Economists are predicting that China's surging inflation─reflected in new data showing a sharp rise last month─is about to hit its peak and start subsiding, which could augur a halt to the government's efforts to tap the brakes on the world's No. 2 economy. But many of those same economists were predicting exactly the same thing a year ago.

　　经济学家预计，中国不断加剧的通货膨胀（最新数据显示6月份通胀率大幅上升）即将达到顶峰并开始减弱，预示着中国政府可能将暂停为世界第二大经济体踩刹车。但这些经济学家当中，很多人在一年前也正是这样预测的。

　　China's National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday said that the consumer price index in June surged by 6.4% from a year earlier. That was a jump from May's 5.5% rate and close to the high hit three years ago.

　　中国国家统计局周六说，6月份居民消费价格指数较去年同期飙升6.4%，大大高于5月份5.5%的涨幅，并接近三年前达到的高点。

　　"Most economists (including us) believe CPI inflation could peak in June and decline" in the second half of 2011, Lu Ting, China economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a note last week. Indeed, a Dow Jones Newswires survey of 13 economists on Thursday, following the People's Bank of China's fifth interest-rate increase in eight months, found that eight of them don't expect any further increases the rest of this year.

　　美银美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)中国经济学家陆挺上周撰写研究报告说，包括我们在内，多数经济学家都认为CPI涨幅可能会在6月份见顶，并在2011年下半年下降。道琼斯通讯社(Dow Jones Newswires)上周四在中国央行八个月来第五次加息过后对13位经济学家的调查也发现，八名经济学家预计年内CPI涨幅不会进一步扩大。

　　Rewind 12 months, when consumer prices were rising around 3%, and the message was similar. The headline inflation reading "is likely to rise again in July due to rising food prices," Mr. Lu wrote on July 15, 2010, "but it's very likely that it will just peak in July...and then will trend down on a rising comparison base."

　　回到12个月前。当时消费价格涨幅在3%左右，经济学家们传递的信息也跟现在差不多。陆挺在2010年7月15日写道，由于食品价格的上涨，7月份总体通货膨胀率可能继续呈现为上升，但通胀率很有可能就在7月份见顶，然后因为比较基数增大的缘故而逐渐下降。

　　He was hardly alone. Almost all major economists at international banks, research houses and agencies missed the mark. Although "inflation continued to accelerate, we believe underlying inflationary pressures are dissipating quickly," wrote Yu Song of Goldman Sachs in June 2010. "Inflation might have risen again last month but the peak is probably not far away," said Mark Williams of Capital Economics on July 8 of that year. "Barring an unforeseen supply shock to food prices, consumer-price inflation should peak in midyear and begin falling in the second half of 2010," wrote economists at the International Monetary Fund in a report that month.

　　持这种观点的远非他一个人。国际银行、研究公司和机构几乎所有重要经济学家都没有预测对。高盛(Goldman Sachs)的宋宇在2010年6月份写道，虽然通胀仍在加速，但我们相信背后的通胀压力正在快速消失。凯投宏观(Capital Economics)的威廉姆斯(Mark Williams)在同一年7月8日说，上个月通胀率可能已经再次上升，但峰值可能不远了。也是在2010年7月，国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)的经济学家们发表报告说，只要食品价格不受供应面因素的意外冲击，消费价格涨幅应该会在年中见顶，并在2010年下半年开始下降。

　　In fact, inflation jumped to 5.1% in November, stayed high for months, and is now climbing again.

　　事实上，2010年11月通胀率猛增至5.1%，此后数月维持高位，现在又在攀升。

　　For investors, executives and others around the world trying to guess where China's economy is headed now, understanding why analysts got it wrong last summer can help to gauge how much confidence should be placed in the current forecasts.

　　对于投资者、企业经理人和世界上正在猜测中国经济目前走向的其他人来说，理解去年夏季分析师做出错误预测的原因，有助于判断应该在多大程度上相信他们当前的预测。

　　Predicting prices and other factors is always tricky, especially in an economy as large and complicated as China's, where there is limited transparency in the official data. And bucking the consensus is always difficult for analysts.

　　物价和其他一些因素不好预测，特别是对于中国这样巨大而复杂、官方数据又不太透明的经济体。而分析师又始终难以做出有悖于普遍观点的预测。

　　Chinese leaders have been among those underestimating inflation: The average CPI surpassed the government 3% full-year target for 2010, and Premier Wen Jiabao last month acknowledged it will likely exceed this year's target of 4%, too. The influence of government pronouncements on forecasts can be pernicious in China, because they are often seen as reflecting inside information.

　　中国领导人也低估了通货膨胀：2010年平均CPI涨幅超过了政府设定的3%的全年目标，国务院总理温家宝上个月也承认，今年4%的目标可能会被超过。在中国，政府宣布的预测可能会产生不良影响，因为这些预测常被认为反映了内幕信息。

　　"Forecasting inflation is always much more difficult than forecasting growth," says Merrill's Mr. Lu. "So take all these inflation forecasts with a grain of salt. This is something where we should all be humble, especially for forecasting a specific point in time for peaking or bottoming."

　　美银美林的陆挺说，预测通胀率始终比预测增长率困难得多，所以对于所有这些通胀率预测都要有所保留；这方面我们都应该保持谦虚，特别是对于见顶、见底具体时点的预测。

　　An examination of the past predictions suggests several reasons that analysts were caught by surprise.

