英國面對比退歐更嚴峻的政策挑戰
The UK’s recent productivity performance has been calamitous. True, the productivity slowdown has been a widespread phenomenon among high-income countries. But Britain’s slowdown is remarkably bad even by these standards. The question is why. Recent research sheds light on this vital economic question. Why is it vital? The answer is that if recent performance continued, the economy would no longer generate rising real incomes per head. That would change everything for the worse.
英國近年的生產率表現是災難性的。沒錯，生產率增長放緩在高收入國家是普遍現象。但即便按這些標準衡量，英國的放緩也糟糕得出奇。問題是爲什麼。近期的研究爲這一至關重要的經濟問題提供了一些啓示。它爲何至關重要？答案是，如果近年的生產率表現持續下去，英國經濟將不再能夠實現人均實際收入增長。這將讓一切變得更加糟糕。Since the financial crisis of 2007-08, the UK’s growth of labour productivity has been about the same as Italy’s, in the performance basement of the high-income countries. Yet the UK suffered much the largest deterioration in productivity growth of any of the large high-income countries since the crisis. Its productivity levels are also among the lowest of the high-income countries, which indicates room for fast catch-up growth. This makes recent performance even more disturbing.
自2007-08年金融危機以來，英國的勞動生產率增長大約與意大利相當，在高收入國家當中墊底。然而，自金融危機以來，英國遭受了大型高收入國家中最大的生產率增長降幅。它的生產率絕對值水平在高收入國家中也徘徊在最底層，這表明存在快速追趕的空間。這讓近年的表現更加令人擔憂。Even I had not realised how bad performance has been until I read a recent speech on productivity by the Bank of England’s Andy Haldane. “For the past decade, average productivity growth has been negative,” he said, adding “you would have to go right back to the 18th century to see a similarly lengthy period of stagnant productivity.”
我在閱讀了英國央行(Bank of England)的安迪?霍爾丹(Andy Haldane)最近關於生產率的演講稿之後，才意識到英國的表現有多麼糟糕。霍爾丹表示：“在過去10年裏，平均生產率增長爲負數，”他補充稱，“你只有回到18世紀，才能看到類似的生產率持續停滯”。
One reason why things might not be quite as bleak as this is laid out in a recent paper by Harvard’s Marty Feldstein. He argues that we tend to exaggerate inflation and so underestimate economic growth, because of growing difficulties in measuring quality improvements in the modern economy. In all probability, real incomes are rising more than statistics indicate. While plausible, this does not explain the virtually universal productivity slowdown. It certainly does not explain the UK’s exceptionally large slowdown.
哈佛大學(Harvard)的馬蒂?費爾德斯坦(Marty Feldstein)在最近一篇論文中給出了局面沒有如此慘淡的理由。他辯稱，我們往往誇大通脹，從而低估經濟增長，因爲衡量現代經濟的質量改善越來越難了。實際情況很可能是，實際收入增幅超出統計數據所表明的程度。儘管這種說法貌似有理，但它解釋不了幾乎所有國家生產率增長放緩的原因。它肯定解釋不了英國生產率爲何異常大幅放緩。Mr Haldane suggests another explanation: the huge lag between the productivity frontrunners and the laggards. He also shows that the dispersion in productivity performance is larger in the UK and has widened more than in other countries. Evidently, the UK economy contains many duff companies.
霍爾丹提出了另外一種解釋：生產率領先者與落後者之間的巨大差距。他還指出，英國的生產率表現差異更大，其擴大幅度也超過其他國家。顯然，英國經濟中有許多無價值的公司。This analysis helps explain the UK’s low average level of productivity. But it does not appear to explain the sharp slowdown. Mr Haldane’s data show that the dispersion in productivity among British companies is exceptional, but not that it has grown faster since the crisis than before it. Indeed, he notes that “the tail of low-productivity companies today is, if anything, smaller than it was pre-crisis”. So that cannot explain the productivity slowdown.
這種分析有助於解釋英國低下的平均生產率水平。但它似乎沒有解釋英國生產率增長爲何急劇放緩。霍爾丹的數據顯示，英國公司之間的生產率差異異常明顯，但沒有顯示出自危機以來的擴大超過危機之前。的確，他指出，“如今低生產率公司的長尾要說有什麼不同的話，那就是比危機之前要小”。因此這無法解釋生產率增長爲何放緩。Another hypothesis is that loose monetary policy explains the slowdown. But UK policy has not been exceptionally loose and so cannot explain its exceptional slowdown. Mr Haldane’s analysis does show that tighter monetary policy might have raised productivity levels by a modest 1-2 per cent, but at the cost of some 1.5m jobs. Inflicting that would have been grossly irresponsible.
另一種假設是，寬鬆貨幣政策造成了這種放緩。但英國的政策並非異常寬鬆，因而無法解釋生產率的異常放緩。霍爾丹的分析確實表明，收緊貨幣政策可能會讓生產率水平溫和提高1%-2%，但代價是大約150萬就業崗位的流失。製造那種代價將是極其不負責任的。There is another explanation. Research by my colleagues Chris Giles and Gemma Tetlow shows that the slowdown is mainly in banking, telecommunications, utilities, management consultancy and legal and accounting services. These sectors comprise 11 per cent of the economy, yet account for two-thirds of the slowdown. Many of these sectors were profoundly affected by the boom and bust of global finance. Indeed, one possibility is productivity growth has not so much slowed as never reached the heights estimated before the crisis. Surging real rewards might have been confused with booming output. If so, the slowdown is a return to normality.
還有一種解釋。我的同事克里斯?賈爾斯(Chris Giles)和傑馬?泰特洛(Gemma Tetlow)的研究表明，放緩主要發生在銀行、電信、公用事業、管理諮詢以及法律和會計服務行業。這些行業只佔經濟的11%，但佔到放緩的三分之二。其中許多行業受到全球金融興衰的深遠影響。的確，一個可能性是，生產率增長與其說是放緩，不如說是從未達到危機前估計的高度。我們可能將實際獎酬飆升與產出繁榮混爲一談。若果真如此，生產率增長放緩是向正常的迴歸。
It should be noted that none of these explanations is comforting. Eliminating the dispersion in productivity among companies would be desirable in itself and also raise productivity growth. But the question is why an economy that is open to the world, went though the Thatcher revolution and is among the least regulated of all the high-income countries, should show such a big dispersion in productivity. This suggests bad management is both rife and persistent. Again, while the Financial Times research clarifies where the slowdown has occurred, it does not explain why productivity growth is so pervasively low. One reason could be the exceptionally weak investment, by international standards. This would be another corporate governance failure.
應當指出的是，這些解釋沒有一個令人寬慰。消除企業之間的生產率差異不僅本身是可取的目標，而且也會加快生產率增長。但問題是，英國是一個向世界開放的經濟體，它經歷過“撒切爾革命”，而且還是所有高收入國家中監管最爲寬鬆的國家之一，爲何還會表現出這麼明顯的生產率差異？這似乎表明企業管理不善既普遍又持久。同樣，儘管英國《金融時報》的研究澄清了生產率增長放緩的領域，但它沒有解釋生產率增長爲何普遍低下。一個原因可能是按國際標準衡量投資異常疲弱。這將是又一個企業治理失敗。Rectifying this disaster is the UK’s most important policy challenge, far more so than Brexit. The government should finance a high-level effort aimed at working out what has gone wrong, why and what (if anything) to do about it. The country’s very future is at stake.
矯正這場災難是英國最重要的政策挑戰，遠遠超過英國退歐。英國政府應該資助高層次努力，以找出問題和原因，並制定對策（如果有的話）。國家的未來取決於此。
