特朗普时代的经济学与政策

It is no secret that the bulk of the economics profession is troubled by the Trump administration’s approach to economic policy. Now a stellar set of economists has written an anthology of highly useful analytical briefs on virtually all aspects of US economic policy in the age of Donald Trump. Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute has summarised the research effort in a column for VoxEU and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, who publish the book today. (The full book is here, and requires the reader to register for a free account.)

并非秘密的是：经济学领域的大部分人都对特朗普政府的经济政策方针感到不安。如今，一批杰出的经济学家就唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)时代美国经济政策的方方面面撰写了一部高度实用的分析文集。彼得森国际经济研究所(PIIE)的查德?鲍恩(Chad Bown)在为VoxEU和该书《Economics and policy in the Age of Trump》出版者——经济政策研究中心(Centre for Economic Policy Research)撰写的一篇专栏中，梳理了书中的研究努力。（全书可在此下载，但需要读者先注册免费账号。）

Inevitably, the book sometimes covers well-trodden territory. There are chapters on Trump’s tax reform proposals (recently also addressed by Free Lunch) and financial regulatory reform. Chapters on healthcare, immigration and labour markets also synthesise a debate that Free Lunch readers are no doubt familiar with. The third part of the book is devoted to trade policy, the subject of intense debate among economists and policymakers for some time.

不可避免的是，书中的内容有时是人们熟悉的话题。一些章节涉及特朗普的税收改革提案（最近英国《金融时报》的Free Lunch也提到这方面的改革）和金融监管改革。有关医疗、移民和劳动力市场的章节也是对Free Lunch读者肯定熟悉的一场辩论的综合提炼。本书第三部分论述的是贸易政策，这是经济学家和政策制定者一段时间以来激烈辩论的话题。

Even in familiar terrain, this book is as good a guide as one can hope to get. First of all that is precisely because it is comprehensive: if you need to quickly inform yourself about the latest controversial economic proposal from Washington, you are likely to find what you need here. (And those already informed will find off-the-shelf basic bibliographies for when they need to reference the evidence.) Second, the authors have taken unusual (for economists) care to be clear, concise, and accessible without dumbing down the analysis. Each chapter is short, to the point, and covers the essential knowledge an informed citizen needs to have. (The World Bank’s chief economist, Paul Romer, could usefully take this book as a model in his crusade for better writing from the bank.)

即使在人们熟悉的领域，本书也是一份极好的指南。首先这正是因为它全面：如果你需要快速了解华盛顿出炉的最新的有争议经济提案，你很可能会在书中找到。（那些已经了解的人，可以在他们需要参考证据的时候在这里找到现成的基本书目。）其次，作者们不同寻常（对于经济学家而言）地努力做到清晰、简洁和易于理解，同时没有降低分析水平。每一章都言简意赅，切中要害，涵盖了一位希望知情的公民需要具备的基本知识。（世界银行(World Bank)首席经济学家保罗?罗默(Paul Romer)在推动该行提高写作技巧的努力中，完全可以把本书用作样本。）

But third, these succinct chapters offer both guidance to less well-known or more abstruse policy areas — including anti-poverty and social mobility policy, the trade effect of fuel standards, “border adjustment” taxation, and trade rule enforcement policy — and have a knack of homing in on how contemporary economic research oFTen leads to more nuanced analysis than the simplistic economic reasoning sometimes dominating the policy debate (what James Kwak has called “economism”).

第三，这些言简意赅的章节既让人们了解了不那么为人所知、或比较深奥的政策领域（包括脱贫和社会流动性政策、燃油标准的贸易影响、“边境调整”税收以及贸易规则执行政策），还有助于人们了解：相比有时主导政策辩论的简单化的经济推理（郭庾信(James Kwak)所称的‘经济主义’(economism)），当代经济研究往往带来更为细腻的分析。

That means even those who follow these debates can learn something new. Arik Levinson, for instance, argues that fuel economy standards for cars “have a built-in bias equivalent to a tariff on imports ranging from $80 to $200 per car. Loosening the standards would lower those implicit tariffs”.

