经济学人:淡水派与咸水派之争 凯恩斯经济学的致命缺陷

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　　因而，为了在账单到期时手里有钱，他们应当把作为刺激结果而挣到的收入存起来。

　　The multiplier on government spending might in fact be close to zero, as each extra dollar is almost entirely² offset³ by increased private saving.

　　由于每一额外的一美元几乎完全被增长了的私人储蓄所抵消，政府开支乘数实际上可能接近于零。

　　The economists⁴ behind many of these criticisms clustered in colleges in the Midwest of America, most notably⁵ the University of Chicago.

　　当时，许多这些批评背后的经济学家都聚集在美国中西部的大学中，最突出的是芝加哥大学。

　　Because of their proximity⁶ to America's Great Lakes, their approach to macroeconomics came to be known as the “freshwater” school.

　　由于临近五大湖，他们的宏观经济学策略，后来以“淡水”派而闻名。

　　They argued that macroeconomic models had to begin with equations that described how rational individuals made decisions.

　　他们指出，宏观经济学模型必需从描述理性个人如何决策的等式入手。

　　The economic experience of the 1970s seemed to bear out their criticisms of Keynes: governments sought to boost slow-growing economies with fiscal⁷ and monetary⁸ stimulus, only to find that inflation and interest rates rose even as unemployment remained high.

　　上世纪70年代的经济经历似乎证实了他们对凯恩斯的批评：试图以财政和货币刺激推动增长缓慢的经济体的政府发现，通胀和利率甚至在失业仍就居高不下时也上升了。

　　Freshwater economists declared victory.

　　淡水派经济学家宣布了胜利。

　　In an article published in 1979 and entitled “After Keynesian Economics”, Robert Lucas and Tom Sargent, both eventual⁹ Nobel-prize winners, wrote that the flaws in Keynesian economic models were “fatal”.

　　在1979年发表的一篇名为《凯恩斯主义经济学之后》的文章中，后来双双成为诺奖得主的罗伯特·卢卡斯和汤姆·萨金特写道，凯恩斯经济学模型中的缺陷是“致命的”。

　　Keynesian macroeconomic models were “of no value in guiding policy”.

　　凯恩斯宏观经济学模型“在指导政策方面毫无价值”。

　　These attacks, in turn, prompted the emergence¹⁰ of “New Keynesian” economists, who borrowed elements of the freshwater approach while retaining the belief that recessions were market failures that could be fixed¹¹ through government intervention¹².

　　这些攻击，反过来又促成了在借鉴淡水派策略的同时依旧坚信衰退是可能透过政府干预而得到修正的市场失败的“新凯恩斯主义”经济学家的出现。

　　Because most of them were based at universities on America's coasts, they were dubbed¹³ “saltwater” economists.

　　由于他们大都出自美国大西洋沿岸的大学，因而被称为“咸水”派。

　　The most prominent included Stanley Fischer, now the vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve; Larry Summers, a former treasury¹⁴ secretary; and Greg Mankiw, head of George W.Bush's Council of Economic Advisers¹⁵.

　　最著名的有现任美联储副主席斯坦利·费舍尔，前财长拉里·萨默斯和小布什经济顾问委员会主席格雷格·曼昆。

　　In their models fiscal policy was all but neutered.

　　在他们的模型中，财政政策几乎都遭到了阉割。

　　Instead, they argued that central banks could and should do the heavy lifting of economic management: exercising a deft¹⁶ control that ought to cancel out the effects of government spending—and squash the multiplier.

　　相反，他们指出，央行能够而且应当挑起经济治理的重任：实施一种应该能够消除政府开支影响——进而挤压乘数——的灵巧调控。

　　Yet in Japan since the 1990s, and in most of the rich world since the recession that followed the global financial crisis, cutting interest rates to zero has proved inadequate¹⁷ to revive flagging economies.

　　然而，自上世纪90年代以来，先是在日本，后来在富裕世界的大部分国家中，由于随着全球金融危机而来的衰退，将利率降至零已经被证明不适合于重振主要经济体。

　　Many governments turned instead to fiscal stimulus to get their economies going.

　　相反，许多政府转向了财政刺激，以推动经济体前行。

　　In America the administration of Barack Obama succeeded in securing a stimulus package worth over $800 billion.

　　在美国，贝拉克·奥巴马政府成功地确保了价值8000多亿美元的一揽子刺激计划。

　　As a new debate over multipliers flared¹⁸, freshwater types stood their ground.

　　随着一场新的关于乘数争论的升温，淡水派坚守了它们的阵地。

　　John Cochrane of the University of Chicago said of Keynesian ideas in 2009: “It's not part of what anybody has taught graduate students since the 1960s.

　　2009年，芝加哥大学的约翰.柯克兰在论及凯恩斯主义的思想时表示：“它们不是自上世纪60年代以来教给毕业生的那部分内容。

　　They are fairy tales that have been proved false.

　　它们是已经被证伪的神话故事。

　　It is very comforting in times of stress to go back to the fairy tales we heard as children, but it doesn't make them less false.”

　　在艰难时期回归我们在孩提时代听到的神话故事是非常令人欣慰的。但是，这并不能减少它们的谬误。”

　　The practical experience of the recession gave economists plenty to study, however.

　　然而，衰退的实践经历却给了经济学家很多值得研究的东西。

　　Scores of papers have been published since 2008 attempting to estimate fiscal multipliers.

　　自2008年以来，已经有数十篇试图测算财政乘数的论文出版。

　　Most suggest that, with interest rates close to zero, fiscal stimulus carries a multiplier of at least one.

　　其中大多数论文认为，由于利率接近零，财政刺激相当于至少为1的乘数。

　　The IMF, for instance, concluded that the (harmful) multiplier for fiscal contractions¹⁹ was often 1.5 or more.

　　例如，国际货币基金组织认为，对财政收缩（有害的）乘数经常大于等于1.5。

　　Even as many policymakers remain committed to fiscal consolidation²⁰, plenty of economists now argue that insufficient²¹ fiscal stimulus has been among the biggest failures of the post-crisis era.

　　即便许多决策者依旧以财政巩固为己任，但是，如今，相当多的经济学家认为，欠充分的财政刺激是后危机时代最大的失误之一。

　　Mr Summers and Antonio Fatas suggest, for example, that austerity has substantially reduced growth, leading to levels of public debt that are higher than they would have been had enthusiastic stimulus been used to revive growth.

　　例如，萨默斯和安东尼奥·法塔斯指出，紧缩极大地拉低了增长，导致了高于在令人振奋的刺激如果被用于重振增长时本应有的公共债务水平。

　　Decades after its conception, Keynes's multiplier remains²² as relevant, and as controversial, as ever.

　　在这个概念问世几十年后，凯恩斯的乘数依旧像以前那样意义重大，像以前那样充满争议。

　　1.in order to 为了

　　例句:We're not ready to disarm²³ ourselves in order to make it easier for them to kill us.

　　我们可不准备放下武器，好让他们更轻易地干掉我们。

　　2.as ever 一直；依旧

　　例句:He was by himself, alone, as ever.

　　他独自一人，一如往常。

　　3.plenty of 大量；许多

　　例句:I had plenty of space to write and sew.

　　我有足够的空间进行写作和缝纫。

　　4.financial crisis 经济危机

　　例句:This financial crisis had a much greater impact on Main Street.

　　这次金融危机对老百姓的影响更为深远。

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