More pain than gain--得不偿失
关键词： 得不偿失 More pain than gain得不偿失
Many workers are missing out on the rewards of globalisation
很多工人并没有享受到全球化带来的好处
RICH countries have democratic governments, so continued support for globalisation will depend on how prosperous the average worker feels. Yet workers' share of the cake in rich countries is now the smallest it has been for at least three decades (see chart 5). In many countries average real wages are flat or even falling.
富国有民主的政府，所以对全球化的不断支持将取决于普通工人能否从中获的好处。然而在富国，工人们从中得到的好处恐怕是至少在这三十年来最少的。在很多国家，一般真实工资水平保持不变甚至还有所下降。
Meanwhile, capitalists have rarely had it so good. In America, Japan and the euro area, profits as a share of GDP are at or near all-time highs (see chart 6). Corporate America has increased its share of national income from 7% in mid-2001 to 13% this year.
与此同时，资本家们从中得到的却从未比这更好过。在美国，日本和欧元区，利润作为gdp的一部分已经或接近达到空前的高度。美国企业界已将其利润在国民收入中的份额从2001年中期的7%增加到今年的13%。
Like so many other current economic puzzles, the redistribution of income from labour to capital can be largely explained by the entry of China, India and other emerging economies into world markets. Globalisation has lifted profits relative to wages in several ways. First, offshoring to low-wage countries has reduced firms' costs. Second, employers' ability to shift production, whether or not they take advantage of it, has curbed the bargaining power of workers in rich countries. In Germany, for example, several big firms have negotiated pay cuts with their workers to avoid moving production to central Europe. And third, increased immigration has depressed wages in sectors such as catering, farming and construction.
正如很多目前其他的经济学难题一样，收入从劳动力到资本的重新分配很大程度上被解释为是由于中国，印度和其他新兴经济体进入了世界市场。全球化已经在几个方面提高了与工资有关的利润。首先，在境外低工资水平的国家投资已经降低了公司的成本。其次，雇主转移生产的能力，不论他们是否利用这种能力，已经限制了富国工人讨价还价的能力。在德国，举个例子，几个大的公司已经就减薪和他们的工人们谈妥以避免将生产转移到中欧。再次，增加的移民已经降低了诸如服务，农业和建筑这些部门的工资水平。
Most of the fears about emerging economies focus on jobs being lost to low-cost foreign competitors. But the real threat is to wages, not jobs. In the long run, trade and offshoring should have little effect on total employment in rich countries; rather, they will change its composition. So long as labour markets are flexible, job losses in manufacturing should eventually be offset by new jobs elsewhere. But trade with emerging economies can have a big impact on both average and relative wages.
对新兴经济体的担忧绝大部分是集中在工作会被低成本的外国竞争者抢走。但是真正的威胁是对工资水平的，而不是工作。从长远看来，贸易和境外投资对富国总的就业上并不会有什么影响，尽管它们会改变就业的结构。只要劳动力市场是弹性的，在制造业失业的人将最终在其他的地方找到新的工作。但是与新兴经济体的贸易对一般和相对的工资水平都会有很大的影响。
Over long periods of time, real wages tend to track average productivity growth. But so far this decade, workers' real pay in many developed economies has increased more slowly than labour productivity. The real weekly wage of a typical American worker in the middle of the income distribution has fallen by 4% since the start of the recovery in 2001. Over the same period labour productivity has risen by 15%. Even after allowing for health and pension benefits, total compensation has risen by only 1.5% in real terms. Real wages in Germany and Japan have also been flat or falling. Thus the usual argument in favour of globalisation—that it will make most workers better off, with only a few low-skilled ones losing out—has not so far been borne out by the facts. Most workers are being squeezed.
