经济学人474:日本与安倍经济 拯救之路

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　　日本与安倍经济

　　Riding to the rescue

　　拯救之路

　　The prime minister has been given an opening. Will he take it?

　　安倍晋三已经看到了出路。那么问题来了：他会选择并走下去吗？

　　WHEN the Bank of Japan (BoJ) moved unexpectedly on October 31st, the effect was to galvanise the world's financial markets and, at home, to breathe new life into Shinzo Abe's programme to pull the country out of deflation. The scale of the central bank's action—it will print money to buy ￥80 trillion ($698 billion) of government bonds a year, equivalent to 16% of GDP—directed politics away from a string of distracting cabinet scandals.

　　日本银行在十月三十一日出人意外的举措在刺激了全球金融市场的同时，也给安倍晋三的救日本于通缩泥淖的计划带来了新的活力。此次日本央行举措的规模之大——将印刷八十万亿日元（合6980亿美元）来购买一年的国债，相当于GDP总值的16%——已经成功挤掉了闹得满城风雨的内阁丑闻事件，成为了政治热门头条。

　　Mr Abe's plans for the economy had been flagging. A rise in the consumption (value-added) tax in April had prompted an alarming drop in spending by consumers. The first shoots of inflation started to retreat. Having climbed to 1.5% in April, core inflation fell to 1% in September—far off the 2% target that the central bank had said it would achieve by the spring of 2015. Meanwhile, some spread rumours¹ that a conservative old guard at the central bank was regaining² sway and could block Haruhiko Kuroda, its governor, from fulfilling his promise to do “whatever it takes” to rid Japan of deflation.

　　安倍的经济计划也已经显出疲态。四月份开始上涨的消费（增值）税已经使消费者们的开支大幅缩水。通货膨胀刚发的嫩芽已经开始凋零。核心通货膨胀率从四月份的1.5%跌倒了九月份的1%——这比之前日本央行所说的在2015年春之前达到2%的目标可还差得远了。此外，有传言说日本央行中的一位保守阵营中的老一辈大人物正逐渐重获话语权，并可能让央行行长黑田东彦无法履行其“不惜任何代价”地为日本消除通货紧缩。

　　As it was, Mr Kuroda only narrowly won consent for the bank's move. On October 31st four of the board's nine members voted against expanding quantitative³ easing. That lack of consensus⁴ caused almost as much of a stir as the easing itself.

　　鉴于此，黑田东彦在这次事件中也只堪堪得到了过半数的支持。十月三十一日的董事会九名成员中有四名选择了反对扩大量化宽松。这种意见不一的混乱局面所引起的关注和量化宽松本身相比也不逞多让。

　　日本与安倍经济.jpg

　　Yet the BoJ's move strengthens another consensus among Japan's policymakers, which is that Mr Abe will soon be obliged to press ahead with a second rise in the consumption tax, next October, from 8% to 10%. Mr Abe has to decide by the end of this year if he is not going to, in order to introduce legislation to stop the hike. After a dreadful second quarter, when GDP shrank by an annualised 7.1%, many of Mr Abe's economic advisers⁶ are convinced that the initial rise was a mistake. A battle is on between the finance ministry⁷, which is pushing for the increase to deal with Japan's ballooning public debt, and the prime minister's office, which leans towards altering the timetable. Akira Amari, the key minister for economic reforms, seems to favour sticking to the timetable.

　　不过日本央行的这次举措倒是让日本决策者们在另一件事上更加意见一致。这指的是安倍晋三在明年十一月将不得不推行的第二轮消费税上调，将从8%上涨到10%。安倍如果不想这么办，那就得在年底前作出决定，好通过立法程序来阻止消费税的上涨。第三季度可谓凄惨，年化GDP缩水7.1%，不少安倍的经济顾问都认为最初的消费税上涨就是个错误。日本财务省力推提高消费税以期解决日本不断膨胀的公共债务，而另一边的首相一方则倾向于修改消费税上涨的时间，这便是交战的双方。经济改革中的重要大臣甘利明似乎支持保持目前的计划不变。

　　In reality, argues Gerald Curtis of Columbia University, the radical⁸ action taken by Mr Kuroda, a staunch advocate of a hike in the consumption tax in order to maintain the country's fiscal⁹ credibility, may have removed most of the prime minister's political leeway for postponing¹⁰ one. Mr Abe is likely to make his decision after final GDP figures for the third quarter are released in early December; a closely watched preliminary estimate comes out on November 17th.

