week. A lot appears to have changed since they last met six weeks ago. The price of oil has taken another nose dive, driven by in part by fears of a quickly slowing Chinese economy. And that’s spooking investors in European and American stock markets.

Nonetheless, Fed officials have tried to reassure investors that the central bank’s plan to slowly-but-surely raise rates over the course of this year and beyond hasn’t changed. Last week, New York Fed President William Dudley said that while some recent economic indicators have been softer than expected, he still expects to the economy to grow “slightly above its long-term trend” in 2016, and that the unemployment rate will continue to drop.

But the Fed, and Wall Street in general, might be underestimating the recent downturn in growth.

上圖由亞特蘭大聯儲提供。2014年，該行推出了一種實時估算GDP增長率的工具。他們希望這個工具發現經濟拐點的速度能超過經濟學家一直在使用的模型。

這個新模型顯示，美國經濟形勢在2015年第四季度急劇惡化，僅增長了0.7%。從圖中的綠線可以看出，這樣的增速低于一些經濟學家做出的最悲觀的預期。

這個模型囊括了哪些經濟學家忽略的東西呢？首先是出口。美國的出口一直比預期的弱。這印證了海外經濟缺乏活力可能給美國經濟帶來實質性影響的觀點，而且這種情況可能讓美國離衰退更近了一步。其次，消費品零售數據也一直不夠搶眼。這表明消費者同樣態度悲觀，進而決定把低廉汽油價格給他們省下來的錢存起來，而不是揮霍一空。

并不是所有人都認為如果周五公布的GDP數據令人失望就意味著衰退。High Frequency Economics美國首席經濟學家吉姆?奧沙利文在最近的一篇分析報告中提醒客戶，“GDP的季度波動幅度遠高于就業數據”，而且企業的招聘意愿并未減弱。盡管經濟季度同比增長有時會大幅波動，但奧沙利文指出，近幾年美國經濟年增長率一直穩定在2%-2.5%。

盡管這樣的增速不高，但確實足以讓失業率保持下降態勢，從而最終推動工資上升，至少理論上是這樣。工資水平會因失業率下降而上升的預期讓美聯儲相信，盡管全球市場暴跌，逐步提高利率才是正道。

同時，就連奧沙利文也承認，就業增長和GDP數據是滯后指標。股市總是向前看，因此似乎可以認為，市場的波動預示著新一輪的經濟衰退。至少，之前的幾個新年前后總能出現的樂觀情緒確實已經蕩然無存。

CNBC最近對經濟學家的調查表明，后者預計今年美國經濟只能增長2.17%。這實際上和近幾年的經濟增速相同，但低于過去幾年經濟學家一直預測的約3%的年增長率。換句話說，要么是經濟學家們從此前的預期失誤中汲取了教訓，要么我們就得為更為艱難的情況做好準備。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

校對：詹妮

The above chart comes from the Atlanta Fed. Back in 2014, the regional Fed bank rolled out a tool that estimates GDP growth in real-time. The idea is that it will pick up turns in the economy faster than the models that economists have traditionally used.

And what the model is predicting is that the economy turned significantly worse in the fourth quarter, rising just 0.7%. And as you can see from the green line, that’s lower than some of the most pessimistic predictions from economists.

What is the model picking up that the economists are missing? First of all, exports. They have been weaker than expected. That gives support to the idea that the weak economic activity abroad could have a meaningful affect on the U.S. economy, possibly pulling us closer to recession. Second, retail sales numbers haven’t been impressive either. That suggest consumers are pessimistic as well, decided to pocket the savings they are getting from cheap gas, rather running out and spending.

Not everyone thinks that the likely disappointing GDP release on Friday is a sign of a coming recession. Jim O’Sullivan, Chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics, reminded clients in a recent analyst note that “GDP is much more volatile than than employment from quarter to quarter,” and we’ve seen no let up yet in employers desire to hire workers. Despite sometimes wild swings in quarter-by-quarter growth, O’Sullivan points out, the U.S. economy has steadily grown in recent years at 2 to 2.5% annual rate.

While this is not spectacular growth, it’s certainly strong enough to keep the unemployment rate falling, and theoretically at least, that will eventually push up wages. This anticipation of higher wages due to lower unemployment is what has the Fed convinced that gradual rate increases is the way to go, despite turmoil in global markets.

At the same time, even O’Sullivan admits that job growth and GDP data are lagging indicators. Stock markets are forward looking, and so it’s plausible that the volatility we’re seeing is foreshadowing another recession. At the very least the optimism that has been around at the start of the past few years is certainly gone.

A recent survey of economists by CNBC showed them expecting growth of just 2.17% this year. That’s in line with what the economy has actually grown for the past few years, but it’s lower than the roughly 3% annual economists had been predicting in years past. In other words, either the economics profession is learning from its forecasting failures, or we should prepare for even bumpier roads ahead.