2022年经济学人 劳动力与资本的抬价之战(1)

Finance & Economics

财经版块

Labour v capital

劳动力与资本

The battle of the markups

抬价之战

Companies are raising prices; workers are demanding higher wages. Who is winning?

企业在抬高物价；工人在要求涨薪。究竟谁会是赢家？

“A good compromise”, the saying goes, “is when both parties are dissatisfied.” Dissatisfaction rages in the post-lockdown economy. Households say that price-gouging companies are jacking up prices, contributing to an inflation rate across the rich world of 6.6% year on year.

正如那句谚语所说，“良好的妥协会令双方都不满意”。疫情封锁后的经济中处处都是不满。百姓认为哄抬物价的企业抬高了价格，导致富裕国家的通货膨胀率同比达到了6.6%。

Companies bat such accusations¹ aside, believing that they are the truly wronged party. They complain that staff have become work-shy ingrates who demand ever-higher wages. Earlier this month Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, courted controversy² by suggesting that workers should moderate their wage demands—even as he failed to tell companies not to raise their prices.

企业对此说法嗤之以鼻，认为他们才是真正的冤大头。他们抱怨员工变成了不愿工作，还想要史上最高薪的白眼狼。本月早些时候，英格兰银行的行长安德鲁·贝利因建议工人降低薪资预期而招致了争议——但是他没能阻止企业抬高物价。

A “battle of the markups”, between higher wages and higher shop prices, is under way. And there can only be one winner, all else being equal.

更高的薪资与更高的物价之间的“抬价之战”正在进行。在其他条件都一样的情况下，只能有一个赢家。

Broadly speaking, economic output must flow either to owners of capital, in the form of profits, dividends³ and rents, or to labour, as wages, salaries and perks⁴. Economists⁶ refer to this as the “capital” or “labour” share of gdp. Which of the two has the upper hand in the post-lockdown economy?

一般来说，经济产出要么以利润、股息和租金的形式流向资本所有者，要么以工资、薪水和津贴的形式流向劳动力。经济学家将其称为GDP的“资本”或“劳动力”份额。在疫情封锁后的经济中，这两者谁占了上风?

The Economist⁵ has compiled a range of indicators⁷ to answer this question. First we calculate a high-frequency measure of the capital-labour share across 30 mostly rich countries.

为了回答这个问题，《经济学人》编制了一系列指标。首先，我们计算了30个主要是富裕国家的资本-劳动力份额的高频测量。

In 2020 the aggregate⁸ labour share across this group soared. This was largely because firms continued to pay people’s wages—helped, in large part, by government-stimulus programmes—even as gdp collapsed⁹. Advantage, labour.

2020年，这些国家的总劳动力份额占比大幅上升。这在很大程度上是因为即使是在GDP崩溃的时候，企业依然继续支付员工工资——大部分得益于政府的刺激计划。这时占优势的一方是劳动力。

More recently, however, the battle seems to have shifted in favour of capital. Since reaching a peak in 2020 the rich-world labour share has fallen by 2.3 percentage points.

然而，近来，斗争的天秤似乎已经偏向了资本。自2020年达到峰值以来，富裕国家的劳动力份额下降了2.3个百分点。

Frustratingly¹⁰, the data only go up to September 2021—and most economists anyway argue that labour’s share is not a perfect gauge¹¹ of economic fairness, since it is devilishly hard to measure. The evidence since then suggests that countries fall into one of three buckets, depending on how the battle of the markups is playing out.

令人沮丧的是，数据只维持到了2021年9月——总之，大多数经济学家认为，劳动力份额并不是衡量经济公平的完美标准，因为它极其难以衡量。自那以来的证据表明，根据抬价战的结果，各国可分为三类。

In the first camp is Britain. There, underlying¹² wage growth is in the region of 5% a year, unusually fast by rich-world standards. But corporations seem not to have a great deal of pricing power, meaning that they are struggling to fully¹³ offset¹⁴ higher costs in the form of higher prices.

第一类是英国。在那里，每年的实际工资增长为5%，按照富裕国家的标准，这个增速异常之快。但企业似乎没有很大的定价权，这意味着它们正努力用涨价的方式来完全抵消成本的上涨。

Digging into Britain’s national accounts, we estimate that the nominal¹⁵ profit in pounds per unit of goods and services sold is only roughly as high as it was in early 2019, even as unit labour costs are rising by about 3% per year. Labour seems to be winning out at the expense of capital. Perhaps Mr Bailey has a point.

深入研究英国的国民经济核算，我们估计，虽然单位劳动力成本每年上升约3%，但每单位商品和服务的名义利润(以英镑计算)仅与2019年初大致持平。劳动力似乎在以牺牲资本为代价的方式赢得胜利。也许贝利先生有他的道理。

1 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

2 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

3 dividends   

红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金

参考例句：

• Nothing pays richer dividends than magnanimity. 没有什么比宽宏大量更能得到厚报。
• Their decision five years ago to computerise the company is now paying dividends. 五年前他们作出的使公司电脑化的决定现在正产生出效益。

4 perks   

额外津贴，附带福利，外快( perk的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Perks offered by the firm include a car and free health insurance. 公司给予的额外待遇包括一辆汽车和免费健康保险。
• Are there any perks that go with your job? 你的工作有什么津贴吗？

5 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

6 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 indicators   

（仪器上显示温度、压力、耗油量等的）指针( indicator的名词复数 )； 指示物； （车辆上的）转弯指示灯； 指示信号

参考例句：

• The economic indicators are better than expected. 经济指标比预期的好。
• It is still difficult to develop indicators for many concepts used in social science. 为社会科学领域的许多概念确立一个指标仍然很难。

8 aggregate   

adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合

参考例句：

• The football team had a low goal aggregate last season.这支足球队上个赛季的进球总数很少。
• The money collected will aggregate a thousand dollars.进帐总额将达一千美元。

9 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

10 frustratingly   

参考例句：

• Some programs set this limit too close, resulting in frustratingly temperamental scroll behavior. 一些程序将这种限制设置得太窄，导致滚屏的行为变幻无常，令人沮丧。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• But the process is frustratingly slow. 但这过程慢得让人郁闷。 来自互联网

11 gauge   

v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器

参考例句：

• Can you gauge what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gauge one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

12 underlying   

adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的

参考例句：

• The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
• This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。

13 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

14 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

15 nominal   

adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的

参考例句：

• The king was only the nominal head of the state. 国王只是这个国家名义上的元首。
• The charge of the box lunch was nominal.午餐盒饭收费很少。