[2008.11.29] 奥巴马的经济团队：准备开工

Barack Obama’s economic team
奥巴马的经济团队

Off to work they go
准备开工

Nov 27th 2008 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama has stacked his cabinet with clever economists, but can they work together? And what will they do?
巴拉克奥巴马的内阁充斥着着聪明的经济学家，但他们能否通力协作？他们能做什么？

WHEN The Economist asked academic economists in September which presidential candidate would pick the better economic team, a huge majority said Barack Obama. He has not disappointed them. The team he unveiled this past week is studded with stars of the profession.

九月份时，《经济学人》曾向一些学术界的经济学家询问，哪位总统候选人挑选的经济团队会更好，绝大多数人说是奥巴马。后者并没有让他们失望。他上周公布的经济团队中充斥着经济学界的明星。

Mr Obama’s policies may not be any more successful at combating the financial crisis and recession than those of George Bush. But it does seem safe to say that economics will play a bigger part in the formation of those policies. Three of the first four members of the team to be named are well-regarded PhD-holding economists and the fourth, Tim Geithner, the new treasury secretary, is a respected central banker (he heads the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). Only one of the four people they will replace shares a comparable background.

也许在对抗金融危机和衰退方面，奥巴马的政策不见得比乔治布什的好。但有一点可以确定，经济学将在经济政策制定过程中发挥更大的作用。经济团队中最早被任命的四人中，有三个是广为人知的、有博士学位的经济学家。第四个人，下一任财政部长蒂姆盖特纳，是一位受人尊敬的中央银行家（他领导着纽约联邦储备银行）。而在即将被他们替代的四人当中，只有一人有着与他们相同的背景。

They are not just any economists but among the best. “Their IQs are off the chart,” gushes a former colleague of some of them. Henry Kissinger supposedly once said every president should give Larry Summers an office in the White House. On November 24th Mr Obama did. As director of his National Economic Council (NEC), Mr Summers “will be by my side, playing the critical role of co-ordinating my administration’s economic policy”.

这些人可不是普通的经济学家，而是经济学家中的翘楚。”他们的智商无法计量。”其中几人的一位前同事略显夸张地说。亨利基辛格曾经说过，任何一位总统都应该向拉里萨默斯提供一个白宫职位。11月24日，奥巴马的确这样做了。作为国家经济委员会主席，萨默斯”将会在我身旁，在协调政府经济政策过程中发挥关键作用。”

It is a striking contrast with the outgoing administration, in which economists never had much clout. Consider the Office of Management and Budget director, who as overseer of $3 trillion in federal spending plays a pivotal role in setting economic priorities. Mr Bush has had four: one was a pharmaceuticals executive, one did government relations for an investment bank, and two were congressmen. All four trained as lawyers. Mr Obama’s nominee, Peter Orszag, the outgoing director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, is a professional economist known for such page-turners as “Saving Social Security”, a 300-page tome boasting 37 pages of footnotes and eight appendices. Whether Mr Orszag will be tough enough with the red pencil, however, is something that his track-record does not tell us.

这与即将卸任的政府形成了鲜明对比，经济学家在布什政府中从来都没什么影响力。拿美国管理和预算办公室主任来说，这一职位作为四万亿政府开支的监管者，在决定经济事项的优先次序时发挥了至关重要的作用。布什先后任命过四任：一位制药公司的执行官，一位负责政府公关的投资银行家，两个众议员。四人都是律师出身。而奥巴马的提名人Peter Orszag，即将卸任的非党派国会预算办公室主任，则是一位专业的经济学家。他以撰写厚达300页，有37页脚注和八页附录的《拯救社会保障》这本煌煌巨著而闻名。然而，Orszag上任后是否足够强硬，从他的以往纪录当中我们不得而知。

The team’s other striking feature is its centrism. Mr Summers is on the conservative wing of Democratic economists. As Mr Clinton’s treasury secretary he backed the law that in 1999 tore down barriers between commercial and investment banks and still backs it despite recent criticism. Christina Romer, an economic historian from Berkeley, has just published a paper with her husband David showing how raising taxes retards growth. Jason Furman, likely to be named as an aide to Mr Summers, outraged unions for his 2005 article, “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story”. One hedge-fund manager who, before the election, was terrified Mr Obama would usher in “confiscatory” tax policies breathed a sigh of relief. “No Robert Reichs,” he said, a reference to the leftish adviser who was Mr Clinton’s labour secretary. “There’s no radicals in the whole cabinet that anyone can find.”

