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Greece's third bail-out programme came to an end on August 20th.
希臘第三次救市計劃于8月20日結束。
A look at the causes of the country's near-decade of crisis illustrates how external imbalances can reflect underlying troubles.
希臘近十年危機產生的起因體現了外部失衡如何反應潛在問題。
Gaps in public finances, as well as investments in property, were financed by borrowing from Germany and other northern European countries.
公共財政的差距以及資產投資都是通過向德國以及其他歐洲北部國家借資進行。
Wages and costs were pushed up, making exports less competitive—within the euro zone, there can be no currency devaluation—
工資和成本增加使得出口缺乏競爭力—在歐元區內，不存在貨幣貶值—
and further widening Greece's current-account deficit.
這進一步擴大了希臘的經常賬戶盈余。
When foreign lending seized up, the government needed bailing out and the banks crumbled.
當國外貸款中止，政府需要幫助擺脫困境，銀行崩潰。
Portugal (chiefly because of its public finances), Spain and Ireland (blame private-sector housing bubbles) have similar tales to tell.
葡萄牙（主要是由于其公共財政）、西班牙和愛爾蘭（歸咎于私營部門房地產泡沫）也有著相似的故事。
As those four countries have stabilised or recovered, they have wholly or partly reversed their current-account deficits.
那四個國家已經穩定或已恢復過來了，他們已經完全或部分地扭轉了他們的經常賬戶盈余。
But if the periphery has adjusted, the same is not true of the euro area's creditor countries.
但是如果外圍出現調整，那么上述情況則并不適用于歐元區的債權國。
Surpluses in Germany and the Netherlands have grown. As a consequence, the euro zone in total has a substantial current-account surplus.
德國和荷蘭的盈余已經增長。因此，歐元區整體出現大量的經常賬戶盈余。
In the year to June it was 3.6% of GDP (the same as the record for a calendar year, set in 2016). Growth is likely to have been hurt.
到六月為止，盈余占GDP的3.6%（2016年一歷年的記錄也是如此）。增長似乎受到了不良影響。
In 2017, according to the IMF's External Sector Report, published last month,
2017年，根據國際貨幣基金組織（IMF）涉外部門上個月發布的報告，
the euro area had the world's biggest absolute current-account surplus, $442bn. Germany has the largest of any single country.
歐元區有著世界上最大的絕對經常賬戶盈余—4420億美元。德國所占比例比任何單一國家都多。
China's once-vast surplus has narrowed: in the first half of this year, indeed, China reported a deficit.
中國曾經巨額的盈余已經縮減：確實，今年上半年中國發布赤字報告。
America's deficit remains the world's biggest, $466bn last year.
美國的赤字仍是世界最大，去年為4660億美元。
Corporate-tax cuts, interest-rate rises and the associated dollar appreciation could widen it further.
公司稅下降、利率上漲以及美元升值都可能會進一步擴大赤字。
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