宏观经济的另一半

THE OTHER HALF OF MACROECONOMICS

创立于20世纪40年代末的宏观经济学学科,其基本假设是私人部门总是追求利润最大化。目前来看,现有宏观经济学仅仅反映了经济现实的两个阶段之一。被忽视的另一个阶段是私人部门追求债务最小化的阶段,这个阶段有助于解释经济陷入长期停滞以及量化宽松、零利率甚至负利率政策无法达到预期效果的原因。考虑到经济和收入增长放缓已经成为许多发达国家面临的紧迫问题,对于经济学家来说,是时候诚实面对宏观经济的另一半了。只有正确理解了宏观经济图景的另一半,政策制定者才有可能制定正确的政策措施,摆脱当前发达国家面临的经济停滞与通货紧缩等困境。

The discipline of macroeconomics, which was founded in the late 1940s and was based on the assumption that the private sector always seeks to maximize profits, considered in its short history only one of the two phases an actual economy experiences. The largely overlooked other phase, in which the private sector may instead seek to minimize debt, can help explain why economies undergo extended periods of stagnation and why the much-touted policies of quantitative easing and zero or even negative interest rates have failed to produce the expected result. With sluggish economic and wage growth becoming a pressing issue in many developed countries, it is time for economists to leave their comfort zones and honestly confront the other half of macroeconomics. Once the other half of macroeconomics is understood both as a post-bubble phenomenon and as a phase of post-industrial economies, it should be possible for policymakers to devise appropriate measures to overcome the difficulties faced by advanced countries today, including stagnation and deflation.