在长期内，真实工资水平趋于紧随平均生产力增长水平。但是目前为止的十年内，在很多发达国家,工人的真实工资比劳动生产率增长的还要缓慢。一个处于收入分布中部的典型的美国工人的真实周工资已经自2001复兴之初开始下降了4%。而在相同时期，劳动力生产率则上升了15%。即使考虑到健康和养老的利益，总的补偿在真实水平上也就上升了仅仅1.5%。德国和日本的真实工资水平也同样保持不变或者有所下降。赞同全球化的人通常认为它能使绝大部分工人受益，仅有很少的一部分低技能的工人会被淘汰。然而这种看法似乎并没有得到事实的支持。绝大部分工人正在被剥削。
If GDP per person is growing fairly briskly, why are most workers missing out on real pay rises? Partly because a bigger share is going to profits, and partly because high earners have pocketed a huge slice of the gains in income, causing inequality to widen. America's top 1% of earners now receive 16% of all income, up from 8% in 1980. Wage inequality in Europe and Japan has also increased, but not by as much.
如果人均GDP增长相当快速，那为什么绝大部分工人还是会享受不到真实工资的增长呢？一部分原因是利润占了更大的部分，另一部分原因是高收入者把收入的大头装进了自己口袋，这使得不平等加剧。美国1%的高收入者目前拥有所有收入的16%，在1980年这个数据是 8%。工资不平等在欧洲和日本也有所上升，但并没有美国这么显著。
A decade ago, the consensus among economists was that increasing wage inequality was caused mainly not by trade but by information technology, which has raised the demand for skilled workers relative to unskilled ones. Today, a growing number of economists agree that trade is playing a bigger role. It is hard to separate the impact of globalisation and IT on relative wages because they both reduce the demand for lowskilled workers. But now that the majority of workers are losing out, the finger of blame points at globalisation.
十年前，经济学家们普遍认为日益明显的工资不平等主要不是由贸易而是信息技术造成的。后者提高了相对于非熟练工人的熟练工人的需求。今天，越来越多的经济学家认为贸易正起着更大的作用。正因为全球化和信息技术都会减少对低技能的工人的需求，所以很难将二者对在相对工资水平的影响上进行区分。但是现在大部分工人被取代，全球化也成了千夫所指。
It's all comparative
全是比较优势惹的祸
Traditional trade theory, based on the ideas of David Ricardo, a 19th-century economist, argues that economies gain from trade by specialising in products where they have a comparative advantage. Developed economies have lots of skilled workers, whereas emerging economies have lots of low-skilled ones, so according to the theory advanced countries will specialise in capital-intensive products requiring skilled labour and emerging economies in low-tech products. Competition from cheaper imports will reduce the wages of unskilled workers in developed economies, but workers as a whole will be better off.
传统的贸易理论建立在19世纪经济学家大卫.李嘉图的观点上。他认为通过专注生产具有比较优势的产品进行贸易可以获得利润。发达国家有很多熟练的工人，而新兴经济体有很多低技能的工人，所以根据这个理论，发达国家将专著于需要熟练劳动力的资本密集型产品的生产上而新兴经济体则专著于低技术的产品的生产上。来自更廉价的进口商品的竞争将降低发达国家不熟练工人的工资水平，但工人作为一个整体的福利将会得到提高。
Yet, according to the evidence above, the average worker does not seem to be enjoying his fair share of the fruits of economic prosperity. Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard University, points to several reasons why the traditional theory may need modifying. The first is that the sheer size of the emerging giants' labour forces has shifted the global capital-labour ratio (which determines the relative rewards of capital and workers) massively against workers as a group. The entry of China, India and the former Soviet Union into market capitalism has, in effect, doubled the world supply of workers, from 1.5 billion to 3 billion. These new entrants brought little capital with them, so the global capital-labour ratio dropped sharply. According to economic theory, this should reduce the relative price of labour and raise the global return to capital—which is exactly what has happened.
然而，根据上面的证据，一般的工人似乎并没有享受到其应得的经济繁荣的好处。哈佛的经济学家Richard Freeman指出了传统理论需要修改的几点理由。首先是新兴巨人的劳动力的完全规模已经将全球资本-劳动力比率大幅减小，这个比率决定了资本和工人的相对报酬。中国，印度和前苏联已经进入市场资本主义。这实际上将全球劳动力的供给提高了一倍，从15亿提高到30亿。这些新进入者自身的资本非常少，所以全球资本-劳动力比率下降迅速。根据经济理论，这将降低劳动力的相对价格并提高全球资本收益。这些也已经正在发生。
Over time, competition should reduce profit margins and distribute benefits back to consumers and workers in the form of lower prices. But downward pressure on wages in rich countries could continue for a long time. China still has perhaps 200m underemployed rural workers who could move to factories over the next two decades, so wages for low-skilled workers are rising more slowly than productivity, reducing China's unit labour costs.
