传统思维不适合解决日本的经济问题

Why is Japan finding it so difficult to raise inflation to its 2 per cent target? Why has its monetary policy become so extreme? Why is Japan’s public debt so remarkably high? The answer is that the country shares challenges confronted by other high-income economies, but in extreme form. This does not mean its situation is disastrous. It means that conventional wisdom is misleading.

为什么日本发现要把通胀提高到2%的目标水平如此困难？为什么它的货币政策变得如此极端？为什么日本的公共债务如此之高？答案是，该国面临着跟其他高收入经济体一样的挑战，但它的挑战以极端形式出现。这并不意味着日本的处境是灾难性的。这意味着传统智慧具有误导性。

Despite the efforts of the Bank of Japan, year-on-year inflation (without fresh food and energy) is only 0.2 per cent. Yet nearly five years have passed since, in concert with the government, the BoJ declared its intention to hit a target of 2 per cent inflation. Then, in April 2013, it announced “quantitative and qualitative easing”, which unleashed a huge expansion of its balance sheet. In January 2016, it announced a modestly negative rate on new bank reserves. In September 2016, it announced “yield curve control”. It has even said that it would continue to buy assets until inflation “exceeds the price stability target of 2 per cent and stays above the target in a stable manner”. That is a commitment to future irresponsibility.

尽管日本央行(BoJ)做出了种种努力，但同比通胀率（不含新鲜食品和能源）仅为0.2%。但是，自日本央行连同政府宣布打算实现2%的通胀目标以来，已经过去了近五年。那时，即2013年4月，日本央行宣布进行“量化和质化宽松”，导致其资产负债表大幅扩张。2016年1月，日本央行宣布对新增银行准备金实行适度负利率。2016年9月，日本央行公布了“收益率曲线控制”。它甚至表示会继续购买资产，直至通胀“超过2%的价格稳定目标并稳定保持在目标水平上方”。这简直是对未来不负责任的承诺。

Yet even all this has failed. This is not because these measures — supported by expansionary supplementary budgets — have failed to stimulate the economy. The rate of unemployment has fallen to 2.8 per cent, a level last seen in 1994. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has forecast growth at 1.5 per cent this year, up from 1 per cent in 2016, and it expects growth of 1.2 per cent and 1 per cent, in 2018 and 2019 respectively, both slightly above potential. Moreover, gross domestic product per head grew at close to the average rate of OECD members between 2012 and 2016. (See charts.)

然而，就连这一切都失败了。这不是因为这些措施——在扩张性补充预算的支持下——未能刺激经济。失业率已降至2.8%，为1994年以来未见的水平。经合组织(OECD)预测今年日本增长率为1.5%，高于2016年的1%，并预计2018年和2019年的增长率分别为1.2%和1%，均略高于潜在增长率。此外，在2012年至2016年，日本人均国内生产总值(GDP)增长率接近经合组织成员国的平均水平。

Yet the anchoring of inflation expectations appears so strong — at about zero in Japan — that wages and prices remain sticky. Does this matter? In an inescapably slow-growing economy, such as Japan, near-zero inflation does limit the effectiveness of monetary policy in a downturn, since it makes it harder to deliver negative real interest rates. Yet recent experience suggests monetary policy still works. The failure to raise inflation appears no disaster.

然而，通胀预期（在日本大约为零）的锚定如此强烈，以至于工资和价格仍然深陷停滞。这很重要吗？在日本这样一个增长必然缓慢的经济体中，近乎零的通胀确实会限制货币政策在经济低迷时期的有效性，因为它加大了实行负实际利率的难度。然而，近年经验表明货币政策仍然是有效的。未能提高通胀似乎并非灾难。

Two more important challenges exist. On one of these, current orthodoxy is right. On the other, it is wrong.

日本还有两个更重大的挑战。对于其中一个，当前的正统观点是正确的。而对于另一个，正统观点是错误的。

Where orthodoxy is right is on productivity. Given Japan’s demography and currently low unemployment, raising productivity is essential, though increasing participation of women and older people also matters. Fortunately, Japan enjoys room for productivity improvement: its average productivity per hour is among the lowest of the high-income countries; big business is far more productive than smaller firms; and manufacturing vastly more productive than services.

