11 月03 日每日英语--管得太多反成负担 A scandalous burden
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11 月03 日
管得太多反成负担 A scandalous burden
人们一般认为，迫于新自由主义理论家的压力，发展中国家的政府已经选择了一种亲市场的监管体制。但我要说，这纯粹是胡说八道。贫穷国家对于企业经营的不合理管束仍然远远多于富裕国家。
Under the pressure of neo-liberal ideologists, governments of developing countries have chosen market-friendly regulatory regimes. That is the conventional wisdom. But it is nonsense. Inapposite regulation of business remains far more onerous in poor countries than in rich ones.
如果你想在澳大利亚、丹麦、加拿大、新西兰、新加坡、瑞典、英国或美国开一家公司，费用将是这些国家人均年收入的1%，有时甚至还不到。在澳大利亚，你的公司可以在两天内开张，而在巴西，你需要152天；在印尼需要168天。在穷困的海地，你需要203天。如果在埃塞俄比亚和尼日尔要开办一家公司，所需费用将在该国人均年收入的四倍以上，而这些开支还不包括你做生意本身所必需的投资。
If you start a business in Australia, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden, the UK or the US, it will cost you 1 per cent of the country's average annual income, or less. In Australia, your business can be up and running in just two days. In Brazil it will take you 152 days, in Indonesia 168 and in poverty-stricken Haiti, 203. In Ethiopia and Niger, starting a business will cost you more than four times average annual income per head. This cost is quite apart from the investment you must make in the business itself.
你想管理好你的员工吗？如果想，那就不要去贫穷的塞拉利昂，该国有最慷慨的年度假期规定：39天。刚果共和国(布拉扎维)的假期规定是35天，埃塞俄比亚为33天，乍得、科特迪瓦和尼日尔是32天。在奥地利、丹麦、香港、马来西亚、新西兰、新加坡、英国和美国，用工管理条款（即聘用和解雇员工的灵活程度，以及谈判雇佣条件的自由度等）最不严格。用工管理条款最严格的国家是巴西、墨西哥、巴拿马、巴拉圭、秘鲁、委内瑞拉、安哥拉、白俄罗斯、莫桑比克和葡萄牙。
Do you want to manage your workforce? Do not go to impoverished Sierra Leone, with the most generous annual leave requirement, at 39 days. The Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) requires 35 days, Ethiopia 33 and Chad, Ivory Coast and Niger 32. Regulation of employment - flexibility of hiring and firing and freedom to negotiate conditions of employment - is least severe in Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US. It is most severe in Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, Angola, Belarus, Mozambique and Portugal.
你希望讨回赖帐客户的欠款吗？在危地马拉，你需要通过19个步骤，花费1460天时间。强制执行同样的合约，在突尼斯仅需7天，在荷兰需要39天，在新西兰和新加坡需要50天。在奥地利、荷兰、英国、美国、台湾、巴西和约旦，你讨回欠款的成本可以忽略不计。在刚果民主共和国、科特迪瓦、印度和菲律宾，强制执行的成本接近这些国家的人均收入。在印度尼西亚，这一成本则是人均收入的两倍以上。
Do you wish to secure payment from a recalcitrant customer? In Guatemala, you will need to go through 19 procedures, which will take 1,460 days. Enforcing the same contract will take just seven days in Tunisia, 39 days in the Netherlands and 50 days in New Zealand and Singapore. In Austria, the Netherlands, the UK, the US Taiwan, Brazil and Jordan, the costs you incur will be negligible. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Ivory Coast, India and the Philippines, the costs of enforcement will be close to the country's average income per head. In Indonesia, they will be more than twice average income per head.
你需要信用贷款吗？在多数发展中国家，你会遭受挫折，而且有可能被拒绝，除非你很有路子。获得贷款为什么这么难呢？原因之一是缺少共享的信用信息。更大的障碍在于缺乏对债权人的法律保护。例如，假设你想收回一笔由企业设备担保的坏账，在德国、爱尔兰、突尼斯和美国，这需要一周时间。而在巴西和智利，可能需要5年。
Do you need credit? In most developing countries, you will experience frustration and probable rejection, unless you are well connected. Why is it so difficult to obtain credit? One explanation is the absence of shared credit information. A more important obstacle is the lack of legal protection for creditors. Suppose, for example, you want to collect a bad loan secured on business equipment. In Germany, Ireland, Tunisia and the US, it will take a week. In Brazil and Chile it could take five years.
唉，你要破产了。在加拿大、爱尔兰、日本、挪威和新加坡，完成破产程序不会超过一年。但在巴西、乍得和印度，需要10年以上的时间。
Alas, you go bankrupt. In Canada, Ireland, Japan, Norway and Singapore, it should not take more than a year to complete the process. In Brazil, Chad and India, it will take over a decade.
