Does a whole lot of uncertainty about government spending and taxes and raising the prospect that the U.S. Treasury won't have cash to pay the bills hold back an economy otherwise ready to take off?
有关政府支出与税收的不确定性、美国财政部没钱还账的可能性，这些会不会拖累本来已经准备起飞的经济？
We're about to find out.
我们现在就来研究。
Congress and President Barack Obama relieved a lot of near-term uncertainty but they didn't settle everything. We know what tax rates are going to be, at least for this year. We know the Treasury isn't going to run out of cash to pay the bills─at least not until August. And Republicans are backing away from using the federal debt limit as a fulcrum to move Mr. Obama.
国会和总统奥巴马(Barack Obama)消除了很多短期内的不确定性，但没有解决掉所有问题。我们知道税率将会是多少，至少今年的税率是清楚的。我们知道财政部不会没钱还账，至少8月份之前总会有的。而共和党也不再利用联邦债务上限作为撬动奥巴马的支点。
We still face the prospect of across-the-board spending cuts and a government shutdown in March. Though significant, particularly to defense contractors, they matter less to the overall economy.
我们在3月份仍然面临着全面减支、政府关门的可能性。兹事体大，对国防承包商尤其如此，但对于整个经济来讲，却没有那么重要。
Measuring this is hard. A daily gauge of uncertainty, a measure designed by academics that relies on newspaper stories, was clearly lower in January than in December.
不确定性很难量化。学术界依靠报纸文章编制了一个指标，来反映每一天的不确定程度。这个指标在1月份明显低于12月。
So has Washington lifted the weight of uncertainty sufficiently that the U.S. economy is on the verge of a growth spurt?
那么，华盛顿对不确定性重压的消除，是否已经足以让美国经济迎来一轮高增长？
It doesn't look like it. The economy is plodding along, likely to grow this year at a bit better than 2% or so. That is better than no growth (ask Europe about that) but not nearly enough to bring unemployment down quickly.
不像是这样。经济在缓慢地前进，今年的增长速度可能比2%高那么一点点。这好过一点也不增长（问问欧洲就知道了），但要把失业率迅速降下来，那还差得很远。
The stock market is happy. Housing is doing better. Auto sales are strong. That is all good. But there isn't─at least yet─enough of an upshift in private-sector spending to offset weakness abroad, higher taxes at home and government belt-tightening.
股市情绪很高，楼市有起色，汽车销量也很旺盛。这些都是好事。但民间支出的增加还不足以（至少目前为止）抵消国外需求的疲软、国内税率的提高以及政府开支的削减。
So what happened to the uncertainty hypothesis?
那么前面的不确定假说又是怎么回事？
One possibility is that uncertainty was a nice story, but not the big problem late last year.
有一种可能是，不确定性拖累经济增长的说法确实有道理，但它并不是去年年底的最大问题。
In a new National Association for Business Economics survey, three-quarters of respondents said anxiety over the fiscal cliff had no effect on their companies' hiring or capital spending.
全国企业经济学家协会(National Association for Business Economics)的新调查显示，四分之三的受访者表示，财政悬崖方面的担忧没有对公司的招聘活动或资本支出产生影响。
Yes, it was stunning to see the government's preliminary, sure-to-be-revised estimate that the U.S. economy contracted at a 0.1% rate in the fourth quarter. But growth was hurt by sharp quarter-to-quarter swings in defense spending, exports and inventories. The only strength was in the very things that were supposed to have been hurt most by uncertainty: consumer and business spending on equipment and software. They grew faster in the fourth quarter than in the third.
是的，第四季度美国经济萎缩0.1%的政府初步数据（肯定还会修正）确实让人震惊。但国防开支、出口和存货的大幅季度波动挫伤了增长。唯一强劲的正好是大家本来以为将因为不确定性而受到最大打击的领域：消费者和企业在设备、软件上面的花销。第四季度这方面的增长比第三季度更快。
Business executives did see some hesitation among customers at year-end, and sound genuinely perplexed about the cause. Washington-generated uncertainty was a convenient explanation or maybe an excuse.
