西方主导地位为何下降？_时事_双语阅读-查字典英语网

西方主导地位为何下降？

More surprising is not the economic catch-up but the changed direction of capital flows. During most of the past century development writing was full of concern about how to raise capital flows and/or western aid for what was then known as the third world. Hardly anyone foresaw that the problem would be reversed and that emerging and developing countries would have savings surpluses on which the old industrial world now relies to finance its current account and budget deficits.

更令人意外的不是经济上的追赶，而是资本流动方向的改变。在上世纪的大部分时期，发展文献论述的全都是如何为当时所称的第三世界增加资本流入以及（或者）西方援助。几乎没有人预料到，问题将会逆转，新兴和发展中国家将拥有储蓄盈余，而旧日的工业化国家现在反而依赖这些盈余来为其经常账户和预算赤字融资。

This western dependency on the rest of the world would be reduced, but not eliminated, if in times of recession western governments were less worried about borrowing directly from their own central banks.

如果西方国家的政府在衰退时期对直接向本国央行借钱减少顾虑的话，这种西方依赖全球其他国家的情形将会减少，但不会消失。

Many commentators see the reverse flow out of developing countries as unnatural, by which they mean immoral. There are clearly special factors at work such as state management of the Chinese economy and the large surpluses of oil producers. But these do not look like going into reverse at all soon, and we had all better learn to live with the new direction of capital flows, which is apparently known in academic literature as the Lucas Paradox.