上述这些吸引人的例子，都来自世界银行(World Bank)计划推出的一系列研究中的第一项。该研究没有采取常用的专家民意测验或企业调查，而是就假设的一些例子，对133个国家的相关法律规章进行具体评估。现举一例，研究人员询问当地专家，要收回一笔价值相当于他们国家人均收入一半的逾期款项，将会涉及哪些问题。研究人员还会详细列出诉讼人的特点和所在地、寻求的补偿，以及起诉的好处。通过这种方法，该研究得出了对全球各地监管体制的可比性评估。
All these fascinating examples come from the first of a planned series of studies from the World Bank group.* Instead of the usual polls of experts or enterprise surveys, the study rests on detailed assessment of the regulations and laws of 133 countries, against hypothetical examples. To take just one, researchers asked local experts what would be involved in recovering an overdue payment worth half their country's average income per head. They also specified the location and characteristics of the litigants, the remedy sought and the merit of the claim. In this way, the study generates an internationally comparable evaluation of regulatory regimes.
该分析共得出三个结论。第一，世界各地的商业法规大相径庭。第二，富裕国家的监管措施比贫困国家的更稳定、更恰当。第三，不良监管导致不良后果。
Overall, the analysis comes to three conclusions. First, regulation of business varies hugely around the world. Second, rich countries regulate more consistently and appropriately than poor ones. Third, poor regulation brings dismal outcomes.
监管体制在强制程度及成本上的区别，并不仅仅由一个国家的财富多少来决定，尽管财富很重要。法律体系的源头也很重要。北欧国家和英国的法律体系的监管力度最轻，而社会主义国家和法国的监管力度最大，德国的监管力度居中。人们可以料想，全世界监管水平最差的国家是个贫困的说法语的国家。
The variation in the intrusiveness and cost of regulatory regimes is not determined only by a country's wealth, important though that is. The origin of the legal system also matters. Nordic and English systems impose the least regulatory burden and socialist and French the most, with the German in the middle. One can expect the worst regulation in the world in a poor Francophone country.
监管不当将会付出不小的代价：非法经营的企业更多，税基更小，腐败现象更严重，失业率更高，而生产力更低。例如，玻利维亚是全球监管最严厉的经济体之一，估计有82%的商业活动发生在非正式部门。在许多发展中国家，一个遵纪守法的企业几乎无法经营成功。
The costs imposed by inapposite regulation are many: a higher proportion of businesses operates outside the law; the tax base is smaller; corruption is greater; unemployment is higher; and productivity is lower. In Bolivia, for example, one of the most heavily regulated economies, an estimated 82 per cent of business activity takes place in the informal sector. In many developing countries, it is close to impossible for a business to operate successfully inside the law.
一些经济学家认为，较富裕国家而言，发展中国家的市场更不完善，因此需要更多监管。这是胡说。首先，许多监管被人误导了：人们通常认为必须付出极其高昂的代价，才能开办企业，调整劳动力规模，获得不利于债务人的判决，通过破产程序等，但其实这样做并不能改善市场运作。第二，一般情况下，监管机构依然比它们监督的市场更不完善。
Some economists have argued that developing countries should regulate more, because their markets are more imperfect than those of rich countries. This is nonsense. First, much of this regulation is misdirected: making it prohibitively costly to start a business, adjust the size of the workforce, obtain judgment against debtors and go through bankruptcy does not make markets work better. Second, the institutions of governance are normally still more imperfect than the markets they are supposed to oversee.
发展中国家需要将有限的资源集中在重要任务上。而最重要的是确定和保护产权，保护公民不受其他公民和国家的伤害。此外，有力的证据已说明，监管干预的程度越高，上述基本保护的力量就越弱。正如世界银行研究报告中所评论的：“好的政府把精力放在促进社会繁荣上，而不是将资源用于成本高昂(且经常是无效的)的监管。”
Developing countries need to focus their limited resources on the tasks that matter. The most important are to define and protect property rights and safeguard citizens against injury from other citizens and the state itself. There is strong evidence, moreover, that the more intense are the regulatory interventions, the weaker are these essential protections. As the Bank study remarks: "Rather than spend resources on costly (and often ineffective) regulation, good governments channel their energies into enhancing prosperity."
一般而言，监管应减少到必要、有效和易实施的水平上。只要市场存在竞争，那市场本身就将履行大部分监管职能。政府也需要运用现代技术，以提高它们的办事效率。
In general, regulation should be reduced to what is essential, efficacious and readily enforceable. Markets themselves will do much of the regulation, provided they are competitive. Governments also need to use modern technology to improve the efficiency of what they do.
长期以来，政策制定者和分析师对企业经营的核心能力关注太少，即创业能力、关闭能力、获得信用能力、索帐和管理劳动力的能力。在所有这些方面，许多发展中国家的环境是灾难性的。最无法承受繁杂和误导性监管的国家，恰恰最因此而深受其害。这既是丑闻也是悲剧。
Policymakers and analysts have been paying too little attention to the core of what makes businesses work: the ability to start up, close down, secure credit, demand payment and manage the workforce. In all these respects, the environment in many developing countries is calamitous. The countries that can least bear the burden of cumbersome and misdirected regulation suffer from it most. This is a scandal and a tragedy.
《2004年的经营之道：了解监管》(世界银行和牛津大学出版社，2004年)
* Doing Business in 2004: Understanding Regulation (World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2004) |
发表于 2003-12-14 00:00:00
risma" is intended to connote a company committed to being clear and open in its business dealings, in keeping with the widespread corporate governance reforms that have followed the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.