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新型冠状病毒对经济的影响

原创 工发组织  联合国工业发展组织  4月11日

2019新型冠状病毒的爆发已经导致了一些国家发生重大健康危机，并严重破坏了全球经济。然而在接下来的几周至几个月内，情况甚至可能会变得更糟，大流行带来的经济衰退有可能是几十年来最大的冲击之一。

自从2019新型冠状病毒爆发以来，作为组织国际生产可行模式的全球价值链受到压力，当该病毒全球大流行之后，压力也随之加剧。一些分析师预测，全球大流行会加剧由美中贸易战引起的全球生产网络重组（CNBC, 2020）。

工发组织的数据显示，生产增长在持续下降，这表明在新型冠状病毒危机爆发之前，整体经济已经放缓。制造业产出增长低于1％，并在2019年第四季度保持在0.7％(UNIDO, 2019).

2019年第四季度，在所有国家与地区，只有三个产业的同比增长率为正，即基本药物产品、饮料和食品产品。尽管这三个产业代表了基本消费产品，并且在未来几个月中可能会继续表现良好，但由于冠状病毒的爆发及其带来的经济影响，其他制造业预计将遭受严重打击。因此，未来几个月世界国民生产总值增长预计将下降。

全球经济的三个主要渠道将受到破坏：需求、供给和融资

在需求方面，收入降低和对传染病的担心将导致私人支出减少。尽管部分影响将会被增加的政府支出抵消，但短期内新冠病毒冲击将为净需求带来负面效应。

供给端产生的负面作用可能会加剧这种影响。这归因于受疫情影响最严重地区的生产活动突然停止，以及由此造成的全球价值链瓶颈。如果不加以解决，由于缺乏中间投入，即使在受疫情影响较小的地区，这种破坏也会导致大量的工厂倒闭。

最后，为了应对新型冠状病毒冲击引起的不确定性，风险规避性和流动性投资的增加，金融市场的压力将重加在全球经济上。预计外汇市场将进一步波动。

失业人数大幅增加

几乎可以确定的是，全球范围内失业人数将大幅度增加。国际劳工组织预计，该大流行不仅不成比例的影响具有潜在健康问题的工人，也波及到更容易受到劳动力需求下降影响的年轻人，和在受影响最大的行业中且占人数较多（服务业或工作在大流行前线的职业，例如护士）的妇女，以及所谓的“傻瓜经济”中未受保护的工人和移民。（国际劳工组织，2020年）。

资本外逃

这种大流行已经触发了资本外逃，并导致了新兴市场的国际投资急剧逆转。根据国际金融研究所的数据，包括中国、印度、南非和巴西在内的24个新兴市场在2019年的投资净流入为790亿美元，而仅在过去两个月中，已有700亿美元的投资退出了这些国家（《纽约时报》，2020）。考虑到这一点，二十国集团政府“竭尽所能”以最大程度地减少由冠状病毒引起的社会和经济影响。其中最重要的是确保关键医疗用品，农产品和其他商品及服务的跨境流动（《卫报》，2020年）。

破产和违约的可能性

这种资本外逃使人们再次担心阿根廷、土耳其或南非等国家可能会走向破产和违约。这些国家的货币贬值可能会进一步加速这一进程。阿根廷比索继续贬值，仅今年一年就对美元又下跌了6％。相似地，自1月份以来，土耳其里拉下跌了10％，原因是投资者撤资，土耳其公司面临破产。

尽管这只是两个例子，在许多其他低收入和中等收入国家，情况也同样变得严峻，需要政策制定者和国际社会紧急关注。

外国直接投资大幅减少

新冠病毒大流行对于外国直接投资的影响也同样显著。3月26日，贸发会议估计，全球外国直接投资在2020-2021年期间将减少30％到40％，大大超过两周前以前减少5％到15％的预测。

尽管被新冠病毒影响最严重的国家将会受到最大的冲击，由于供应链中断对投资前景的干扰，其他国家也可能会受到该病毒的全面影响。在贸发会议跟进调查的100家跨国公司中，有超过三分之二的公司发布了有关该病毒对其业务影响的声明。许多公司正在减少受灾地区的资本支出。迄今为止，已有41家公司发布了盈利预警。较低的利润意味着较低的再投资收益，而这是外国直接投资的主要组成部分。

根据对排名靠前的5,000家上市公司的更广泛抽样显示，对2020财年的盈利预测平均下调了30％。受到冲击最严重的行业是能源和基础材料工业（能源行业为负208％，最近的原油价格下跌还带来了额外的冲击），航空业（负116％）和汽车行业（负47％）。

困境在全球价值链和供应链蔓延

正如Richard Baldwin和Eiichi Tomiura在2020年3月6日发表的论文中所概述的那样，受冲击最严重的国家占据全球国民生产总值、制造业生产和出口的绝大部分（Baldwin和Tomiura，2020年）。此外，引入的缓解政策将导致全球总需求放缓。全球供应链从根本上改变了供给冲击的扩散方式。随着工业零部件的交易越来越多，全球一体化经济中的供给冲击很可能会通过中间产品贸易造成“供应链蔓延”。