随着时间的推移，竞争将会减少获利的空间并以低价格的形式将利益返回分配给消费者和工人。但是在富国工资水平向下的压力可能会持续很久。中国在下面20年中仍将有大约2亿无职业的农民工会进入工厂,所以低技能的工人的工资水平比生产率上升的慢的多，这也减少了中国的单位劳动成本。
A second reason why the traditional trade model needs modifying has to do with a rise in emerging countries' skill levels. It used to be thought that only rich countries had educated workforces able to produce skill-intensive goods, but poor countries have invested heavily in education in recent years, allowing them to start competing in more sophisticated markets. Every year, 1.2m engineers and scientists graduate from Chinese and Indian universities, as many as in America, the European Union and Japan combined and three times the number ten years ago (see chart 7). In 1970 America accounted for 30% of all university enrolments worldwide; now its share is down to around 12%.
传统贸易理论需要修改的另一个原因则于新兴国家的技能水平的提高有关。曾经认为只有富国才有能够生产技术密集型产品的受教育的劳动力，但是穷国在最近几年在教育上投入巨大，这让它们开始在更成熟的市场上竞争。每年，120万工程师和科学家在中国和印度的大学里毕业，这个数量目前和美国，欧盟和日本的总和相当，在十年前则是其的三倍。在1970年，美国大学的学生占全球大学生的30%，现在则下降到只有12%。
The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that only one-tenth of engineering graduates in China and one-quarter in India would meet the standards expected by big American firms. But this will improve over time. A report by the World Bank also points out that a large share of engineering graduates in China and India become civil and electrical engineers, needed for the boom in domestic construction. There are not enough engineers and scientists to produce high-tech goods across the board. But it remains true that there has been a big increase in the global supply of educated as well as unskilled workers.
McKinsey Global Institute预测在中国和印度分别只有十分之一和四分之一的工程专业毕业生能达到美国大公司的标准。但是这将随着时间改变。来自World Bank的一份报告也指出中国和印度工程专业毕业生很大一部分会成为土木和电力工程师，为国内建设的急速发展所需。全面的看并没有足够的工程师和科学家来生产高科技的产品。但是，豪无疑问有经验（或熟练的）工人和非熟练工人的数量在全球范围内已经大幅增加了。
A third flaw in the traditional trade model, says Mr Freeman, is its assumption that rich countries would make high-tech products and developing economies low-tech ones. In fact, rich countries no longer have a monopoly on high-tech capital and know-how. The OECD says that in 2004 China overtook America as the world's leading exporter of informationtechnology goods. This exaggerates China's move up the ladder: laptop computers, mobile phones and DVD players are no longer cutting-edge technology, and they are typically only assembled in China by foreign firms, with most of their high-value components being imported. Even so, the faster spread of technology to poor countries is weakening the rich world's comparative advantage in high-tech sectors. As emerging economies start to export high-tech goods and services, this reduces the prices of such products in world markets, and hence the wages of skilled workers in the developed world.
Freeman说传统理论的第三个缺陷在于它的假设。它假定富国会制造高科技的产品而发展中国家则制造的是低端的产品。事实上，富国已经不再在高端的资本和技术上处于垄断。OECD说在2004年中国超过美国成为世界上最大的信息技术产品出口国。这在一定程度上夸大了中国的发展速度：笔记本电脑，手机和DVD播放器已经不在是最尖端的，而且典型的他们只是在中国由外国的公司进行组装，而大部分高价值的组件都是来自进口。即便如此，技术的更快向穷国传播正在削弱富国在高科技领域的比较优势。随着新兴经济体开始出口高科技产品和服务，这在世界市场上降低了这类产品的价格，随之降低的是发达国家熟练工人的工资水平。
White-collar blues
白领蓝领化
It is no longer just dirty blue-collar jobs in manufacturing that are being sucked offshore but also whitecollar service jobs, which used to be considered safe from foreign competition. Telecoms charges have tumbled, allowing workers in far-flung locations to be connected cheaply to customers in the developed world. This has made it possible to offshore services that were once non-tradable. Morgan Stanley's Mr Roach has been drawing attention to the fact that the “global labour arbitrage” is moving rapidly to the better kinds of jobs. It is no longer just basic data processing and call centres that are being outsourced to low-wage countries, but also software programming, medical diagnostics, engineering design, law, accounting, finance and business consulting. These can now be delivered electronically from anywhere in the world, exposing skilled white-collar workers to greater competition.
