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摩根斯坦利:“双赢”理论失效,本地化挑战全球化

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发表于 2006-12-31 12:36:24 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
提要:在全球化的“双赢”理论中,发达国家与发展中国家的劳动力供应者均会从中受益,但事实并非如此。在发达国家,全球化收益分配出现惊人的失衡:资本所有者占有主要收益,而劳动力供应者则付出代价,其收入在国民收入中的份额持续下降。在这种情况下,工业化国家的政治风向发生重大转变。主张劳工利益的左派取代维护资本利益的右派成为多数派,全球化因此而正让位于本地化。全球化向本地化转变的程度取决于政治因素,但其影响将集中在经济领域。

  (外脑精华·北京)全球化“双赢”理论失效

  一方面,全球化的强大力量似乎势不可挡。世界经济刚刚实现自上世纪70年代初以来最强劲的四年连续增长期。同时,2006年国际贸易占世界GDP的份额则有史以来第一次超过30%大关,几乎比30年前那一轮全球经济高涨期的水平高两倍。

  但另一方面,令人不安的迹象也越来越多。这是因为全球化收益的分配出现了惊人的失衡。虽然许多发展中国家的生活水平有所改善,但富裕的发达国家却承受了一系列新压力。尤为重要的是,工业化国家的劳动收入承受了巨大的损失。这种情况对“双赢”模式这一全球化的基本假设构成了挑战。

  李嘉图的比较优势论告诉我们,双赢意味着两项收益。第一项收益属于发展中国家的低薪工人:他们首先通过参与出口生产而融入全球经济,而后成为新的消费者人群。第二项收益属于富裕的发达国家:消费者可以购买物美价廉的穷国产品,从而提高生活水平;而通过生产技术更先进的产品,向越来越富裕的发展中国家出口,发达国家工人也可以受益。

  这个理论看似漂亮,但却不像宣传的那样有效。第一项收益是无可争议的。中国一路领先,上世纪90年代初以来其人均GDP翻了两番有余。其他发展中国家落后于中国,但生活水平也大有提高。

  问题在于第二项收益--富裕的发达国家应得的利益。近年来,第二项收益主要为发达国家的资本所有者所占有,而劳动力供应者则付出了代价。全球化和全球竞争对主要工业化经济体的影响出现了严重失衡--资本回报连创新高,而劳动回报则连创新低。全球劳动力套利对高成本发达国家的就业和实际工资构成了巨大的压力,从而导致劳动收入在工业国国民收入中所占的份额持续下降,到2006年年中已降至53.7%。由于劳动力成本是企业支出中最大的一项,劳动收入的下降导致资本回报大幅度增加。到2006年2季度,企业利润在主要工业国国民收入中的份额达到15.6%的历史高点。

  劳工利益受损引发政治风向变化

  第二项收益的失衡分配产生了非常重要的后果。过去,劳动力及其工会拥有议价能力。如果发达国家的劳动收入承受如此压力,无疑会导致某种形式的“劳工反抗”。而今,世界经济日趋全球化,工人已经失去这种能力,但他们选出的政治代表却拥有那种能力。毫无疑问,近年来工业化国家的政治风向出现重大转变:主张劳工利益的左派取代主张资本利益的右派,成为多数派。不仅美国如此,德国、法国、意大利、西班牙、日本甚至是澳大利亚都出现了这种倾向。

  尤其应该指出的是美国的政治反应。最重要的是,美国的反应有重要的宏观经济因素。在欧洲和日本,相对停滞的实际工资与低迷、甚至下降的生产率是相应的。但美国却不同,实际工资的疲软发生在生产率强劲上升的背景下。2001-2005年间,美国非农企业部门的每小时劳动报酬年均仅增长1.4%,而同期的生产率年均增长率则达到3.1%,前者不到后者的一半。根据宏观经济理论,工人获得的报酬应等于其边际产值,但近年来美国的情况显然不是这样。此外,近期的研究指出,美国劳动者获得的所谓生产率红利(productivity dividend)也存在分配不公问题。据西北大学的Ian Dew-Becker和Robert Gordon研究,1997年至今,美国只有收入最高的10%的人,其劳动收入的增幅才不低于生产率的增长。

