主流凯恩斯经济学正面临着最后的狂欢。奥巴马政府去年倡导的全球财政刺激计划即将被推翻，而否定它的正是去年表示支持的20国集团(G20)。在当前主权债务危机不断蔓延的背景下，我们必须摒弃短视思维，转而支持持续复苏所需的长期投资。
凯恩斯主义的刺激方案以四项可疑的命题为前提：必须施行这种刺激方案，以防出现全球萧条；短期财政刺激将激活经济；“能立即上马的项目”能够结合短期周期性与长期结构性议程；最后，无需担心刺激方案所导致的公共债务迅速增加。这些命题得到普遍接受，足见减税和增加支出在政治上永远具有吸引力。
实际上，去年人人都把大萧条(Great Depression)挂在嘴边是一种欠思考的行为；政策制定者陷入了恐慌。机智的央行决策能够（也会）阻止萧条。而匆忙出台刺激计划，则是向幼稚的凯恩斯主义的大退步。相关事实是：过去10年来，美国、英国、爱尔兰、西班牙及希腊等国一直过度借债，因此，2007年以后消费下降，并不是需要抑制的反常现象，而是必须接受的正常调整。
从社会角度考虑，一定的反周期支出是必不可少的。但临时性削减家庭税收或“旧车换现金”计划等刺激措施，则是令人沮丧的对稀缺时间和金钱的浪费。这些措施反映出，人们希望临时性财政措施能让我们回归由消费和住房市场拉动的增长——由于以往的“常态”在财务上不可持续，这个命题相当有问题。
有关绿色复苏的说法（对可持续能源投资，以抵消消费者支出下滑），过去和现在都有道理。但政客们坚持推行“能立即上马的”项目，令这方面的项目很快成为牺牲品。向可持续能源体系的过渡，是一项关键但耗时长久的任务。这永远不可能是一种短期的就业创造计划。或许中国存在能立即上马的规模够大的项目，但美国没有。
2009年1月就职的美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)接手了美国历史上规模最大的和平时期预算赤字。通过进一步增加赤字，奥巴马让赤字的责任人从前任转到了自己名下。他和他的顾问们忽视了现代宏观经济学的关键见解之一：财政政策的结果，不仅取决于当前税收和支出，还取决于它们在未来的预期轨道。
由于未来削减赤字的前景一直极不明朗，美国并不处在能够“暂时”增加本已庞大的赤字的可信地位。对于如何恢复预算平衡，美国完全没有共识；国家陷于一个夹缝，一边是提供微不足道的公共投资和服务的联邦政府，另一边是几近疯狂地反对增税的公众。人们无法在出发时就搞错方向、增加而非减少赤字的情况下，制定出可信的长期财政政策。
如今，我们面对的是这样的世界经济：美国和欧洲总需求疲弱，预算赤字不断膨胀，主权债务遭到降级，消费者不愿借债。政府正通过极其严厉地削减支出，来争取市场可信度。这种方式也是错误的。我们应避免在去年过分简单化的刺激之后，现在实施过分简单化的紧缩。以下是一些建议的指导方针。
首先，政府应制定一个5年中期预算框架，和一项10年经济转型战略。若想在2015年之前实现可控的债务占GDP比率，就必须从现在开始削减赤字，不能再推了。
其次，政府应说明（公众也应了解），经济政策对于短期内创造高质量的就业岗位没什么作用。好工作来自良好的教育、领先的科技、可靠的基础设施和私人资本的充分支出，因而是多年持续公共及私人投资的结果。政府必须积极推动高等教育。
第三，政府当然还必须确保社会安全网：给穷人提供收入补助，普及基本医疗和教育，扩大就业培训项目，促进高等教育。
第四，政府应引导经济进行必要的长期结构性转型。美国和英国等对外赤字国家应该在未来几年促进出口，而各国都必须推动清洁能源和新交通基础设施建设。
第五，政府和公众应坚持要求富人缴纳更多的个人所得和财产税——实际上，应大幅增税。过去25年的向上再分配，使美英经济成为超级富人的奢侈游戏场。英美两国的主流左右翼政客都在迎合那些为他们的竞选埋单、以换取较低税收的人。当亿万富翁们在沙坑里玩耍时，即使是游戏场也应该收费。
总之，我们必须重新制定我们的宏观经济日程表。根本不存在什么短期奇迹，如果我们追求经济假象，只会得到更多泡沫的威胁。若想重建经济，关键必须是投资，而不是刺激。
本文作者是美国哥伦比亚大学地球研究所所长
译者/陈云飞
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001033051
Mainstream Keynesian economics is facing its last hurrah. The global fiscal stimulus championed last year by the Obama administration is coming undone, repudiated by the same Group of 20 that endorsed it last year. Now, against a backdrop of a widening sovereign debt crisis, we need to abandon short-term thinking in favour of the long-term investments needed for sustained recovery.