经济团队另外一个引人注目的特点是它的中间性。萨默斯属于民主党经济学家当中的保守派。他当克林顿政府的财政部长时就支持废除商业银行和投资银行经营壁垒的法案。虽然现在这一法案饱受指责，他仍然支持它。克里斯蒂娜罗默，一位来自伯克利的经济史学家，刚刚与其丈夫合作发表了一篇论证增税如何阻碍经济发展的论文。极有可能被任命为萨默斯助手的Jason Furman，曾因其2005年的一篇名为《沃尔玛：持续成功的故事》的文章触怒过工会。一位曾在选前担心奥巴马会推行”掠夺型”税收政策的对冲基金经理现在长舒了一口气。”没有Robert Reichs,”他说，指的是曾担任克林顿政府劳工部长的一位极左派顾问，”整个内阁中完全看不到激进派。”

Mr Obama’s backers, in fact, can with some justification feel betrayed by the presence of so many figures from the Clinton regime: Mr Summers and Mr Geithner served at the Treasury then, and Mr Orszag was on the NEC. Moreover, many of them are protégés of Mr Clinton’s second treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, whose star has dimmed considerably as Citigroup, where he has been a senior executive since 1999, has lurched from crisis to catastrophe.

事实上，奥巴马的支持者们看到这么多克林顿王朝的旧面孔，一定会在某种程度上感到被背叛。萨默斯和盖特纳曾在克林顿政府的财政部任职，Orszag曾服务于国家经济委员会。更重要的是，这些人中有好几位都是克林顿第二任财长罗伯特鲁宾的门生。鲁宾自1999年起担任花旗银行的资深执行官，当前花旗从危机走向了崩溃的边缘，鲁宾也已经风光不再。

Still, if Mr Obama is going to emulate the economic record of any predecessors, Mr Clinton is not a bad one to pick. Hiring Mr Clinton’s team won’t bring back that era’s steady growth and low unemployment, but it does bring valuable experience of fighting financial crises. Mr Summers and Mr Geithner were deeply involved in dealing with the disasters that befell Mexico, East Asia, Russia and Latin America during that time. Mr Geithner has spent the past 15 months battling the current crisis, though so far with little success.

不过，如果奥巴马想模仿已往总统的经济纪录，克林顿是一个不错的选择。克林顿团队不会带来那一时代的经济稳定增长和低失业率，但一定会带来对抗金融危机的宝贵经验。萨默斯和盖特纳都曾亲历过90年代末席卷墨西哥、东亚、俄罗斯和拉丁美洲的金融危机。盖特纳还在过去的15月里对抗着当前危机，虽说收效甚微。

Their influence helps explain why Mr Obama wants a hefty fiscal stimulus to keep the economy from “falling into a deflationary spiral”. Mr Summers had prominently called for “significant, speedy and sustained” fiscal stimulus. Mr Obama says he has asked his team to come up with a two-year plan to raise employment by 2.5m more than would otherwise be the case. Reports suggest a price tag of $500 billion-$700 billion over two years. The stimulus could include both aid to states, funding for public infrastructure and early implementation of Mr Obama’s promised $1,000-per-family tax-credit. It may also include health-care aid for the poor and uninsured-a down payment on one of Mr Obama’s more costly promises.

