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Economics

特朗普的1%的人的3%的增长

Sep 11, 2017 Kenneth Rogoff

坎布里奇—美国总统特朗普自夸说，他的政策可以为未来多年创造3—4%的持续增长。他的预测与许多职业预测家——包括华尔街和美联储工作人员——完全背道而驰，后者预期美国能达到2%的增长就谢天谢地了。

但有没有这样的可能，特朗普也许是对的？如果是这样的话，那么有多大程度上要归功于他的政策？更快的经济增长是否意味着环境和收入不平等等方面的巨大的长期代价？股市也许只关注增长率，但大部分美国人应该关切增长如何实现的问题。

特朗普对美国总体经济增长率的预测不能算激进。稳定的经济数据表明，增长年率现在已经加速到2.5%，大致介于特朗普和专家之间。此外，就业进展情况在特朗普任期的第一个半年中表现稳健，新增岗位超过一百万，而股市频创新高，这两者正在助力消费增长。

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Kenneth Rogoff

Writing for PS since 2002
243 Commentaries

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. He is co-author of This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton University Press, 2011) and author of The Curse of Cash (Princeton University Press, 2016).

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 10 Comments on this article

Peter Burgess Sep 17, 2017

The focus on GDP growth as an indicator of the health of an economy is a big mistake. Much of conventional economic thinking dates back to the 19th and early 20th century and a whole lot has changed since then. To achieve more quality of life for more people AND to achieve environmental sustainability including climate stability will require substantial expenditures ... that is investment ... and that could easily result in a GDP growth number for the USA exceeding 3%. The problem is that conventional political thinking about public finance and debt probably won't let this scale of investment take place ... which would be a huge mistake. The analysis of national economies (and indeed the global economy) are not well served by the metrics being used for decision making both at the macro level (Governments and Central Banks) nor the micro level (Business, Commercial Banks, Families) and metrics that are much better and linked to the way the modern complex socio-enviro-economic system really works are needed. As I see it the limiting factors for progress are not technology (amazing) and people (more than enough) but the natural environment (severely degraded and getting worse / climate change - food / climate change - storms and sea level rise / etc.), bad decision making (driven by profit and wealth accumulation to the exclusion of almost everything else) and the money system itself (good for banks, but constraining for everyone else). Better metrics can be a game-changer and emerging technologies may make it possible for the metrics that are really needed to be implemented.
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
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Louis Stouch Sep 17, 2017

This is hilarious.

Where ya been for the last 14 years Rogoff? Inequality has been GROWING for that long and you were silent as a church mouse.

Now Trump is gonna make it worse?
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Richard Di Lorenzo Sep 14, 2017

Forgive me for my "ignorance" but would someone like to explain why inflation is a good thing? I know it will certainly help the debtors like all of the Governments around the world, and those who are indebted long term, but other than that?
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Henry Crum Sep 13, 2017

Trump's moves are more for the 90% to 99% than the 99% to 100%. Yes, both groups will be helped, but it is designed to promote mobility within that group to produce businesses that will move the 90 to 99 to the 99 to 100. That is the way to create new businesses, new jobs, and greater wealth starting with the wealthy. It increases the gap between the rich and the poor, but the poor to get wealthier, just not as much. It helps everyone, just helps the rich more.
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Ted Peters Sep 13, 2017

Let's start with a premise: Professor Rogoff desires big government (for whatever reason, conscious and/or unconscious). His op-ed then writes itself.
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David McCarley Sep 13, 2017

To begin with, due to the calculations of economic growth across the population, economic sectors, etc. it is literally impossible for the 3% to be for the 1% - not how economic growth is calculated or happens. The author is apparently closely aligned with and stuck on the policies of the last administration - which never came close to sustaining 3% growth and helped NOBODY to grow EXCEPT Wall Street over 8 years. So you can see the disconnect, both in fact and in the author's worldview.
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Richard Di Lorenzo Sep 13, 2017

What is he saying with "By and large, the most successful bankers in recent years have been exactly the types of experts Trump seems to avoid." No doubt he must be referring to people just like himself. No examples cited. Anyone again like himself who would write an entire book about getting rid of cash after the latest stolen identity fiasco with the credit rating company is certainly someone to be listened to no doubt. Another Harvard PH.D with book learning from the long line of Keynesians who control the world's central banks. The "horse" has long since died, and further beatings should get us to 30 Trillion in debt in no time.
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Scott Sanger Sep 13, 2017

POTUS has no control over the economy, the author knows this but still assigns the economic condition to potus.. You are wrong to assume trump wants more or less war, he wants us to focus on fixing our country, he is no hurry to drum up more enemies.
Why does the left complain about the 1% but refuse to spend their time and money trying to get to the 1% level.....even though democrats in congress have more wealth than the R's. The elite know no party confines.
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Marc Laventurier Sep 12, 2017

So Ken seems to favor "significant (US) military superiority over its rivals" and finds error in "those who...want to reduce US military involvement overseas". Has he fallen under the spell of Darth Feldstein? He also notoriously wants to curtail the availability of cash in order to facilitate negative interest rates. Is he lining up such notions the way Paul Morphy was said to array women's shoes, in a perfect arc?
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ALAN MANAS Sep 12, 2017

Dear Reader..

This author and his academic brethren are responsible for the policies that have created this low economic growth rate in the U.S. and Europe.

You notice they are focused on the effect economic growth will have on "income inequality" and the "environment." They are totally right. Higher rates of economic growth would raise income inequality and over the short term it would have negative effects on the environment.

Permanent higher economic growth rates require increased domestic savings and higher investment rates. That means to achieve those goals you need to, near term, suppress consumption and increase the rewards from savings and investment. We have never seen any other way.

We have seen Singapore go from a $300 per capita GDP in the 1960's to $57,000 per capita currently. Does their population support the government? They might have more income inequality today, but I am not sure of that. I am sure their environment is better. China has sent over 20,000 officials to Singapore to study their methods. China is just making an adjusted copy. That's what the West needs to do.
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