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发表于 2007-2-2 11:47
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Japan’s future looks brighter than Germany’s
% f5 A# T9 E3 x4 xBy Wolfgang Munchau Published: January 14 2007 19:02 | Last updated: January 14 2007 19:02 Japan’s stagnation began with an asset price crash; Germany’s was brought on by unification. In both cases, lousy economic policies made a bad situation worse.
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Japan and Germany are both back from the brink. Last week, Germany’s statistics office confirmed that gross domestic product had expanded by a respectable 2.5 per cent in 2006, the highest rate since 2000. The headline figures for Japan in 2006 are going to be a little worse. Annual GDP growth for the calendar year 2006 is estimated to be approximately 2 per cent. 8 b2 \; W ^& |/ _
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; O- l: O3 d- E( W* }: F/ {" p& |2 irs238848.rs.hosteurope.deOf the two countries, Germany is currently the clear favourite among global investors. Is this optimism justified, in absolute terms and relative to Japan? One of the most interesting analyses I have heard is from Adam Posen, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, and one of the few people who can claim to be an expert on both countries. Contrary to popular opinion, he regards the Japanese economic recovery as far more solid than Germany’s. In a forthcoming book on Germany*, he argues that the German political economy is more constraining than Japan’s. He puts Germany’s potential output at less than 1.5 per cent and Japan’s at about 2 per cent, and concludes that the tendency of political economists to lump Germany and Japan together is mistaken. ; |1 U5 K" `& U* o& D3 `5 _
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What are the reasons for his scepticism about Germany and optimism about Japan? He gives four. First, Germany has deep structural problems in the business and banking sectors. Yet most reforms to date were in labour or pensions, while in Japan they were primarily in financial markets and business governance. Second, Germany has never had restrictive monetary and fiscal policy, as its growth problems are primarily structural; in Japan, the slowdown in the 1990s was mostly due to bad macroeconomic policies. Third, Japan has a strong state and weak civil society so reforms could be pushed through; in Germany, the opposite is true. And, unlike Germany, Japan’s corporate governance and banking policies reward big companies and banks. As a result, Mr Posen argues, Japan got innovation and economies of scale, whereas Germany suffered what he calls “arrested development”. 人在德国 社区7 ~7 M- N! Q* v" Z+ `& x4 X: f
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The consensus among some of the more impressionable investors and economists about Germany is that the Hartz IV labour market reforms are already paying off in terms of higher economic growth. There is even talk about a new economic miracle. The simple truth is that Germany is going through a cyclical upswing. Last year was probably the peak of the current cycle. Yet, while the GDP growth rate was good, the economy managed only a modest increase in domestic demand ? GDP minus net exports ? of 1.7 per cent. rs238848.rs.hosteurope.de: Z3 o1 b; P+ ?& W) s
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The most startling statistic is how last year’s bounty was shared between shareholders and workers. Wages went up by 1.3 per cent in real terms ? after a 0.7 per cent decline in 2005. But profits went up by an incredible 6.9 per cent in 2006, and this after a 6.2 per cent rise in 2005. Since 2000, we have observed a large structural shift in favour of profits. During the 1990s, there were years in which wages grew much faster than profits, and vice versa. While the distribution between profits and wages was always volatile, at least it was mean-reverting over long periods. The current shift towards profits has been both unusually large and persistent. rs238848.rs.hosteurope.de" R( v2 L t* D
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( D$ V2 n8 V( a/ J& TThis is good news for investors and bad news for German workers. But is it bad news for the German economy? One argument is that Germany entered monetary union at an overvalued exchange rate and has since improved its relative competitiveness. If this view were correct, one would expect the labour/profit share to return to mean-reverting behaviour. I doubt that this is going to happen soon. * y* ^; Y4 c" ~3 z
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Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo economics institute, has put forward another, far more alarming and controversial, theory. He believes that Germany is a bazaar economy, in which industrial production and pre-production are outsourced, mostly to central and eastern Europe and Asia, while domestic industries are reduced to final assembly plants. He argues that the German export success is a sign of weakness, not strength. If his theory were correct, Germany would be a great country to invest in but not to live in.
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I am not sure whether this is a correct diagnosis either. At least, there is not yet enough empirical evidence to validate it. In any case, it is fair to say that Germany’s post-unification economic performance is not fully understood at this point. We have a slightly better understanding of Japan. Economists may question the commitment to economic reforms by Shinzo Abe, the new prime minister. But Japan has at least undertaken the right kinds of reform, both structural and in monetary and fiscal policy.
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6 O4 ^+ C R7 N% T& KGermany, by contrast, has relied mainly on a cost-cutting strategy. But Germany is not reforming its archaic wage-setting mechanisms, it is not breaking up its energy oligopolies and it not privatising its Sparkassen and Landesbanken (publicly owned banks). I have no doubt that Germany will eventually do the right thing, but Japan is currently ahead of Germany in terms of reforms. It is therefore rational to consider Japan’s long-term economic prospects as brighter.
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* S7 h: e0 O5 _. |6 d*Reform and Growth in a Rich Country: Germany, Peterson Institute, forthcoming! J1 }( z$ ?" v( }4 T% J0 O
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[ 本帖最后由 日月光 于 2007-2-2 11:50 编辑 ] |
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