每天一篇经济学人 | Stimulus in the pandemic 大...

It was a criminal’s paradise. In June 2020 a firm in Milan secured a €60,000 ($63,300) government loan to cope with the pandemic-induced downturn. But the business did not exist. The Italian government had in fact sent cash to the ’Ndrangheta Mafia of Calabria. The same month six French citizens swindled €12m in unemployment benefits by claiming funds for employees at 3,600 shell companies. A Texan man filed loan applications for 15 made-up firms and pocketed $24.8m in government support.

那是罪犯的天堂。 2020年6月，米兰的一家公司获得了6万欧元(63,300美元)的政府贷款，以应对疫情——引发的低迷。 但是这个生意并不存在。 事实上，意大利政府曾向卡拉布里亚的“Ndrangheta黑手党”(Ndrangheta Mafia)送过钱。 同月，6名法国公民通过向3600家空壳公司的员工索要资金，骗取了1200万欧元的失业救济金。 一名德州男子为15家虚构的公司提交了贷款申请，并获得了2480万美元的政府支持。  

As countries scale back unparalleled emergency-relief programmes there is growing interest in where the funds went. The IMF estimates that since January 2020 governments have doled out $15.5trn in nonhealth-care spending and loans in response to the covid-19 pandemic. The rush to support households and firms led to poor procurement, messy programmes and inadequate oversight. The best estimates of fraud, so far, are from Britain and America; other countries, where wrongdoing may well have been more prevalent, lack audits tracing where the money went. In America at least 4.5% of funding under the CARES Act, the largest pandemicstimulus bill, went to cheats. applying that figure globally suggests that nearly $700bn could have ended up in the wrong hands.

随着各国缩减前所未有的紧急情况——救济项目，人们对资金流向的兴趣日益浓厚。 国际货币基金组织估计，自2020年1月以来，各国政府已发放了15.5万亿美元的非卫生-医疗支出和贷款，以应对covid-19大流行。 急于支持家庭和企业导致了糟糕的采购，混乱的项目和不充分的监督。 到目前为止，对欺诈行为最好的估计来自英国和美国; 在其他国家，不法行为可能更为普遍，但缺乏追踪资金去向的审计。 在美国，最大规模的刺激法案——《关怀法案》(CARES Act)下至少4.5%的资金流向了欺诈行为。 在全球范围内应用这一数字表明，近7000亿美元可能最终落入坏人之手。  

In Britain fraud and error—losses due to crime and mistaken payments—across five economic-relief schemes exceed £16bn ($21bn), roughly a tenth of the £166bn spent, according to official reports. That tally could well rise: the National Audit Office calculates that fraud from just one of the programmes, the Bounce Back Loan Scheme—whose reported losses account for a quarter of the sum—could reach £26bn, 55% of its total spending, when investigations come to a close.

官方报告显示，在英国，五个经济项目中的欺诈和错误(犯罪和错误支付造成的损失)救济计划超过160亿英镑(合210亿美元)，约为支出1660亿英镑的十分之一。 这一数字很可能还会上升:国家审计署估计，在调查结束时，仅从其中一个项目，即“反弹贷款计划”(Bounce Back Loan programme)——其报告的损失占总金额的四分之一——的欺诈行为就可能达到260亿英镑，占总开支的55%。  

Spending in America was larger—and so was the waste. The Secret Service reckons $100bn has been stolen from the $2.2trn CARES Act. If pre-pandemic fraud levels were sustained, at least $87bn in unemployment insurance—which got a budgetary bump during the pandemic—would have been captured by crooks. Auditors reckon the true fraud rate is much higher.

美国的支出更大，浪费也更大。 美国特勤局(Secret Service)估计，价值2.2万亿美元的《关怀法案》(CARES Act)中有1000亿美元被盗。 如果大流行前的欺诈水平持续下去，那么至少870亿美元的失业保险——在大流行期间预算有所增加——将会被骗子窃取。 审计人员认为真实的欺诈率要高得多。  

Scams and mismanagement are inevitable in programmes of such a scale. But past stimulus efforts were cleaner. In the decade since the financial crisis, investigators recovered only $57m in fraudulent funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, an $840bn stimulus package. Cheats continue to be exposed over time, but even if all cases still being audited are confirmed as criminal, the programme’s fraud rate will reach only 0.6%. Other government schemes lose less, too. The rate of total health-care fraud in America hovers at around 3%. Britain mistakenly overpaid around 1.5% of work and pension benefits a year in the decade to 2019. 

在如此规模的项目中，欺诈和管理不善是不可避免的。 但过去的刺激措施要干净得多。 在金融危机爆发后的10年里，调查人员仅从8400亿美元的经济刺激方案《2009年美国复苏与再投资法案》(American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009)中追回了5700万美元的欺诈性资金。 随着时间的推移，欺诈行为不断被曝光，但即使所有仍在审计的案件都被确认为刑事案件，该项目的欺诈率也只会达到0.6%。 其他政府计划的损失也较小。 在美国，医疗欺诈的比率()徘徊在3%左右。 在截至2019年的十年间，英国错误地每年多支付了1.5%的工作和养老金。  

The covid19 stimulus waste estimates, by contrast, are alarming—especially as the true extent of fraud could take years to uncover. But some misspending may have been unavoidable. When crisis struck economists urged governments to do whatever it took to avoid colossal damage. Speedy action did just that. America distributed stimulus cheques to 90m people in less than a month. In rich countries real disposable income per person rose by 3% in 2020. That kind of offset might not have been possible with slower, more carefully crafted policies. 

相比之下，2019冠状病毒19刺激计划浪费的估计数字令人担忧，尤其是考虑到欺诈的真实程度可能需要数年才能发现。 但一些开支的浪费可能是不可避免的。 当危机袭来时，经济学家敦促政府采取一切措施避免巨大的损失。 迅速的行动做到了这一点。 美国在不到一个月的时间里向9000万人发放了经济刺激支票。 在富裕国家，人均实际可支配收入在2020年增长了3%。 如果采取更缓慢、更谨慎的政策，这种抵消可能是不可能的。  

More scrutiny is coming. In March three dozen Republican senators demanded more transparency about how funds were spent before signing up to more pandemicrelated funding. Joe Biden has appointed a chief prosecutor to take down criminals who tried to profit from the pandemic. And some justice is already being served. The French fraudsters were arrested and the Texan creator of fictional firms pleaded guilty to money-laundering. As for the Mafia in Milan? The Italian government caught on and froze their assets.

更多的审查即将到来。 3月，36名共和党参议员要求在签署更多与流行病相关的资金之前，提高资金使用的透明度。 乔·拜登任命了一名首席检察官，以抓获试图从疫情中获利的罪犯。 一些正义已经得到了伸张。 这两名法国诈骗犯已被逮捕，一名虚构公司的得克萨斯州创始人承认犯有洗钱罪。 米兰的黑手党呢? 意大利政府发现了，冻结了他们的资产。