现在不仅制造业中的那些脏兮兮的蓝领工作被其他国家的（工人们）逐渐蚕食，那些被认为在国外竞争面可以前高枕无忧的白领服务性工作也岌岌可危。电信的费用已经大幅下降，这使得在遥远的地区的工人们能够以很低的成本与发达国家的顾客进行联系。这使得服务这种曾经不可贸易商品也可以在境外提供。Morgan Stanley的 Roach先生一直注意到这样一个事实，这就是“全球劳动力套利”正在转移到更好的工作种类上。不再仅仅是基本的数据处理和呼叫中心被外包给低工资国家，软件编程，医疗诊断，工程设计，法律，会计，金融和商业咨询也正在被外包给低工资国家。这些现在都可以从世界上任何地方电子化传送。这使得熟练的白领工人面临更大的竞争。
The standard retort to such arguments is that outsourcing abroad is too small to matter much. So far fewer than 1m American service-sector jobs have been lost to offshoring. Forrester Research forecasts that by 2015 a total of 3.4m jobs in services will have moved abroad, but that is tiny compared with the 30m jobs destroyed and created in America every year. The trouble is that such studies allow only for the sorts of jobs that are already being offshored, when in reality the proportion of jobs that can be moved will rise as IT advances and education improves in emerging economies.
对这种论据标准的反驳就是国外的外包规模很小根本不会有什么太大影响。到目前为止接近100万个美国服务部门的工作已经丢到了境外。Forrester Research预测到2015年在服务部门总共会有340万份工作被转到国外，但是相对于美国每年消失和新创造的3000万个工作机会而言的确是非常少。问题在于这样的研究仅考虑到那些已经被移往境外的工作，但实际上能够被转移的工作的比率将会随着新兴国家的信息技术的发展以及教育的提高而上升。
Alan Blinder, an economist at Princeton University, believes that most economists are underestimating the disruptive effects of offshoring, and that in future two to three times as many service jobs will be susceptible to offshoring as in manufacturing. This would imply that at least 30% of all jobs might be at risk. In practice the number of jobs offshored to China or India is likely to remain fairly modest. Even so, the mere threat that they could be shifted will depress wages.
Princeton大学的经济学家Alan Blinder认为绝大部分的经济学界正在低估转移到境外的破坏性影响，而且在未来相当于制造业被转移的工作的两到三倍的服务业的工作也可能被转移。这可能意味着有至少30%的工作可能有风险。而在事实上转移到中国或者印度的工作数目可能仍然相当少。即使如此，单就他们可能被转移的威胁就足以降低工资水平。
Moreover, says Mr Blinder, education offers no protection. Highly skilled accountants, radiologists or computer programmers now have to compete with electronically delivered competition from abroad, whereas humble taxi drivers, janitors and crane operators remain safe from offshoring. This may help to explain why the real median wage of American graduates has fallen by 6% since 2000, a bigger decline than in average wages.
而且，Blinder先生说到，教育并不能提供任何的保护。通过电子化传输，高技能的会计，放射学家或者计算机的编程员现在不得不参与到来自国外的的竞争。而粗俗的计程车司机，守卫和起重机驾驶员这些工作依然很安全不会有被移到海外的危险。这可能有助于解释为什么美国毕业生的中等真实工资水平自2000年以来已经下降了6% ，比一般工资水平下降的多。
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the pay gap between low-paid, low-skilled workers and high-paid, highskilled workers widened significantly. But since then, according to a study by David Autor, Lawrence Katz and Melissa Kearney, in America, Britain and Germany workers at the bottom as well as at the top have done better than those in the middle-income group. Office cleaning cannot be done by workers in India. It is the easily standardised skilled jobs in the middle, such as accounting, that are now being squeezed hardest. A study by Bradford Jensen and Lori Kletzer, at the Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, confirms that workers in tradable services that are exposed to foreign competition tend to be more skilled than workers in non-tradable services and tradable manufacturing industries.
