生产率低迷将导致货币政策失效

Throughout the developed world, productivity growth has been remarkably weak.

在整个发达世界，生产率增长都非常疲软。

Even though we are faced daily with new technological gizmos, growth in output per hour has been dismal.

即便我们天天都能看到科技界的新发明，每小时产出的增长却令人失望。

Admittedly, some countries have done better than others.

无可否认，部分国家的表现比其他国家好一些。

Between 2007 and 2014 — the latest year for which comparable data are available — output per hour rose over 7 per cent across the US economy while in the UK it was broadly unchanged and in Italy it actually fell 2 per cent.

从2007年到2014年（这是有可比数据的最近年份），美国的每小时产出增长逾7%，而英国大体上没什么变化，意大利更是下滑了2%。

Yet even the successes are failures judged by their own history.

然而，以各国自身过往历史判断，即便是成功国家也是失败的。

Other than during the dark days of the early 1980s — when two recessions led to a serious, albeit temporary, loss of output — the US has never before experienced such a fallow period of productivity growth.

除了上世纪80年代初期的黑暗年代——当时先后两轮衰退均引发了严重的、尽管是暂时性的产出下滑——美国从未经历过生产率增长如此疲软的时期。

There are many explanations for this, including Lawrence Summers’ revival of secular stagnation, Robert Gordon’s claim that the biggest technological impacts on living standards are in the past and, for what it’s worth,

关于生产率增长疲软，人们提出了许多种解释。其中，劳伦斯•萨默斯(Lawrence Summers)重提长期性停滞(secular stagnation)概念，罗伯特•戈登(Robert Gordon)则声称，技术对人们生活水平的重大影响已经过去。

my own view that we are returning to economic normality after an extended postwar period of economic catch-up.

而以我个人之见，在经历了战后漫长的追补性增长之后，经济正在回归常态。

The Summers view is, in many ways, the most optimistic.

从许多方面来说，萨默斯的观点最乐观。

Offer fiscal stimulus — particularly focused on infrastructure projects — in the hope that higher demand will create higher supply.

这种观点认为应该提供财政刺激——尤其侧重基建项目——希望增加需求会创造更多供给。

Yet the risk is that stimulus will raise government debt with no lasting benefit for the economy.

然而，其中的风险在于，财政刺激会推升政府债务，却不会为经济带来持续性的好处。

Think of Japan over the past two decades, and US stimulus after the dotcom bubble burst that triggered only a housing boom and bust with no lasting benefit for productivity growth.

这可以参考日本在过去二十年里的情况，以及美国在互联网泡沫破裂之后出台的刺激举措，后者仅仅引发了房地产的一时性繁荣，却没有为生产率增长带来持续的好处。

Weak productivity has a corrosive impact on living standards.

生产率低迷会损害人们的生活水平。

Should the post-financial crisis trend continue, in the US by 2021 average incomes would be 16 per cent lower than had the 2 per cent per annum postwar productivity trend been maintained.

一旦金融危机后出现的趋势持续下去，到2021年，比起战后生产率年均增长2%的趋势持续的情况，美国的平均收入水平会低16%。

Tax revenues, healthcare, pensions, wage growth and all the other contributors to a nation’s welfare would be lower.

税收收入、医疗、养老金、工资增长以及所有其他有益于国家福利的因素都会遭到削弱。

Promises made by politicians across the political spectrum would have to be abandoned.

左中右各路政治家们所许下的承诺都将不得不放弃。

To date, attempts to boost productivity have failed.

到目前为止，所有提振生产率的尝试都已失败。

What was seen as a cyclical economic problem has morphed into a biting supply-side constraint.

所谓的周期性经济问题已演变成令人痛苦的供应侧约束。

Worse, the stimulus aimed at boosting economic growth and limiting unemployment may have inadvertently damaged productivity performance.

更糟糕的是，旨在提振经济增长和减少失业的刺激性举措，可能无意间损害了生产率。

Exceptionally low interest rates and quantitative easing may have lifted asset prices indiscriminately, crimping capital markets’ abilities to separate productive wheat from unproductive chaff.

极低利率和量化宽松也许已无差别地推升了资产价格，损害了资本市场分辨具有经济效益的领域与缺乏效益的领域的能力。

Further, persistently low productivity growth may be neutering monetary policy itself.

更进一步的问题是，生产率增速长期低迷，也许正在导致货币政策失去效力。

In a world in which both growth and Inflation are structurally low, interest rates will be dragged down to incredibly low levels — precisely the conditions we see today.

在增长和通胀都处于结构性低点的世界里，利率会被拉低至令人难以置信的低水平——这正是我们今天遇到的状况。

If, however, interest rates are low on a structural basis, there is nowhere for them to go in the event of a deep recession.

然而，如果利率因结构性原因而处于低位，一旦发生深度衰退，利率将降无可降。

In these circumstances, the entire monetary policy framework is up for grabs.

在这种情况下，整个货币政策框架有待努力整改。

Shibboleths will have to be dispensed with.

必须放弃各种陈词滥调。

At zero rates, central banks may have to work increasingly closely with finance ministries, prioritising the need for co-ordinated action over the desire for independence.

在零利率环境下，央行可能要日益密切地与财政部合作，将协同行动的需要置于独立自主的意愿之上。

Inflation targeting may have to be ditched, perhaps replaced by nominal gross domestic product targeting: a slowdown in real growth would then be countered by a commitment to higher inflation, boosting nominal GDP and limiting the risk of ever more indigestible debt.

通胀目标制或许必须放弃，也许要由名义国内生产总值(GDP)目标制代替，如此一来，可以通过努力提高通胀、提升名义GDP并抑制越来越难承受的债务水平所带来的风险，来应对实际经济增速的放缓。

Yet nominal GDP targeting will work only if central banks can credibly demonstrate not just their desire for higher inflation but also their ability to deliver it.

不过，除非央行能够令人信服地展示其不仅具备提高通胀的意愿，也具有达成这一目标的能力，名义GDP目标制才会奏效。

To date, they’ve not been particularly successful.

到目前为止，它们在这方面不是特别成功。

And if productivity growth really is permanently lower, expectations of a life of ever-rising prosperity will have to be abandoned.

如果生产率增速真的长期处在低水平，人们将不得不放弃生活会越来越富足的期望。

If the economics are already difficult, the politics will eventually be considerably harder.

如果经济已是困难重重，政治最终也会寸步难行。