广州经济翻译公司：不要对经济增长的未来盲目乐观

An end to facile optimism about the future

不要对经济增长的未来盲目乐观

广州经济翻译公司：马丁·沃尔夫：经济增长既非必然，也不会匀速。由于技术突破相对狭窄，我们正处于一个增长令人失望的时代。

Some inventions are more important than others.” This is the most important point made by Robert Gordon of Northwestern University in his masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of American Growth . This book provides a deep analysis of the transformation ofUSeconomic life between 1870 and 1970 and the subsequent slowdown. Growth is neither inevitable nor steady. Ours is an age of disappointing growth because the technological breakthroughs are relatively narrow.

“有些发明比其他发明更重要。”这是西北大学(Northwestern University)的罗伯特•戈登(Robert Gordon)在其著作《美国增长的起落》(The Rise and Fall of American Growth)中提出的最重要观点。这本书对1870至1970年间美国经济转型及随后的放缓进行了深入分析。增长既非必然，也不会匀速。由于技术突破相对狭窄，我们正处于一个增长令人失望的时代。广州经济翻译公司。

Deirdre McCloskey, a distinguished economic historian, insists that such “pessimism has consistently been a poor guide to the modern world. We are gigantically richer in body and spirit than we were two centuries ago.” She is right. But, Professor Gordon responds, we have not become richer at a constant rate. On the contrary, growth has been faster at some times than at others, even since the industrial revolution.

杰出的经济史学家戴尔德丽•麦克洛斯基(Deirdre McCloskey)坚持认为，这种“悲观情绪一直是通往现代世界的糟糕指引。我们在物质和精神方面比两个世纪前富有得多。”她说得没错。但戈登教授回应称，我们并非以恒定速率变得更加富有。相反，某些时期的增长比其他时期更快，甚至工业革命以后也是这样。

Thus, the period after 1890 shows consistent increases in output per person and per hour. But the period between 1920 and 1970 was more dynamic than those before and after: over half a century, output per hour rose at close to 3 per cent a year. A better measure of innovation is the rise in “total factor productivity”: the growth of output, less the contributions of extra inputs of labour and capital. The pattern here is still more striking. TheUSeconomy experienced two periods of fast innovation: in 1920-1970 and, at a far slower pace, in 1994-2004. (See charts.)

在人均和每小时产出方面，1890年后的时期出现了持续增长。但1920至1970年这段时期比之前和之后的时期都更具活力：在这半个世纪，每小时产出每年增长接近3%。衡量创新的更佳指标是“全要素生产率”的提升：产出增长减去劳动力和资本新增投入的贡献。这个指标更加让人吃惊。美国经济经历了两个快速创新时期：1920至1970年，以及速度慢得多的1994至2004年。（见图表）广州经济翻译公司。

This raises three huge questions.

这带来了三大问题。

First, why focus on theUS? The answer is that it has been on the global frontier of innovation and productivity since 1870. In the period up to the second world war, one or two European countries were also highly innovative. Since then, theUShas been on its own.

首先，为何聚焦美国？答案是，美国自1870年以来一直处于全球创新及生产率提升的前沿。二战前一段时期，有一或两个欧洲国家也具有高度的创新能力。从那以后，只有美国独步全球。

Second, what explains the rising and then falling productivity growth? Prof Gordon’s answer is the rate and variety of innovation that appeared after 1870 and were introduced over the 1920-1970 period. This period saw an energy revolution: the exploitation of oil, the taming of electricity and the internal combustion engine. It witnessed the birth of the chemical industry and transformative developments in the supply of clean water and sewage disposal.

第二，如何解释生产率增速先升后降？戈登教授的答案是1870年后出现、并于1920至1970年间投入应用的创新的速度和多样化。这一时期出现了能源革命：开采石油、驯服电力以及发明内燃机。这一时期见证了化学工业的诞生以及清洁水供应和污水处理的革新性进展。广州经济翻译公司。

These led in turn to the creation of machines: the electric light, the telephone, the radio, the refrigerator, the washing machine, the automobiles and the aircraft. They led to the transformation of lives via urbanisation and the grid-connected home. These then drove an education revolution, as the economy demanded literate and disciplined workers. By comparison, the years since 1970 have seen relatively small changes in high-income countries. The productivity spike between 1994 and 2004 reflects the impact of the internet. It came and, soon thereafter, departed.

这场能源革命继而催生了各种机器设备：电灯、电话、收音机、冰箱、洗衣机、汽车及飞机。它们通过城市化以及将家庭并入电网带来了生活方式的转变。后来，由于经济需要有文化、受过训练的工人，它们又推动了一场教育革命。相比之下，自1970年以来，高收入国家发生的变化相对较小。1994至2004年间的生产率大幅提升反映了互联网的影响。这种影响降临了，但不久又消失了。

Third, how far does mis-measurement distort the picture? The answer is that it does so significantly but not in ways that make today’s performance look better, relative to that of the past. The opposite is far more plausible.

