如何修複全球經濟
作者：約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨 2006 年 10 月 3 日
上個月在新加坡舉行的國際貨幣基金組織會議正值人們對全球金融失衡的可持續性日益擔憂之際：全球經濟能夠忍受美國的巨額貿易赤字（美國每天借債近 30 億美元）或中國的巨額貿易赤字能持續多久？ 貿易順差每天增長近5億美元？
這些不平衡不可能永遠持續下去。 好消息是，人們對此達成了越來越多的共識。 壞消息是，沒有一個國家認為其政策是罪魁禍首。 美國將矛頭指向人民幣匯率被低估，而世界其他國家則將矛頭指向美國巨額財政和貿易赤字。
值得讚揚的是，國際貨幣基金組織在專注於發展和轉型 15 年後，開始關注這一問題。 然而遺憾的是，該基金組織的做法是監控每個國家的經濟政策，這一策略可能會隻解決症狀而不麵對更大的係統性問題。
治療症狀實際上可能會讓事情變得更糟，至少在短期內是這樣。 以中國被低估的匯率和由此產生的順差問題為例，美國財政部認為這是問題的核心。 即使中國人民幣兌美元升值並消除每年1140億美元的對美貿易順差，即使這立即轉化為美國多邊貿易逆差的減少，美國仍將借入超過2美元的債務。 每天十億：是一種進步，但並不是解決方案。
當然，更有可能的是，美國的多邊貿易逆差根本不會發生重大變化。 美國隻會減少從中國購買紡織品，而更多地從孟加拉國、柬埔寨和其他發展中國家購買紡織品。
與此同時，由於人民幣升值將使進口的美國食品在中國變得更便宜，最貧窮的中國人——農民——將看到他們的收入隨著國內農產品價格下跌而下降。 中國可能會選擇將工業發展急需的資金轉用於對農民的補貼，以應對美國巨額農業補貼的抑製作用。 中國的增長可能會相應放緩，從而導致全球增長放緩。
然而，事實上，中國很清楚其與美國的秘密“交易”的條款：中國通過用其出口所得的錢購買國債來幫助彌補美國的赤字。 如果不這樣做，美元將進一步貶值，這將降低中國美元儲備的價值（到今年年底，這些儲備將超過1萬億美元）。 任何可能從中國出口市場份額喪失中受益的國家都會將其資金投入歐元等強勢貨幣，而不是不穩定且疲軟的美元，或者可能會選擇將資金投資於國內，而不是持有更多外匯儲備。 簡而言之，美國將發現為其赤字融資變得越來越困難，而整個世界可能麵臨更大而不是更少的不穩定。
除非美國解決自己的問題，否則無法對這些全球失衡采取任何重大行動。 沒有人認真建議企業省錢而不是投資擴大生產，隻是為了糾正貿易逆差問題； 盡管可能有很多關於為什麽美國人應該儲蓄更多的說教——當然比去年家庭儲蓄的負數還要多——但兩個政黨中都沒有人設計出一種萬無一失的方法來確保他們這樣做。 布什的減稅政策並沒有起到作用。 擴大儲蓄激勵措施並沒有起到作用。
事實上，大多數計算表明，這些實際上減少了國民儲蓄，因為政府收入損失的成本大於家庭儲蓄增加的成本。 普遍的看法是，隻有一種選擇：減少政府赤字。
想象一下，布什政府突然信奉宗教（至少是財政責任的宗教）並削減開支。 假設對於一直主張進一步減稅的政府來說，增稅是不可能的。 支出削減本身將導致美國和全球經濟疲軟。 美聯儲可能會嚐試通過降低利率來抵消這一影響，而這可能會保護美國經濟——鼓勵負債累累的美國家庭嚐試從房屋淨值貸款中提取更多資金來支付支出。 但這將使美國的未來更加不穩定。
有一種方法可以打破這種看似僵局：削減支出，同時增加對高收入美國人的稅收和減少對低收入美國人的稅收。 當然，削減支出本身就會減少支出，但因為貧困個人由於普通人比富人消費了更大比例的收入，稅收的“轉變”本身就會增加支出。 如果設計得當，這樣的組合可以同時維持美國經濟並減少赤字。
毫不奇怪，這些建議並非來自國際貨幣基金組織在新加坡舉行的會議。 美國保留了該基金的否決權，因此該基金不太可能推薦美國政府不喜歡的政策。
當前失衡的背後是全球儲備體係的根本性結構性問題。 約翰·梅納德·凱恩斯在四分之三個世紀前就呼籲人們關注這些問題。 他關於如何改革全球貨幣體係的想法，包括創建一個基於新國際貨幣的新儲備體係，隻需做一點工作，就可以適應當今的經濟。 在我們解決結構性問題之前，世界可能會繼續受到威脅金融穩定和所有人經濟福祉的失衡的困擾。
約瑟夫·E·斯蒂格利茨 (Joseph E. Stiglitz) 是哥倫比亞大學經濟學教授，最近出版了《讓全球化發揮作用》一書，並於 2001 年榮獲諾貝爾經濟學獎。
How to Fix the Global Economy
By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ Oct. 3, 2006
THE International Monetary Fund meeting in Singapore last month came at a time of increasing worry about the sustainability of global financial imbalances: For how long can the global economy endure America’s enormous trade deficits — the United States borrows close to $3 billion a day — or China’s growing trade surplus of almost $500 million a day?