  这些问题都在本次美国中期选举中反映出来。除了显而易见的伊拉克问题,民意调查表明,劳动收入增长缓慢及其分配不公是美国选民最关注的问题。现在,民主党控制下的国会即将走上资本与劳动之战的战场中央。此前,美国国会就已出现明显的迹象:2005年以来,议员们先后提交了27项议案,要求对中国的出口产品采取某种形式的惩罚性措施。民主党获胜之后,国会可能会走得更远。事实上,新当选的民主党领袖已经承诺,将立即通过提高最低工资的法案。这是10年来的第一次。

  全球化让位于本地化

  政治平衡向劳工方面倾斜既是制造业和服务业劳工承受竞争压力的结果,也是IT驱动之下全球化日益加速的产物。目前,经济不安全感正在沿职业层级迅速向上扩散。在这种情况下,一向与经济困难绝缘的知识工作者群体很快感受到了冲击。

  于是,人们对全球化“双赢”第二项收益的信心大受打击,全球化浪潮带动所有国家水涨船高的幻想破灭了。因此,各国对全球化理论上收益的期待已经让位于对本国利益的维护,即“本地化”。

  对全球化这个当代最重大的趋势提出质疑自然是异端的做法,但我并不是要预言全球化的灭亡,而是认为全球化进程会出现一些局部性的倒退。工业化国家政治立场向左转表明了资本回报与劳动报酬急剧分化引起的强烈反抗。倒退的程度如何将取决于政治家,准确地说,取决于他们愿意在缩小资本与劳动报酬差距的立法道路上走多远。关于这种政治干预的历史纪录并不多,可惜这并不说明政治家会抵制这种诱惑。

  与近年来的全球化时代相比,本地化时代无疑会具有一些完全不同的特点。最明显的是,工资可能会上升,而企业利润可能会下降。可以想见,主张劳工利益的政治家有可能动用监管手段,对过高的资本回报率进行审查,金融市场上的过高回报率,如对冲基金和私人股权公司的回报率,有可能成为调查的焦点。他们还可能对收入分配向高收入人群的倾斜(如为富人减税以及过高的高管报酬)进行审查。此外,本地化还可能意味着保护主义风险的增大。如果2007年全球经济减速、失业率开始上升,风险将会更大。鉴于这些变化,本地化最终可能导致通胀加速、利率上升、金融市场波动加剧,而且延伸过度的信贷扩张周期可能会终结。当然,对全球化第一项收益的得主,即发展中国家的新兴企业及其创造的就业来说,本地化保护主义的影响同样会构成很大挑战。

  如果本地化趋势走向极端,就会出现上述情况。在自由市场体系中,经济力量的钟摆已经转向了本地化一方。与过去10年中不受约束的全球化时代相比,本地化时代无疑会出现更多的摩擦。关键仍然是程度问题,钟摆会在本地化的方向上摆多远?问题的答案取决于政治因素,而其影响将集中在经济领域。


  英文原文:From Globalization to Localization
On one level, there seems to be no stopping the powerful forces of globalization. Not only has the world just completed four years of the strongest global growth since the early 1970s, but in 2006, cross-border trade as a share of world GDP pierced the 30% threshold for the first time ever -- almost three times the portion prevailing during the last global boom over 30 years ago. What a great testament to the stunning successes of globalization!