在20世纪80年代以及90年代早期，低收入低技能工人和高收入高技能工人之间的收入差距显著增大了。但是自从那时起，根据David Autor, Lawrence Katz和 Melissa Kearney的一项研究，在美国，英国和德国，底层和顶层的工人比中等收入的工人的表现要好。在印度,办公室清理找不到人干。现在类似于会计这种中等的而且其技能很容易被标准化的工作是被压榨的最厉害的。来自Washington, DC国际经济研究所的Bradford Jensen 和 Lori Kletzer的一项研究则肯定了暴露在外国竞争下的从事可贸易服务的工人势必比那些从事不可贸易的工人和可贸易的制造业工人的技能要求更高。
Ride on, Ricardo
加油，李嘉图
None of this makes a case for protectionism. Offshoring, like trade, is beneficial to developed economies as a whole. The increased mobility of capital and technology does not invalidate the theory of comparative advantage, as some commentators like to argue. China and India cannot have a comparative advantage in everything; they will export some things and import others. Emerging economies' comparative advantage will largely remain in labour-intensive industries. A country's trading pattern is determined by its relative capital intensity compared with other economies. Emerging economies still have relatively little capital, so they are unlikely to become significant capital-intensive exporters until their capital-to-labour ratio catches up. That will take time. Developed economies will retain their comparative advantage in knowledge-intensive activities because they have relatively more skilled labour, but that advantage will be eroded more quickly in future.
对贸易保护主义而言这些都不是问题。境外投资，如同贸易一样，对发达国家作为一个整体而言是有利的。资本和技术更具流动性。然而这并没有像一些讲解员常说的那样使得比较优势理论无效。中国和印度不可能在任何东西上都具有比较优势，他们也会出口一些东西同时进口另一些东西。新兴经济体的比较优势很大程度上将仍然停留在劳动密集型工业上。一国的贸易形式决定于它与其他国家相对的资本密集度。新兴经济体拥有的资本依然相对很少，所以，除非他们的资本-劳动力比率赶上发达国家，否则他们是不可能成为资本密集型出口者。当然这需要时间。发达国家将保持他们在知识密集型产业的相对优势，原因在于他们的劳动力的技能相对更高。但这种优势在未来被消除的可能更快。
The developed economies as a whole will still benefit hugely from trade with emerging economies. Increased competition and greater economies of scale will boost the growth in productivity and output. Consumers will enjoy lower prices and a greater variety of products, and shareholders will enjoy higher returns on capital. Although workers will continue to see their pay squeezed, they can still gain as
consumers or as shareholders, either directly or through their pensions. The snag is that richer people own more shares, so the increased return on capital tends to reinforce income inequality.
作为一个整体发达国家将仍然会从与新兴经济体的贸易中获利丰厚。更强的竞争以及更大的规模经济都将促进生产率以及出口量的提高。消费者们将会享受到低廉的价格和丰富的商品，股东们则将会享受到资本的更高回报。尽管工人们将继续看到他们的收入被压榨，他们依然可以作为消费者或者是股东而从中获利，要么是直接的，要么可以通过他们的养老金。隐患在于更富有的人拥有的股票更多，所以资本增加的收益倾向于增加收入的不平等。
In recent years the stagnation of real wages in America has been masked by surging house prices, which make families feel better off. If the housing market stumbles and the growth in pay remains feeble, there will be increased calls for the introduction of import barriers, restrictions on overseas investment and higher taxes on profits. But in a globalised economy, such measures would be worse than useless. Firms would simply move their head offices to friendlier countries.