第三，错误的衡量方式在多大程度上扭曲了结果？答案是扭曲很严重，但并不是使当前表现相对过去看起来更好。情况更多是反过来。

Growth of gross domestic product has indeed been hugely underestimated. One reason for this is delayed inclusion of new products in the data: there was noUSprice index for cars until 1935, decades after their invention. Such delays are smaller today. Another way in which measurement fails is the difficulty of evaluating improvements in new models.

国内生产总值(GDP)的增速实际上被大大低估了。原因之一是这一数据纳入新发明存在延迟：直至1935年美国才有了汽车价格指数，而这时汽车已被发明了几十年。如今，此类延迟已大大缩短。测算失败的另一原因在于很难评估新模型的改进。广州经济翻译公司。

More important, GDP is not a good measure of the standard of living. As Prof Gordon notes, GDP does not value the increased variety of foods, the removal of horse droppings from urban streets, the faster speed of travel, the transformation of communications, the improved quality of entertainment, the enhanced comfort of central heating, the reduction in household toil, the diminution in the effort and danger of work, the ease of access to clean water, the safety of packaged food and, above all, the jump in life expectancy. In wealthy countries, almost everybody now alive takes all this for granted.

更重要的是，GDP并非衡量生活水平的好标准。戈登教授指出，GDP无法体现如下所有这些的价值：增加的食品种类、城市街头消失的马粪、更快的出行速度、通讯方式的转变、娱乐质量的改善、集中供热带来的更强舒适性、家庭劳作的减少、工作强度及危险度的降低、轻松获得的清洁水、包装食品的安全性以及（最重要的）预期寿命的大幅提升。在富裕国家，如今几乎所有人都认为这一切是理所当然的。

There is simply no reason to believe the rise in GDP or living standards is any more underestimated today than it was before. Measured growth is slowing because invention has slowed. More-over, today’s innovations are narrower in their effect than those of the past.

我们没理由认为如今GDP或生活水平的提高受到比以前更多的低估。增长放缓的原因是发明创造变慢了。此外，现在创新的影响范围比过去缩小了。

Worse, their benefits seem to be less widely shared. Since 1972, not only has the growth in US real incomes been lower than before but the distribution of the gains has shifted away from those below the top 10 per cent of the income distribution. This helps explain the increasingly fraught politics of theUSand other high-income countries, too.

更糟的是，享受创新好处的人群范围似乎缩小了。自1972年以后，不但美国实际收入增长低于以前，而且收入分配偏向收入最高的那10%人群。这也有助于解释为什么美国及其他高收入国家的政治情况日益令人担忧。广州经济翻译公司。

The story told by Prof Gordon demolishes both facile optimism about prospects for economic growth and facile pessimism about the end of employment. We are neither in the middle of an era of unprecedented economic advance nor on the brink of an era of exceptional job destruction. This is partly because technological progress is so limited. It is also because so much of our economy is immune to rapid productivity rises. Thus, in 2014, fully two-thirds ofUSconsumption went on services, including rent, healthcare, education and personal care. The challenge in these sectors is not that all the jobs are going to disappear but rather that it is hard to make them do so. That shift in the composition of output towards sectors where it is hard to raise productivity is a big reason for the slowdown.

戈登教授所讲的故事既推翻了对经济增长的盲目乐观，也推翻了对就业末日的盲目悲观。我们既不身处经济空前繁荣时代之中，也没濒临就业崩溃时代。这一部分是因为技术进步如此有限，还因为我们经济中有很大比例不受生产率快速上升的影响。所以在2014年，房租、医疗、教育和个人护理等服务业消费足足占了美国消费的三分之二。这些行业所面临的挑战并不是所有工作都将消失，而是很难让它们消失。产出构成向很难提高生产率的行业倾斜，是经济放缓的重要原因。

The view that steady and rapid rises in the standard of living must endure is a pious hope. The tendency to believe that some “structural reforms” will fix this is, similarly, an act of faith. It is essential for policy to promote invention and innovation, so far as it can. But we must not assume an easy return to the long-lost era of dynamism. Meanwhile, the maldistribution of the gains from what growth we have is a growing challenge. These are harsh times.

有人认为生活水平必定长期稳定快速增长，这是个不切实际的愿望。相信一些“结构改革”将解决这个问题，同样也只是一厢情愿。目前的关键是政策上要尽可能促进发明和创新。但我们千万不可以假定轻易就能回到那个久违的，充满活力的时代。此外，当前增长好处的分配不均将成为越来越大的挑战。我们处于严峻时期。

广州经济翻译公司