这意味着，即使那些追踪这些辩论的人也可能会学到新的东西。例如，阿里卡?莱文森(Arik Levinson)辩称，汽车燃油经济性标准“有着内置的偏向，相当于对每辆汽车征收从80美元到200美元不等的进口关税。放松相关标准将降低那些隐性关税”。

In another example, Emily Blanchard summarises the “trade shock” debate well: “while Nafta may have done little to boost or harm overall growth and prosperity on the continent, it has had a powerful role in redefining how and where products are made”. She then provides a useful elaboration on how cross-border supply chains make the distribution of losses and gains much more complex than traditional trade, which is why trying to leave Nafta — rather than renegotiate it — could bring about as much real harm as Nafta itself is accused of having caused.

再举一个例子，艾米丽?布兰夏德(Emily Blanchard)很好地总结了“贸易冲击”辩论：“尽管《北美自由贸易协定》(NAFTA)可能不怎么有助于提振或损害北美大陆的整体经济增长和富裕，但它对于重新界定产品如何生产以及在哪里生产产生了强大影响”。她接着详细描述了跨境供应链是如何让损失和收益的分配远比传统贸易更为复杂的，而这就是为什么试图退出该协定（而不是重启谈判）可能带来实质性损害，就像人们批评它已经造成的损害那么严重。

If there is one large and economically significant policy area the book leaves out, it is climate change which has of course become topical since Trump’s decision last week to pull the US out of the Paris agreement (the chapter on vehicle fuel efficiency bears on this topic, but narrowly). So to complete your reading, add to this book my FT colleagues’ analysis of what the US withdrawal means. As they point out, much of the climate change action takes place at the state level rather than the federal government: most US states have renewable energy or carbon emissions reduction policies in place.

如果说本书遗漏了一个巨大且具有重大经济意义的政策领域的话，那就是气候变化；自特朗普最近决定让美国退出巴黎气候变化协定以来，这个问题就变成热门话题了（有关汽车燃油效率的章节与气候变化勉强有关）。因此要想全面了解，除了这本书，再看一看我在英国《金融时报》的同事们撰写的有关美国退出巴黎协定意味着什么的分析吧。正如他们所指出的，很多气候变化行动是在各州的层面做出的，而不是联邦政府：美国多数州都实行了可再生能源或减排政策。

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made a first stab at quantifying how much the US states can achieve on their own. Their analysis gives grounds for hope. For example, states accounting for almost four-tenths of the US economy have vowed to honour the Paris agreement and continue the efforts continued US participation would have required them to contribute. On renewable energy, current state policies could “go about 60 per cent of the way toward the renewables expansion previously expected under federal policy”. The MIT note nicely states the economic rationale for climate change policy: it reduces the risk for private sector investments in green energy-related sectors that are well on their way to becoming lucrative growth industries. If the global economy is slowly, but surely decarbonising, business sectors will benefit most in those countries which have certainty over regulatory and financial incentives so as to position themselves to capture this emerging market — including, significantly, in manufacturing.

麻省理工学院(MIT)的研究人员已经首次尝试量化美国各州“单干”可能取得的成果。他们的分析给人们带来了希望。例如，占美国经济近十分之四的多个州誓言将履行巴黎气候变化协定，将继续按照美国坚守该协定所要求的去做出贡献。在可再生能源方面，当前的州政策有望“达到之前在联邦政策之下的可再生能源扩张计划的60%”。麻省理工学院的简报精辟地阐述了气候变化政策的经济逻辑：它会降低私营部门投资于绿色能源相关行业的风险，这些行业即将成为有利可图的增长型行业。如果全球经济缓慢但确定无疑地走上低碳化道路，那么在那些在监管和金融激励措施上具备确定性的国家，企业界将最受益，因为这种确定性能让它们做好定位，以占领这个新兴的市场，重要的是，这包括制造业。

There is an inevitable “know thine enemy” flavour to much of this writing, as most of the writers disapprove of the course US policymaking is currently setting. But it is an informed disapproval which often accepts some of the stated aims of the Trump administration in terms of benefiting left-behind segments of the population, while arguing that the chosen policies are counterproductive and highlighting others that would do the job better. That, surely, is what public-spirited economics is all about.

本书的很多内容不可避免地带有“分析敌情”的意味，因为多数作者反对美国政策制定目前在走的路线。但这是一种有水平的反对，经常接受特朗普政府确定的一些目标（比如让那些被全球化抛在后面的人群受益），同时提出已选择的政策会适得其反，然后着重介绍其他更好的政策。当然，这正是热心公益的经济学的意义所在。