每天一篇经济学人 | The global economy 全球经济（2022年

The prospect of recession may loom over the global economy today, but the rich world's difficulties over growth are graver still. The long-run rate of growth has dwindled alarmingly, contributing to problems including stagnant living standards and fulminating populists. Between 1980 and 2000, GDP per person grew at an annual rate of 2.25% on average. Since then the pace of growth has sunk to about 1.1%.

如今，经济衰退的前景可能笼罩着全球经济，但发达国家在增长方面的困难更加严重。长期增长率惊人的下降，导致了生活水平停滞不前和民粹主义者的猛烈抨击等问题。1980—2000年，人均GDP年均增长2.25%。从那时起，增长速度已经下降到大约1.1%。

Although much of the slowdown reflects immutable forces such as ageing, some of it can be reversed. The problem is that, as we write this week, reviving growth has slid perilously down politicians' to-do lists. Their election manifestos are less focused on growth than before, and their appetite for reform has vanished. 

尽管经济放缓在很大程度上反映了老龄化等不可改变的因素，但其中一些因素是可以逆转的。问题在于，正如我们本周所写的那样，重振经济增长已经从政客们的任务清单上滑到了危险的位置。他们的竞选宣言不再像以前那样关注经济增长，他们对改革的兴趣也消失了。20世纪下半叶是经济增长的黄金时代。

The latter half of the 20th century was a golden age for growth. After the second world war, a baby boom produced a cohort of workers who were better educated than any previous generation and who boosted average productivity as they gained experience. In the 1970s and 1980s women in many rich countries flocked into the workforce. The lowering of trade barriers and the integration of Asia into the world economy later led to much more efficient production. Life got better. In 1950 nearly a third of American households were without flush toilets. By 2000 most of them could boast of owning at least two cars. 

20世纪下半叶是经济增长的黄金时代。二战后，婴儿潮产生了一批比以往任何一代人都受过更好教育的工人，他们在获得经验的同时提高了平均生产力。20世纪70年代和80年代，许多富裕国家的女性涌入劳动力市场。后来，贸易壁垒的降低和亚洲融入世界经济带来了更高效的生产。生活变得更好了。1950年，近三分之一的美国家庭没有抽水马桶。到2000年，他们中的大多数人都可以夸耀自己至少拥有两辆汽车。

Many of those growth-boosting trends have since stalled or gone into reverse. The skills of the labour force have stopped improving as fast. Ever more workers are retiring, women's labour-force participation has flattened off and little more is to be gained by expanding basic education. As consumers have become richer, they have spent more of their income on services, for which productivity gains are harder to come by. Sectors like transport, education and construction look much as they did two decades ago. Others, such as university education, housing and health care, are lumbered with red tape and rent-seeking.

自那以来，这些促进增长的趋势中有许多已经停滞不前或出现了逆转。劳动力的技能已经停止了快速的提高。随着越来越多的工人退休，女性的劳动力参与率已经趋于平稳，而通过扩大基础教育所能获得的好处微乎其微。随着消费者变得更加富有，他们把更多的收入花在了服务业上，而服务业的生产率提高则更难实现。交通、教育和建筑等行业看起来与20年前没什么两样。其他方面，如大学教育、住房和医疗，则因繁文缛节和寻租而步履蹒跚。

Ageing has not just hurt growth directly, it has also made electorates less bothered about GDP. Growth most benefits workers with a career ahead of them, not pensioners on fixed incomes. Our analysis of political manifestos shows that the anti-growth sentiment they contain has surged by about 60% since the 1980s. Welfare states have become focused on providing the elderly with pensions and health care rather than investing in growth-boosting infrastructure or the development of young children. Support for growth-enhancing reforms has withered. 