在生产率方面，正统观点是正确的。鉴于日本的人口结构和当前很低的失业率，提高生产率是不可或缺的，尽管提高妇女和较年长人群的劳动参与率也很重要。幸运的是，日本存在提高生产率的空间：其每小时平均生产率在高收入国家中是最低的；大企业的生产效率远远高于中小企业；而制造业生产率大幅领先于服务业。

Where orthodoxy is wrong is on public deficits and debt. It is true that gross debt is 240 per cent of GDP and net debt about 120 per cent. Without elimination of the structural primary fiscal deficit (now close to 4 per cent of GDP), debt ratios are likely to rise still further in future. It is not surprising that official institutions — the OECD, the International Monetary Fund and the Ministry of Finance — agree on structural tightening. Yet there are two objections.

在公共赤字和债务方面，正统观念是错误的。没错，日本的总债务已经相当于GDP的240%，净债务达到GDP的约120%。如果不消除结构性的基本财政赤字（目前接近GDP的4%），债务比率未来可能进一步升高。意料之中的是，官方机构——经合组织、国际货币基金组织(IMF)和财务省——都认同结构性收紧。然而，可以提出两点反对意见。

The first is that the BoJ holds more than 40 per cent of all Japanese government bonds. It can continue to hold this debt forever, should it need to do so. It can also continue to pay no interest on commercial bank reserves if it wished. It need only change required reserves. More fundamentally, the Japanese public is the creditor: it is not hard to see ways for the government to manage its liabilities to the public. When the government ceases to run primary deficits, it could, for example, convert its debts into irredeemable low-yielding bonds.

第一个是，日本央行持有的国债占到日本国债总量的40%以上。如果需要的话，它可以无限期地永远持有这笔债务；如果愿意的话，它也可以继续对商业银行的准备金不支付利息。它只需要改变准备金要求。更为根本的是，日本公众是债权人：不难看出政府如何管理对公众的负债。例如，当政府停止运行基本赤字时，它可以将自己的债务转换成不可赎回的低收益债券。

The more important point is that the government’s persistent deficits are simply the mirror image of the private sector’s huge and persistent financial surpluses. There is no point in discussing how the government will eliminate the former without indicating what is likely to happen to the latter.

更重要的一点是，政府的持续赤字只不过是私人部门庞大而持续的财务盈余的镜像。讨论政府将如何消除前者，而不说明后者可能会发生什么，是毫无意义的。

One possibility is for Japan to run far larger current account surpluses. In 2015, for example, that would have required a current account surplus almost twice as big, at close to 6 per cent of GDP. Foreigners would surely not have liked that. The alternative is for the Japanese private sector to invest more or consume more (or both). The problem with the first option is that Japan’s private sector already has an exceptionally high investment rate, especially for a high-income country with structurally low growth. The difficulty with the latter is that Japan’s household savings rate is already close to zero. Consumption will only rise if household income does.

对日本而言，一个可能性是运行大得多的经常账户盈余。例如，就2015年而言，这将需要经常账户盈余增加近一倍，接近GDP的6%。外国人肯定不会喜欢这一点。日本的私营部门可以选择加大投资或增加消费（或者在两方面都发力）。但问题是，对于前一个选择，日本私营部门的投资率已经非常高，尤其是对一个结构性低增长的高收入国家来说；对于后一个选择，日本的家庭储蓄率已接近于零。唯有家庭收入增多，消费才能增加。

The solution is not to tax consumption, as respectable opinion suggests. The solution is to tax savings. Uninvested and undistributed profits need to be turned into consumption. That could be done by “expensing” investment, while (quite logically) eliminating depreciation allowances.

解决方法不是像某些令人尊敬的观点所认为的那样对消费征税。解决方法是对储蓄征税。未投资和未分配的利润需要转化为消费。通过对投资“收费”、同时（相当合乎逻辑地）取消折旧免税额，可以做到这一点。

Conversion of uninvested and undistributed corporate profits into private consumption would eliminate the private sector surpluses and so the need for offsetting public sector deficits. In the absence of such policies, efforts to close the fiscal deficits are likely to fail, since, as has happened so often before, they are likely to tip the economy back into recession. In the absence of some such reform, the Japanese private sector is doomed to lend to the government the money it cannot currently use, in the sure and certain knowledge that it will never get back in full what it has lent.

把未投资和未分配的公司利润转化为私人消费，将消除私营部门的盈余，从而不需要公共部门的赤字作为抵消。如果没有这类政策，消除财政赤字的努力很可能会失败，因为正如以往屡屡发生的那样，这些努力有可能使经济再度陷入衰退。如果没有一些此类改革措施，日本私营部门注定要把现在用不到的钱借给政府，明知道这些钱永远不会全额收回来。

Fiscal tightening is the respectable solution to Japan’s soaring public debt. On its own, however, it cannot work.

财政收紧是针对日本公共债务猛增的令人尊敬的解决方案。但是，仅靠该方案不能解决问题。