《经济学人》：减少贫富差距
[导读]面对贫富差距的普遍存在以及对经济稳定的威胁，政策制定者首先需要识别产生贫富差距的根本原因。此外，政策制定者还需要减少限制性的政策以促进自由商贸。
《经济学人》2011年1月22日刊封面图片
腾讯财经讯《经济学人》2011年1月22日刊发表封面文章《减少贫富差距》，现全文摘要如下：
除了名气和影响力以外，胡锦涛、大卫・卡梅伦（David Cameron）、沃伦・巴菲特和（Warren Buffett）斯特劳斯卡（Strauss-Kahn）并没有很多共同点。这从另一个侧面也反映了全球贫富差距的普遍性。贫富差距已经成为中国国家主席、英国首相、美国富翁和国际货币基金组织首脑共同担心的问题。
胡锦涛主席提出减少收入差距是建立和谐社会的关键，特别是中国城市和农村居民的收入差距。卡梅伦首相提出不平等的社会“几乎在每个生活质量指标上”都有害无利。巴菲特也强烈支持征收高额的遗产税，提出高遗产税会避免造成世代的美国富翁。斯特劳斯卡提出了新的全球增长模型，认为过大的收入差距会威胁经济和社会的稳定。最近世界经济论坛（World Economic Forum）的调查显示，其成员认为不断扩大的经济差距将在未来十年内成为两大全球风险因素之一。
关于收入不平等的争论并不罕见，但是经济危机和公共开支缩减之后，对于收入不平等的论调有所变化。在过去的二十多年内，全球政界精英普遍持有的一个观点是，和贫富差距相比，改善社会最底层人民的生活更加重要。在卡梅伦之前的工党人士托尼・布莱尔（Tony Blair）是这个观点的坚决拥护者。
但现在人们开始把注意力放在贫富差距以及其可能带来的后果上，包括贫富差距在宏观经济、政治以及在人们精神上的影响。这意味着在如何解决贫富差距上可能会出现激进的论点。与其笼统的攻击不平等本身，政策制定者应该反思收入差距背后的市场扭曲，而且市场扭曲也是阻碍经济发展的原因。
虽然在全球范围看贫富差距是缩小的，但是贫富差距在中国、印度等新兴经济和美国等发达国家逐渐扩大。在中国，贫富差距主要来自户口系统，而在美国贫富差距主要由穷人和中产阶级之间的差距造成。不过，贫富差距和人们精神层面的联系可能是由其他原因造成：比如美国高谋杀率更多由枪支管制造成，而日本的长寿和饮食习惯更为相关。
对于政策制定者来说，他们需要寻找贫富差距的根源和增加社会流动性。全球市场对于社会上层游戏者，比如作家、律师和基金经理人回报丰厚。这些经济变化随后带来社会变化，比如高教育背景的男性更倾向于选择高教育程度的女性。此外，限制竞争的政策和规则是以牺牲经济和平等为代价的。中国的户口政策限制了农村的发展，美国的教师联盟使得贫穷的美国人不能接受良好的教育。这些限制性的规则都导致了贫富差距的扩大。
从这个角度来看，对于贫富差距和人口流动性的解决方案显而易见。首先，政府需要集中在推动底层和中层人民的生活，而不是拖累富裕阶层。通过投资于教育、取消限制性政策规则和重新规划政府开支重点，减少低技能人口数量。第二，政府需要废除针对特定产业的补助或准入限制。新兴市场需要减少贸易壁垒和垄断，通过自由商贸来促进竞争和消除社会壁垒。
不过，这些措施并不能解决所有收入差距问题：在自由的市场中，技能和智慧仍会带来额外的回报。但是这些改革措施能够减少最致命和不公平的收入差距，将带来经济的发展和社会的稳定。（安吉）
Inequality
Jan 20th 2011 | from PRINT EDITION
APART from being famous and influential, Hu Jintao, David Cameron, Warren Buffett and Dominique Strauss-Kahn do not obviously have a lot in common. So it tells you something about the breadth of global concerns about inequality that China’s president, Britain’s prime minister, America’s second-richest man and the head of the International Monetary Fund have all worried, loudly and publicly, about the dangers of a rising gap between the rich and the rest.
Mr Hu puts the reduction of income disparities, particularly between China’s urban elites and its rural poor, at the centre of his pledge to create a “harmonious society”. Mr Cameron has said that more unequal societies do worse “according to almost every quality-of-life indicator”. Mr Buffett has become a crusader for a higher inheritance tax, arguing that America risks an entrenched plutocracy without it. And Mr Strauss-Kahn argues for a new global growth model, claiming that gaping income gaps threaten social and economic stability. Many others seem to share their concerns. A new survey by the World Economic Forum, whose annual gathering of bigwigs in Davos begins on January 26th, says its members see widening economic disparities as one of the two main global risks over the next decade (alongside failings in global governance).
