译者 谷子飘香
True and False Lessons Drawn from the Structural Slump
从美国经济结构性衰退所得教训
Speaker: Edmund S. Phelps, Director, Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University; McVickar Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University, 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics
演讲者：埃德蒙．费尔普斯，美国哥伦比亚大学资本主义和社会中心主任；哥伦比亚大学麦维克政治经济学教授，2006年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者。
Presider: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Columnist, The New York Times, CNBC Co-Anchor, "Squawk Box"
主持人：安德鲁．罗斯．索尔金，纽约时报专栏作家，CNBC“论谈”节目联合主持人
November 21, 2011 New York
2011年11月21日，纽约
Council on Foreign Relations
外交关系协会
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Andrew Ross Sorkin with The New York Times and CNBC. I am pleased to introduce today Edmund Phelps -- Professor Edmund Phelps, I should say, director of the Center of Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and 2006 Nobel Laureate in economics.
安德鲁．罗斯．索尔金：各位下午好！我是安德鲁．罗斯．索尔金，就职于纽约时报和CNBC。我很高兴地介绍爱德蒙．费尔普斯——我应该说，爱德蒙．费尔普斯教授，哥伦比亚大学资本主义和社会研究中心主任，２００６年诺贝尔经济学奖获得者。
I should remind everybody to turn off -- not just put on vibrate -- your cellphones, BlackBerrys and all other wireless devices to avoid interference with the very sensitive sound system. And I'd also like to recommend happily -- not recommend, rather, but remind everybody happily that this is on the record, for those journalists who are in the room, and finally to remind everybody that there is another meeting, a very exciting meeting tomorrow called the "Europe Update" tomorrow morning at 9:45 to 9:00 a.m. (sic). Hope you all can make that.
我提醒大学关掉——不仅仅是调成振动——你的手机，黑莓和其它无线电设备，以免影响非常灵敏的音响系统。同时我高兴地建议大家——不是建议，是高兴地提醒大家，这是对在座的记者的公开新闻发布会；并且提醒大家，明天还有一场很有意思的会议，叫做“欧洲更新”，时间在明天早上９∶００到９∶４５分。希望大家到场。
So with that very short introduction -- and then we're going to have a conversation in a little bit -- let me hand this over to the professor.
简要介绍之后——我们马上开始谈话——我把这个交给教授。
EDMUND PHELPS: It's an enormous pleasure to be here. I'm all fired up over a number of issues, and I guess this'll be -- provide an opportunity to touch on some of them.
爱德蒙．费尔普斯：很高兴来到这里。我对许多议题感到兴奋，我想这提供了机会让我讨论其中的一些议题。
As you know and as I know, we have descended into a pretty deep slump, measured by unemployment and labor force participation rates. It is some consolation that we have been gaining some ground of late, private sector in particular. Public sector has been discharging people in the unemployment pool almost as fast as the private sector has been hiring them. But still I regard the situation as having moderately improved.
如你我所知，以失业率和劳动就业率来衡量，我们陷入了一个相当深的不景气状态。令人欣慰的是，最近我们获得了一些进展，特别是在私人部门。人们从公共部门解雇到失业池中，很快被私营部门雇用。但是我认为情况有所改善。
But my research suggests that we will not recover to the old normal, but to a new normal with, as a guess, an unemployment rate around 7 percent. We seek remedies for our ills, but the prescriptions we take will not have much value if they are not grounded in adequate economic theory, and that's where my -- where I come in today.
但是我的研究表明，我们不会回到恢复到原来的状态，会到新的标准，我认为是失业率在７％左右。我们为病症寻找治疗方法，但如果不通晓足够的经济理论，开出的处方没有多少价值。这是我今天站到这里的原因。
From the point of view of my theoretical and statistical work dating back to my 1994 book, "Structural Slumps," and my later research on structural blooms, not to mention my more recent work on economic dynamism, the present slump is widely misdiagnosed and the widely debated policy prescriptions ill founded, not grounded -- not well grounded.
