美國最好的歲月已經過去了嗎？ / eaton

美國最好的歲月已經過去了嗎？ / eaton

很多人讀標題，以為那是美國的事。其實不是，戈登預測長期經濟放緩的主因與全球類似：

1. 技術的進步將以平緩速度進行，就像過去40年或是1920年以前那個階段。
2. 隨著嬰兒潮一代退休，女性生育進入停滯期，勞動力將持續減少。
3. 收入日益集中意味著，不管增長率有多高，大多數人無法分享增長的果實。

當然，一定很多人不認同。理由是：2008年那次破壞性的金融危機只是百年一次；新的工具與技術還是不斷出現，從基因定序到分析大量資料的電腦，從健康衛生領域到材料技術領域，這些創新都會帶來大量的機會。

我以為，技術進步是很難預測，但若觀察資本市場的投資報酬率就可以知道，已經不是那麼一回事了，所以最好要有心理準備，以前成長的故事很可能不會重演，不然，年金問題也不會是問題了。未來國與國之間很可能因經濟成長趨緩，壁壘因此拉高。

http://cn.nytstyle.com/culture/20160126/t26porter/zh-hant/
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美國最好的歲月已經過去了嗎？

America’s Best Days May Be Behind It
Economic Scene By EDUARDO PORTER January 26, 2016
美國最好的歲月已經過去了嗎？
閱讀EDUARDO PORTER2016年1月26日

Take a look back at some of the most popular TV programs of the mid-1960s — “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Bewitched,” even “The Beverly Hillbillies” — and what do you see?
回望20世紀60年代中期那些最受歡迎的電視節目，諸如“迪克•范•戴克秀”(The Dick Van Dyke Show)、《家有仙妻》(Bewitched)，甚至《貝芙麗山人》(The Beverly Hillbillies)之類的，你會發現什麼？

Like today, middle-class Americans typically had washing machines and air-conditioning, telephones and cars. The Internet and video games were not yet invented. But life, over all, did not look that different.
和如今一樣，美國中產階級一般都擁有洗衣機、空調、電話和車子。互聯網和電視遊戲當時還沒發明，但是生活總的來說也沒什麼兩樣。

There were TVs and radios in most homes. Millions of people worked in downtown offices and lived in suburbs, connected by multilane highways. Americans’ average life expectancy at birth was 70, only eight years less than it is today.
大多數家庭都擁有電視和收音機。成千上百萬人住在郊區，在市區辦公室上班，靠多車道高速公路通勤。當時美國人出生時的平均壽命是70歲，只比現在少8歲。

But flash back 50 years earlier. Then, less than half the population lived in cities. Though Ford Model T’s were starting to roll off the assembly line, Americans typically moved around on horse-drawn buggies on dirt or cobblestone roads. Refrigerators or TVs? Most homes weren’t even wired for electricity. And average life expectancy was only 53.
但把時間再向前撥回50年。當時居住在城市的人口還不到一半。儘管福特T型車(Ford Model T)已經出現在流水線上，大多數美國人還是依靠輕便馬車出行，在土路或鵝卵石道路上往來。冰箱和電視？大多數家庭甚至還沒通電呢。人們的平均壽命是53歲。

Americans like to think they live in an era of rapid and unprecedented change, but this kind of comparison — pitting the momentous changes of the mid-20th century against the seemingly more modest progress of our present era — raises a critical question about the nation’s future prosperity.
美國人往往認為自己生活在一個飛速發展的時代，經歷著史無前例的變革，但是，如果把20世紀中期的巨變同當代似乎較為平緩的發展進行對比，就會對這個國家未來的繁榮昌盛產生嚴重的疑問。

What does this portend for our well-being over the next half century? Has technological progress slowed for good?
這種對比對我們下半個世紀的發展有什麼啟示呢？技術進步是否會持續減速呢？

The idea that America’s best days are behind us sits in sharp tension with the high-tech optimism radiating from the offices of the technology start-ups and venture capital firms of Silicon Valley. But it lies at the heart of the current political unrest. And it is about to elbow its way forcefully into the national conversation.
“美國最好的歲月已經過去”這個觀點與矽谷那些科技初創公司與風投公司散發出的高科技樂觀主義顯得格格不入。但是這種觀念卻深深植根在當今的政治焦慮中，肯定會頑強地一路擠進全國議題。

Robert J. Gordon, a professor of economics at Northwestern University who has patiently developed the proposition in a series of research papers over the last few years, has bundled his arguments into an ambitious new book, “The Rise and Fall of American Growth” (Princeton University Press).
過去幾年間，西北大學的經濟學教授羅伯特•J•戈登(Robert J. Gordon)耐心地把這個命題整理為一系列研究論文，把自己的觀點整理為一本雄心勃勃的新書：《美國增長之起落》(The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Princeton University Press)。

