全球化是近几年的发展常态,但是在当前的形式下,全球化还能持续多久?瑞士信贷研究中心 (CSRI) 的报告指出,连通的世界,未来只会有三种结果。
最戏剧性的(可能性最低的)结果是当前形势发生大逆转,全球化被民族主义取代。这种情况曾经发生过。那时工业革命引领了全球化的潮流,欧洲出口激增,有超过六千万欧洲人移民到北美洲,因此美国和欧洲开始采取限制性贸易关税,民族主义由此开始。
但这种情形会再次上演吗?CSRI 指出了全球化面临的几大威胁。中央政府债务增加,收入不平衡,移民过多等因素,都会使得经济增长进一步放缓。此外,贸易保护主义,军费开支增加,民主治理愈行愈远也会给全球化带来威胁。
某些因素带来的威胁会进一步增加。自2005年起,进口配额、补贴、国际制裁等非关税贸易壁垒越来越多,而发展中国家和发达国家都出现了财富分配不平均、债台高筑等情况。在中国和大多数中东国家,民主是不存在的,他们只是给独裁政府披上了民主管理的外衣,而这种情况在俄罗斯和一些非洲国家也逐渐盛行。
另一种结果:全球化继续进行,美国仍为独一无二的金融、军事霸主。瑞士信贷调查表明,美国证券市场对国际市场的影响更甚于国际汇兑对道琼斯指数和标普指数的影响,而美元仍是最重要的储备货币,占已知储备货币总量的62%。美国的军费开支比排名其后的九个国家的军费总和还要多,CSRI 由此得出结论,未来将有更多的国际贸易,更强大的跨国企业,更开明的移民政策,而民主主义和互联网经济也将继续扩张。
最优可能的结果是:全球化既不会无限扩张也不会土崩瓦解。CSRI 认为这个世界将愈加多极化、区域化。泛太平洋伙伴关系协定和跨大西洋贸易与投资伙伴协定等区域性贸易协定渐渐走红,而全球贸易谈判却停滞不前。中国在2014年建立了亚洲基础设施投资银行,直接挑战世界银行的霸主地位,而中国电子商务公司阿里巴巴在2015年1月成功完成了有史以来最大规模的首次公开招募,向世界宣告西方企业不会永远占据主导地位。欧洲央行为了稳定债务危机而进行的干涉,也会影响全球金融市场的稳定性,使得全球经济和金融力量逐渐分散。
总的来说,世界金融中心将有三个,分别为亚洲、欧洲、美国,CSRI 认为未来会出现更多亚洲基础设施投资银行这类的地区性机构和更多的移民入国限制。研究机构认为,贸易壁垒也会增加,因此会有越来越多的企业关注于地区和国内市场,而不是全球市场。而世界各国不会完全关上大门,他们的大门只会留给亲近的邻居。
The End of Globalization?
By: Ashley Kindergan
Published: October 5, 2015
Globalization has been a fact of life for decades, but how long will it continue in its current form? A new report from the Credit Suisse Research Institute (CSRI) considers three potential futures for our increasingly interconnected world.
The most dramatic (and unlikely) outcome is an outright reversal of current trends, with globalization trumped by nationalism. It’s happened before. It wasn’t that long after the Industrial Revolution ushered in a long wave of globalization in which European exports surged and more than 60 million Europeans migrated to North America that the U.S. and Europe began implementing restrictive tariffs on trade, and nationalism took hold. World War I ended a 44-year era of globalization.
But could it happen again? The CSRI compiled a scorecard of the most serious threats to globalization. Slowing economic growth, augmented by rising levels of central government debt, income inequality, and high levels of immigration, are important stressors. Others include trade protectionism, an increase in military spending, and a move away from democratic governance.
Some of these risks are indeed rising. The prevalence of non-tariff barriers to trade, such as import quotas, subsidies, and sanctions, has been increasing since 2005, while rising wealth inequality and high debt levels can be found in the developing and developed world alike. Democracy is nonexistent in China and much of the Middle East, while so-called managed democracies, which are authoritarian governments in all but name, are becoming entrenched in some African countries and Russia.
Another alternative: Globalization continues to expand much as it has since the 1990s, with the United States remaining as the world’s lone financial and military superpower. Credit Suisse research shows that the U.S. stock market influences international markets more than activity on foreign exchanges influences the Dow and the S&P, and the dollar is far and away the world’s most important reserve currency, with 62 percent of known reserves held in dollars. Finally, U.S. military spending is larger than that of the next nine highest-spending countries combined. In this scenario, the CSRI says we can expect to see more international trade, more powerful multinational (and mostly Western) corporations, the continued spread of democracy and the Internet economy, and more open immigration policies.
The most likely outcome: Neither a relatively unchecked expansion of globalization nor its collapse. Instead, the CSRI believes that the world is becoming more multipolar and more regionally focused. Regional trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership are in vogue, while global trade talks have largely stalled. China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2014 as a direct challenge to the World Bank’s hegemony, and the fact that Chinese e-commerce outfit Alibaba successfully completed the largest-ever initial public offering in January 2015 made it clear that western corporations need not dominate forever. Even the European Central Bank’s interventions to stabilize a debt crisis that threatened global financial markets show that the balance of global economic and financial power is becoming more diffuse.
Ultimately, the CSRI expects to see three major centers of world power in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., more regional institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and immigration restrictions that lead to an increase in regional migration. The Research Institute also foresees more barriers to trade, and as a result, more companies focused on regional and domestic markets than global ones. While the nations of the world aren’t closing their doors to one another completely, they increasingly prefer letting only close neighbors in.
本文翻译由兄弟财经提供
文章来源:http://www.thefinancialist.com/the-end-of-globalization/#sthash.Hj0ENZdm.dpuf