我的理论和统计工作的观点，1994年在书中提出“结构性低迷”，后来进行了结构性活跃的研究，更不用说最近对经济活力的研究工作，现在的低迷是广泛误诊和经过广泛辩论的政策处方是有问题的，没有基础——不是很有基础。
Looking through my lenses, the present slump at this point appears to be structural. The previous structural slump, I would say, was Europe's slump in the 1980s. I'm inclined to think that the Great Depression was largely monetary, but more research could perhaps usefully be done.
通过我的镜头，目前的低迷在这一点上显示出是结构性的。以前的结构性衰退，我想，是欧洲在二十世纪八十年代的衰退。我倾向于大萧条部分是货币上的，但是可以做一些更有用的研究。
I see three structural mechanisms at work behind today's structural slump. First, a depression has emerged in the values put on business assets such as commercial structures, such as important kinds of trained employees, those who handle information and those who used to be engaged in the innovation and growth departments. Price earnings ratios are around 12, where 10 years ago, if I'm not mistaken, the ratios were around, oh, 16. And I think I can recall 20 or more in frothier times.
在今天的结构性衰退的背后，有三个结构性机制在起作用。首先，对经营性资产价值的悲观情绪，如商业结构、重要的部门如训练有素的员工，这些人处理信息，曾经在创新和增长部门工作。现在市盈率在12左右，而10年以前，如果我没记错的话，市盈率大约是16。市场有泡沫的时候市盈率是20或更多。
The impact has been mainly -- the impact of these depression -- by this depression of business asset values per asset -- the impact has been mainly on business investment activity, and especially on innovative activity.
影响主要在——这些悲观情绪的影响——这些对每股资产业务资产值的悲观情绪——主要影响商业投资活动，特别是创新活动上。
Employment in the financial sector has also taken a big hit. Second, a real exchange rate depreciation has come to the U.S., with the result that companies have been -- under the -- under the protection of the -- of the real exchange rate depreciation, they've been tempted to raise their markups, which they proceeded to do. Last -- third and last, the collapse of the artificial and highly speculative housing boom eliminated a huge number of construction jobs and jobs in some of the financial industries connected with construction.
金融部门的就业也承受了大的打击。其次，美国已经发生了实际汇率贬值，带来的结果是公司已经在实际汇率下跌的保护下，他们想继续提高利润。最后，一个人为的高度投机的房地产市场泡沫破裂，大量的跟建筑有关的就业机会没有了，一些与建筑有关的金融业也失去了工作。
I don't see the impairment of the banking industry by its -- by their -- by its poor balance sheets -- I don't see this impairment as a major cause of the slump, since the banks had ceased to be big lenders to business anyway. And I don't see the insolvency of households as a major source of the slump either. I don't think that consumer demand led the economy into the slump. Besides, production of consumer goods are far more capital-intensive than they are labor- intensive. And to put it crudely, investment activity is where the jobs are, including innovative activity -- development of -- development of projects that -- project development that is hoped to lead to innovation.
我无法通过银行较差的资产负债表，理解银行业的损害。我不认为这种损害是衰退的主要原因，因为银行已经减少对商业的放贷。我也不认为家庭的破产是衰退的主要原因。我不认为消费需求导致衰退。另外，消费品生产是资金密集型而不是劳动密集型。很自然，哪里有工作，哪里就是投资活动，包括创新活动，希望项目发展导致创新。
What are the main underlying structural causes of this depression?
什么是经济不景气的根本的结构性原因呢？
The demographic prospect ahead of us is a large exodus of trained employees from the labor force, heavily over the 19 -- over the -- over the 2020s.
摆在我们面前的人口前景是：训练有素的员工从劳动力市场大量外流，直到2020年都会很严重。
There has been a staggering rise of private wealth. In America, which I'm focusing on, much of this bloating is in the category of what I call social wealth. The present value -- and by the rise -- by private wealth here I mean the present -- I'm talking about the present value of assets, so to speak, present -- and the social wealth I'm talking about is the present value of unfunded social entitlements: $35 trillion for Medicaid, $23 trillion for Medicare and $8 trillion for Social Security, and that's not counting the public debt. In Greece and maybe France, I think we're seeing something similar.
