【题文】A Mountain But not a Volcano

On September 20th the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the central banks' central bank, released data showing that corporate borrowing around the world remains at an all time high. A notable ______ is in China, where there is even more business borrowing as a share of GDP than in Japan at the peak of its bubble-related borrowing fever in the 1990s. But it is high everywhere. Corporate ______ in the rich world stood at 102% of GDP at the end of March, compared with 92% before the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. Could high levels of debt ______ the recovery in advanced economies?

Many regulators were sounding the ______ about elevated company debt even before the covid19 pandemic. Since then, the hit to firm's incomes has led to a wave of rating downgrades: between March 2020 and March 2021, Fitch, a ratings agency, ______ 460 firms, or almost 20% of its corporate portfolio. While defanlts (违约) have eased this year as economies have recovered, many firms will be ______ by higher levels of debt for years to come. Even if interest rates remain ______, this "debt overhand" could affect their willingness to invest or to hire new staff.

Intriguingly, however, aftereffects from corporate debt booms rarely cause significant economic damage, even if ______ themselves suffer when firms default. A recent paper by Moritz Schularick, of the University of Bonn, and several co-authors, examines data on business cycles for 17 advanced countries over more than a century, and compares corporate debt bursts with those associated with ______ borrowing (like the 200809 financial crisis).

The authors argue that lenders often have a/an ______ to restructure old corporate loans, reducing the risk of "zombie" companies persisting, and freeing up finance to support the next recovery. For household debt, however, restructuring thousands of ______ loans is often impossible, and lenders may be more inclined to keep the loans on their books in the hope that house prices eventually ______. The risks to the economy are higher after commercial property bursts than for corporate debt where lenders mainly have their eyes on firm's cash flows. This is one reason why the property-related debt depression in China are potentially disturbing.

In much of the rich world, there are reasons to be ______ optimistic. The largest lenders are in much better health than in 2008. All of the major ______ authorities, carried out stress tests during 2020, using macroeconomic scenarios much more severe than have actually came out, but their banking systems were able to absorb large corporate losses and carry on lending. And the parts of the economy that have had the toughest time during the pandemic only account for a relatively small share of corporate debt. For example, the BIS projects that ______ will increase in the hospitality industry (酒店餐饮业) over the coming years, but they note that the sector only accounts for between 1.5% and 8% of corporate credit in the nine major economies they model.

There will be a mountain of corporate debt in many countries for some time. But that dos not mean the recovery will necessarily falter (衰退).

【小题1】

A．situation

B．influence

C．case

D．initiative

【小题2】

A．contribution

B．losses

C．investment

D．debt

【小题3】

A．threaten

B．follow

C．stimulate

D．sustain

【小题4】

A．signal

B．bell

C．alarm

D．whistle

【小题5】

A．downgraded

B．updated

C．eliminated

D．licenced

【小题6】

A．justified

B．burdened

C．isolated

D．shrunk

【小题7】

A．predictable

B．high

C．low

D．stable

【小题8】

A．creditors

B．borrowers

C．companies

D．investors

【小题9】

A．regional

B．local

C．municipal

D．household

【小题10】

A．imagination

B．virtuality

C．intention

D．diversity

【小题11】

A．collective

B．individual

C．corporate

D．business

【小题12】

A．drop

B．plunge

C．recover

D．persist

【小题13】

A．cautiously

B．overwhelmingly

C．roughly

D．informally

【小题14】

A．concerned

B．provincial

C．regulatory

D．political

【小题15】

A．bankruptcy

B．defaults

C．impact

D．extension

上海市洋泾中学2021-2022学年高三上学期12月考试英语试题