美国经济亟需解决的问题

The most recent grim US jobs report brought forth calls for more Federal Reserve action on fiscal stimulus. Meanwhile, business leaders call for clarity about long-term policy and the need to return to growth. A recent and intriguing project of the George?W. Bush Institute weighs in on the emphasis of business leaders with a “4 per cent solution. While a 4 per cent long-term growth rate for the US is aggressive, this discussion is the right road map for policy.

美国最新的就业报告十分糟糕，致使人们纷纷呼吁美联储(Fed)拿出更多的财政刺激行动。与此同时，商界领导人们也纷纷要求明确长期政策，并强调恢复增长的必要性。乔治·布什研究所(George?W. Bush Institute)最近开展了一个引人注目的项目，针对商界领导人们所强调的问题，提出了“4%解决方案。对于美国来说，4%的长期增长率有点雄心勃勃，但相关讨论提供了正确的政策路线图。

It is right because the nation faces structural impediments to growth. These are akin to carrying too many extra pounds of weight. They don’t seem to slow us down much walking on a flat surface, but are a burden walking upstairs or up a hill. The injuries to our economy since the onset of the financial crisis were made more painful by our failure to make structural adjustments. No single presidential administration deserves the blame for structural problems, but an important lens through which to judge a policy agenda is whether it recognises and mitigates those problems.

之所以说是正确的，是因为美国面临着增长的结构性障碍。这些障碍就像人体的赘肉一样。当我们行走在平坦的路面上时，这些赘肉似乎不会使我们的速度减缓多少，但当我们上楼或者爬坡时，就是一种沉重的负担。金融危机爆发以来，美国没能进行结构性调整，这使得经济受到的创伤变得更加严重。结构性问题不能归咎于某一任总统，但评价政策日程的一个重要标准就是它是否意识到并着手缓解这些问题。

While a growth-focused agenda would have many parts, two fiscal policy issues stand out – getting our fiscal house in order and reforming the tax code. The US is on an unsustainable fiscal trajectory, with a debt-to-gross domestic product ratio projected to rise to second world war levels in the coming years. High and rising debt burdens are a structural impediment to growth. They raise expected future tax burdens, discouraging investment and limiting productivity growth. Some recent estimates of this adverse effect suggest our debt-to-GDP levels would reduce expected growth by half a percentage point per year over the next decade. How debt reduction occurs is also important. Recent research by Alberto Alesina of Harvard, and others, has emphasised that reducing transfer spending is more likely to lead to long-lasting decrease in debt and support for growth than raising taxes.

以增长为重点的政策日程由很多部分构成，但两个财政政策上的问题尤其重要：稳定财政秩序，改革税收制度。目前美国财政处于一种不可持续的轨道上，预计未来几年，债务与国内生产总值(GDP)的比率将上升到二战时期的水平。过重并且还在不断增加的债务负担是增长中的一个结构性障碍。它使得未来税收负担预期增加，从而会打消投资积极性、抑制生产率提高。最近对这些不利影响的评估表明，美国债务与GDP比率所处的水平，在未来十年内会导致预期增长率平均每年下降0.5个百分点。如何降低债务也很重要。哈佛大学(Harvard)的阿尔贝托·阿莱西纳(Alberto Alesina)等人最近的研究结果强调，减少转移支付比增税更有可能带来长期性的债务降低，并为经济增长提供支持。

Gradual fiscal consolidation may also be stimulative in the short run. Research by Hoover Institution economists concludes that reducing federal spending relative to GDP to pre-financial-crisis levels over a decade would increase GDP in the short and long term. This outcome reflects lower future tax rates and the boost from lower interest rates to investment and net exports.