私人财富惊人增加。在我所关注的美国，很多增长在我说的社会财富类别。通过现在私人财富现值上升，我讲的是资产的现值——我讲的社会财富是未设基金的社会权利的现值：35万亿的医疗补助计划，23万亿的医院保险，8万亿的社会保障，不包括公共债务。我想希腊和法国的情况也差不多。
In Europe, we see also a pathological excess of private saving, in part fueled by undertaxation, thus huge fiscal deficits and thus rising public debt. Now you might say, well, what's depressing about that? I thought capitalism was all about wealth accumulation, as one newspaper, I think is fond of saying. (Laughter.) Well, what's depressing about it is several things. It's not good for the labor force participation. If people are already as rich as Croesus, they may may not feel impelled to go out and get a job.
在欧洲，我们也看到一种病态的私人储蓄过剩，征税过低也是部分原因，导致了巨大的财政赤字和公共债务上升。现在你可能会说，哪里让人沮丧呢？我想资本主义的本质是财富积累，作为一家报纸，就喜欢发言。（笑声）让人沮丧的是几件事。它不利于劳动力参与。如果人们极为富有，他们可能觉得没有必要出去找个工作。
And another thing is it can cause big problems for companies when the personnel don't really need to take all that guff and don't need to put shoulder to wheel because they're doing fine, thank you, with their investments. And I could go on and on.
另一件事情是当员工不是真正需要工作时，会导致公司大的问题，因为依靠他们的投资，就可以生活得很好。类似的还可以举出很多。
I could also argue the opposite side of this, but I won't do it. (Laughter.)
我也可以列出反面的例子，但是我不这样做。（笑声）
Another cause of the structural slump (trivially ?) is the overhang of housing, which leads to an enormous theoretical tangle of forces, which I won't dare go into today.
结构性不景气的另一个原因是房地产过剩，这个引起了巨大的各种力量之间的理论纠纷，今天我不敢涉足其中。
So that's my structural perspective. Oh, I wanted to say another thing. The -- perhaps the most -- single most important reason why we're in the doldrums is that we've been in a productivity slowdown since about 1973. And there were times when we forgot about it and thought it was over, because things were going so well; but then, after a while they weren't going so well any more. And it's now very clear, if you look at the data between 1973 or so and the present, that productivity growth is just a whole lot slower than it had been between, say, 1955 and 1973, or between 1921 and 1941. There's simply no comparison.
我的结构性的观点。哦，我想说另一件事。经济萧条的唯一最重要的原因是自1973年以来的生产率增长放缓。因为事情进展顺利，我们经常忘记了这一点，或认为它已经过去了；但是然后过一会，事情又变得不那么好了。现在很清楚，如果看自1973年左右到现在的数据，生产率增长比1955年到1973年、或1921年到1941年慢了很多。两者根本无法比较。
Now, the -- of course, there are all these rival theoretical perspectives. I had the pleasure at the Reuters Keynes-Hayek debate last week to attack the Keynesian premise that the slump is a result of deficiency of effective demand.
现在，当然，到处都是相反的理论观点。我很荣幸，上周在路透社凯恩斯-哈耶克辩论会上，攻击了衰退是在效需求不足导致的凯恩斯理论前提。
I'll just say here that there's no price deflation going on this slump, and there's not even any disinflation going on now. The Keynesian model simply has got -- not got to first base.
我只是说，在这次衰退中，没有价格通缩，没有任何的通化通货紧缩。凯恩斯模型没有迈出成功的第一步。
And it's appalling that so many people out there in the business world and elsewhere don't seem to realize that that's a totally outmoded -- oh, I won't say outmoded -- it's a totally inapplicable theory. The last time we had a hundred percent slump that was monetary in origin was the Great Slump in Britain in 1926, when Churchill put the pound back at the old price in terms of the dollar, requiring a humongous drop in money wages and money prices if they were ever to get back to full employment. And I could also oppose supply-side theories just as well.
