Under these circumstances, budgetary recklessness is a virtue, at least in the short term. In the medium term, once growth revives, debt can be paid down and the financial sector curbed so that it does not inflict another crisis on the world.
This narrative – the standard Keynesian line, modified for a debt crisis – is the one to which most government officials, central bankers, and Wall Street economists have subscribed, and needs little elaboration. Its virtue is that it gives policymakers something clear to do, with promised returns that match the political cycle. Unfortunately, despite past stimulus, growth is still tepid, and it is increasingly difficult to find sensible new spending that can pay off in the short run.
Attention is therefore shifting to the second narrative, which suggests that the advanced economies’ fundamental capacity to grow by making useful things has been declining for decades, a trend that was masked by debt-fueled spending. More such spending will not return these countries to a sustainable growth path. Instead, they must improve the environment for growth.
The second narrative starts with the 1950’s and 1960’s, an era of rapid growth in the West and Japan. Several factors, including post-war reconstruction, the resurgence of trade after the protectionist 1930’s, the introduction of new technologies in power, transport, and communications across countries, and expansion of educational attainment, underpinned the long boom. But, as Tyler Cowen has argued in his book The Great Stagnation, once these “low-hanging fruit” were plucked, it became much harder to propel growth from the 1970’s onward.
Meanwhile, as Wolfgang Streeck writes persuasively in New Left Review, democratic governments, facing what seemed, in the 1960’s, like an endless vista of innovation and growth, were quick to expand the welfare state. But, when growth faltered, this meant that government spending expanded, even as its resources shrank. For a while, central banks accommodated that spending. The resulting high inflation created widespread discontent, especially because little growth resulted. Faith in Keynesian stimulus diminished, though high inflation did reduce public-debt levels.
Central banks then began to focus on low and stable inflation as their primary objective, and became more independent from their political masters. But deficit spending by governments continued apace, and public debt as a share of GDP in industrial countries climbed steadily from the late 1970’s, this time without inflation to reduce its real value.
Recognizing the need to find new sources of growth, towards the end of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and then under Ronald Reagan, the United States deregulated industry and the financial sector, as did Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom. Productivity growth increased substantially in these countries over time, which persuaded Continental Europe to adopt reforms of its own, often pushed by the European Commission.
Yet even this growth was not enough, given previous governments’ generous promises of health care and pensions – promises made even less tenable by rising life expectancy and falling birth rates. Public debt continued to grow. And the incomes of the moderately educated middle class failed to benefit from deregulation-led growth (though it improved their lot as consumers).
The most recent phase of the advanced economies’ frenzied search for growth took different forms. In some countries, most notably the US, a private-sector credit boom created jobs in low-skilled industries like construction, and precipitated a consumption boom as people borrowed against overvalued houses. In other countries, like Greece, as well as under regional administrations in Italy and Spain, a government-led hiring spree created secure jobs for the moderately educated.
In this “fundamental” narrative, the advanced countries’ pre-crisis GDP was unsustainable, bolstered by borrowing and unproductive make-work jobs. More borrowed growth – the Keynesian formula – may create the illusion of normalcy, and may be useful in the immediate aftermath of a deep crisis to calm a panic, but it is no solution to a fundamental growth problem.
If this diagnosis is correct, advanced countries need to focus on reviving innovation and productivity growth over the medium term, and on realigning welfare promises with revenue capacity, while alleviating the pain of the truly destitute in the short run. For example, Southern Europe’s growth potential may consist in deregulating service sectors and reducing employment protection to spur creation of more private-sector jobs for retrenched government workers and unemployed youth.
In the US, the imperative is to improve the match between potential jobs and worker skills. People understand better than the government what they need and are acting accordingly. Many women, for example, are leaving low-paying jobs to acquire skills that will open doors to higher-paying positions. Too little government attention has been focused on such issues, partly because payoffs occur beyond electoral horizons, and partly because the effectiveness of government programs has been mixed. Tax reform, however, can provide spur retraining and maintain incentives to work, even while fixing gaping fiscal holes.
Three powerful forces, one hopes, will help to create more productive jobs in the future: better use of information and communications technology (and new ways to make it pay), lower-cost energy as alternative sources are harnessed, and sharply rising demand in emerging markets for higher-value-added goods.
The advanced countries have a choice. They can act as if all is well, except that their consumers are in a funk, and that “animal spirits” must be revived through stimulus. Or they can treat the crisis as a wake-up call to fix what debt has papered over in the last few decades. For better or worse, the narrative that persuades these countries’ governments and publics will determine their future – and that of the global economy.
Raghuram Rajan is Professor of Finance at the Booth
School
of Business, University
of Chicago,
and the author of Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the
World Economy.
