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治理对繁荣的威胁 The Governance Threat to Prosperity

(2023-07-01 05:15:07) 下一个

治理对繁荣的威胁

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/maintaining-policy-continuity-is-crucial-for-long-term-growth-by-michael-spence-2023-06

2023 年 6 月 28 日迈克尔·斯宾塞

长期以来,保持政策稳定性一直被认为对长期投资和经济发展至关重要。 但过去几年的特点是两极分化加剧和政治不稳定,这增加了政策突然逆转的风险,从而抑制投资并破坏增长。

米兰 — — 几十年来,市场和市场激励一直是经济趋势和政策的主要驱动力。 不再。 我们现在已经进入政治经济时代,政府的行动和政策大幅转变的可能性已成为经济表现的主要决定因素。

直到最近,全球供应链几乎完全基于效率和比较优势。 贸易协定经过谈判和扩大,以消除对货物、资本、技术以及某种程度上人员自由流动的限制。 随着数字连接的出现,服务贸易开始快速增长。 在欧洲,欧元区的建立导致许多国有企业和垄断企业的解散和私有化。

国内和国际层面的治理虽然不均质,但仍保持相对稳定。 在世界大部分地区,政府的角色都被降到了次要地位。 人们认为,如果政策制定者只是支持市场并推动全球资本主义的发展,繁荣和进步就会随之而来。

可以肯定的是,并非所有主要经济体都遵循这一处方。 例如,中国政府在经济中一直保持着突出的作用。 公共部门在基础设施、人力资本和技术方面的投资始终保持较大规模,即使国有企业在证券交易所上市后,政府仍保留其控股权。 这些国有企业在中国经济的供给方面所占的份额相当大,而且还在不断增长。 国家还继续通过共产党官员进入公司董事会来影响私营部门。

拉丁美洲国家在某种程度上是这种总体稳定模式的例外。 在过去的几十年里,许多国家在相当极端的市场主导形式和同样强烈的民粹主义以及国家干预之间摇摆不定,以追求分配目标,而国家干预往往以牺牲增长为代价。

现行经济管理方式虽有所不同,但总体稳定,积极效果显着。 跨境投资猛增,促进了新兴市场的增长和繁荣。 而以普遍遵守明确规则为特点的全球贸易几乎没有受到什么干扰。

但这种历史格局似乎已经被打破。 美国前总统唐纳德·特朗普政府背离了前任的贸易政策,对来自中国的进口商品征收关税,并将负责监管全球经济的多边机构边缘化。 作为回应,中国采取了越来越强硬的立场,公然藐视国际经济规则。

这种转变部分是由技术进步推动的。 凭借其“防火墙”,中国基本上已将互联网隔离在其境内。 大多数美国主要科技公司在拒绝遵守政府严格的数据和审查要求后,要么被禁止进入中国市场,要么被迫退出。

与此同时,美国重新拥抱产业政策,作为增强韧性、赢得与中国的战略技术竞赛、解决国内不平等和促进可持续发展的努力的一部分。 虽然实现这些目标需要提高公共和私人投资水平,而这可能需要数年甚至数十年才能获得回报,但新的产业政策可能会对美国增长的水平和质量产生重大影响 — — 当然,除非 未来的政府将扭转这些局面。

作为GDP增长的主要推动力,私营部门长期以来在中国的“社会主义市场经济”中发挥着至关重要的作用。 但过去几年情况发生了变化,习近平主席的政府打压了相互竞争的权力和影响力中心。 对中国科技行业监管打压的激进性和个人性质加剧了私营部门地位的不确定性,导致投资减少。

众所周知,政策和激励措施都会推动投资,但宏观经济稳定也被广泛认为是增长和发展的先决条件。 稳定性通常有两个来源:一个国家经济模式的有效管理和连续性,无论其具体特征如何。

然而,近年来,这种稳定性和合理的连续性保证变得越来越罕见。 虽然经济政策制定不可避免地会在任何政治体系中引发分歧,但更少的争议意味着更少的突然政策逆转,从而能够根据不断变化的情况进行渐进的、破坏性较小的变革。 但有关经济政策和政府角色的争论变得日益两极分化,增加了发生剧烈转变的风险。 政策不稳定的预期会对投资产生抑制作用,从而抑制可持续增长和长期繁荣。

