每天一篇经济学人 | Britain's real problem 英国真...

Low economic growth is a slow-burning crisis for Britain

对英国来说，低经济增长是一场逐渐到来的危机

Britain's problem is not just Boris Johnson

英国的问题不仅仅是鲍里斯·约翰逊

Conservative mps’ half-hearted vote to endorse Boris Johnson as prime minister, on June 6th, betrayed how deeply Britain’s ruling party fails to confront hard choices. A defeat for Mr Johnson would have ushered in a new government, with a chance to prove itself before the next election. A resounding victory would have given him a fresh mandate to show that he had put his transgressions behind him. The irresolute blow the rebels inflicted leaves Britain in the hands of a washed-up cabinet mouthing grandiloquent promises it cannot honour.

当地时间6月6日晚间，英国下议院保守党议员针对该党党首、英国首相鲍里斯·约翰逊进行不信任投票。最终，359名保守党议员中有148人投票希望约翰逊下台，未达到通过不信任动议所需要的180票；211名保守党议员在表决中支持约翰逊。

【1】resounding 轰动的；惊人的

【2】washed-up 完蛋了的；精疲力尽的

【3】grandiloquent 言辞浮夸的

6月6日，保守党议员勉强地投票支持鲍里斯·约翰逊担任首相，这暴露了英国执政党在面对艰难抉择方面的无能。如果约翰逊失败，他将迎来一个新政府，并有机会在下次选举前证明自己。一场惊人的胜利将给他一个新的授权，以表明他已经将自己的“过失”抛诸脑后。反对者所造成的犹豫不决的打击使英国落在了一个精疲力竭的内阁的手中，而这个内阁只会夸夸其谈一些无法兑现的承诺。

This newspaper has long argued that Mr Johnson ought to have resigned for lying repeatedly to Parliament about whether he broke his own laws. But hypocrisy and deceit do not begin to capture the wider problem that he and his country face. Britain is stuck in a 15-year rut. It likes to think of itself as a dynamic, free-market place, but its economy lags behind much of the rich world. There is plenty of speechifying about growth, and no shortage of ideas about how to turn the country round. But the mettle and strategic thinking that reform requires are absent—another instance of Tories ducking hard choices.

【1】speechify 喋喋不休

【2】mettle 奋斗精神

【3】strategic 战略的；关键的

【4】duck 躲避；回避；逃避

长期以来，本刊一直认为约翰逊应该辞职，因为他一再向议会谎报自己是否违反了自己的法律。但虚伪和欺骗并没有反映他和他的国家面临的更广泛的问题。英国在长达15年的时间里墨守成规。它认为自己是一个充满活力的自由市场，但它的经济落后于许多发达国家。关于增长的高谈阔论比比皆是，关于如何让这个国家好转的想法也层出不穷。但其缺乏改革所需要的勇气和战略思维，这是保守党回避艰难抉择的另一个例证。

Britain’s stagnation also holds lessons for other slow-growing countries, many of them in Europe. Lower GDP means declining global influence, faltering faith in free markets and less money for public services. A struggle over fixed resources fires the populism that turns politics into an ugly fight about identity. The shortage of funds for investment entrenches tired and inefficient institutions. Worst of all, the lack of growth limits Britons’ scope to flourish.

英国的经济停滞也为其他增长缓慢的国家提供了教训，其中许多国家位于欧洲。GDP的下降意味着全球影响力下降，对自由市场的信心动摇，公共服务资金减少。争夺固定资源的斗争激起了民粹主义，将政治变成了一场关于身份认同的丑陋斗争。投资资金的短缺使陈旧低效的机构陷入困境。最糟糕的是，经济增长乏力限制了英国人的发展空间。

The idea that Britain has a growth problem is not new. But few realise how deep a hole it is in. Whereas average annual GDP growth over the decade preceding the global financial crisis of 2007-09 was 2.7%, the new normal is now closer to just 1.7%.