Baldwin和Tomiura根据世贸组织的《2019年全球价值链发展报告》并引用《经济学人》的案例研究，开发了不同的供应链方案。他们还使用来自经合组织增值贸易数据库中的数据来量化相互联系对于不同国家的重要程度。作者发现服务业贸易的情况好坏参半，因为一些行业例如旅游业和航空旅行业等将受到重创，而其他，比如信息通讯技术和医疗服务等行业则不会受到太大影响。

对于生产和贸易的影响

根据学者和从业者关于冠状病毒影响的报告，该病毒既意味着需求冲击，也意味着供给冲击。

供给冲击

从供应方的角度来看，生产受到影响，一方面是由于受感染的工人导致劳动力供应减少，从而减少了可工作的人数，另一方面因为价值链被打乱了。依赖来自受病毒影响地区的设备和组件的国家的生产过程会被破坏。

需求冲击

由于大流行的影响，对制成品的需求可能减少。通常有两个原因导致这种情况：首先，由于工人被要求呆在家中以支持“社交距离”措施，人们倾向于优先考虑储蓄而不是支出，因此消费降低。其次，生产过程受到干扰的公司可能会减少对中间产品的消费。供应和需求冲击在不同国家和不同行业中以不同方式体现出来。

各个地区之间的差异如下：

中国、欧洲和美国等经济体大多受到对其人口健康状况的直接影响；

目前，大部分发展中国家大多受到间接影响，这种影响与这些国家本身和受冠状病毒影响的国家之间的相互联系程度有关，即它们对商品的需求或商品和服务的供应。但是，随着新型冠状病毒进一步传播到发展中国家，对这些国家的直接影响可能会增加。

可以合理地假设资源丰富的发展中国家也将受到商品价格下降（例如铜、石油）的影响，这是由于国际对此类商品的需求减少而导致的，而发达国家的再加工产品的产量也将下降。

对制造业的影响

现阶段新冠病毒正在世界范围内快速传播。据传，中国之外的（即许多发达国家的）制造业也遭受了损失。根据IBIS World2的报告，许多国家（例如澳大利亚、加拿大、德国、新西兰和美国）正在登记相关影响。据报告，这些国家的国内市场受到了循环性亏损，尤其是由于酒吧、饭店和其他餐饮店关闭而导致的食品工业中的损失。

国际市场上其他行业也在遭受重大损失，比如汽车工业（德国的销售额急剧下降了82％），以及作为传统领军行业的高科技工业，包括在富裕国家显示出比较优势的计算机和电子产品等。

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has already led to a major health crisis in several countries and to major disruptions of the global economy. Yet the situation is likely to become even worse in the coming weeks and months, and the economic fallout from the pandemic might represent one of the biggest shocks of recent decades.

Global value chains (GVCs) have already come under pressure as a viable model for the organization of international production since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in China, and even more so since the virus turned into a global pandemic. Some analysts expect a major reshuffling of the global production network as a result of the pandemic, which was already triggered by the US-China trade war (CNBC, 2020).

UNIDO’s data on world manufacturing production

UNIDO’s data showed a consistent decline in production growth, indicating an overall economic slowdown already before the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis. Manufacturing output growth fell below the landmark of 1 per cent and remained at 0.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019 (UNIDO, 2019).

In the fourth quarter of 2019, only three industries registered a positive year-over-year growth rate in all country groups, namely basic pharmaceutical products, beverages and food products. While these three industries represent essential basic consumer goods and are likely to continue to perform well over the coming months, other manufacturing industries are expected to suffer a severe blow due to the coronavirus outbreak and the resulting economic implications. Consequently, world GDP growth can be expected to decline in the coming months.

Three main channels of the global economy will be disrupted: demand, supply, and finance

On the demand side, a combination of reduced income and fear of contagion will result in lower private spending. Although some of these effects might be offset by increased government spending, the COVID-19 shock’s net demand effect is expected to be negative in the short run.

This could be amplified by negative supply side effects, attributable to a sudden halt in manufacturing activities in the most affected regions and the resulting bottlenecks in global value chains. If left unaddressed, such disruptions will in turn trigger widespread factory closures due to the lack of intermediary inputs, even in areas less affected by the virus.

Lastly, increased risk aversion and a flight-to-liquidity in the face of uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 shock, the financial markets stress will weigh heavily on the global economy. Further fluctuations are expected in the foreign exchange market.

Substantial increase in unemployment

A substantial increase in global unemployment seems almost certain. The ILO expects the pandemic to disproportionally affect not only those workers with underlying health conditions, but also young people who are more vulnerable to decreased labour demand, women, who are over-represented in those sectors that are likely to be affected most (such as services or in occupations on the front lines of the pandemic, e.g. nurses), as well as unprotected workers in the so-called ‘gig economy’ and migrants. (ILO, 2020).