　　而哥伦比亚大学的Ferald Curtis表示，实际上作为坚持要提高消费税的黑田东彦，他这次的大动作可能以及让安倍晋三在推迟税改问题上没有太多的政治余地了。安倍很有可能在十二月初时候第三季度最终的GDP数据出来后作出决定；而备受瞩目的初期预估数据将在十一月十七日公布。

　　The problem with an increase in the consumption tax is that it hits the very people who need to spend more. In similar fashion to America or Europe, quantitative easing has benefited big businesses and wealthy individuals owning shares or property in Tokyo and a few other big cities. But ordinary Japanese, notably¹¹ in the regions that are emptying of people, feel left behind. Support for Abenomics is slipping as more people feel there is little in it for them. As well as the rise in the consumption tax, households have had to contend with higher prices from a weaker yen¹², notably higher energy and fuel costs. At least these have fallen in recent weeks as global demand for oil has weakened. It is one reason Mr Kuroda felt able to act by loosening policy further. The yen weakened immediately. The news that the government pension fund will double its holdings of equities¹³, including foreign ones, has also helped drive down the yen even as it has boosted stockmarkets.

　　消费税的提高打击的正是那些需要敞开腰包多多消费的人们，而这便是问题所在。和美国或者欧洲类似，量化宽松的受益者是大型企业以及坐拥东京地产或者其他不多的几个大城市地产的富人。但是日本的普通民众，尤其是那些患无人烟地区的人们，似乎感觉是被抛弃了。越来越多的人们感觉安倍经济并没有给他们带来什么好处，于是安倍经济的支持也开始走下坡路。

　　In all the excitement over monetary¹⁴ easing, the part of Mr Abe's programme to do with structural¹⁵ reform has gone mostly unmentioned. The government has at times dangled¹⁶ the prospect¹⁷ of impressively bold reforms, such as allowing firms to fire permanent workers in return for severance¹⁸ pay while also making the employment of Japan's millions of workers on non-permanent contracts more secure.

　　在所有货币宽松所引起的骚动中，安倍晋三的结构性改革计划是最为不引人注目的。政府已经不止一次地拿大胆锐意改革的美好前景来吊人胃口了，例如，承诺公司可以通过支付买断费来解雇长期工，以此来使日本数以千万计的非长期合同工得到更多的保障。

　　In some areas, good progress on such reforms is being made, in particular over the participation¹⁹ of women at work. Some 820,000 women have joined the workforce²⁰ since Mr Abe came to office in 2012. The government will oblige large companies to publish figures on the number of women on boards. Two-fifths of career civil servants hired this year were female, a sizeable jump. The hope is that the scandals around the resignations last month of two women cabinet ministers, following minor²¹ financial misdeeds, will not prove too severe a setback²² to the government's campaign to better the lot of working women.

　　改革已经在一些领域取得成绩，尤其是在女性参与工作方面。自从安倍晋三2012年上台以来，约82万女性已经步入职场。政府要求大型公司必须公布董事会成员中的女性数量。今年所招录的公务员中有五分之二是女性，这可是一大进步。上个月两位女性内阁大臣因财务上的小过失而引咎辞职，人们希望此丑闻不会给政府为女性谋福利的努力带来太多负面影响。

　　Elsewhere, in a series of special economic zones, experiments are taking place to free up strict regulations over farming and other sectors²³. Yet overall, says Heizo Takenaka, an adviser⁵ to Mr Abe, the government's attempts are falling short. Mr Takenaka was once enthusiastic about the prospects²⁴ for stronger leadership.

　　此外，诸多经济特区已经开始了改革试验，以放宽对农业以及其他部门的管束。但是，安倍的顾问Heizo Takenaka表示，政府的表现还不够好。Takenaka曾对这届更为强势的领导层充满信心和憧憬。

　　As barons²⁵ in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party last month sought the means to silence the opposition²⁶ on the subject of political-funding scandals, speculation²⁷ grew that Mr Abe might call a snap election by the end of this year, discomfiting²⁸ an opposition in general disarray²⁹. Similar rumours swirled³⁰ following the central bank's action. Yet with a majority in both houses of the Diet guaranteed until 2016, Mr Abe already has the muscle to make real reforms. He just needs to use it.

　　上个月里执政党自民党中的大人物试图以防民之口的方式来应对人们对政府资金丑闻的非议，因此，越来越多的人们猜测安倍晋三可能在今年年末之前进行提前选举，以解决人们对这一混乱局面的反对情绪。而日本央行的此次举动也引起了类似的流言与猜测。而鉴于日本国会的参议院和众议院中大部分成员都会在2016年前保有议员身份，因此安倍晋三其实已经有了在改革上大展拳脚的资本。关键就看他是否要这样做了。

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