英国存在增长问题的观点并不新奇。但很少有人意识到这一窘境有多深。在2007-2009年全球金融危机之前的十年间，平均年GDP增长率为2.7%，而现在的新常态接近于1.7%。

Plenty of countries suffered from the financial crisis and covid-19. But Britain’s problems run deeper. In 2022 GDP per head will be more than 25% lower than America’s, measured at purchasing-power parity. Britain has been declining against America and Germany since the mid-2000s. Average wages now lag behind America’s by about as much as Poland’s do Britain’s.

金融危机和新冠肺炎疫情殃及不少国家。但英国的问题更加严重。按购买力平价计算，2022年人均GDP将比美国的人均GDP低25%以上。自2000年代中期以来，英国一直落后于美国和德国。现在其平均工资落后于美国的比例大约相当于波兰落后于英国的那样。

Underlying this is feeble productivity. In the decade to 2007, British productivity growth was second only to America’s in the G7. In the decade to 2019, growth in output per hour worked stalled to just 0.7% a year, making Britain the second-slowest in the g7; only Italy was slower. Had Britain’s productivity growth rate not fallen after the financial crisis, GDP per person in 2019 would have been £6,700 ($8,380) higher than it is.

这背后的根本原因是生产力疲软。在截至2007年的十年间，英国的生产率增长在七国集团中仅次于美国。在截至2019年的十年间，每小时工作产出的增长停滞至每年0.7%，这使英国成为七国集团中第二慢的国家；只领先于意大利。如果英国的生产率增长比例在金融危机后没有下降，2019年的人均GDP将比现在高出6700英镑(8380美元)。

At least in the short run, Brexit has made matters worse. Business investment is lower than when the referendum took place. Since the end of 2020 firms trading with the European Union have faced extra paperwork, customs delays and higher taxes. In the last quarter of 2021 Britain exported 16% less than at the end of 2019. Global goods trade, by contrast, grew by nearly 6%.

至少在短期内，英国脱欧让事情变得更糟。其商业投资低于公投时的水平。自2020年底以来，与欧盟进行贸易的公司面临着额外的文书工作、海关延误和更高的税收。在2021年的最后一个季度，英国的出口比2019年底减少了16%。相比之下，全球商品贸易增长了近6%。

The outlook is poor, too. The OECD predicts that next year GDP in Britain will be stagnant. Official forecasts show that real take-home pay will be lower in five years than it is today, eaten away by higher taxes and consumer-price inflation that, at 9%, is the highest among big rich economies.

【1】take-home pay [扣除税款后的] 实得工资

【2】eat away 侵蚀；腐蚀；蚕食

其前景也不容乐观。经合组织预测明年英国的GDP将停滞不前。官方预测显示，实际税后收入在五年内会比现在更低，这主要是受更高的税收和消费价格通胀的影响，消费价格通胀达到9%，这在发达国家中最高。

Part of the problem is that boosterish politicians talk so much nonsense about growth. The statistics are noisy and complex enough for a clever civil servant to find a number that paints Britain in a favourable light. Don’t be fooled. Self-delusion stifles fresh thinking about policy, one reason Britain’s economic debates have been tangential to growth, harmful even. For most of the 2010s politicians obsessed about cutting deficits. Budget discipline is important, but hardly a cure for Britain’s ills. In a speech this week Mr Johnson was to propose unlocking growth by letting people use housing benefits to buy houses.

【1】to be tangential to sth 与某事不相干

【2】boosterish

[释义] very enthusiastic and confident about how good or successful something is or will be, often more than is reasonable

部分问题在于那些乐观的政客们对于“经济增长”胡说八道。这些统计数据纷繁复杂，足以让一个聪明的文官找到一个对英国有利的数字。别被骗了。自欺欺人扼杀了对政策的新思考，这也是英国经济辩论与经济增长无关，甚至有害的原因之一。在2010年代的大部分时间里，政治家们都痴迷于削减赤字。预算纪律很重要，但很难治愈英国的弊病。在本周的一次演讲中，约翰逊提议通过让人们使用住房福利购买房屋来释放增长。