Capital flight

The pandemic has already triggered capital flight and a sharp reversal of international investment in emerging markets. Whereas a group of 24 emerging markets including China, India, South Africa and Brazil, had a net inflow of investments of US$79bn in 2019, US$70bn in investments had already exited those countries in the last two months alone according to the Institute of International Finance (New York Times, 2020). With this in mind, the decision by the G20 governments to “do whatever it takes” to minimize the social and economic fallout due to the coronavirus - and most importantly, to ensure cross-border flows of vital medical supplies, agricultural products and other goods and services – was welcomed (The Guardian, 2020).

Possibility of insolvency and default

This capital flight has reignited fears that countries such as Argentina, Turkey or South Africa, could be sliding toward insolvency and default soon. This could be further accelerated by currency depreciations in these countries. The Argentine peso continued to devalue and decreased by another 6 per cent against the dollar this year alone. Similarly, the Turkish lira has dropped by 10 per cent since January due to investors pulling out money and Turkish companies facing bankruptcy.

While these are only two examples, the situation is becoming equally dire in many other low- and middle-income countries and requires urgent attention from policymakers and the international community.

Significant contraction of FDI

The effect of the pandemic is similarly dramatic when we look at foreign direct investment (FDI). On 26 March, UNCTAD estimated a collapse of global FDI by - 30 per cent to - 40 per cent during 2020–2021, much more than the previous projections of -5 per cent to -15 per cent two weeks earlier.

While those countries most severely affected by COVID-19 will be hardest hit, other countries are also likely to feel the virus’s full impact as supply chain disruptions on investment prospects. Over two-thirds of the 100 multinational companies tracked by UNCTAD have issued statements on the effects the virus has had on their business. Many are reducing capital expenditure in affected areas, and to date, 41 have issued profit alerts. Lower profits translate into lower reinvested earnings, a major component of FDI.

A wider sample of the top 5,000 listed companies shows that the earnings forecasts for the fiscal year 2020 have been revised down by an average of 30 per cent. The hardest hit sectors are the energy and basic materials industries (-208 per cent for energy, with an additional shock caused by the recent drop in oil prices), airlines (-116 per cent) and the automotive industry (-47 per cent).

Trouble in global value chains and supply chain contagion

As outlined by Richard Baldwin and Eiichi Tomiura in their essay published on 6 March 2020, the hardest hit countries account for the majority of global GDP, manufacturing production and exports. Furthermore, the mitigation policies introduced will result in a global slowdown in aggregate demand. Global supply chains have fundamentally changed how supply shocks propagate. As industrial parts and components are increasingly traded, a supply shock in a globally integrated economy is likely to create ‘supply chain contagion’ via the trade in intermediate goods.

Baldwin and Tomiura develop different supply chain scenarios based on the WTO’s Global Value Chain Development Report 2019 and by citing case studies from The Economist. They also use data from the OECD Trade in Value Added database to quantify the importance of inter-linkages for different countries. The authors find a mixed picture for trade in services, as some industries such as tourism and air travel will be hit hard, while others, such as ICT and medical services, will not be as affected.

Impact on production and trade

According to reports by academics and practitioners on the impacts of the coronavirus, the virus implies both a demand and a supply shock.

The supply shock

From the supply side perspective, production is affected, on the one hand, because of reductions in labour supply as a consequence of the number of workers infected, thus reducing the number of people available to work, and because value chains are disrupted, on the other. Countries that rely on equipment and components from regions affected by the virus may experience disruptions in the production process.

The demand shock

Demand for manufactured goods could reduce as a consequence of the pandemic. This usually occurs for two reasons: First, the propensity to consume decreases as workers who are required to stay at home in support of “social distancing” measures tend to prioritize saving over spending. Second, firms that are experiencing disruptions in the production process may decrease their consumption of intermediate goods. Supply and demand shocks can manifest in different ways across countries and different industries. The differences between various regions could be as follows:

Economies like China, Europe and the United States are mostly affected by direct impacts on their population’s health condition;

The majority of developing countries are mostly affected, for the moment, by indirect impacts relating to their level of inter-linkages with countries affected by the coronavirus, i.e. their demand for goods or the supply of goods and services. However, as COVID-19 further spreads to developing countries, the direct impacts on those countries are likely to increase.

It is plausible to assume that resource-rich developing countries will be also affected by a reduction in commodity prices (e.g. copper, oil) driven by reduced international demand for such goods, and that developed countries will experience a drop in the production of transformed manufactured goods.

Impact on manufacturing industries

The coronavirus is now rapidly spreading around the world. Anecdotal evidence is reporting losses for the manufacturing sector beyond China, namely also for many rich developed countries. According to IBIS World, relevant impacts are being registered in many countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and the United States. Recurrent losses in these countries are reported in the domestic market, particularly in the food industry due to the closure of pubs, restaurants and other caterers.

Heavy losses are being registered on the international markets in the automotive industry (a huge decrease in sales of 82 per cent in Germany), and in high-tech industries such as computers and electronics, the traditional champions of revealed comparative advantage in rich countries.

文章来源：UN

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