在最近几年美国真实工资水平的停滞被大幅上涨的房价所掩盖。房价的上涨让普通的美国家庭觉得情况更好。但是如果房地产市场大跌而收入的上涨依然乏力，那势必会有人会呼吁采取进口壁垒，控制海外投资以及对利润征收更高的税。但是在全球化的经济中，这样的措施不但没用反而它们会使境况更糟。公司可能更容易将它们的总部转移到更友好的国家。
The fact that many workers seem to be excluded from the spoils of globalisation is a big challenge to orthodox economics. Many of its practitioners refuse to come clean about the costs to workers of trade with emerging economies for fear of handing ammunition to protectionists. At the same time, protectionists exaggerate those costs and ignore the benefits. It is time for a more honest debate about trade.
很多工人似乎并没有从全球化中得到好处的事实给传统经济学提出了挑战。很多经济学家因为怕授贸易保护主义者以口舌而不愿意把与发展中国家贸易后对工人造成的不利影响全盘脱出。同时，贸易保护者则夸大这些不利影响并忽略其好利的影响。对贸易进行更诚实的辩论的时机应该到了。
Heading off the political backlash
警惕贸易保护主义抬头
A study by the Institute for International Economics estimates that globalisation is benefiting America's economy by $1 trillion a year, equivalent to $9,000 a year for every family. But in practice the average family has not seen such a gain because much of it has gone to those at the top or into profits. This explains the lack of support for globalisation from ordinary people. Unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash. Rather than block change, governments need to ease the pain it inflicts in various ways: with a temporary social safety-net for those who lose their jobs; better education to equip workers for tomorrow's jobs; and more flexible labour markets to encourage the creation of new jobs.
国际经济研究所的一项研究预测全球化使美国的经济每年获利1 trillion 美元，相当于每个家庭每年9000美元。但实际上，一般的美国家庭并没有看到这项收入。这是因为其中很大一部分被那些处于收入顶层的获得或者变成了利润。这也解释了为什么一般人并不支持全球化。除非找到解决真实工资上涨乏力以及不平等日益加剧的方法，否则贸易保护主义很可能高涨。与其阻止变化，政府需要在很多方面减轻其造成的痛苦：为那些失去工作的人建立临时的社会安全网；为那些从事明天工作的工人提供更好的教育；增加劳动力市场的弹性从而鼓励创造更多的工作。
More controversially, governments may need to redistribute the benefits of globalisation more fairly through the tax and benefits system. Studies suggest that countries with more generous social welfare policies are less likely to support protectionism. For instance, one reason why opposition to offshoring in Europe is less vocal than in America is that European health-care systems tend to be independent of employment, whereas in America losing your job means losing your health insurance too. In a riskier labour market, there may be a stronger case for health care to be financed by the state rather than by firms. Tax redistribution does not mean a return to taxing high earners at 70-80%, which would blunt economic incentives. Instead, scrapping tax breaks such as those given to home-buyers could make the tax system more progressive.
更有争议的是，政府可能需要通过税收和社会福利体系将全球化的好处重新进行更为公平的分配。研究表明那些具有更慷慨的社会福利政策的国家更不可能支持贸易保护主义。比如，在欧洲反对境外投资的声音就比美国小，其原因就在于欧洲的医疗保健体系与就业是独立的，而在美国失业也就意味着失去你的健康保险。在更具风险的劳动力市场，医疗保障更需要由政府而不是公司来提供。税收的重分配并不是说要对高收入者重新征收70-80%税率的税，这会有损对经济的刺激。相反，抹去优惠税率，比如那些给予买房者的优惠税率，可能会使税收系统更具完善。
It is often argued that generous social-insurance and redistribution policies are inconsistent with globalisation because in an open world governments cannot raise taxes and spending in isolation. But if real wages continue to stagnate and no compensation is forthcoming, political support for globalisation may fade and the vast gains from the biggest economic stimulus in world history will be lost.
人们常争论到慷慨的社会保险政策和重分配政策与全球化会相互矛盾，因为政府不能在一个开放的世界增税和孤立的消费。但是如果真实的工资水平继续停滞不前而且将来也没有任何补助，对全球化的政治支持将减弱。从世界历史上最大的经济刺激中得到的巨大收益也将会消失。
翻译 by shiyi18
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