The hefty tome, minutely detailed yet dauntingly broad in scope, offers a lively portrayal of the evolution of American living standards since the Civil War. It also adds up to a dispiriting forecast for American prosperity in the decades to come. “This book,” he writes in the introduction, “ends by doubting that the standard of living of today’s youths will double that of their parents, unlike the standard of living of each previous generation of Americans back to the late 19th century.”
這本厚重的巨著充滿細節，涉及範圍亦是極為廣泛，為南北戰爭之後美國人生活水準的進步描繪了一幅生動的畫卷。它還為美國未來幾十年的繁榮推算出一個令人沮喪的預言。他在前言中寫道：“19世紀末以來，每一代年輕人的生活水準都會超過父母一倍，如今的年輕人還能做到嗎，這本書的結尾對此表示懷疑。”

Innovation will trundle along at the same pace of the last 40 years, Professor Gordon predicts. Despite the burst of progress of the Internet era, total factor productivity — which captures innovation’s contribution to growth — rose over that period at about one-third the pace of the previous five decades.
戈登教授預測，創新的腳步仍將和過去40年來一樣遲緩。儘管是在互聯網大爆炸的時代，這個階段的全要素生產率（這個指標能體現創新在產值增長中所占的比例）的增速是過去50年的三分之一。

That’s hardly the worst part of the story. The labor force will continue to decline, as aging baby boomers leave the work force and women’s labor supply plateaus. And gains in education, an important driver of productivity that expanded sharply in the 20th century, will contribute little.
這還不是整個故事中最糟糕的部分。隨著嬰兒潮一代即將退休，女性生育進入停滯期，勞動力還將持續減少。教育收益的貢獻將只占一小部分，而在20世紀，教育曾是生產率高速增長的重要推動力。

Moreover, the growing concentration of income means that whatever the growth rate, most of the population will barely share in its fruits. Altogether, Professor Gordon argues, the disposable income of the bottom 99 percent of the population, which has expanded about 2 percent per year since the late 19th century, will expand over the next few decades at a rate little above zero.
此外，收入日益集中意味著，不管增長率有多高，大多數人口將無法分享經濟增長的果實。總之，戈登教授認為，自從19世紀末以來，底層99%的人口的可支配收入平均每年增長2%，接下來幾十年內的增長率將接近於零。

Professor Gordon’s take on the future is, of course, not infallible. Economists generally agree that future growth will be slowed by the headwinds of demography, education and income distribution. But the productivity slowdown of recent decades was clearly affected by one-time factors, including a shattering financial crisis. He is on less solid ground forecasting weakness decades into the future.
當然，戈登教授認為，對未來的預測並不絕對可靠。經濟學家大都認為，未來的經濟增長將會因為人口、教育和收入分配方面的不利因素而放緩。但是最近幾十年來，生產率的放緩顯然受若干一次性的因素影響，包括一次破壞性的金融危機。他預測未來幾十年經濟衰弱的證據不夠充分。

Economists, in fact, have no trustworthy theory of what produces technological breakthroughs. Joel Mokyr, an economic historian who also teaches at Northwestern, argues there are reasons to expect enormous breakthroughs are in the offing.
事實上，經濟學家並沒有可靠的理論去預測什麼因素能導致科技突破。同在西北大學任教的經濟史學家喬伊•莫吉爾(Joel Mokyr)認為，有理由期待未來大量突破的到來。

Science has piggybacked on technology ever since Galileo used a telescope to develop a new understanding of the heavens. This new science, in turn, led to new technological innovations.
自從伽利略使用望遠鏡，拓展了人們對天空的認識以來，科學的進步就一直有賴於技術的發展。而新的科學也會帶來技術的創新。

What Professor Gordon fails to account for, Professor Mokyr argues, is that the information technology revolution and other recent developments produced mind-blowing tools and techniques, from gene-sequencing machines to computers that analyze mountains of data at blistering speed. This is creating vast new opportunities for innovation, from health care to materials technology and beyond.
莫吉爾認為，戈登教授沒有看到，資訊技術的革新與其他最新技術的發展創造出了令人驚歎的工具與技術，從基因測序機到能夠瞬間分析大量資料的電腦。這為創新帶來大量的新機會，從健康衛生領域到材料技術領域，乃至更多。

“The tools available to science have been improving at a dazzling rate,” he told me. “I’m not sure how, but the world of technology in 30 to 40 years’ time will be vastly different than it is today.”
“可以用在科學上的工具正以日新月異的速度發展，”他告訴我，“我不清楚具體方式，但是在30到40年內，技術的世界就會與如今大不一樣。”

Nonetheless, Professor Gordon’s argument is not easy to dismiss. He does not forecast that technological progress will slow to a crawl. His argument, rather, is that the explosion of innovation and prosperity from 1920 through 1970 was a one-time phenomenon. From now on, progress will continue at the more gradual pace of both the last 40 years and the period before 1920.
不管怎樣，戈登教授的看法很難忽視。他並不是預測技術進步會像爬行一樣緩慢。他的主張其實是說，從1920年到1970年的創新大爆炸乃至繁榮是一次性的現象。從現在開始，技術的進步將以比較平緩的速度進行，就像過去40年或是1920年以前那個階段一樣。

