The Federal Reserve is close to meeting both its targets for the US economy, one of its leading policymakers said, as he delivered an upbeat verdict on the post-crisis recovery.
美联储(Fed)一位主要政策制定者表示,美联储正接近同时实现其对美国经济设定的两个目标,他对后危机时期的复苏发表了乐观的结论。
Stanley Fischer, the vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, said core inflation was within “hailing distance” of the central bank’s 2 per cent target, while employment had increased “impressively” since its nadir in 2010.
美联储理事会副主席斯坦利•费希尔(Stanley Fischer)表示,核心通胀率处于该行设定的2%这一目标的伸手可及的范围内,而就业自2010年降至最低谷以来已经有了“令人印象深刻”的增加。
Mr Fischer has occupied the more hawkish end of the spectrum among the permanent members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee. He did not address the question of when the Fed should next lift short-term interest rates in his speech in Aspen, Colorado.
费希尔在联邦公开市场委员会(Federal Open Market Committee)常任委员中处于比较鹰派的一端。在科罗拉多州阿斯彭(Aspen)发表的演讲中,他并未回答美联储下次应在何时提高短期利率的问题。
However his confident assessment will attract the scrutiny of traders seeking to untangle the views of a heavily divided body of US policymakers.
然而,他自信的评估将吸引交易员们进行仔细分析,后者试图理清一个存在严重分歧的美国政策制定者群体的种种看法。
“We are close to our targets. Not only that, the behaviour of employment has been remarkably resilient,” Mr Fischer said.
费希尔说:“我们接近实现我们的目标。不仅如此,就业一直表现得相当有韧性。”
In his speech Mr Fischer spelt out the speed bumps that the US has had to confront in the past two years. These have included the Greek debt crisis, the 20 per cent rise of the trade-weighted dollar, uncertainties over China’s exchange rate policy, bouts of financial market turbulence, a “dismaying pothole” in job growth in May of 2016, as well as the UK’s Brexit vote.
费希尔在演讲中详细列举了美国过去两年不得不面对的种种障碍,包括希腊债务危机、美元贸易加权汇率上涨20%、中国汇率政策的不确定性、一波又一波的金融市场动荡、2016年5月就业增长“令人沮丧的下凹”,以及英国公投退出欧盟。
“Yet, even amid these shocks, the labour market continued to improve: employment has continued to increase, and the unemployment rate is currently close to most estimates of the natural rate,” Mr Fischer said.
“但是,即使遭遇所有这些冲击,劳动力市场继续好转:就业持续增加,当前的失业率接近大多数人估计的自然失业率,”费希尔说。
“I believe it is a remarkable, and perhaps under-appreciated, achievement that the economy has returned to near-full employment in a relatively short time after the Great Recession, given the historical experience following a financial crisis.”
“我相信这是一项非凡且或许被低估的成就,参考金融危机后的历史经验,美国经济在大衰退(Great Recession)后相对较短的时间内恢复到了接近充分就业的水平。”
That said, one of the disquieting developments of recent years is the sharp slowdown in US productivity growth. In the second quarter labour productivity recorded its third consecutive quarterly drop — the first time such a string of declines has happened since 1979.
话虽如此,近年来令人不安的动态之一是美国生产率增速大幅放缓。今年第二季度,劳动生产率出现了连续第三个季度下滑——这是自1979年以来首次出现这样的一连串下滑。