可怕的是，在商业界及其它地方有那么多人没有意识到，凯恩斯已经完全过时了——哦，我不应该说过时——凯恩斯是完全不适用的理论。过去我们有过百分之百的衰退，1926年英国的大萧条，根源在于货币。当邱吉尔将英镑对美元的回到老价格，如果要回到充分就业，需要巨大的货币工资和货币价格下降。我也反对供应理论。
But let me take the -- my remaining three minutes or so to say -- to articulate a couple of themes. People in this country have come to see the -- have been led to see the economy as a physical system that can be controlled by, so to speak, engineering the outcome you want to do, if necessary using rocket science. People -- and people have been led to that thinking because they're only provided with dumbed-down, highly mechanical, short-sighted, shallow theories like the rudimentary Keynesian theory and the rudimentary supply-side theory, which have no intertemporal depth to them whatsoever, because that would make them too hard.
但是让我在剩下的3分钟时间里表达几个主题。这个国家的人们被教育成将经济看作可被控制的物理系统，通过工程设计想要的结果，如果必需可以用上火箭科学。人们被引导成这种想法是因为他们只学过有呆板、高机械、短视、肤浅的理论，像基本的凯恩斯理论和供应理论，没有任何跨时期的深度，因为那对他们来说太难了。
Now, my keen interest in coming here today, I think, is really -- grows out of two particular irritations. One is the irritation -- my irritation with my friends on the -- shall we say Republican supply side, who think that a general tax increase would bring austerity, as if austerity were not already here and going to intensify anyway, whether or not we have a tax increase. I should try to say more about that later, but I can't say everything in my 15 minutes.
今天我来到这里的强烈兴趣，起源于两个特别刺激。一个因素来自我的朋友，在共和党的供应方面，他认为普遍增加税收会带来通货紧缩，看不到无论是否加税，现在已有紧缩而且还将更加严重。以后我应该在这方面细说，但是我不能在15分钟里面说完。
Also there's my irritation with the Democrat Keynesian group, who think that spending, and therefore employment, will be dashed by a cutback of 120 billion (dollars) in annual terms in government spending, as if the unfunded spending wasn't part of the problem, as if -- it's as if it's like recommending some guy with a terrible hangover that he go out and get another drink, the hair of the dog, you know? It just -- it boggles the mind.
另一个刺激来自民主党的凯恩斯集团，他们认为支出以及就业会因政府年度支出削减120亿元而受到猛烈冲击，好像没有着落的支出不是问题存在的部分原因——就好比建议一个宿醉的人出去再喝一杯，以毒攻毒，你知道吗？那真是不可思议。
This latter faction, the Democratic Keynesian faction, says -- and, I'm sorry, the supply-sider faction -- says that the only way out of the debt is not tax increases but to grow out of the problem, as if the function of the economy were to cover for the politicians who had blundered and overspent and as if there were push-buttons available for speeding up growth, which is one of the things we least understand.
后面的派别，民主党的凯恩斯主义的阵营，说——对不起，供应学派阵营——说对债务唯一的办法不是加税而是增长，好像经济的功能是弥补政治家所犯的错误和超支，好像有一个按键可以加速增长，这是我们最不能理解的。
I want to make just two crucial points in the last minute.
最后一分钟，我说两条关键点。
One, since 1990 or so, we've needed to build up fiscal surpluses in view of the looming overhang of entitlements that will start becoming due in the year 2012. I think -- I mentioned that we've got Medicaid entitlements of -- I've lost the number here, but -- these entitlements add up to 66 trillion (dollars).