“There is plenty of room in my forecast for evolutionary change,” he told me. “What is lacking is sharp, discrete change.”
“我的預測為進化的改變留出了許多空間，”他告訴我，“缺乏的是深刻、切實的改變。”

He is not the only economist forecasting slower progress, now that the burst of productivity gains of the late 1990s and early 2000s has waned. “Growth in educational attainment, developed-economy R&D intensity and population are all likely to be slower in the future than in the past,” John G. Fernald of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Charles I. Jones of Stanford wrote in a recent article.
戈登教授並不是唯一一個預測科技進步將會放緩的人，如今20世紀90年代末到21世紀初的生產率增長大爆發已經消退。“教育的增長、發達經濟的研發強度與人口都很可能在未來放緩，”三藩市聯邦儲備銀行的約翰•G•費納爾多(John G. Fernald)與斯坦福的查理斯•I•鐘斯(Charles I. Jones)在近期一篇文章中寫道。

Professor Gordon’s view of slowing technological opportunities meshes with other bits of evidence.
戈登教授的關於技術發展放緩的觀點亦與其他一些證據相吻合。

Ben S. Bernanke, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve who is now at the Brookings Institution, points out that long-term interest rates have been declining for a very long time. This is in response partly to the accumulation of savings in China and other developing economies, which have been buying Treasury bonds hand over fist. But it also suggests that investors, whether they realize it or not, may agree with Professor Gordon’s proposition.
美聯儲前主席本•S•伯南克(Ben S. Bernanke)如今在布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institution)工作，他指出長期利率已經歷了長時間的下降。這部分是由於中國以及其他發展中經濟體內儲蓄的積累，它們一直大量購買美國長期國債。但這也表明，投資者不管自己意識到與否，可能都贊同戈登的觀點。

“People who invest money in the markets are saying the rate of return on capital investments is lower than it was 15 or 30 years ago,” Mr. Bernanke said. “Gordon’s forecast is not without some market reality.”
“在市場上進行投資的人是在表明，資本投資回報率比15到30年前低了，”伯南克說。“戈登的預測並不是沒有市場事實作為基礎的。”

Other strands of data point in this direction. Business dynamism, measured by the role of new companies in the economy, appears to be waning. The share of employment in companies less than five years old dropped from about 19 percent in 1982 to 11 percent in 2011.
其他一些資料也指向這個方向。新公司在經濟中扮演的角色可以用來衡量經濟活力，如今它們的地位也在下降。成立五年以下公司的雇員所占總就業比例從1982年的19%降低到2011年的11%。

Skepticism is warranted, to be sure. Since the time of Thomas Malthus, eras of depressed expectations like our own have inspired predictions of doom and gloom that were proved wrong once economies turned up a few years down the road.
當然，懷疑主義是必要的。自從湯瑪斯•馬爾薩斯(Thomas Malthus)以來，一旦經濟幾年內走下坡路，就會出現像我們這樣悲觀並導致末日論調的預期，還曾一再被證明是錯誤的。

“For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell,” the economic historian Deirdre N. McCloskey of the University of Illinois, Chicago, wrote in an essay about “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the blockbuster about income inequality by the French economist Thomas Piketty. “Yet pessimism has consistently been a poor guide to the modern economic world.”
芝加哥伊利諾斯大學經濟史學家戴爾德爾•N•麥克克羅斯基(Deirdre N. McCloskey)為法國經濟學家湯瑪斯•皮克迪(Thomas Piketty)的轟動大作《21世紀資本論》(Capital in the Twenty-First Century)撰寫的評論中寫道，“由於種種我永遠無法理解的原因，人們總是喜歡聽到‘世界要完’的論調。然而悲觀主義總是一個現代經濟世界不可靠的指南。”

Optimism, though, is also subject to cognitive biases. It’s not just that the income of our optimistic techno-entrepreneurs is growing faster than gross domestic product. A lot of new innovation — the rockets to vacations in orbit, the Apple Watch and Google Glass — also seems custom-designed for them.
但是，樂觀主義也是一種認知偏見。樂觀的科技產業企業家們的收入增長比國內總產值的增長還快，不僅如此，很多創新——太空旅遊火箭、蘋果手錶和穀歌眼鏡——似乎根本就是為他們量身定制的。

“If you are sitting in Silicon Valley, rich and at the frontier of technology,” said Lawrence F. Katz of Harvard, “it is probably true that things are getting better.”
“如果你身在矽谷，有錢，處於科技的最前沿，”哈佛大學的勞倫斯•F•卡茨(Lawrence F. Katz)說，“一切對你來說可能真的是越來越好。”

The same can’t always be said for the rest of us.
這種話不一定總能適用於我們其他人。