　　对以往预测的研究显示，分析师之所以未能准确预测，主要有以下几个原因：

　　For one, they underestimated the role played by the explosion of cash in the economy resulting from government-driven stimulus spending in 2009 and 2010 aimed at fending off the global recession. China's total stock of outstanding bank loans rose by nearly two-thirds during that two-year period, a deluge of credit that sent money sloshing around the economy, putting cash in consumer pockets and eventually driving up the prices for everyday goods.

　　第一，分析师低估了激增的现金在经济中扮演的角色。在2009年和2010年，为了避免全球衰退对中国经济的影响，中国实施了政府主导的刺激性支出政策，因此向经济体内注入了大量现金。在那两年中，中国未偿付的银行贷款总量增加了近三分之二，信贷的泛滥给经济体注入了大量流动性，消费者的口袋里装满了现金，这最终推高了日常商品的价格。

　　"I guess you could say that the persistence of inflation has lent credence" to the view that surging money supply has driven inflation, says Mr. Williams of Capital Economics in London. "I still struggle with that, though, because when you look at where the inflation is coming from, it's still pretty much about food, and specific foods as well, and I still struggle to see how increasing loans to state-owned firms pops up a few minutes later in cabbage prices."

　　凯投宏观驻伦敦的中国经济学家威廉姆斯说，我猜你可能会说，持续通胀令这样一种观点更为可信，即货币供应量的激增拉高了通胀率。但我仍然纠结于这种观点，因为当你审视通胀的源头，你会发现推高通胀率的主要还是食品价格，尤其是具体几种食品。我还是难以理解流向国有企业的贷款增加是如何很快地推高白菜价格的。

　　Indeed, food prices have been perhaps the biggest driver of China's inflation, rising 14.4% in June. Food prices are inherently volatile, depending on unpredictable factors like weather conditions.

　　事实上，食品价格或许已经成为影响中国通货膨胀水平的最大因素，6月份食品价格上涨14.4%。从本质上说，食品价格并不稳定，取决于多种不可预知的因素，比如天气状况。

　　Floods and droughts occur almost every year in China, and in such a huge country with a largely underdeveloped agricultural sector, those factors can cause significant temporary disruptions. Floods were behind a surge in vegetable prices last year, and drought conditions in wheat-growing areas pushed up wheat prices early this year.

　　中国几乎每年都要发生洪水和干旱，其国土面积虽然庞大，但农业部门在整体上还处于欠发达状态，这些因素可能导致农业生产严重的暂时中断。去年菜价激增的背后原因是洪水泛滥，而小麦主产区的旱情推高了今年年初的小麦价格。

　　"The key problem in forecasting CPI in China is that food has been responsible for about two-thirds of the overall CPI rise, and food prices are notoriously difficult to predict," says Andy Rothman, China macro strategist at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.

　　里昂证券亚太区市场（CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets）中国宏观策略师罗特曼（Andy Rothman）说，预测中国CPI的一个关键问题在于食品在整体CPI涨幅中占到了大约三分之二的比重，而食品价格走势是出了名的难预测。

　　Adds Wang Tao, China economist at UBS: "I am only an economist and could not forecast weather and natural disasters."

　　瑞银证券中国首席经济学家汪涛补充说，我只是一个经济学家，我无法预测天气和自然灾害。

　　Despite their earlier missed calls, economists remain confident that inflation is set to slow in the second half of the year. Money-supply growth has slowed considerably in response to tightening measures by the central bank. Forecasters also expect a recent surge in pork prices that has driven up the CPI to be temporary, as farmers respond by breeding more pigs.

　　尽管此前曾出现预测失误，但经济学家对今年下半年通胀率增速放缓持有信心。中国央行的紧缩措施推出后，货币供应量增速已明显放缓。经济学家同时预计，推高CPI的猪肉价格最近激增的现象只是暂时的，为了应对上涨的猪肉价格，养殖户已经增加了生猪的饲养量。

　　A high inflation rate late last year also means China's inflation rates will appear lower in coming months when compared against the year-earlier period, which is how inflation in measured in China. For that reason, it will be much more important to look at how prices relate to the previous month, rather than a year ago.

　　去年年底较高的通胀率也意味着未来几个月在做同期比较时，中国的通货膨胀率看上去会显得比较低。在中国，有关机构计算的是通胀率的同比增幅。出于这个原因，通胀率的环比增幅可能比同比增幅更为重要。

　　But wholly unpredictable factors, such as bad weather, could once again intervene. Given the regularity with which such shocks occur here, forecasters shouldn't count on trouble-free farming from June onward.

　　但那些完全不可预知的因素，比如恶劣天气，可能会再次影响经济。鉴于此类负面冲击在中国发生的规律性，经济学家不该指望下半年农业生产会风调雨顺。

　　At the end of the day, economists acknowledge that inflation forecasting in China is imprecise. Says Mr. Williams: "Although we are still expecting inflation to come down, the confidence with which we hold that view is probably lower than it was a few weeks ago."

　　归根结底，经济学家们也承认，在中国预测通货膨胀并不精确。威廉姆斯说，尽管我们仍然预计通胀率将走低，但支撑这种观点的信心可能比几周前来得要弱。