安倍經濟學悄然取得成功

When a policy is applied for more than four years, and consistently fails to produce the intended result, it is tempting to declare it a failure. Critics of Japan’s economic stimulus declare exactly that. They are wrong. So-called Abenomics has not failed, and it should be sustained, not abandoned.

一旦一項政策實施了超過4年，又一直未能實現預期結果，人們很容易會宣稱它失敗了。日本經濟刺激政策的批評者正是這樣做的。但他們錯了。所謂的“安倍經濟學”(Abenomics)並沒有失敗，應該繼續推進，而不是放棄。

Critics of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policy, which aims to combine monetary and fiscal stimulus with structural economic reforms, make a simple case. Abenomics began in the spring of 2013. It was supposed to revive Growth and end two decades of on-and-off deflation.

日本首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)的經濟政策旨在推行貨幣和財政刺激的同時，施行結構性經濟改革。批評者們的理由很簡單。安倍經濟學於2013年春天開始實施，本應該恢復增長，並終結20年中不時出現的通縮。

Four years later, the Bank of Japan’s preferred measure of inflation is up by 0.1 per cent on a year ago. It follows, the critics say, that the medicine has not worked.

4年過去了，日本央行(BoJ)首選的通脹指標較一年前上漲了0.1%。因此批評者稱這劑藥方沒起作用。

It has indeed proved hard to ignite inflation in Japan. Since the financial crisis, low inflation has been a problem everywhere, from the US to the eurozone to the UK. But the simple diagnosis of failure ignores how much Abenomics has achieved, the difficult backdrop to these achievements, and the reality that the stimulus was much smaller than its critics imagine.

事實證明，刺激日本通脹確實很難。自金融危機以來，低通脹一直是一個世界性難題，無論是美國、歐元區、還是英國。但簡單一句政策失敗的診斷，忽視了安倍經濟學取得的諸多成績，這些成就背後艱難的大環境，以及刺激規模比批評者以爲的小得多的事實。

Growth, running at an annualised 1.2 per cent, has been well above Japan’s underlying rate every year save 2014. The unemployment level is at a 22-year low of 2.8 per cent — and that figure understates how tight Japan’s jobs market has become.

如今，日本的年化經濟增長率達1.2%，遠遠超過除2014年以外歷年的潛在增長率。失業率僅2.8%，爲22年來的低點，而這一數字仍低估了當下日本就業市場有多麼緊張。

Every shop and restaurant in Tokyo seems to have a “positions vacant” sign, and many are scrapping 24-hour opening to save labour. Yamato Transport, the country’s largest logistics company, is raising prices for the first time in 27 years in a deliberate attempt to cut volumes to a level its network can handle. Rather than cutting costs, chief executives spend their time working out how to hire and retain staff.

東京所有的商店和餐廳似乎都掛着“招人”的標誌，很多店取消了24小時營業以節省勞動力。日本最大的物流公司大和運輸株式會社(Yamato Transport)27年來首次上調價格，刻意把運輸量降至其物流網可以承受的水平。老闆們想的不再是削減成本，而是如何招人和留住員工。

After more than two decades when labour was cheap and abundant, Japanese companies are finding ways to cut back, reducing their lavish service standards rather than raising prices. But this can only go so far. Japan is primed for inflation.

在享受了20年多年既便宜又充足的勞動力後，如今日本企業正想辦法轉向，降低其過高的服務標準，而不是漲價。但他們已做到極限了。日本已經爲通脹做好了準備。

The struggles of the stimulus must also be weighed against the global economic backdrop. The plunge in 2014 in commodity prices, followed by the 2015 slowdown in emerging markets, leading to a sharp appreciation of the yen, were a terrible environment in which to generate inflation. Only with the election of Donald Trump as US president, and the subsequent rally in the yen above ￥110 to the dollar, is the global economy once again a support.

刺激政策經歷的挑戰也必須在全球經濟的大環境下進行衡量。2014年大宗商品價格跳水，緊接着2015年新興市場增長放緩（導致日元急劇升值），這種環境對於希望刺激通脹的經濟體來說是艱難的。只有在唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)當選美國總統，以及隨後日元兌美元匯率上漲至110日元兌1美元以上時，全球經濟纔再次起到支持作用。

Of all the obstacles to success, the worst was self-inflicted: a 2014 rise in consumption tax from 5 to 8 per cent. In theory, Abenomics involved a fiscal stimulus. In reality, this only ever happened for a brief time, in 2013. Over the past four years, Japan has significantly tightened fiscal policy. The predictable result was to halt momentum towards higher prices.

安倍經濟學遭遇的種種障礙中，最大障礙恰好是自己造成的：2014年消費稅從5%上調至8%。理論上，安倍經濟學包括了財政刺激政策。可事實上，財政刺激只在2013年實施了短暫一段時間。過去4年，日本顯著收緊了財政政策。可預見的後果是制止了物價上漲的勢頭。

Recently, the Abe government has realised its mistake and loosened the purse strings a little. It should continue to do so, ignoring foolish and arbitrary fiscal targets, until inflation finally does pick up. There have been policy failures over the past four years, but they all involved too little Abenomics, not too much.

最近，安倍政府意識到了自己的錯誤，稍稍放鬆了銀根。它應該繼續這麼做，不去理睬愚蠢而任性的財政目標，直到通脹水平最終回升爲止。過去4年的確有一些政策失敗了，但這全是因爲安倍經濟學實施得太少，而不是太過。

To break Japan’s deflationary mindset for good may take several more years. Workers are slow to demand higher pay and employers are reluctant to offer it. But that does not mean the effort to restore inflation has failed. Rather, it has made significant progress, in a difficult environment, where the policy’s champions often failed to act when needed. The prize is a revived Japanese economy.

想要徹底打破日本的通縮心態，可能還需要耗費數年。日本工人在要求漲薪方面較爲遲緩，僱主也不願漲薪。但這並不意味着恢復通脹的努力失敗了。事實是，日本在艱難的環境下（該政策的擁護者常常沒能在必要時採取行動）已經取得了顯著進展。獎勵就是日本經濟的復甦。