企业高管确实在年底时看到一些客户犹豫不决，他们对其中的原因真的很疑惑。华盛顿方面制造的不确定性似乎是一个很方便的解释，但或许也只是个借口。
Dave Nord, chief executive of Hubbell Inc., a maker of electrical and electronic parts, told analysts last week, 'There was a lot of uncertainty around the election and fiscal cliff, and I think that had an impact…but it's difficult to quantify, ' according to a Thomson-Reuters transcript.
汤森路透(Thomson-Reuters)的一份文稿显示，电气和电子元件生产商Hubbell Inc.的首席执行长诺德(Dave Nord)上周告诉分析师：围绕选举和财政悬崖存在大量的不确定性，我认为这造成了一定影响……但是很难量化。
And Pentair Ltd.'s unit that makes gear for the food and beverage industry, 'saw a lot of projects that just got delayed…whether it's the fiscal cliff or whatever reasons, ' Pentair CEO Randy Hogan said. 'As the world gets a little more certain, we think that they may be coming back.'
Pentair Ltd的首席执行长豪根(Randy Hogan)说：Pentair为食品和饮料行业制造设备的部门有许多项目被推迟，这可能是财政悬崖或其他原因造成的。随着世界经济形势的确定性略微增强，我认为这些项目可能要重新启动了。
But only a few companies, so far, cite a noticeable uptick in business in January.
但是迄今为止只有少数公司的业务在今年1月出现明显改善。
Hubbell saw 'early indications that the first half could be a little bit better' and software giant SAP said big U.S. companies' capital spending has 'loosened up' recently.
Hubble看到了上半年情况可能稍有好转的迹象，软件巨头SAP说，大型美国公司最近放宽了资本支出。
Another possibility is that Washington didn't resolve enough to really stoke consumer and business confidence. After all, there is little progress on restraining federal benefit spending or overhauling taxes─and who knows what fiscal confrontations loom this year.
还有一种可能是，华盛顿解决的问题还不足以真正提振消费者和企业的信心。毕竟，在限制联邦福利支出或税改方面几乎没有进展，谁知道今年又会遇上什么财政麻烦呢？
'The year-end U.S. fiscal compromise didn't do much to change our view of the macro environment, ' Honeywell's chief financial officer, Dave Anderson, said last week. 'That uncertainty still hangs out there.'
霍尼韦尔(Honeywell)首席财务长安德森(Dave Anderson)上周说：年终美国达成的财政妥协方案并没有在很大程度上改变我们对宏观环境的看法。不确定性仍然存在。
'It's like having parents who are fighting, ' says Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist who has been pondering the effects of policy uncertainty. 'They have gone from shouting to agreeing to divorce, but you're not sure how they're going to do it.' The fiscal collision may recede from the headlines, he says, 'but the underlying problem is still there. It's depressing.'
斯坦福大学(Stanford University)的经济学家布鲁姆(Nicholas Bloom)说，就好像父母吵架一样。他们从大吵大嚷到同意离婚，但是你仍然不确定他们打算如何做。财政上的冲突可能不再是新闻头条，但是根本性的问题仍然存在，这令人沮丧。布鲁姆一直在研究政策不确定性的影响。
The risks of a catastrophic event─a U.S. Treasury that runs out of cash, or a collapse of the euro─have abated. That is welcome.
一些灾难性事件发生的几率已经降低，比如美国财政部的现金耗尽或是欧元崩溃。这是可喜的现象。
What are left are chronic conditions that are hurting growth here and abroad─and there is still a lot of uncertainty about how and when they will be resolved.
剩下的就是仍然危害美国以及其他地区经济增长的长期性问题──这些问题何时解决、如何解决仍然存在很大不确定性。
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