新興市場難以避免長期停滯
Developed market economies, bloated and solipsistic as they are, hog as much attention as they can in the field of global economics. Currently they are dominating a debate about an apparent slowdown in long-term rates of growth, which generally goes under the name of “secular stagnation”.
臃腫而自以爲是的發達市場經濟體，總是在全球經濟領域竭盡所能地吸引眼球。當前，他們正在主導一場關於長期經濟增長率明顯下降的討論，這種放緩通常被冠以“長期停滯”(secular stagnation)之名。Yet, as the International Monetary Fund and others have warned, the phenomenon of slowing trend growth stretches across emerging markets too — if anything even more so. The causes may be different, but the challenge of reversing the unwelcome development is no less difficult. Not only that, but the unusual pattern of the slowdown must surely raise some questions about how durable it is.
然而，正如國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)及其他機構所警告的，趨勢增長放緩現象同樣波及到了所有新興市場——情況可能更嚴重。雖然原因可能有所不同，但新興市場扭轉這種不受歡迎的發展趨勢的難度，卻一點不比發達市場小。不僅如此，新興市場經濟放緩的不尋常模式也一定會讓人們對放緩將持續多久提出疑問。
In a recent, much-read, analysis, the IMF says that “secular” or trend growth has fallen across the developed markets from 2.25 per cent before the crisis to 1.6 per cent over the next five years, with an even sharper fall among EM countries. Having risen in the decade before the crisis to 7.2 per year — and the rise was in EM countries as a whole, not just China — trend growth since 2008 has slid to 6.5 per cent and is expected to drop over the next five years to 5.2 per cent.
在最近一份廣爲流傳的分析報告中，IMF稱，“長期”或趨勢增長率在所有發達市場均已下降，從危機前的2.25%降至未來5年間的1.6%，新興市場國家的下降甚至更加急劇。危機爆發前的10年裏，新興市場國家總體（不只是中國）的趨勢增長率曾升至7.2%，但自2008年以來已經降至6.5%，預計在未來5年將降至5.2%。
Although some argue that the problem in the advanced economies is the slowing of technological innovation, the debate there has generally homed in on a demand-side rather than a supply-side explanation. Pessimists such as Lawrence Summers, the former US Treasury secretary and White House chief economic adviser,argue that the long-term real rate of interest has fallen such that monetary policy, which it is hard to loosen below the “zero lower bound” of interest rates at nil, cannot be eased enough to bring the economy back into equilibrium.
儘管有人認爲，發達經濟體的問題在於技術創新放緩，但那裏的辯論通常只關注需求面，而非供應面的解釋。美國前財長、白宮首席經濟顧問勞倫斯•薩默斯(Lawrence Summers)等悲觀論者認爲，長期實際利率已經降至如此水平，使貨幣政策無法被放寬至足以使經濟恢復均衡的程度，因爲很難將之放鬆至突破利率爲零這一下限。Hardly anyone believes the same for emerging markets. With the exception of one or two countries such as the Czech Republic and Israel, EM interest rates generally have considerable space to fall and, in any case, higher rates of trend growth and inflation mean that negative real interest rates can be achieved more easily without going below zero.
幾乎沒有人認爲新興市場也會發生同樣的問題。除了捷克與以色列等少數國家，新興市場的利率通常都有相當大的下降空間，而且無論如何，較高的趨勢增長率和通脹率意味着，可以在利率不低於零的情況下更容易地實現實際利率爲負。However, what emerging markets do apparently face — and some argue that they share this problem with advanced economies — is a slowdown in trend growth apparently related to a deceleration in the pace of technological advance and the ability to implement it.
但是，與技術進步速度減慢以及技術應用能力下降明顯相關的趨勢增長放緩，似乎確實是新興市場面對的問題（有些人認爲這是他們與發達經濟體共有的）。According to the IMF, the pattern of secular slowdown in EMs has been quite different from that in the rich countries. While the latter appeared to be flagging even before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, emerging economies actually accelerated in the decade before the crisis and only hit stronger headwinds thereafter.
IMF認爲，新興市場長期增長放緩的模式與發達國家完全不同。後者甚至在2008年全球金融危機爆發之前就似乎開始萎靡不振，而新興經濟體在危機前的10年實際上都在加速，只是在危機後遇到了較強阻力。There is something a little puzzling about this conclusion. The weakening since the crisis seems to have resulted not from lower labour supply or investment but from a slowdown in total factor productivity — the ratio of output to all inputs — which aims to capture how well economies absorb and deploy technologies.
這一結論有些令人費解之處。新興市場自金融危機以來的疲軟似乎並非源自勞動力供給或投資減少，而是由於全要素生產率（產出與所有投入的比率）下降。該比率旨在衡量經濟體吸收和應用技術的能力。Few would doubt that reforms to promote faster growth in EMs have been sporadic and unimpressive since the long boom began in the early 2000s. But it seems a little odd that productivity improved rapidly nonetheless in the years before the crisis and slowed across the emerging market world thereafter. True, a prolonged cyclical downturn can itself reduce trend growth by the scarring effects of unemployment and bankruptcies. Yet the EMs in general did relatively well surviving the ravages of the crisis, and grew strongly in the five or six years following.