“Levelling up”, a theme of this government, could in theory focus on raising the productivity of workers and capital in Britain’s left-behind regions. In practice, it seems to put redistribution before output. That may be the just thing to do, but it is naive to expect that sending pots of public money to Britain’s poorer places will increase the size of the national pie.“

升级”是本届政府的一个议程，从理论上讲，它可以把重点放在提高英国落后地区的工人生产率和资本水平上。实际上，它似乎把再分配置于产出之前。这也许是正确的做法，但指望把大量的公共资金送到英国较贫穷的地方就能增加国家蛋糕的规模，未免太天真了。

When it comes to growth, Britain’s politicians will the ends but not the means. They run scared of the homeowning elderly, who turn up to vote and make up a growing share of the electorate. So tax rises are heaped on businesses and workers instead, further harming the economy. The government has likewise watered down its plans for reforming the planning system—because elderly homeowners object.

在经济增长问题上，英国的政客们只会追求目标，而不是手段。他们害怕拥有住房的老年人，这些人参加投票，在选民中所占的比例越来越大。因此，增税反而施加给企业和工人，这进一步损害了经济。政府同样也缓和了其改革规划系统的计划，因为老年房主反对。

A change of government may not fix the problem. Parts of Labour grasp the challenge. But the party is fixated on outbidding the Tories over levelling up, and is less likely than the Conservatives to reform public services in a way that will lower costs and taxes. 

政府迭代可能无法解决问题。部分工党人意识到了这一挑战。但是，工党一心想在“升级”议程上超过保守党，并且它不太可能像保守党那样以降低成本和税收的方式改革公共服务。

Britain has been here before. In 1979, in opposition, Margaret Thatcher lamented its declining economic standing. “Travel abroad, and see how much better our neighbours are doing,” she urged Tory supporters. Her uncompromising reforms led to nearly three decades in which British living standards closed on those in the rest of the rich world.

英国以前就有过这样的经历。1979年，作为反对党的玛格丽特·撒切尔哀叹英国日益衰落的经济地位。她敦促保守党的支持者们“去国外旅行，看看我们的邻居做得有多好”。她毫不妥协的改革使得英国的生活水平在近三十年里一直接近其他发达国家。

The stagnation nationOver the coming months we will look at growth in Britain and how to fix it. Some solutions are familiar but politically difficult, like solving the housing crisis in south-east England and boosting trade with the eu. Others involve fresh thinking to harness the potential of the country’s universities and life-sciences firms, and to expose managers to competition. 

在接下来的几个月里，我们将关注英国的经济增长以及如何解决这个问题。有些解决方案耳熟能详，但在政治上很困难，比如解决英格兰东南部的住房危机，以及促进与欧盟的贸易。另一些则涉及到新思维，利用该国的大学和生命科学公司的潜力，以及让管理人员面临竞争。

Britain’s advantages, from the English language to the common-law system, have not gone away. However, under the dishonest, unserious—and now politically wounded—Mr Johnson, Britain is at threat from rising barriers to trade, an ageing electorate and rigid planning. Britain suffers from complacency, born of centuries as a first-rank economy, and Johnsonian bluster only exacerbates it. If Britain is to avoid a bleak future it must grasp reform. That will require a once-in-a-generation show of political courage, persuasion and policy ingenuity. Just like four decades ago, there is no alternative. 

从英语语言到英美法系，英国的优势并没有消失。然而，在不诚实、不严肃(现在在政治上受到了伤害)的约翰逊先生的领导下，英国正面临着贸易壁垒上升、选民老龄化和规划僵化的威胁。英国饱受自满之苦，几个世纪以来它一直是一流经济体，约翰逊的夸口只会加剧这种自满情绪。如果英国想避免暗淡的未来，就必须抓紧改革。这需要展现出千载难逢的政治勇气、说服力和政策智慧。就像40年前一样，别无选择。