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The debate about inequality is an old one. But in the wake of a financial crisis that is widely blamed on Wall Street fat cats, from which the richest have rebounded fastest, and ahead of public-spending cuts that will hit the poor hardest, its tone has changed. For much of the past two decades the prevailing view among the world’s policy elite—call it the Davos consensus—was that inequality itself was less important than ensuring that those at the bottom were becoming better-off. Tony Blair, a Labour predecessor of Mr Cameron’s, embodied that attitude. His New Labour party was famously said to be “intensely relaxed” about the millions earned by David Beckham (a footballer) provided that child poverty fell.
Now the focus is on inequality itself, and its supposedly pernicious consequences. One strand of argument, epitomised by “The Spirit Level”, a book that caused a stir in Britain, suggests that countries with greater disparities of income fare worse on all manner of social indicators, from higher murder rates to lower life expectancy. A second thread revisits the macroeconomic consequences of income disparities. Several prominent economists now reckon that inequality was a root cause of the financial crisis: politicians tried to counter the growing gap between rich and poor by encouraging poorer folk to take on more credit (see article). A third argument is that inequality perverts politics, with Wall Street’s influence in Washington often cited as exhibit A of the unhealthy clout of a plutocratic elite.
If these arguments are right, there might be a case for some fairly radical responses, especially a greater focus on redistribution. In fact, much of the recent hand-wringing about widening inequality is based on sloppy thinking. The old Davos consensus of boosting growth and combating poverty is still a better guide to good policy. Rather than a sweeping assault on inequality itself, policymakers would do better to take on the market distortions that often lie behind the most galling income gaps, and which also impede economic growth.
Begin with the facts about inequality. Globally, the gap between the rich and the poor has actually been narrowing, as poorer countries are growing faster. Nor is there a monolithic trend within countries (see article). In Latin America, long home to the world’s most unequal societies, many countries—including the biggest, Brazil—have become a bit more equal, as governments have boosted the incomes of the poor with fast growth and an overhaul of public spending to improve the social safety-net (but not by raising tax rates for the rich).
The gap between rich and poor has risen in other emerging economies (notably China and India) as well as in many rich countries (especially America, but also in places with a reputation for being more egalitarian, such as Germany). But the reasons for this differ. In China inequality has a lot to do with the hukou system of residency permits, which limits internal migration to the towns; by some measures inequality has peaked as rural labour becomes more scarce. In America income inequality began to widen in the 1980s largely because the poor fell behind those in the middle. More recently, the shift has been overwhelmingly due to a rise in the share of income going to the very top—the highest 1% of earners and above—particularly those working in the financial sector. Many Americans are seeing their living standards stagnate, but the gap between most of them has not changed all that much.
The links between inequality and the ills attributed to it are often weak. For instance, some of the findings in “The Spirit Level” were distorted by outliers: strip out America’s high murder rate (which many would blame on guns, not inequality) or Japan’s longevity (diet, not equality), and flatter societies no longer look so much healthier. As for the mooted link to the financial crisis, the timing is dodgy: America’s poor fell behind in the 1980s, the credit bubble took off two decades later.
These nuances suggest that rather than fretting about inequality itself, policymakers need to differentiate between its causes and focus on ways to increase social mobility. A global market offers far bigger returns to those at the top of their game, be they authors, lawyers or fund managers. Modern technology favours the skilled. These economic changes are themselves often reinforced by social ones: educated men now tend to marry educated women. The result of all this, as our special report this week shows, is the rise of a global elite.
At heart, this is a meritocratic process; but not always. Rules and institutions are often rigged in ways that limit competition and favour insiders at the expense both of growth and equality. The rules can be blatantly unfair: witness China’s limits to migration, which keep the poor in the countryside. Or they can involve more subtle distortions: look at the way that powerful teachers’ unions have stopped poorer Americans getting a good education, or the implicit “too big to fail” system that encouraged bankers to be reckless and left the rest with the tab. These are very different problems, but they all lead to wider inequality, fewer rungs in the ladder and lower growth.
Viewed from this perspective, the right way to combat inequality and increase mobility is clear. First, governments need to keep their focus on pushing up the bottom and middle rather than dragging down the top: investing in (and removing barriers to) education, abolishing rules that prevent the able from getting ahead and refocusing government spending on those that need it most. Oddly, the urgency of these kinds of reform is greatest in rich countries, where prospects for the less-skilled are stagnant or falling. Second, governments should get rid of rigged rules and subsidies that favour specific industries or insiders. Forcing banks to hold more capital and pay for their implicit government safety-net is the best way to slim Wall Street’s chubbier felines. In the emerging world there should be a far more vigorous assault on monopolies and a renewed commitment to reducing global trade barriers—for nothing boosts competition and loosens social barriers better than freer commerce.
Such reforms would not narrow all income disparities: in a freer world skill and intellect would still be rewarded, in some cases magnificently well. But the reforms would strike at the most pernicious, unfair sorts of income disparity and allow more people to move upwards. They would also boost growth and leave the world economy more stable. If the Davos elites are worried about the gap between the rich and the rest, this is the route they should follow.
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