These imbalances simply can’t go on forever. The good news is that there is a growing consensus to this effect. The bad news is that no country believes its policies are to blame. The United States points its finger at China’s undervalued currency, while the rest of the world singles out the huge American fiscal and trade deficits.
To its credit, the International Monetary Fund has started to focus on this issue after 15 years of preoccupation with development and transition. Regrettably, however, the fund’s approach has been to monitor every country’s economic policies, a strategy that risks addressing symptoms without confronting the larger systemic problem.
Treating the symptoms could actually make matters worse, at least in the short run. Take, for instance, the question of China’s undervalued exchange rate and the country’s resulting surplus, which the United States Treasury suggests is at the core of the problem. Even if China strengthened its yuan relative to the dollar and eliminated its $114 billion a year trade surplus with the United States, and even if that immediately translated into a reduction in the American multilateral trade deficit, the United States would still be borrowing more than $2 billion a day: an improvement, but hardly a solution.
Of course, it is even more likely that there would be no significant change in America’s multilateral trade deficit at all. The United States would simply buy fewer textiles from China and more from Bangladesh, Cambodia and other developing countries.
Meanwhile, because a stronger yuan would make imported American food cheaper in China, the poorest Chinese — the farmers — would see their incomes fall as domestic prices for agriculture dipped. China might choose to counter the depressing effect of America’s huge agricultural subsidies by diverting money badly needed for industrial development into subsidies for its farmers. China’s growth might accordingly be slowed, which would slow growth globally.
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Credit...Thomas Fuchs
As it is, however, China knows well the terms of its hidden “deal” with the United States: China helps finance the American deficits by buying treasury bonds with the money it gets from its exports. If it doesn’t, the dollar will weaken further, which will lower the value of China’s dollar reserves (by the end of the year, these will exceed $1 trillion). Any country that might benefit from China’s loss of export market share would put its money into a strong currency, like the euro, rather than the unstable and weakening dollar — or it might choose to invest the money at home, rather than holding more reserves. In short, the United States would find it increasingly difficult to finance its deficits, and the world as a whole might face greater, not less, instability.
Nothing significant can be done about these global imbalances unless the United States attacks its own problems. No one seriously proposes that businesses save money instead of investing in expanding production simply to correct the problem of the trade deficit; and while there may be sermons aplenty about why Americans should save more — certainly more than the negative amount households saved last year — no one in either political party has devised a fail-proof way of ensuring that they do so. The Bush tax cuts didn’t do it. Expanded incentives for saving didn’t do it.
Indeed, most calculations show that these actually reduce national savings, since the cost to the government in lost revenue is greater than the increased household savings. The common wisdom is that there is but one alternative: reducing the government’s deficit.
Imagine that the Bush administration suddenly got religion (at least, the religion of fiscal responsibility) and cut expenditures. Assume that raising taxes is unlikely for an administration that has been arguing for further tax cuts. The expenditure cuts by themselves would lead to a weakening of the American and global economy. The Federal Reserve might try to offset this by lowering interest rates, and this might protect the American economy — by encouraging debt-ridden American households to try to take even more money out of their home-equity loans to pay for spending. But that would make America’s future even more precarious.
There is one way out of this seeming impasse: expenditure cuts combined with an increase in taxes on upper-income Americans and a reduction in taxes on lower-income Americans. The expenditure cuts would, of course, by themselves reduce spending, but because poor individuals consume a larger fraction of their income than the rich, the “switch” in taxes would, by itself, increase spending. If appropriately designed, such a combination could simultaneously sustain the American economy and reduce the deficit.
Not surprisingly, these recommendations did not emerge from the International Monetary Fund meetings in Singapore. The United States retains a veto there, making it unlikely that the fund will recommend policies that aren’t to the liking of the American administration.
Underlying the current imbalances are fundamental structural problems with the global reserve system. John Maynard Keynes called attention to these problems three-quarters of a century ago. His ideas on how to reform the global monetary system, including creating a new reserve system based on a new international currency, can, with a little work, be adapted to today’s economy. Until we attack the structural problems, the world is likely to continue to be plagued by imbalances that threaten the financial stability and economic well-being of us all.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a professor of economics at Columbia and the author, most recently, of “Making Globalization Work,” was awarded the Nobel in economic science in 2001.