在发达经济体和发展中经济体中都可以观察到这一趋势。 中国的外国投资有所下降,特别是在最有可能受到战略竞争干扰的领域。 在美国,投资者和政策制定者越来越支持环境、社会和治理 (ESG) 目标,这引发了一场寻求禁止可持续发展准则的反运动。

但政策稳定性可能比乍看起来更具弹性。 例如,在印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪领导的印度人民党 (BJP) 和反对党国大党的领导下,印度在过去 30 多年里取得了令人瞩目的进步。 生物识别系统 Aadhaar 和统一支付接口(由印度国家支付公司开发和运营,是印度储备银行和印度银行协会的联合项目)等举措已经改变了该国的经济。 印度极具包容性的数字化转型,也得益于 Reliance Jio 的低成本移动数据革命,一些人建议美联储考虑更好地利用其自己的即时支付系统 FedNow。

莫迪不太可能很快在全国大选中失败。 但即使他这样做了,他的继任者拆除该国蓬勃发展的数字基础设施的可能性也几乎为零。 任何尝试过的政府都可能不会持续很长时间。

教训很明确:保持政策稳定性对于长期投资和经济表现至关重要。 这种稳定性可以通过确定超越意识形态和党派分歧的共同利益和观点来实现。 政策制定者最好寻求和培育这些共同点,而不是致力于利用政治和社会分歧来获取短期利益。

特色

美国经济处于边缘 2023 年 6 月 29 日 MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

真理与民主 2023 年 6 月 29 日 克里斯·彭定康

为什么美国必须增加税收 2023 年 6 月 28 日 WILLEM H. BUITER

埃尔多安的经济清算 2023 年 6 月 27 日 ANNE O. KRUEGER

中国对脱钩的回应 2023年6月28日 余永定

迈克尔·斯宾塞 迈克尔·斯宾塞
迈克尔·斯彭斯(Michael Spence)是诺贝尔经济学奖得主,斯坦福大学经济学名誉教授,曾任商学院院长。 他是胡佛研究所的高级研究员、泛大西洋投资集团的高级顾问以及该公司全球增长研究所的主席。 他担任罗汉堂学术委员会委员,并担任亚洲全球研究院顾问委员会主席。 他曾担任增长与发展独立委员会的主席,该国际机构从 2006 年 10 月开始分析全球经济增长的机会,并且是《下一次融合:多速世界中经济增长的未来》一书的作者(麦克米伦出版社,2012 年) )。

The Governance Threat to Prosperity

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/maintaining-policy-continuity-is-crucial-for-long-term-growth-by-michael-spence-2023-06

Maintaining policy stability has long been recognized as essential to long-term investment and economic development. But the past few years have been characterized by growing polarization and political instability, which increases the risk of abrupt policy reversals that could dampen investment and undermine growth.

MILAN – For several decades, markets and market incentives were the main drivers of economic trends and policies. No longer. We have now entered an age of political economy, in which the actions of governments and the possibility of drastic policy shifts have become the main determinants of economic performance.

Until recently, global supply chains were based almost entirely on efficiency and comparative advantage. Trade agreements were negotiated and expanded to remove restrictions on the free flow of goods, capital, technology, and, to some extent, people. With the advent of digital connectivity, trade in services began growing rapidly. In Europe, the creation of the eurozone led to the dismantling and privatization of many state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and monopolies.

Governance, both at the domestic and international levels, remained relatively stable, albeit not homogeneous. Across much of the world, governments were relegated to a secondary role. If policymakers simply support markets and grease the wheels of global capitalism, the thinking went, prosperity and progress would follow.

To be sure, not all major economies followed this prescription. The Chinese government, for example, has maintained its prominent role in the economy. Public-sector investment in infrastructure, human capital, and technology remains consistently large, with the government holding on to controlling stakes in SOEs even after they are listed on stock exchanges. These SOEs represent a substantial and growing share of the Chinese economy’s supply side. The state also continues to influence the private sector through the presence of Communist Party officials on corporate boards.