Keynesian stimulus was premised on four dubious propositions: that it was needed to prevent a global depression; that a short-run fiscal boost would jump-start the economy; that “shovel-ready projects” could combine short-term cyclical and long-term structural agendas; and, last, that the rapid rise of public debt occasioned by stimulus need not be a concern. That these ideas were so widely accepted was a testament to the perennial political attractiveness of tax cuts and spending increases.
In fact, the ubiquitous references last year to the Great Depression were glib; the policymakers had panicked. Adroit central banking could and would prevent depression. The hastily assembled stimulus packages were a throwback to naive Keynesianism. The relevant fact was that the US, UK, Ireland, Spain, Greece and others had over-borrowed for a decade, so a decline in consumption after 2007 was not an anomaly to be fought but an adjustment to be accepted.
Certain counter-cyclical spending is vital on social grounds. But stimulus measures such as temporary tax cuts for households or car scrappage schemes were dispiriting wastes of scarce time and money. They reflected a hope that a temporary fiscal bridge would carry us back to consumption and housing-led growth – a dubious proposition since the old “normal” had been financially unsustainable.
The talk of a green recovery, in which the fall in consumer spending would be offset by investments in sustainable energy, made sense and still does. Yet it was quickly undermined by the politicians' insistence on “shovel-ready” projects. The shift to sustainable energy systems is a vital but long-term task. It could never be a short-term jobs programme. Maybe in China there are shovel-ready projects of sufficient scale, but not in the US.
Taking office in January 2009, President Barack Obama inherited the largest peacetime budget deficit in US history. By increasing it further, he made it his rather than his predecessor's. He and his advisers ignored one of the key insights of modern macroeconomics: that the result of fiscal policy depends not only on current taxes and spending but also on their expected trajectories in the future.
The US was not in a credible position to raise an already enormous deficit “temporarily” because the prospect for future deficit cutting was and remains extremely clouded. America has absolutely no consensus on how to restore budget balance, as it is trapped between a federal government that provides too few public investments and services and a public that is almost maniacal in its opposition to tax rises. One cannot build a credible long-term fiscal policy by starting off in the wrong direction, with larger rather than smaller deficits.
Now we face a world economy with weak aggregate demand in the US and Europe, bulging budget deficits, sovereign debt downgrading and consumers unwilling to borrow. Governments are fighting for market credibility via draconian cuts in spending. This too is the wrong approach. We should avoid a simplistic austerity to follow the simplistic stimulus of last year. Here are some suggested guidelines.
First, governments should work within a medium-term budget framework of five years, and within a decade-long strategy on economic transformation. Deficit cutting should start now, not later, to achieve manageable debt-to-GDP ratios before 2015.
Second, governments should explain, and the public should learn, that there is little that economic policy can do to create high-quality jobs in the short term. Good jobs result from good education, cutting-edge technology, reliable infrastructure and adequate outlays of private capital, and thus are the outcome of years of sustained public and private investments. Governments need actively to promote post-secondary education.
Third, governments must of course also ensure social safety nets: income support for the poor, universal access to basic healthcare and education, a scaling up of job training programmes and promotion of higher education.
Fourth, governments should steer their economies towards needed long-term structural transformation. External-deficit countries such as the US and UK will need to promote exports over the next few years, while all countries must promote clean energy and new transport infrastructure.
Fifth, governments and the public should insist that the rich pay more in income and wealth taxes – indeed, a lot more. The upward re-distribution of the past 25 years has made our economies into extravagant playgrounds for the super-wealthy. Politicians of both the mainstream left and right in the US and UK have fawned over those who pay their campaign bills in return for low taxation. Even playgrounds should collect tolls – when it is billionaires in the sandpit.
We need, in sum, to reset our macroeconomic timetables. There are no short-term miracles, only the threat of more bubbles if we pursue economic illusions. To rebuild our economies, the watchword must be investment rather than stimulus.
The writer is director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University
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