向经济衰退宣战

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Bartleby 来自一天一篇经济学人 00:00 05:27

Waging war on recessions

向经济衰退宣战

英文部分选自经济学人20200620期Business版块

Waging war on recessions

向经济衰退宣战

An early analysis of Denmark’s furlough scheme

丹麦带薪休假计划的早期分析

Since the  emergence of the welfare state, adults who want to work have generally found themselves in one of two positions: earning a wage from their job or receiving unemployment benefits. The pandemic has led many people to find themselves in a halfway stage— furlough . This often involves the state paying a large slice of employees’ wages so that firms can keep them on the payroll during the lockdown .

自福利国家出现以来，想工作的成年人通常面临以下两种处境：要么靠工作赚钱，要么靠领取失业救济金。而疫情却使许多人处于了两者之间—— 带薪休假。这种情况下， 政府会支付员工一大部分工资，以便企业在疫情封锁期间保留其岗位。

How effective is this approach? A new paper* by Morten Bennedsen of INSEAD business school in France and colleagues surveyed 8,781 Danish firms with anywhere between three and 2,000 employees. Around two-thirds of the firms said that the effect of the pandemic on their revenues had been negative, or very negative. Of those companies that had experienced a fall in revenues, the median decline was 35%.

这种方法效果如何？欧洲工商管理学院(INSEAD)的莫顿•本尼森(Morten Bennedsen)及同事最近发表了一篇论文，对8,781家员工人数在3 至2,000人之间的丹麦公司进行了调查。约三分之二公司表示，新冠疫情对其收入造成了不同程度的负面影响。收入下降公司的下降幅度中位数为35 ％。

The Danish government offered a variety of financial-aid programmes to firms, including a furlough scheme which paid 75% of salary costs (subject to a cap) to eligible companies. The academics found that 56% of the firms surveyed had taken some form of government aid and this was true of almost all businesses that had suffered a revenue decline of more than 50%. Unsurprisingly, companies in the most distressed industries were most likely to have taken assistance.

丹麦政府已向企业提供了各类经济援助计划。以其中一项带薪休假计划为例，对符合条件的企业，政府承担其75％的薪酬支出（有上限规定）。学者发现，在受调查的公司中有 56％都接受了一定形式的政府援助，收入降幅超过50％的公司几乎无一例外。行业冲击最严重的公司最有可能接受政府援助，这并不意外。

The aid seemed to work. Firms that received it laid off fewer workers and furloughed more people than firms which received no aid at all. But, as the authors of the study point out, this definition of success might be subject to a selection bias—firms that wanted to furlough workers may have been likelier to apply for aid.

政府援助计划似乎确有成效。相比而言，接受了援助的公司裁员规模更小，带薪休假的员工更多。 但正如该研究作指出的那样，这种对于成功的定义也许会受样本选择性偏差的影响，因为想让员工带薪休假的公司更有可能去申请援助。

注：

Selection bias: 选择性偏差，选择性偏差指的是在研究过程中因样本选择的非随机性而导致得到的结论存在偏差。 Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved.   具体请查阅 

https://www.zhihu.com/question/29769549

So they also asked firms a counterfactual question: what decisions would they have taken had they been unable to get aid? On this basis, the researchers estimate that taking the aid increased a firm’s furloughed workers as a share of its total workforce by about 20 percentage points, and decreased the share of laid-off workers by almost the same amount.

因此研究人员也向这些公司询问了一个反事实的假设性问题：如果无法获得援助，你们会怎么做？在此基础上，研究人员估计援助让公司带薪休假的员工在总员工中的占比提高了约20个百分点，裁员数量的比例则几乎减少了相同的百分点。

If these findings are replicated elsewhere, furlough schemes may be adopted in future recessions. Some commentators point to the record of Germany, which suffered a much smaller rise in unemployment than other rich countries during the recession in 2008-09 because of a scheme that subsidised short-term working.

如果这些研究结果同样适用于其他情况， 那么带薪休假援助方案在将来经济衰退时或许也可以使用。有评论员就提到了德国的例子： 2008-09金融危机期间，由于政府补贴了短期工种，德国失业率相较于其他富裕国家涨幅更小。

There are two obvious concerns about such support schemes. The first is the cost. The British scheme, which started in March, is expected to cost around £60bn ($75bn) by the scheduled end in October, or a bit less than 3% of GDP. The second problem is that such schemes may prevent the necessary role that recessions play in “creative destruction”, whereby resources are reallocated from failing businesses to successful ones (see Free exchange). The survival of “zombie” companies may make the next recovery less vigorous .

然而此类援助计划会引发两个明显的担忧。首先是成本。英国援助计划从三月开始，按计划到十月结束时将花费共600 亿英镑（5238亿人民币），相当于GDP的近3% 。 其次，这类援助计划使得经济衰退无法起到必要的“创造性破坏” 作用，也阻止了资源从没落产业向成功产业的再分配过程。（见Finance and Economices 板块《Free exchange 》一文）  活下来的“僵尸” 公司可能会 有损之后经济复苏的活力。 

On cost, the counterargument is that widespread job losses lead to deep recessions and thus sharp declines in government revenues. They can also be bad news for laid-off workers who may take years to find another job. Paying money upfront to reduce the severity of a recession can thus be a good investment in both social and economic terms.