Latin American countries are something of an exception to this general pattern of stability. Over the past few decades, many have oscillated between fairly extreme forms of market dominance and equally intense versions of populism and state intervention in pursuit of distributional objectives, frequently at the expense of growth.

While the prevailing approaches to economic management varied, they were generally stable, with significant positive effects. Cross-border investment skyrocketed, fueling growth and prosperity in emerging markets. And global trade, characterized by widespread adherence to clear rules, experienced few disruptions.

But this historical pattern seems to have broken down. Former US President Donald Trump’s administration departed from its predecessors’ trade policies, imposed tariffs on imports from China, and marginalized the multilateral institutions responsible for regulating the global economy. China, in response, has adopted an increasingly assertive stance, openly flouting international economic rules.

This shift has been partly driven by technological advances. With its “great firewall,” China has essentially walled off the internet within its borders. Most major US tech companies have been either banned from entering the Chinese market or compelled to exit after refusing to comply with the government’s stringent data and censorship requirements.

Meanwhile, the United States has re-embraced industrial policy as part of its efforts to build resilience, win the strategic technology race with China, address domestic inequality, and promote sustainability. While achieving these goals will require elevated levels of public and private investment that may take years, if not decades, to pay off, the new industrial policies will likely have a significant effect on the level and quality of US growth – unless, of course, a future administration reverses them.

As a key driver of GDP growth, the private sector has long played a crucial role in China’s “socialist market economy.” But that has changed over the past few years, as President Xi Jinping’s administration has clamped down on competing centers of power and influence. The aggressiveness and personal nature of the regulatory crackdown on the Chinese tech sector have fueled uncertainty regarding the private sector’s position, resulting in reduced investment.

While it is well known that both policies and incentives drive investment, macroeconomic stability has also been widely recognized as a prerequisite for growth and development. There are generally two sources of stability: competent management and continuity in a country’s economic model, regardless of its specific characteristics.

In recent years, however, such stability and the reasonable assurance of continuity has become increasingly rare. While economic policymaking inevitably spurs disagreement in any political system, fewer disputes mean fewer abrupt policy reversals, enabling incremental, less disruptive changes in response to evolving conditions. But debates about economic policy and the role of government have become increasingly polarized, raising the risk of drastic shifts. The expectation of policy instability has a dampening effect on investment and thus on sustainable growth and long-term prosperity.

This trend can be observed in both developed and developing economies. Foreign investment in China has declined, particularly in sectors that are most likely to be disrupted by strategic competition. In the US, investors’ and policymakers’ growing embrace of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals has given rise to a counter-movement seeking to ban sustainability guidelines.

But policy stability can be more resilient than it seems at first glance. India, for example, has made impressive progress over the past 30-plus years, both under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress party. Initiatives such as the biometric-identification system Aadhaar and the Unified Payments Interface – developed and operated by the National Payments Corporation of India, a joint project of the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks’ Association – have transformed the country’s economy. India’s remarkably inclusive digital transformation, also enabled by Reliance Jio’s low-cost mobile data revolution, has inspired some to suggest that the US Federal Reserve consider taking better advantage of its own instant-payment system, FedNow.

Modi is unlikely to lose a national election anytime soon. But even if he did, the chances that his successors would dismantle the country’s burgeoning digital infrastructure are virtually zero. Any government that tried would probably not last very long.

The lesson is clear: maintaining policy stability is crucial for long-term investment and economic performance. This stability can be achieved by identifying shared interests and perspectives that transcend ideological and partisan divides. Policymakers would do well to seek and nurture these areas of common ground, rather than devoting their efforts to exploiting political and social divisions for short-term gain.

EATURED

America's Economy on the Edge  Jun 29, 2023 MICHAEL J. BOSKIN

Truth and Democracy  Jun 29, 2023 CHRIS PATTEN

Why US Taxes Must Increase Jun 28, 2023 WILLEM H. BUITER

Erdo?an's Economic Reckoning Jun 27, 2023 ANNE O. KRUEGER

China's Response to Decoupling Jun 28, 2023 YU YONGDING

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