On another level, however, there are increasingly disquieting signs. That's because of a striking asymmetry in the benefits of globalization. While living standards have improved in many segments of the developing world, a new set of pressures is bearing down on the rich countries of the developed world. Most notably, an extraordinary squeeze on labor incomes has occurred in the industrial world -- an outcome that challenges the fundamental premises of the \"win-win\" models of globalization. Ricardian comparative advantage tells us that the first win goes to low-wage workers in developing economies who enter the global economy -- initially through their involvement in export production and eventually as a new class of consumers. The second win is presumed to benefit the rich nations of the developed world -- where consumers can expand their standard of living by buying low-cost, high-quality goods from poor countries and where workers can ultimately gain from being involved in the production of more sophisticated products exported to increasingly prosperous developing economies.

It is a great theory -- but it's not working as advertised. The first win is hard to dispute. China has led the way, with more than a quadrupling of its per capita GDP since the early 1990s. Other developing countries have lagged the Chinese experience but have still made considerable progress in boosting living standards. India's standard of living, for example, has more than doubled during the past 15 years. Moreover, according to IMF statistics, per capita GDP in Eastern and Central Europe is likely to have expanded at a 3.6% average annual rate in the decade ending 2007 -- a dramatic acceleration from the 0.3% pace of the prior 10-year period. In the Middle East, a 2.7% trend in the growth of per capita output in the decade ending 2007 would be nearly double the 1.5% pace of the previous 10 years. Developing Asia stands out from the rest of the pack, with a 6.2% average annual increase in per capita GDP estimated over the 1998 to 2007 period -- little changed from the vigorous 6.3% trend over the 1988-97 interval. Moreover, the first win hasn't just gone to labor. Four years of extraordinary returns for emerging market stocks and bonds underscore impressive returns to capital, as well.

The problem lies with the second win -- the supposed benefits accruing to the rich countries of the developed world. And that's where the going has gotten especially tough. In recent years, the benefits of the second win have accrued primarily to the owners of capital at the expense of the providers of labor. At work is a powerful asymmetry in the impacts of globalization and global competition on the world's major industrial economies -- namely, record highs in the returns accruing to capital and record lows in the rewards going to labor. The global labor arbitrage has put unrelenting pressure on employment and real wages in the high-cost developed world -- resulting in a compression of the labor income share down to a record low of 53.7% of industrial world national income in mid-2006. With labor costs easily accounting for the largest portion of business expenses, this has proved to be a veritable bonanza for the return to capital -- pushing the profits share of national income in the major countries of the industrial world to historical highs of 15.6% in 2Q06.

This asymmetry in the second win is not without very important consequences. In days of yore -- when labor and its organized unions actually had bargaining power -- the current squeeze on labor income in the developed world would have undoubtedly resulted in some form of a \"worker backlash.\" In today's increasingly globalized world, however, workers have no such power. But their elected political representatives most certainly do. And there can be no mistaking the important shift that has recently occurred in the political alignment of the industrial world -- with the majority shifting from the pro-capital right to the pro-labor left. Not only is that the case in the United States, but such a tendency is also evident in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and possibly even Australia.

The political response in the US bears special mention. Most importantly, it has not arisen out of thin air -- there are important macro-analytic reasons behind this backlash. Unlike Europe and Japan, where relatively stagnant real wages have matched up quite closely with weak or declining productivity, in the US, real compensation has been going nowhere in a rising productivity climate. Over the five-year, 2001-05 period, real compensation per hour in the nonfarm business sector expanded at just a 1.4% average annual rate -- less than half the 3.1% pace of trend productivity over this same period. While macro teaches us that, over time, workers are rewarded in accordance with their marginal product, that most assuredly has not been the case during America's newfound productivity renaissance. Moreover, recent research has pointed up the inequity of the so-called productivity dividend that has accrued to US workers. According to Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, only the top 10% of the US income distribution have experienced growth in labor income equal to or above aggregate productivity growth since 1997 (see “Where Did the Productivity Growth Go,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2005).

