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Finance & economics
財(cái)經(jīng)版塊
Economic decoupling
經(jīng)濟(jì)分離
Maple and pears
楓樹和梨樹
Why is Canada’s economy diverging from America’s?
為什么加拿大經(jīng)濟(jì)與美國經(jīng)濟(jì)走上不同道路？
The economies of Canada and America are joined at the hip.
加拿大經(jīng)濟(jì)和美國經(jīng)濟(jì)緊密相連。
Some $2bn of trade and 400,000 people cross their 9,000 km of shared border every day.
每天大約有20億美元的貿(mào)易和40萬人穿越兩國長達(dá)9000公里的共同邊境線。
Canadians on the west coast do more day trips to nearby Seattle than to distant Toronto.
西海岸的加拿大人去附近的西雅圖一日游的次數(shù)比去遙遠(yuǎn)的多倫多更多。
No wonder the two economies have largely moved in lockstep in recent decades: between 2009 and 2019 America’s GDP grew by 27%; Canada’s expanded by 25%.
無怪乎這兩個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)體在近幾十年里基本同步發(fā)展：2009年至2019年間，美國的GDP增長了27%，加拿大的GDP增長了25%。
Yet since the pandemic North America’s two richest countries have diverged.
然而自疫情以來，北美最富有的兩個(gè)國家的發(fā)展之路已經(jīng)分岔。
By the end of 2024 America’s economy is expected to be 11% bigger than five years before; Canada’s will have grown by just 6%.
到2024年底，美國經(jīng)濟(jì)預(yù)計(jì)將比五年前增長11%，而加拿大經(jīng)濟(jì)僅增長6%。
The difference is starker once population growth is accounted for.
考慮到人口增長，差異就更加明顯了。
The IMF forecasts that Canada’s national income per head, equivalent to around 80% of America’s in the decade before the pandemic, will be just 70% of its neighbour’s in 2025, the lowest for decades.
國際貨幣基金組織預(yù)測(cè)，在疫情暴發(fā)前的十年中，加拿大人均國民收入約為美國的80%，但到2025年，這一比例將僅為美國的70%，為幾十年來的最低水平。
Were Canada’s ten provinces and three territories an American state, they would have gone from being slightly richer than Montana, America’s ninth-poorest state, to being a bit worse off than Alabama, the fourth-poorest.
如果加拿大的十個(gè)省和三個(gè)地區(qū)是美國的一個(gè)州，那么加拿大將從之前的比蒙大拿州（美國第九貧困州）稍微富裕一點(diǎn)，變成比阿拉巴馬州（第四貧困州）稍微貧困一點(diǎn)。
The performance gap owes little to covid-19 itself.
經(jīng)濟(jì)表現(xiàn)差距與新冠疫情本身關(guān)系不大。
Canada did have a deeper recession than America after covid struck, partly because of stricter and longer lockdowns.
加拿大在新冠疫情暴發(fā)后確實(shí)經(jīng)歷了比美國更嚴(yán)重的經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退，部分原因是其封控措施更嚴(yán)格且持續(xù)時(shí)間更長。
Its GDP fell by 5% in 2020, compared with 2.2% in America.
其國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值在2020年下降了5%，而美國下降了2.2%。
But Canada soon caught up.
但是加拿大很快就追趕了差距。
The country’s national income grew by 4% between 2019 and 2022, nearly on par with America’s, which expanded by 5% over the period.
加拿大的國民收入在2019年至2022年間增長了4%，幾乎與美國持平，美國同期增長了5%。
Instead the divergence is more recent: since 2022 America’s economy has motored ahead, leaving Canada’s in the dust.
相反，兩國的差距是最近才出現(xiàn)的：自2022年以來，美國經(jīng)濟(jì)之車一路高歌猛進(jìn)，將加拿大甩在后面吃灰。
The reason is not some bump on the road but what lies under the bonnet.
原因不在于發(fā)展路上的一些顛簸，而在于引擎蓋下的根本問題。
Two drivers of Canadian growth have sputtered.
加拿大經(jīng)濟(jì)增長的兩個(gè)引擎已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)故障。
The first of these is the services industry, which makes up about 70% of Canada’s GDP.
第一個(gè)引擎是服務(wù)業(yè)，約占加拿大GDP的70%。
In the aftermath of the pandemic Americans splurged on goods, which boosted manufacturers north of the border (American consumers gobble up around 40% of Canadian factories’ output).
在疫情之后，美國人在商品上大量消費(fèi)，推動(dòng)了邊境以北的加拿大制造商的業(yè)務(wù)（美國消費(fèi)者可吃下加拿大工廠約40%的產(chǎn)量）。
But they have since switched back to spending on domestic services.
但美國人此后又轉(zhuǎn)而在國內(nèi)服務(wù)上消費(fèi)。
“The composition of American growth hasn’t been favourable to Canada,” says Nathan Janzen of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a bank.
“美國（在疫情后）經(jīng)濟(jì)增長的結(jié)構(gòu)對(duì)加拿大不利。”加拿大皇家銀行的內(nèi)森·詹森表示。
The job of powering Canada’s economy, therefore, falls even more to its own services sector, which relies on demand from Canadian households and the government.
因此，推動(dòng)加拿大經(jīng)濟(jì)的工作更多地落在了本國的服務(wù)業(yè)部門身上，該部門依賴加拿大家庭和政府的需求。
Unfortunately, that demand has been throttled by higher interest rates.
不幸的是，這種需求被更高的利率所抑制。
Monetary policy has had more “traction” in Canada than in America, says Tiff Macklem, the central-bank governor.
加拿大央行行長蒂夫·麥克萊姆表示，貨幣政策在加拿大比在美國有更強(qiáng)的“拉力”。
In the latter, most mortgages are fixed for 30 years, whereas in Canada they are typically set for five.
在美國，大多數(shù)抵押貸款的固定期限為30年，而在加拿大，期限通常設(shè)定為五年。
A greater share of Canadians than Americans have already seen their mortgage payments rise.
加拿大比美國有更多人已經(jīng)看到自己要償還的抵押貸款增加。
This is all the more painful as Canadian households bear more debt, relative to income, than anywhere in the G7 club of large, rich countries.
加拿大的家庭債務(wù)相對(duì)于收入而言比七國集團(tuán)中任何一個(gè)富裕大國都要高，這就更令人痛苦了。
They now fork out an average 15% of their income to pay back debt, up one percentage point since 2019.
加拿大家庭現(xiàn)在平均拿出收入的15%來償還債務(wù)，比2019年上升了1%。
And unlike Uncle Sam, Canada’s government has not tried to soften the blow by loosening the purse strings.
而且與山姆大叔（美國）不同，加拿大政府并沒有試圖通過增加支出來減輕壓力。
It ran a deficit of just 1.1% of GDP in 2023, compared with 6.3% in America.
加拿大政府在2023年的赤字僅占GDP的1.1%，而美國為6.3%。