Raghuram Rajan: 一個危機，兩種解讀
芝加哥—世界發達民主國家陷入了危機，關於什麼是危機的源頭以及如何補救，出現了兩種相互對立的聲音。第一種為人所熟知的診斷是需求因為危機前積累的高債務而崩潰。最具支出傾向的家庭（以及國家）再也無法借到錢了。為了重振增長，必須鼓勵其他家庭和國家來支出——仍然能夠借錢的政府應該擴大赤字，同時極低的利率應該阻止節約的家庭繼續儲蓄。
這種觀點認為，粗獷的預算是一種美德，至少在短期看是如此。從中期看，只要增長能夠得到提振，債務就能活得償付，而金融部門得到了抑制，因此不會在世界上掀起另一場危機。
這種觀點是標准的凱恩斯主義，只是根據債務危機做了些許修正。該觀點受到了大部分政府官員、中央銀行和華爾街經濟學家的支持，已無需再贅述了。其優點在於向決策者明確指出了行動方向，還給出了符合政治周期的預期回報。不幸的是，盡管已經實施了刺激措施，但增長仍然疲軟，而且，從短期看，要找到給力的新支出之源越來越困難了。
於是，人們的目光開始轉移到第二種觀點。這種觀點認為，發達經濟體通過生產有用的東西獲得增長的基本能力下滑已經持續了數十年之久了，其特征便是用債務來支撐支出。更多的同類支出無法給這些國家帶來可持續的增長。相反，它們必須改善增長環境。
第二種觀點的著眼點始於20世紀五六十年代，當時正是西方和日本的高速增長期。幾大因素——包括戰後重建、20世紀30年代保護主義風潮過去之後的貿易復興、電力、運輸和跨國通信方面的新技術，以及教育程度的改善——推動了長期繁榮。但是，泰勒·柯萬（Tyler
Cowen）在其《大停滯》（The Great Stagnation）一書中指出，這些“低處的果實”被摘取殆盡後，進入20世紀70年代以來，提振增長就變得日益困難了。
與此同時，沃爾夫岡·斯特裡克（Wolfgang Streeck）在《新左翼評論》（New Left Review）中雄辯地寫道，民主政府在20世紀60年代面臨著看似永遠光明的創新和增長前景，因此大踏步地進入了福利國家的行列。但是，當增長開始放緩時，這意味著政府支出的膨脹（盡管此時其創收資源出現了萎縮）。在一定的時間裡，央行承擔起了支出的重任。由此產生的高通脹引起了廣泛的不滿，特別是在增長不見提振的情況下。人們對凱恩斯主義刺激的信任度下降了，儘管高通脹確實降低了公債水平。
此後，央行開始將穩定的低通脹作為其首要目標，並越來越獨立於行政。但政府的赤字支出並沒有放慢腳步，發達國家公債水平佔GDP的比例從20世紀70年代末開始穩步攀升，這一次不再有通脹來幫它們拉低債務的真實價值了。
美國從吉米·卡特任期后半段和羅納德·裡根任期內開始認識到需要尋找新的增長源，並對產業和金融部門實施了去監管化，與此同時，撒切爾夫人在英國也採取了相似的動作。多年來，這些國家的生產率有了顯著提高，受此影響，歐洲大陸國家也採取了改革（大多由歐洲委員會推動）。
但由於此前政府承諾了過於慷慨的醫療和養老承諾，如此增長仍舊顯得力不從心，而預期壽命的增加和出生率的下降使得政府愈加不堪重負了。公債水平繼續增加。而教育程度適中的中產階級在去監管化帶來的增長中並沒有獲得好處（盡管作為消費者，他們獲益良多）。
發達經濟體瘋狂尋找增長的最新階段，各國可謂八仙過海各顯神通。在有的國家（以美國為甚），私人部門的信貸繁榮為低技能行業（如建筑業）帶來了大量工作崗位，而居民則通過以價值高估的房地產作抵押，借錢來維持消費繁榮。在其他國家（如希臘以及西班牙和意大利的部分地區），政府領導的招工潮為教育程度不高者提供了就業保障。
在這一“基本面”觀點看來，發達國家的危機前GDP增長是不可持續的，是用借貸和非生產性冗余工作崗位堆出來的。“借”來的繁榮——即凱恩斯模式——可以造成一種常態幻覺，在深度危機襲來後可以起到平息恐慌的作用，但絕非基本增長問題的解決辦法。
如果這一診斷正確，那麼發達國家就需要將注意力集中於重塑中期創新和生產率增長，同時根據收入能力重新定義福利承諾，在短期則致力於減輕真正赤貧者的痛苦。比如，南歐國家的增長潛力或許在於放鬆服務部門的監管、減少就業保護以為丟掉工作的政府員工和失業青年創造更多的私人部門工作崗位。
在美國，當務之急是改善潛在工作崗位和工人技能之間的匹配度。個人要比政府更清楚知道他們需要什麼，並據此行動。比如，大量婦女正在脫離低收入崗位，以便獲得更好的技能叩開高收入職位之門。政府在這些方面的關注度遠遠不夠，部分是因為其好處要在在任者任期結束後才會顯現，也有部分是因為政府計劃的效率不夠高。稅收改革可以刺激人們參與再培訓，也可以激勵人們繼續工作，且不耽誤填補財政窟窿。
有三大力量有助於在未來創造更多的生產性崗位：對信息和通訊技術的更好的使用（以及新的收費方式）、隨著替代資源的開發而實現的低成本能源，以及新興市場快速增長的對高附加值產品的需求。
發達國家有的選擇。它們可以若無其事（儘管消費者如同驚弓之鳥，“動物精神”也需要刺激來予以提振）。它們也可以將此次危機視為修正過去數十年來產生債務的問題的契機。無論如何，政府和公眾選擇相信哪種觀點將決定它們的未來——以及全球經濟的未來。
Raghuram Rajan
是芝加哥大學布斯商學院金融學教授，著有《斷層線：隱藏的裂縫是如何繼續維持世界經濟的》。