These issues were not lost in the recent mid-term elections in the US. Aside from the obvious referendum on Iraq, exit polls suggest that the squeeze on labor income and its distributional ramifications were uppermost in the minds of American voters. And, now, a Democratic Congress is about to find itself center stage in the battle between capital and labor. The old Congress was quite transparent as to where it is headed in this regard -- having introduced, by our count, 27 separate pieces of legislation since early 2005 that would impose some type of punitive actions on trade with China. The new Congress could go further -- not just on the trade frictions front but also in embracing additional elements of a pro-labor agenda. In fact, newly elected Democratic leaders already have promised immediate passage of the first increase in the minimum wage in ten years. In my view, these are just the early warning signs of a US Congress that is likely to be far more sympathetic to the plight of labor than it was in the past.

Nor is America alone in tilting to the pro-labor left. In France, the ascendancy of Ségolène Royal offers a modern-day mix of pro-labor politics with a protectionist bias. Italy's Prodi is also pro-labor, and in Spain, Zapatero is certainly more sympathetic to the plight of labor than Aznar was. In Germany, Merkel has tilted increasingly toward labor after she nearly lost the election running on a pro-market reform agenda. The new Abe government in Japan has teamed up with the center right in support of the \"second chance society\" -- attempting to make certain that the victims in the rough and tumble arena of global competition are given the opportunity to come back. And in Australia, Kevin Rudd, the newly anointed opposition leader, seems set to center his platform on the struggle of the average worker.

This pro-labor political tilt is as much an outgrowth of the hyper-speed of IT-enabled globalization as it is traceable to the competitive pressures bearing down on workers in both manufacturing and services. With a sense of economic insecurity moving rapidly up the occupational hierarchy -- from software programmers and engineers to medical and legal professionals -- a palpable sense of shock is spreading rapidly into the knowledge-worker occupations that have long been shielded from economic adversity. This has resulted in a serious loss of confidence in the second \"win\" of globalization -- in effect, shattering the illusion that trade liberalization would be the rising tide that lifts all boats. In response, the pendulum has swung from the theoretical promises of globalization to the self-interest of individual countries -- in essence, a \"localization.\"

I fully realize it is heresy to challenge the greatest mega-trend of our lifetime. So let me state categorically that I am not heralding the demise of globalization. What I suspect is that a partial backtracking is probably now at hand, as a leftward tilt of the body politic in the industrial world voices a strong protest over the extraordinary disparity that has opened up between the returns to capital and the rewards of labor. The extent of any backtracking is a verdict that lies in the hands of the politicians -- specifically, how far they are willing to go in legislating an effort to narrow this disparity. History does not treat the record of such political intervention all that well. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean politicians will resist the temptations to try.

An era of localization will undoubtedly have some very different characteristics from those of the recent past. The most obvious -- wages could go up and corporate profits could come under pressure. But it also seems reasonable to expect pro-labor politicians to direct regulatory scrutiny at excess returns on capital -- focusing, in particular, on the perceptions of excess returns in financial markets (i.e., hedge funds and private equity) as well as on the inequities of rewards at the upper end of the income distribution (i.e., tax cuts for wealthy citizens and the excesses of executive compensation). Moreover, localization could also spell heightened risks of protectionism -- especially if the global economy slows and unemployment starts to rise in 2007, as we anticipate. Under those circumstances, localization could ultimately give rise to accelerating inflation, higher interest rates, greater volatility in financial markets, and a potentially vicious unwinding of an over-extended credit cycle. And, of course, the protectionist ramifications of localization could prove equally challenging for the beneficiaries of globalization's first win -- dynamic new companies in the developing world and the employment growth they generate.

Don't confuse this prognosis with advocacy. Many of these potential developments, especially a drift toward protectionism, are without any redeeming merit, in my view. But this is what happens when trends go to extremes. In free-market systems, the pendulum of economic power then invariably swings the other way. An era of localization will undoubtedly have more frictions than the unfettered strain of capitalism and globalization that has been so dominant over the past decade. The big question, in my view, pertains mainly to degree -- how far the pendulum swings from globalization to localization. The answer rests with politics. The repercussions lie in economics.

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来源:摩根斯坦利,2006.12.14,作者:Stephen S. Roach
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