2022年经济学人 多国消费者价格指数上涨(1)（在线收听）

Finance & economics

财经板块

Consumer prices: public enemy

消费者价格：全民公敌

America was first, now inflation is starting to look entrenched in other places.

美国首当其冲，如今通货膨胀也开始在其他地区深深扎根。

Inflation dominates the American popular psyche to an extent not seen since the 1980s, when prices were last rising at the current pace.

自上世纪80年代，物价上一次以当前速度上涨以来，通货膨胀首次在美国人心中占据了前所未有的主导地位。

Much like complaining about the weather or last night’s basketball play-offs, moaning about higher prices has become a conversation starter.

正如同人们曾经抱怨天气或前一天晚上的篮球季后赛一样，现在物价上涨成为了人们挂在嘴边的日常话题。

According to figures published on May 11th, consumer prices rose by 8.3% in April, compared with the previous year.

根据5月11日公布的数据，与去年相比，美国四月份的消费者价格上涨了8.3%。

A day earlier, President Joe Biden called fighting inflation his “top domestic priority”.

一天前，美国总统拜登称抗击通胀是他“国内事务的首要任务”。

Newspapers are publishing four times as many stories mentioning inflation as they did a year ago; several polls suggest that Americans believe inflation is a bigger problem for their country than the war in Ukraine.

报纸上发表的文章，提到通货膨胀的频率是去年的四倍；几项民意调查显示，美国人认为通货膨胀是比乌克兰战争更大的问题。

But America is not alone. Inflation is also becoming baked into everyday life in other parts of the rich world.

但美国并不是独一份。在其他富裕国家，通货膨胀也已成为日常生活的一部分。

The Economist has gathered data on five indicators across ten big economies—”core” inflation, which excludes food and energy prices; the dispersion in inflation rates for the sub-components of the consumer-price index; labour costs; inflation expectations; and Google searches for inflation.

《经济学人》收集了十大经济体的五个指标的数据——不包括食品和能源价格的“核心”通货膨胀；消费者价格指数组成部分的通货膨胀率离散程度；劳动力成本；通胀预期；谷歌上通货膨胀的搜索量。

To gauge where inflation has become most pervasive, we rank each country according to how it fares on each measure, and then combine these ranks to form an “inflation entrenchment” score.

为了衡量哪些国家的通胀最为普遍，我们根据每个国家在各项指标上的表现给它们排名，然后将这些排名结合起来，形成一个“通胀程度”得分。

Continental Europe, so far at least, seems to have escaped the worst of the scourge. Inflation is leaving barely a trace on Japan.

至少到目前为止，欧洲大陆似乎避免了这场灾难的最坏影响。日本几乎没有通货膨胀的痕迹。

But it is entwining itself around Anglophone economies. Canada is faring slightly worse even than America. Britain has a big problem on its hands.

但通货膨胀与以英语为母语的经济体紧密交织。加拿大的情况甚至比美国还要差一点儿。英国面临着一个大问题。

A few factors explain the differences. Total fiscal stimulus across Anglophone countries in 2020-21 was about 40% more generous than in other rich places, according to our estimates.

有几个因素可以解释这种差异。根据我们的估计，在2020-2021年，英语国家的财政刺激总额比其他富裕国家要高出约40%。

It was also more focused on handouts to households (such as stimulus cheques). That may have further stoked demand.

它也更注重对家庭的救济(如刺激支票)。这可能进一步刺激了需求。

Monetary policy in the euro area and Japan was already ultra-loose before the pandemic, limiting the amount of extra stimulus central banks could provide.

在新冠疫情之前，欧元区和日本的货币政策已经超宽松，限制了央行可以提供的额外刺激的数量。

Britain’s inflation may also reflect an idiosyncratic factor: Brexit. It turns out that breaking with your largest trading partner causes costs to rise.

英国的通胀可能也反映了一个特殊因素：英国脱欧。事实证明，与最大的贸易伙伴决裂会导致成本上升。