一、大约从1990年开始，我们需要增加财政盈余，为了2012年开始的福利困境。我想——我提到医疗补助计划福利——我忘记的数字——这个福利加起来需要66万亿美元。
I've asked myself, well, suppose we could get some insurance company in the Netherlands or something to annualize this for us so that the federal government would each year pay a constant flow. Well, how much would the insurance company require in constant flow to cover that 66 trillion (dollars)? And of course, it depends on what rate of return, so to speak, the insurance company requires. At 2 percent, the federal government would have to spend 1.52 trillion (dollars) per annum to the insurance company to take care of -- indefinitely, in perpetuity -- to take care of the problem. At 3 percent, it would 2.28 trillion (dollars). So we're just miles from getting into solvency the way we're going.
我曾经为我自己，假设有位于荷兰或什么地方的保险公司肯为我们按年计算，那么联邦政府将每年支付定量的资金。保险公司会要求每年支付多少去保证那66万亿美元呢？当然，这要看利率，看保险公司要求的利率。按2%利率，联邦政府每年要支付1.52万亿保费给保险公司——不定期地，永远地——去解决这个问题。按3%利率，是2.28万亿美元。我们离要达到的偿付目标还很远。
And then there's finally -- my second point is, I think in all the discussion of the poor condition of the economy, we're overlooking the tremendous slowdown since 1973. We had the -- and now there are signs that we're having technological displacement of a lot of workers as a result of the Internet revolution before that. So we're in really a terrible pickle, but I think at least we can be -- the way forward is -- it's got to begin with applicable thinking about the root causes of our situation.
最后，我的第二个观点是，我所有有关经济状况不佳的讨论中，我们忽略了自1973年以来生产率增长大大放缓的情况。有迹象表示，自互联网革命以来，很多工人被技术替代。情况真的很糟糕，但至少我们能够——前面的道路是——从关于现状根源的合适的思考开始。
Thank you. (Applause.)
谢谢。（掌声）
SORKIN: Thank you, professor. So what we're hoping to do -- and that was just a framework to really get everybody thinking about where the professor's head is. And what I'm hoping we can do is make this as interactive as possible.
索尔金：谢谢，教授。所以我们希望做的是——并且这只是一个框架去真正让人们理解教授的思想。我希望我们能与教授形成互动。
I have a couple of questions that your conversation's already raised for me, and then I'm hoping to throw it open to the audience, and I imagine you have much smarter questions than I do.
我对你的讲话有几个问题要问，然后我希望放开让听众问问题，我想他们有更聪明的问题要问。
Given the news of the day, which is the failure of the supercommittee, it occurs to me that if I could make you the supercommittee of one, given the framework that you just laid out, in a politically palatable way -- if you think that's even possible -- you would do what?
现在的消息，是超级委员会失败，它让我想到如果给你一个超级委员会，一个你刚才提出来的框架，以政治上可行的方式——如果你认为可行的话——你会做什么？
PHELPS: (Sighs.) (Laughter.) Well, in that -- in the context of the supercommittee -- thanks for the question; it's nice. (Laughter.) Well, you sort of threw me with that last -- on the condition that it -- I not get assassinated the next morning by, or I wouldn't be --
费尔普斯：（叹气）（笑声）好吧，在超级委员会的背景下——感谢您提的问题；问题很好。（笑声）好吧，你扔给我一个棘手的问题——在那个条件下——如果第二天早晨我没有被暗杀，或者没有被……
SORKIN: Well, forget the politics. If you -- if you could do it your way --
索尔金：好了，忘记政治。如果你可以以你的方式去做……
PHELPS: -- chased by angry crowds burning torches?
费尔普斯：被拿着火把的愤怒的群众追逐？
SORKIN: No, if you could do it your way --
索尔金：不，如果你可以以你自己的方式做事……
PHELPS: Yeah.
费尔普斯：是的
SORKIN: -- but recognizing the political climate that we're in --
索尔金：但是考虑到我们所处的政治气候
PHELPS: But within the framework -- within the parameters of Western civilization, in other words, yeah. Yeah. (Laughter.)
