“有竞争力的通缩”模式

【作者】 王玉柱；

【导师】 傅钧文；

【作者基本信息】 上海社会科学院 ， 世界经济， 2014， 博士

【摘要】 “通缩”具有过程和结果双重政策含义,作为过程,其主要表示反通货膨胀(disinflation)的政策实践；作为结果,其主要表示通货紧缩(deflation)的经济现象。本文在论证这个概念过程中主要从过程视角分析德国联邦银行、联邦政府及当前欧洲央行的政策实践。“有竞争力的通缩”的政策含义是德国经济在“通缩”政策实践的基础上产生的竞争力溢出效应的过程和结果。本文从原德国联邦银行货币政策实践出发,分析德国紧缩的货币和财政政策对德国出口竞争力的影响机制。在欧元区框架内,通过制度比较的方式分析欧洲央行货币政策设计与联邦银行之间的关联,在此基础上分析不同成员国受到的非均衡制度冲击。本文以央行独立性为研究切入点,在文献分析的基础上,本文首先分析了德国央行货币政策独立性改革的历史背景。二战后,盟军主导下的货币政策体制改革奠定了联邦银行独立于政府的法律地位。除了盟军的推动外,德国货币政策的彻底转型则是对一段国家和民族历史的反思。佛莱堡学派奠基人欧肯所创立的社会市场经济理论是基于对传统历史学派的批判与继承的基础上发展而来,其学生艾哈德将这一理念付诸于德国的政策实践,形成了德国央行政策模式特有的宏观经济环境。联邦银行独立性货币政策实践建立在健全的法律机制基础上,受到了德国民众的广泛拥护。尤其是二战后德国强劲的经济增长完美地塑造了联邦银行良好的国际形象。德国马克较早地实现了国际化,并成为其他欧洲国家的“货币锚”,德国联邦银行的政策实践因此获得了强大的公信力。在经历央行与政府的多次对峙后,德国联邦政府最终认可了央行的政策实践并逐步转变自身的政策行为,在国内采取较为保守的财政政策,在国际上努力推动联邦银行的制度模式。七十年代中后期,世界经济在经历两次石油危机的冲击后,陷入“滞涨”的困境中,联邦银行的政策实践进一步获得世界其他国家的追捧,联邦政府在对外货币政策协调中逐步将联邦银行从后台推向前台。在欧洲货币政策一体化实践中,联邦银行成为实际意义上的领导者,将联邦银行的相关准则写入欧洲货币制度一体化的章程中。在世界新自由主义的风潮中,联邦银行强调的物价稳定、政府支出限制等政策理念逐步被其他成员国接受。欧洲范围内最终实现了从德国联邦银行到欧洲央行的制度复制。本文将联邦银行的政策实践放在德国式新自由主义框架内加以分析,将德国政策实践过程进一步总结为“有竞争力的通缩”模式。在此基础上以低通胀预期为视角,分析央行货币政策对实际有效汇率低估及劳动力成本压制的传递效应。进而建立贸易增长与相关变量之间的实证模型,得出德国央行的政策实践最终有利于德国出口经济的结论。这一过程中,尤其突出德国紧缩性货币和财政政策对德国竞争力的影响机制。“有竞争力的通缩”作为一种根植于德国土壤的政策模式既是德国珍贵的政策遗产,同时也成为德国经济发展的桎梏,并为欧元区其他国家所诟病。本质而言,这种通过低通胀压低汇率和劳动力成本的政策手法一方面造成德国长期无法摆脱出口依赖的局面,另一方面也造成欧元区内贸易的失衡。“有竞争力的通缩”捆绑着德国社会、经济和政府宏观经济特征,具有深厚的地域特色和历史根源,在欧元区的适用困境因为欧债危机的爆发而凸显,欧洲重新陷入“紧缩”与“增长”的争论中。没有可以重复的历史作为参照,这段可能持续良久的争论或许永远都不会得到孰优孰劣的答案。德国出口经济尽管受到高技术水平等结构性因素的推动,但本文的实证结果也表明德国出口竞争力受益于劳动力成本和实际汇率低估的影响同样不可小觑。这对于诸多出口导向型发展中国家而言,具有较强的启迪意义。德国马克和联邦银行的政策遗产不仅仅限于欧洲,目前低通胀已经成为全世界的主流趋势,央行独立性已成为众多国家的信赖的政策模式。在现代市场经济体系下,出口竞争力的取得不可能长期依赖竞争性贬值获得。如何通过对劳动力成本和实际有效汇率进行有效控制是取得产品国际竞争力的关键。德国经济政策可以给予世界经济更多的启迪。从古典经济学到新古典经济学的历史变革的本质是不断界定政府与市场的边界。然而,金融危机和欧债危机的双重冲击使得世界经济增长理论陷入困境,一方面,金融危机是市场的失败,另一方面,欧债危机则又是政府的失败。这一对弈结局使得任何一种偏向市场或偏向政府的经济增长理论都无法获得有说服力的政策支撑。因此,鉴于这一形势,世界经济短期内并不能发生革命性变革,很可能沿袭传统路径修正地走下去,目前形势已经表明世界经济颇有重返新自由主义之势。然而鉴于金融危机的历史教训,可以肯定的是,世界经济并不会重蹈金融危机前的新自由主义模式之覆辙,很可能是另一种新自由主义。研究德国“有竞争力的通缩”模式的还有助于为探索一种新的新自由主义模式提供一条路径选择。更多还原