他们的影响有助于解释为什么奥巴马想通过一个庞大的刺激计划，以防止经济”陷入通货紧缩的漩涡”。萨默斯曾经旗帜鲜明地提倡”庞大的、迅速的、长期的”财政刺激政策。奥巴马说他要求自己的团队提出一个两年计划，以创造250万个新职位。报告估计这个计划需要在未来两年内投入5000亿到7000亿的资金。刺激政策包括对各州实行援助，为公共基础设施建设投资，以及初步实施奥巴马曾经承诺的每户1000美元退税。还可能包括对穷人和没有保险的人实施医疗救助 -奥巴马另一个耗资甚巨的承诺的前奏。

Mr Obama’s people will also be more willing to deploy the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Programme to prop up the financial system; they may even seek to enlarge it, and pursue some formal powers for taking over failing financial institutions. Other issues they will have to tackle quickly include whether formally to guarantee the debts of the mortgage agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; a moratorium on mortgage foreclosures; reform of bankruptcy law to permit judges to rewrite mortgage contracts; and reforming the financial regulatory system.

奥巴马的人更愿意使用7000亿问题资产求助计划来支持金融体系；他们甚至会寻求加大救助力力度，为接管金融机构争取一些正式权力。他们需要尽快应对的其他议题包括：是否要正式担保抵押公司房利美和房地美的债务；暂停丧失抵押品赎回权；改革破产法以允许法官改写抵押合同，以及改革金融监管体系。

Though impressive enough on paper, it’s less clear how well Mr Obama’s picks will function as a team. The NEC director is traditionally the honest broker of the economic team’s ideas. Given his reputation as an intellectual bully, many wonder whether Mr Summers can play that role. “Larry clearly can’t do that, and it’s a waste of his talents, quite frankly,” says a former colleague. But that may sell Mr Summers short. More than anything else, he relishes a spirited debate with worthy adversaries. One of those is Mr Geithner, who first came to Mr Rubin’s attention by contradicting Mr Summers in a staff meeting. Mr Geithner once described the Rubin Treasury as “an open competition of ideas.” And Mr Summers will have no trouble standing up to Mr Obama’s skull-cracking chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

虽然理论上看起来让人印象深刻，现在还不清楚奥巴马的选择作为一个团队运作情况如何。国家经济委员会主任传统上来说是经济团队思想的忠实代理人。考虑到萨默斯强硬知识分子的声誉，许多人怀疑萨默斯能否扮演好这个角色。”很明显拉里干不了这个，坦白讲，这完全是在浪费他的才华，”一位前同事如是说。但他们可能把萨默斯看小了。与其他事务相比，萨默斯最喜欢与尊敬的顾问进行激烈的辩论。这些顾问当中就包括盖特纳，他第一次引起鲁宾的注意就是因为他在一次幕僚会议上与萨默斯争辩不休。盖特纳曾经描述鲁宾的财政部”不同思想公开对抗”，而萨默斯毫无疑问肯定敢于对抗奥巴马那令人头痛的白宫办公厅主任-拉姆伊曼纽尔。

That said, too much competition of ideas can breed chaos, and Mr Obama may have increased the risk by creating yet another body. On November 26th he said Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, would head his new Economic Recovery Advisory Board and Austan Goolsbee, his longest-serving economic adviser, would be its staff director. The board seems to overlap with the three-member Council of Economic Advisers, which vets policy proposals for economic idiocy: Mr Goolsbee will also serve on that council. Might too many economists spoil the recovery?

另外，太多的思想冲突可能会导致混乱，奥巴马设立的另外一个机构更加增加了这一风险。11月26日他宣布前联储主席保罗沃克尔会掌管他的新经济恢复顾问委员会，Austan Goolsbee，为他服务最久的经济顾问，会担任这个委员会的幕僚长。这个机构还包括三位经济顾问委员会的成员（这个机构负责为一些经济学门外汉审查政策建议）：Goolsbee也供职于经济顾问委员会。经济学家太多，会不会妨碍经济恢复？