短期来看，逐步的财政整固可能具有刺激效应。胡佛研究所(Hoover Institution)经济学家的研究结论是，在十年之内将联邦支出与GDP之比降低至金融危机之前的水平，可以在短期和长期提高GDP。这一结果表明，未来税率会降低，较低的利率会促进投资和净出口。

Our tax code discourages work and entrepreneurship, saving and investment, and distorts the allocation of capital. Sweeping tax reform offers one of the best chances to raise growth; by this I mean reform which reduces marginal tax rates on work, investment and saving, and reduces tax preferences for particular industries and assets. With highly mobile capital, high US rates discourage investment in the US (with attendant job creation) by US and foreign firms, suggesting that economic estimates of growth effects of tax reform may be conservative.

美国的税收规则挫败了人们在工作与创业、储蓄与投资方面的积极性，并扭曲了资本分配。广泛的税收改革会为促进增长提供最好的机会。我所说的改革是指降低工作、投资、储蓄方面的边际税率，并减少对特定行业和资产的税收优惠。由于资本具有高度流动性，美国较高的税率打击了本国和外国公司在美国的投资（进而阻碍了创造就业），表明关于税收改革对增长影响的经济预期可能是保守的。

Many in Washington argue that an emphasis on the long term is misplaced, that we should focus on near-term “stimulus and can confront long-term problems later. While there were strong reasons to argue for policy intervention at the onset of the crisis, there are three reasons to be sceptical about the call for “stimulus first.

华盛顿的很多人认为，把重点放在长期是错误的，我们应该注重近期的“刺激，以后再应对长期问题。尽管有强大的理由支持在这场危机爆发之初就进行政策介入，但“刺激第一的做法值得商榷，原因有三点：

First, failure to address structural problems contributed to the crisis (for example, the tax bias against business investment and misallocation of capital to housing). Second, making progress on longer-term debt reduction and tax reform would have given policy makers room to implement bolder short-term fiscal policy to support growth. Third, ad hoc responses to the crisis exacerbated policy uncertainty, weakening the recovery.

第一，没能解决导致危机的结构性问题（比如，不利于商业投资的税收规定，以及资本向房地产业的不当配置）。第二，在降低长期债务和税收改革方面取得的进步，可以给政策制定者一定的空间，来实施更为大胆的短期财政政策以支持增长。第三，应对危机的临时措施增加了政策的不确定性，削弱了复苏势头。

We should not underestimate the costs of businesses holding off on investment and job creation because they cannot predict the course of policy, and the cost of consumers deferring large purchases against the backdrop of policy uncertainty. Businesses and households know structural problems must be addressed. But how? When?

我们不能低估两方面的成本：一是企业由于无法预测政策轨迹而推迟投资和创造就业；二是消费者面对政策的不确定性而推迟大额采购。企业和家庭都知道结构性问题必须解决。但怎么解决？什么时候解决？

One group of economists estimates that policy uncertainty could have contributed to a 1.4 per cent reduction in GDP last year. By their figures, returning to pre-crisis levels of policy uncertainty would add about 2.3m jobs in 18 months.

一些经济学家估计，政策不确定性可能给去年的GDP带来了1.4%的降幅。他们给出的数据显示，如果这种政策上的不确定性回到危机之前的状态，可能会在18个月之后增加230万个就业岗位。

A growth agenda suggests a policy scorecard for voters: Does a policy platform promote fiscal consolidation and tax reform? Does it promote a clear policy path, minimising uncertainty? For Governor Mitt Romney the answers are yes and yes. For President Obama the answers are no and no.

经济增长日程为选民提供了一个给政策打分的计分板：某种政策平台是否会促进财政巩固和税收改革？是否会促进清晰政策道路的形成、将不确定性最小化？就米特·罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)州长而言，这两个问题的答案都是肯定的，而就奥巴马(Obama)总统而言则都是否定的。

The writer, dean of Columbia Business School, was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George?W. Bush and is an adviser to Mitt Romney

本文作者是哥伦比亚大学商学院(Columbia Business School)院长，曾担任乔治·布什时期总统经济顾问委员会(Council of Economic Advisers)主席，现为米特·罗姆尼的顾问。