成本方面，支持带薪休假者认为大规模失业会加剧经济萧条，使政府收入锐减。这对可能花费数年才能找到新工作的失业工人也是噩耗。因此，通过预发工资来降低经济萧条的严重程度，不论是对社会还是经济领域都是不错的投资选择。

It would be great if governments could save only companies that have a viable long-term future. The analogy might be an old rule of thumb among central bankers  that they should lend money in financial crises to banks that have a liquidity problem, not a solvency one. In practice, however, financial crises in recent decades have been so acute that central banks have mostly been unable or unwilling to discriminate. Similarly, while governments have imposed conditions on wage-support schemes in the current crisis, their main priority has been to dole out aid as quickly as possible in order to save jobs.

如果政府只救济那些前途光明的公司，这当然很好。就如同中央银行家信奉的经验法则一样，金融危机时，他们只为存在流动性问题的银行提供贷款，而不是偿还能力有问题的银行。但实际上，近几十年的金融危机情况严峻，大多数中央银行已经无法或不愿对企业区别对待。同样，此次危机中，尽管政府为工资救济计划设定了条条框框，但首要目的还是尽快施以援助，避免失业。

注：

1. Rule of thumb : a broadly accurate guide or principle, based on experience or practice rather than theory

2. dole out :  to give something, such as food or money, to a particular group of people or to every person in a group 发放，发给 例子：  I got out my wallet and began to  dole out the money. （选自《朗文双解》）同义词：give out, share , deal out, distribute   

A lot more research is clearly needed to see whether furlough support schemes will have adverse long-term economic effects. The longer the schemes are in place, the more likely it is that market distortions will occur. But the principle that governments should intervene to support struggling banks and unemployed workers, as a way of reducing the severity of recessions, has long been established. It is conceivable to think that furlough schemes might eventually be viewed in the same light.

显然，带薪休假类的救助计划对经济是否有长期负面影响还需更多研究加以佐证。这类项目实施的时间越长，市场就越可能出现扭曲。我们早就确立了这样一条原则，那就是政府应该及时介入，帮助那些深陷困境的银行及失业工人以减缓经济萧条。可以相信，最终人们也会以相同的眼光审视带薪休假计划。

注：

1.Market distortion： an economic scenario that occurs when there is an intervention in a given market by a governing body. The intervention may take the form of price ceilings, price floors, or tax subsidies . Breaking Down Market Distortion Market distortions create market failures, which is not an economically ideal situation.

2.In the same light: if you see sth or put sth in the same light, it seems the same.

* “The impact of public aid programs on distressed firms: Evidence from COVID-19 in Denmark”, by Morten Bennedsen, Birthe Larsen, Ian Schmutte and Daniela Scur

《公共援助困境公司之影响：剖析丹麦应对新冠疫情》—莫顿• 本尼森 （Morten Bennedsen）、博斯· 兰森（Birthe Larsen）、依安·斯穆特（ Ian Schmutte）、丹妮拉·斯科（Daniela Scur ）。

翻译组：

 Elle，女， 靠着土豆腿前行的小土豆

Hannah，女，教书匠，经济学人粉丝

Angela，女， Northwestern 本科在读， double major 数学哲学

校对组：

Clark ，一笔，汽车公关行业

Lixia ，我视英语为初恋，英语瞧我想备胎

Monica ，女 MTler,死不悔改的理想主义者

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观点|评论|思考

本次感想

Rena，坐标墨尔本的留学生，爱笑爱摄影爱看书

真福利Or 跷跷板？

在我刚出国时，时常看到街边有许多三五成群的流浪汉，就地乞讨，或是在垃圾箱内翻找剩烟头过一把街头烟瘾，这魔幻的一幕幕一点点使得我不由去质疑西方国家大力推进的福利政策，底层百姓在这样的制度内，抑或选择衣来伸手，饭来张口的月度补贴金，或是在街头一瘫，啥也不怕，结伴乞讨也颇具特色。然而，随着疫情在全球的肆虐，欧洲国家也不能置身事外，数万个新增病例后，是多少个入不敷出的中小企业和千万个挣扎在温饱线的普通员工。面对这种局势，底层人究竟何去何从？

相比于德国的补贴短期工种职业政策，从根上刺激了工作岗位 雇佣的需求，创造了更多就业机会。丹麦推出的带薪休假政策，不过是一个在全球疫情局势下暂缓颓势的跷跷板。 “兴，百姓兴；亡，百姓亡”，这句古话正是印证了福利政策应该以人民的角度出发，落脚在老百姓的利益之上，才有意义。反观此次丹麦政府提出的带薪休假类救助计划，无异于在当前森林的熊熊失业烈火上，浇上了一小盆水，缓得了近忧，却解不了远虑。

对在疫情中幸运的保住了自己工作的人来讲，在大幅降薪面前，因为有了带薪休假的制度，所以眼前的路无非就是“辞职”拍拍屁股走人，一家老小走上申请救济金之路，抑或是接受眼前的带薪政策。可曾经丰厚的收入，现如今被动减薪留职，这到底是出于人民的需求，还只是为了维持社会稳定的一个暂行“跷跷板”？在补助面前人人平等，每个公司平等是否真的能够做到？没有数据的分析都是纸上谈兵，结合援助报告和资金分配，可以发现，人人平等按下不谈，连公司平等，行业平等都极难端平，那么在失去了一视同仁的资格后，评定带薪留职的好与坏又怎能不按行业按职位去细化？显然，在福利这条路上，在华贵的旗袍外，里头跳蚤隐隐作祟。

不由得想起曾经遇到过的街边流浪汉们，有的只需要一个毯子一个被子，有的每天都在翻找烟头，有的见到路人就要上来要钱。这年头，流浪汉都有了差异化竞争，福利制度还在一刀切吗？