海外之声 | 英国前首相经济顾问：收入差距是政治的毒药（中英双语）

观点速递

本文作者是布莱恩·雷丁，曾任英国前首相爱德华·希思经济顾问，现为货币金融机构官方论坛（OMFIF）顾问委员会委员。原文摘自国际货币金融机构官方论坛（OMFIF）评论，OMFIF是一家总部位于伦敦的全球金融智库。

作者提出，上世纪末以来，劳动收入占比相对资本收入持续下降，财富分配的差距扩大。造成这一现象的原因很多，而科技进步和全球化是其中的一个有解释力的因素。这一现象正在成为威胁发达国家政治稳定的导火索。

中文译文如下：

收入差距是政治的毒药

反叛的人民开始还击

布莱恩·里丁

翻译：骈亚男

审校：肖柏高

收入分为劳动收入和资本收入，一个通过劳动获得而另一个通过所拥有的资本获得。法国经济学家托马斯·皮凯蒂在他《二十一世纪资本》评论道：资本回报率超过经济增速时，贫富差距就会增大。2017年4月国际货币基金组织发布了《世界经济展望》报告，其中一个章节题为“二十一世纪的收入情况”。该章节指出世界各地工资在名义收入中的占比不断下滑。

发达经济体中的这种下降趋势始于20世纪80年代。十年之后，发展中经济体步其后尘。两个现象传达的信息一致，即贫富分化扩大。如果实际工资低于实际产出，劳动收入份额就会减少。这些变化突出了富人和穷人尖锐的分歧，并且扰乱着大多数发达经济体的政治。

相较于资本报酬增长速度，工作报酬的增长速度落后于生产力的增长速度，这个差距加重了贫富分化。个中原因复杂，难以理清。技术进步和全球化是部分原因。由于无法分清资本收入与劳动收入之间的界限，个体户收入未计算在内。衡量服务业特别是非市场化的公共服务的生产力难于登天。数量是一个衡量指标，但也许和质量成负相关。据称，国际金融危机和大萧条之前生产力发展缓慢，部分归咎于制造业就业岗位流向私营和公共服务业。

技术降低了资本设备的成本，使企业以更低的成本提高了生产力。资本和劳动之间的替代弹性已经变得更偏向于资本。结果是，在高薪发达经济体中的中等技能的重复性工作要么被机器人和计算机所取代，要么外包给低工资的新兴经济体。工资份额的下降以及收入不平等的加剧导致了中产阶级减少。少数高技能人员工资比以往任何时候都高。并未参与全球竞争的低薪家政服务人员处境没有恶化。夹在两者之间的中产缩小了。

也许储蓄过剩与财富和收入差距有关。财政紧缩的解药——量化宽松和零利率的货币解决方案产生了资产价格通货膨胀和产品价格通货紧缩的高风险组合。

值得注意的是，英国失业率处于42年来最低点，通货膨胀温和反弹，但工资增长依然疲软。非加速通货膨胀失业率理论出了什么问题？生产率下降，带来更多的就业机会也导致了较低的薪资。

日益扩大的收入和财富差距造成分裂。这是当代政治的共同点，可以解释美国特朗普和法国埃马纽埃尔·马克龙当选总统的现象，德国安格拉•默克尔以及英国特雷莎·梅当选首相的原因。

1848年是革命之年，也称“民族之春”，统治者因人民不满而被推翻。现在农民正在像1848年那样反叛。2017年春，政客们应小心行事。

英文原文如下：

Income gap poisons politics

Rebellious citizens are fighting back

by Brian Reading in London

Fri 19 May 2017

Income is split between labour and capital, what you earn and what you own.

The French economist Thomas Piketty, in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, observed that wealth inequality is increased when the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of economic growth. One of the chapters in the IMF’s April 2017 World Economic Outlook could have been entitled ‘Income in the Twenty-First Century’. It documents declining wage shares in nominal income almost everywhere.

The downward trend in advanced economies began in the 1980s. It started a decade later in developing economies. The message is the same – increased inequality. If real wages grow less than real output the labour share of income diminishes.These developments underscore the acrid divisions between haves and have nots that now poison politics in most advanced economies.

The gap between the growth (or lack of it) in productivity and the lesser increase (or decrease) in real rewards from working, relative to rewards from owning, exacerbates inequality. The causes are far from simple and almost impossible to disentangle. Technological advances and globalisation play their part. Self-employed income is not included as statisticians cannot divide it between labour and capital. Measuring productivity in service industries, especially in non-market public services, is near impossible. Quantity is a proxy but quality may be inversely correlated. Supposedly slower productivity growth, predating the global financial crisis and great recession, may be partly blamed on employment shifts from manufacturing to private and public services.

Technology has reduced the cost of capital equipment, allowing companies to be more productive at lower cost. The elasticity of substitution between capital and labour has shifted in favour of capital. The result is that middle-skilled repetitive jobs in high-wage advanced economies have either been replaced by robots and computers or outsourced to low wage emerging ones. The fall in wage share, and growing income inequality, has led to a middle-class squeeze. The highly skilled few are better paid than ever. Low-paid domestic service workers who don’t compete globally are not much worse off than before. The middle shrinks between the two.

Perhaps the savings glut has something to do with wealth and income disparities. The monetary antidote to fiscal austerity, quantitative easing and zero-bound interest rates, produces a lethal combination of asset-price inflation and product-price deflation.

Remarkably, UK unemployment is at its lowest in 42 years, inflation has modestly rebounded yet wage growth remains anaemic. What has happened to Nairu, the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment? Slower productivity equals more jobs but less pay.

Increasing inequality in income and wealth divides. It is the common denominator in contemporary politics. It explains Donald Trump in the US, Emmanuel Macron in France, Germany’s Angela Merkel and even Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister.

The peasants are revolting as in 1848, the year of revolutions – known as the Spring of Nations – when rulers were overthrown by popular discontent. In spring 2017, politicians should tread carefully.

Brian Reading was an Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Edward Heath and is a Member of the OMFIF Advisory Board.

观点整理  田雯

图文编辑  田雯

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