费尔普斯：但是在框架内，也就是说，在西方文明的参量内，是的。是的。（笑声）
SORKIN: Yeah, we'll take that.
索尔金：是的，在这个条件内。
PHELPS: (Laughs.) Right. I would go for a general tax increase, starting with the first bracket. I don't like the idea that the bottom 45 percent pay virtually no income taxes net of -- net of various sorts of entitlements. And I -- and I -- though I have no special sympathy for the rich, I do think that we'll get the -- we'll get the biggest bang in terms of employment, innovation and productivity growth if we go about raising our revenues more efficiently. And that means loading more of the burden on the early brackets -- on the first brackets, rather than focusing the heaviest burden on the higher brackets, which are marginal tax rates -- which are marginal tax rates for those people who are -- who are actually paying taxes.
费尔普斯：（笑声）对。我将普遍加税，从最低收入档次开始。我不喜欢45%的低收入人群扣除各种福利以后几乎没有交税的做法。虽然我对富人没有特殊的同情，我真的认为再明显提高富人税收的话，我们在就业、创新和生产率增长方面会受到重创。那意味着要把更多的负担加到了低收入人群上，最低收入人群，而不是把最重的负担加到高收入人群中，这是真正交税的人付的边际税率。
If you wanted to raise the highest revenue you could, you wouldn't tax -- you wouldn't have a positive marginal tax rate on that last dollar. What would be the point?
如果你想将收入提到最高，然后不用交税，你工资的最后一美元没有到达边际税率水平。你的观点是什么？
SORKIN: Right. You -- but you would spend more attention on the taxes than you would on the cutting?
索尔金：对。但是你会更加注重税收而不是削减支出吗？
PHELPS: Secondly, I would also be happy to -- I'd actually -- the one-sentence answer that I should have started with, probably, is I would like to roll things back to about the year 2000, before the Bush free pills, before the Bush tax cuts, before the myriad spending motivated -- driven by both Democrats and Republicans. I would be very -- I would -- I would like to go back to there. And so yeah, I would -- I would certainly get rid of the free pills. And I don't -- and I don't like that -- I don't like the -- those across-the-board tax cuts that Bush initiated, no.
费尔普斯：简短地说，我会很高兴事情回到大约2000年，布什的自由贸易政策以前，布什的减税政策以前，无数的消费刺激以前——分别由民和党和共和党驱动的。我很高兴会到那时候。所以，我当然会抛弃自由贸易政策，我也不喜欢布什启动的全面减税政策。
SORKIN: You mentioned the idea of 7 percent unemployment as a potentially realistic number that we could reach.
索尔金：你提到说失业率可能回到7%。
PHELPS: Yeah, right.
费尔普斯：是的。
SORKIN: When could we reach that, and how?
索尔金：什么时候、怎样回到7%呢？
PHELPS: I've been more confident about the number than about the speed. (Chuckles.) That's one derivative too much for me -- (laughter) -- for those mathematicians in the audience. The recovery has certainly gone much slower than I thought. I may have been hoping and expecting a very strong recovery such as occurred -- such as began in 1934 in the U.S. at the bottom of the Depression. But I guess there's just too much -- too much damage done to the system. It's just -- it was -- I think -- we're not going to have a --
费尔普斯：回到这个数据我很自信，时间不能确定。（轻轻的笑声）这个超出我的能力范围，对听众里面的数学家们来说可以。恢复肯定会比我相像的慢。我希望和期盼经济恢复像1934年美国在大萧条底部时一样快。但是我想系统受到了太多的损害。我们将会有一个……
SORKIN: But we can get to --
索尔金：但是我们可以……
PHELPS: We're not going to have a fast recovery to 7 (percent). On the other hand --
费尔普斯：我们不会很快恢复到7%。另一方面……
SORKIN: But we can get to 7 percent by doing everything -- (
索尔金：但是我们可以尽力恢复到7%。
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/Ivylyf/237605