老龄化不仅直接损害了经济增长，也让选民不再那么在意GDP了。增长对未来有职业生涯的工人最有利，而不是对固定收入的养老金领取者。我们对政治宣言的分析显示，自20世纪80年代以来，宣言中包含的反增长情绪飙升了约60%。福利国家已开始专注于为老年人提供养老金和医疗保健，而不是投资于促进增长的基础设施或幼儿的发展。对促进增长的改革的支持已经萎缩。

Moreover, even when politicians say they want growth, they act as if they don't. The twin problems of structural change and political decay are especially apparent in Britain, which since 2007 has managed annual growth in GDP per person averaging just 0.4%. Its failure to build enough houses in its prosperous south-east has hampered productivity, and its exit from the European Union has damaged trade and scared off investment. In September Liz Truss became prime minister by promising to boost growth with deficit-financed tax cuts, but succeeded only in sparking a financial crisis.

此外，即使政客们说他们想要增长，他们的行为却好像他们不想要一样。结构变化和政治衰败的双重问题在英国尤为明显，自2007年以来，英国的人均GDP年增长率仅为0.4%。它未能在繁荣的东南部建造足够的房屋，这阻碍了生产力的发展，它退出欧盟损害了贸易，吓跑了投资。去年9月，利兹·特拉斯(Liz Truss)凭借承诺通过赤字融资的减税来促进增长而当选首相，但结果只是引发了一场金融危机。

Ms Truss fits a broader pattern of failure. President Donald Trump promised 4% annual growth but hindered long-term prosperity by undermining the global trading system. America's government introduced 12,000 new regulations last year alone. Today's leaders are the most statist in many decades, and seem to believe that industrial policy, protectionism and bail-outs are the route to economic success. That is partly because of a misguided belief that liberal capitalism or free trade is to blame for the growth slowdown. Sometimes this belief is exacerbated by the fallacy that growth cannot be green.

特拉斯符合一个更广泛的失败模式。美国总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)承诺每年增长4%，但破坏了全球贸易体系，阻碍了长期繁荣。仅去年一年，美国政府就出台了1.2万项新法规。今天的领导人是几十年来最集权的，他们似乎相信产业政策、保护主义和纾困是经济成功的途径。这在一定程度上是因为一种错误的信念，即自由资本主义或自由贸易是增长放缓的罪魁祸首。有时，“增长不可能是绿色的”的谬论加剧了这种信念。

In fact, demographic decline means that liberal, growth-boosting reforms are more vital than ever. These will not restore the heady rates of the late 20th century. But embracing free trade, loosening building rules, reforming immigration regimes and making tax systems friendly to business investment may add half a percentage point or so to annual per-person growth. That will not put voters in raptures, but today's growth is so low that every bit of progress matters—and in time will add up to much greater economic strength.

事实上，人口结构的下降意味着自由的、促进增长的改革比以往任何时候都更重要。这将不会恢复20世纪末令人兴奋的利率。但是，拥抱自由贸易、放松建筑规则、改革移民制度和使税收制度有利于商业投资，可能会为人均年增长率增加0.5个百分点左右。这不会让选民欣喜若狂，但如今的增长如此之低，以至于每一点进步都很重要——随着时间的推移，这些进步将积累成更大的经济实力。

For the time being the West is being made to look good by autocratic X and Russia, which have both inflicted deep economic wounds on themselves. Yet unless they embrace growth, rich democracies will see their economic vitality ebb away and will become weaker on the world stage. Once you start thinking about growth, wrote Robert Lucas, a Nobel-prize-winning economist, "it is hard to think about anything else". If only governments would take that first step.

就目前而言，专制的X和俄罗斯让西方看起来很好，这两个国家都给自己造成了严重的经济创伤。然而，除非富裕的民主国家拥抱增长，否则它们的经济活力就会减弱，在世界舞台上会变得更弱。诺贝尔经济学奖得主罗伯特•卢卡斯(Robert Lucas)写道，一旦你开始考虑增长问题，“就很难再去考虑其他问题”。如果政府能迈出第一步就好了。