【Abstract】 The German Bundesbank is reputed for its high independence from the federal government in implementing its anti-inflationary policy throughout the latter half of the20th century. Unlike the government’s concern on employment and growth, the Bundesbank saw the price stability as the sole objective and adopted a deflated policy stubbornly. Generally, politicians were more inclined to conduct an easing policy to fill the gap of effective domestic demand, which was very popular under the Keynes paradigm before the stagflation in1970s. For many times, the Bundesbank conducted a tighten policy in order to restrain arising or potential inflation. Therefore, Conflicts between the federal government and the central bank were very frequent and unavoidable. However, the inflation-averse policy was proved by German glorious growth, and the Deutsch Mark was seen as a symbol of German long and sustainable prosperity. As a result, the Bundesbank’s way of policy was ultimately accepted by the federal government.It is a long process before the government recognized that the Bundesbank’s policy posed no threaten to the government’s policy. A variety of researches have been conducted on how the Bundesbank managed to be independent from the government’s intervention and similar conclusion has been made that it was depended on German unique history and stability culture. The Hyper-inflation in1923first made the German people aware of the Weimar Government’s incredibility and that pulled the Nazi onto the political stage. Unfortunately, the Reich Mark’s ineffectiveness in Nazi’s price-controlled economy even made people more desperate. Thus, at the end of the world war II, what people want most was a more credible and independent central bank. It was the occupation authority of Allied Army who initiated the1948central bank policy reform saved the German Mark. The newly redesigned Bundesbank was first copied from the Federal Reserve’s Mode, and then the1957reform ultimately made it a typical German style independent central Bank. In the time aftermath, the Deutsch Mark witnessed a high economic growth of post war era and German reunification. The Bundesbank did a historical performance in keeping a low and steady inflation. However, during the German reunification in1989, the Bundesbank also adopted a radical and abnormal way of easing monetary policy in order to comfort the pains of the East Germans. At the turning of the new century, the Mark left the stage and the Euro elongates the Deutsch Mark’s performance.The motivation of the thesis is to redesign the theoretic framework of "Competitive Disinflation" which was first given by Jean-Claude Trichet as the former French financial minister in1983. Basically,"Competitive Disinflation" is a process of competitiveness gaining through adopting anti-inflation policies of the central bank and strict austerity measures from the government."Competitive Disinflation" is deeply rooted in the long history with unique culture of German society and economy. The article tries to redefine the attributes of the "Competitive Disinflation" under the framework of the Freiburg School, German social market economy, and to differentiate German-type Neo-liberalism from the main stream of Neo-liberalism. Clearly, in the scenario of the disinflation, expansionary macroeconomic policies are typically restricted. The "Competitive Disinflation" provides a framework of non-interventionism for either government or the central bank, and an independent central bank is at the heart of the framework.The Bundesbank had its own distinctive way to implement monetary policy compared with the Fed and many other central banks in the post Breton Woods time. One obvious feature of the Bundesbank’s policy was to announce annual monetary target since1975and that really worked well and had cooled down the markets’ expectation of potential inflation for decades. More than that, theoretic model shows that low inflation expectation not only helps to keep a misaligned real exchange rate, but also helps to maintain a stagnated wage pricing through the Bundesbank’s signaling function in the collective wage bargaining. For the exchange rate misalignment, the thesis tries to analyze it in the BEER approach to test Deutsch Mark and the Euro respectively and find that German currencies in different period are clearly undervalued. For the labor cost, the article intends to define the interaction process of the Bundesbank, the Federal government and trade unions in a triangle, and finds that trade unions will adopt a conservative way when facing of the potential policy response of the Bundesbank if their wage raising would cause certain degree of inflation. Furthermore, in the framework of "Competitive Disinflation", the government would also adopt some similar steps to coordinate with the Bundesbank’s signaling and suppress the trade unions’behavior through income tax and labor market reform. In a conclusion,"Competitive Disinflation" is a policy model or framework, in which the central bank plays a dominant role, the government and other social partners coordinate with each other. Non-expansionary macroeconomic measures are at the heart of the process.The European Central Bank inherits most of the instincts of the Bundesbank, for instances, similar strategy of price stability and monetary targeting, that it is deemed a complete copy of the Bundesbank. Nevertheless, rather than the scale of German economy, the emulation of the ECB was the result of the German economic model and its success experience in maintaining competitiveness, basically, it is the persuasive power of the Bundesbank’s anti-inflation practice, the government’s austerity behaviors, and the confidence hold by politicians of other member states that Germany’s success could be replicated on the EMU level. Seen from the laws which backed the ECB, the SGP and TFEU particularly identify the clauses of price stability, central bank’s role and fiscal policy discipline, a complete copy from German laws. However, in facing of the current imbalance in the Euro area, the article tries to further explore the competitive factors from the perspective of feasibility of "competitive disinflation" in the Euro area. Empirical studies show that "competitive disinflation" is not equally functioned across the Euro area, particularly it is not performing well in periphery countries. Therefore, one of the main conclusions is that unlike other member states, the unparalleled performance of Germany in the crisis indicates that "competitive disinflation" model in the Euro framework is one key factor in driving current economic turmoil in the Euro area.The Article tries to debate on the imbalanced influence of "competitive disinflation" on Euro area export competitiveness thus to certify that Germany still benefits from the dividend of "competitive disinflation" in the Euro system. Empirically findings show that German exportation is not only solely promoted by high tech factor, but also benefited from suppressed labor cost and misaligned real effective exchange rate. For those export-oriented developing countries, the German model could give an inspiration for their domestic reform. As a matter of fact, the policy heritage of Deutsch Mark and the Bundesbank is not only beneficial to EU, but also other countries. The strategic importance of central bank independence has been accepted by many countries. They are getting known that a low inflation can help to main a low real effective exchange rate and low labor cost. Empirical findings of the article have also proved an evident negative relationship between low inflation and export competitiveness.更多还原