很少有人會懷疑，推動新興市場增長加速的改革，自長期繁榮在21世紀初開始以來只是零星的，並不引人注目。但看似有些奇怪的是，新興市場整體在危機之前的幾年裏生產率仍然快速提高，而在危機後下降。的確，長期的週期性衰退本身就會拉低趨勢增長率，因爲失業和破產會帶來創傷效應。而新興市場在從危機造成的破壞中走出方面總體上表現相對較好，而且在危機之後的五、六年裏增長強勁。Nor was the post-crash slowing in productivity growth an effect of faltering investment, which actually increased relative to the existing stock of capital, partly because of counter-cyclical stimulus measures undertaken by EM governments. In theory it could result from a slowing in world trade, since tradable sectors have traditionally been a leading source of productivity improvements. However, the weakness in trade growth seems principally caused by large EMs and particularly China going up the value chain and vertically integrating production processes rather than relying on imported components. That would seem to involve stronger rather than weaker productivity.
後危機時代生產率增長放緩也並非受投資低迷的影響，事實上部分由於新興市場政府採取的反週期性刺激措施，投資相對於現有資本存量甚至出現了增長。從理論上講，生產率增長放緩可能是由於世界貿易放緩，因爲貿易部門通常是生產率提高的主要來源。然而，貿易增長的疲軟似乎主要是由於，大型新興市場（特別是中國）向價值鏈上端攀爬，以及垂直整合生產過程，而不再依賴進口組件。這似乎會使生產率提高而非下降。It is true that trend growth tends to slow the more that countries approach the technology frontier and their expansions decelerate to match that of the rich economies. But emerging markets have started to slow at much lower levels of per capita GDP than rich economies. Moreover, poorer countries within the EM world have slowed just as richer ones have.
沒錯，當一國更加接近技術邊界、其經濟減速從而與富裕經濟體步調一致時，趨勢增長就會放緩。但是新興市場是在人均GDP水平遠低於富裕經濟體時，就已經開始放緩。此外，新興市場中較貧窮的國家也會與較富裕國家一樣放緩。Since TFP is notoriously difficult to calculate, it may well be the case that the slowdown in trend is more apparent than real. Still, it would be intensely foolish to assume that the problem will go away on its own — especially since EMs have some undeniable growth problems still to come, particularly the shrinking of the workforce as a share of the population thanks to demographic transition. In China’s case in particular, investment-to-capital ratios are likely to decline as the economy shifts away from exports and investment and towards consumption.
由於全要素生產率是出了名的難計算，很有可能趨勢增長的放緩看上去比實際情況嚴重。不過，如果假設問題會不治而愈，那就太愚蠢了，尤其是，新興市場未來還會出現一些不容否認的增長問題，特別是由於人口結構轉變造成勞動力在人口中的比例縮小。尤其在中國，隨着經濟從出口和投資型向消費型轉變，投資/資本比率很可能會下滑。For emerging market governments, then, there seems little alternative than to continue to try to tinker with their economies to promote growth. For advanced economies, the wisdom of attempting structural reform at a time that growth is low and inflation nil or negative is questionable, if it provokes uncertainty that reduces confidence and demand. For emerging markets that have monetary and fiscal room to compensate for such an effect, that caveat is much weaker.
因此，對於新興市場政府而言，除了繼續試着對經濟修修補補、促進增長之外，似乎也沒什麼其他選擇了。對於發達經濟體，在增長較低、通脹爲零或負值的情況下試圖進行結構性改革，如果此舉引發不確定性、削弱信心和需求，那麼其明智性就值得推敲了。對於仍有貨幣及財政政策空間來彌補此類影響的新興市場來說，上述警告則遠沒那麼嚴重。None of these problems is new. Economists have been worrying over the middle-income trap of economies slowing at relatively low rates of per capita GDP for a long time, and various solutions to increasing productivity have been mooted. But they have been given a new urgency by the apparent confirmation that the trend slowdown is real, that it stretches across the emerging market world, and that — just to give advanced economies a final look-in — that it is taking place amid a global deceleration of output in the medium term.
這些問題都不是新問題。長期以來，經濟學家一直擔心一些在相對較低的人均GDP水平上放緩的經濟體跌入中等收入陷阱，併爲提高生產率提出了各種解決辦法。但如今他們有了新的緊迫感，這緣於如下情況似乎得到了證實：趨勢增長的放緩是現實發生的，它一直蔓延至整個新興市場世界，並且，它發生在全球中期產出減速之際——這簡直是發達經濟體最後的受關注機會。
