月份: 二月 2009

美國總統歐巴馬說：「不管是在政治光譜的哪一端的經濟學家，現在都一致同意擴大政府支出來刺激經濟是必要舉措！」

事實上，許多經濟學家根本不同意上述的鬼話！

數百位學者，包含了諾貝爾經濟學獎得主與其他頗富名望的經濟學家，聯名簽署了一篇重要聲明，由美國智庫–CATO Institute–在全美重要新聞媒體上刊載廣告，反對歐巴馬的刺激經濟方案。

http://www.cato.org/bannerads/disagree2.swf

廣告內容我大約翻譯如下：

標題：敬愛的總統先生，事情不是那樣的！

並非所有的經濟學家都吃凱因斯經濟學那套，我們就不支持大幅增加政府支出！下面聯名之人，均不相信擴大政府支出是救經濟的良方。在1930年代，胡佛總統與羅斯福總統時期，擴大的政府支出並未將美國救出於「大蕭條」的水深火熱之中。更多的政府支出也沒有讓日本從「失落之十年」的1990年代中脫困。今日，相信擴大政府支出可以拯救美國，是希望大於經驗。救經濟，施政者理應著重在清除勞動、儲蓄、投資與生產面的不當法規障礙；低稅率以及減少政府支出才是啟動經濟成長的最佳財政王道！

該聲明連結

反觀深信「愛台十二建設」與擴大政府支出可以救台灣經濟的馬政府，未免太一廂情願地天真了。我不是反對政府做好基礎建設，但是我反對這種相信擴大政府支出可以救經濟的愚蠢觀點！更反對為了這愚蠢觀點而去擴大政府支出！

以下是在聲明書上屬名的經濟學家名單：

A.A. Alchian在其University Economics一書內提到幾個常見的經濟謬誤，望眼即知係出於對基本經濟學概念無知之結果。

節錄原文如下：

……We can be sure that economic analysis is being ignored when any of the following fallacious arguments are presented: that the rationale of the capitalistic system rests on a essential assumption of a “harmony of interests" ; that customers must take what producers offer them; that automation reduces available jobs; that tariffs protect domestic wage earners from foreign labor; that our otherwise unlimited productive capacity is curtailed by monopolistic capitalists who arbitrarily set prices high; that unions protect workers from greedy employers; that inflation hurts the wage earners and benefits the employer; that social-security payments contributed by employers to their employees are paid for by the employers; and that social conscience and civic sensitivity are or should be the main guides to business corporate behavior.

容我粗略中譯：

先前有網友建議我可以看看Krugman的東西。

在此之前，我只有在NYT上偶爾略略瀏覽Paul Krugman的專欄。之後，我的確花了一些心思比較認真地看，同時也注意了他在獲得Nobel獎之後的一些發言。

老實說，我相當不欣賞這位經濟學家，如果他現在還算是個經濟學家的話。

恰好看到一篇哈佛大學經濟系教授–Robert Barro的訪談，這位古典自由主義派經濟學家對於Paul Krugman的評論與我閱讀該人專欄後之感想十分契合。轉錄這位經濟系教授的訪談片段，供各位參考。

……Do you read Paul Krugman’s blog?

Just when he writes nasty individual comments that people forward.

Oh, well he wrote a series of posts saying he thought the World War II spending evidence was not good, for a variety of reasons, but I guess…

He said elsewhere that it was good and that it was what got us out of the depression. He just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn’t behave like an economist. And the guy has never done any work in Keynesian macroeconomics, which I actually did. He has never even done any work on that. His work is in trade stuff. He did excellent work, but it has nothing to do with what he’s writing about.

I’m not in a position to…

No, of course not.

I’m not in a position to know things like the degree to which Paul Krugman counts as a relevant expert on new Keynesian economics.

He hasn’t done any work on that. Greg Mankiw has worked in that area. ……

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