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【速度】
【计时一】
Monetary policy
The end of one big stagnation
JANET YELLEN is the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and, I think it's fair to say, the presumptive heir to Ben Bernanke. In a new speech, Ms Yellen provides a nice discussion of the state of monetary policy and explicitly endorses the communications framework advanced by Chicago Fed president Charles Evans and Minneapolis Fed president Narayana Kocherlakota, in which thresholds for key data points like unemployment and inflation are used to provide guidance about the future path of interest rates rather than calendar dates. While Ms Yellen declined to name precise numbers for the thresholds, this is another sign that the Federal Open Market Committee is progressing toward actual adoption of such a framework. As Tim Duy notes, that's an encouraging sign:
“Whether the rest of the FOMC follows suit with this approach is another question, but the winds are definitely blowing in that direction. On average then, this is relatively dovish. The Fed is heading toward a policy direction that would explicitly allow for inflation somewhat above target and unemployment below target as long as inflation expectations remained anchored. One would think this should put upward pressure on near term inflation.”
One would think, but one would appear to be wrong, as I mentioned yesterday. Mr Duy considers this and grows pessimistic:
“Yellen's speech did not even generate a knee-jerk response in the stock market today. I remember a time not long ago when any hint of dovishness was good for a 1% rally. Which...leaves me wondering if open-ended QE is the last of the Fed's monetary tools. We now know the Fed will continuously exchange cash for Treasury or mortgage bonds until the Fed's economic objectives are met. Uncertainty about the course of monetary policy has been largely eliminated. There is not likely to be a premature policy reversal. What if the pace of the economy does not accelerate, sustaining a large, persistent output gap and a low inflation environment? The Fed could increase the pace of purchases, but would this really change expectations? Can we get more ‘open-ended’?”
【字数358】
【计时二】
I have been thinking along these lines as well. I was initially quite optimistic about the Fed's strategy shift in September, because it appeared to represent a meaningful change in views on the desirability of temporary above-target inflation and because it seemed likely to presage a move toward specific numerical thresholds. And I was heartened by the apparent uptick in economic activity in the early fall. Yet the appearance on the scene of economic headwinds—from Europe, Congress, and elsewhere—has quickly knocked back expectations, just as bad news did before the new policy framework. I thought the new policy would do a better job nailing expectations for faster growth to the floor. I appear to have been mistaken.
The question is why I got it wrong. One possibility is that I didn't, and that I'm just overreacting to a fairly small set of datapoints. Wouldn't be the first time! Another is that my mental model of the recovery is mistaken. Maybe the balance-sheet types are right, and fiscal stimulus is the only thing that can propel a faster recovery and push the American economy off the zero lower bound.
There is another possibility, however, which is that my mental model is mostly right, but I'm underestimating what it takes to reset expectations. Reflecting on all of this, I got the urge to go back and read Thomas Sargent's seminal paper, "The end of four big inflations". Mr Sargent (who, with Christopher Sims, won the Nobel prize in economics in 2011) contributed to the introduction of "rational expectations" into macroeconomics. In "four big inflations" he applies his ideas to inflation dynamics and the practice of monetary policy and concludes, rightly as it turned out, that inflation could be brought down without destroying the American economy. He writes:
【字数297】
【计时三】
“[T]he current rate of inflation and people's expectations about future rates of inflation may well seem to respond slowly to isolated actions of restrictive monetary and fiscal policy that are viewed as temporary departures from what is perceived as a long-term government policy involving high average rates of government deficits and monetary expansion in the future. Thus inflation only seems to have a momentum of its own; it is actually the long-term government policy of persistently running large deficits and creating money at high rates which imparts the momentum to the inflation rate. An implication of this view is that inflation can be stopped much more quickly than advocates of the "momentum" view have indicated and that their estimates of the length of time and the costs of stopping inflation in terms of foregone output ($220 billion of GNP for one percentage point in the inflation rate) are erroneous. This is not to say that it would be easy to eradicate inflation.
On the contrary, it would require far more than a few temporary restrictive fiscal and monetary actions. It would require a change in the policy regime: there must be an abrupt change in the continuing government policy, or strategy, for setting deficits now and in the future that is sufficiently binding as to be widely believed. Economists do not now possess reliable, empirically tried and true models that can enable them to predict precisely how rapidly and with what disruption in terms of lost output and employment such a regime change will work its effects. How costly such a move would be in terms of foregone output and how long it would be in taking effect would depend partly on how resolute and evident the government's commitment was.”
【字数290】
【剩余部分】
Italics in the original. Inflation has apparent momentum because people have gotten used to government policies that create inflation and they don't interpret one or a handful of contractionary steps as a credible departure from those past policies. It takes a bold change in strategy—a regime change—to convince people that the future will actually be different from the past and they'd do well to adjust their expectations. In support of this point, he examines the end of several hyperinflations (four, as it turns out) in central Europe in the 1920s.
Of course, the persistence of expectations and the need for regime change are not phenomena that apply only to runaway inflation. They might be just as useful in an effort to shove an economy out of a disinflationary trap. At the zero lower bound it may well take the prospect of a couple of years of above-target inflation to really get the economy moving. But firms and households have gotten very accustomed to the idea that the Fed will deliver no such thing. And the vague and halting communications deployed by the Fed so far have not been enough to shake that belief. Thus weak growth only seems to have a momentum of its own; it is actually the long-term government policy of persistently holding inflation at or below target and shrugging off sustained high unemployment which imparts the momentum to the weak recovery.
I'm hardly the first to suggest such a thing. Earlier this year, Christina Romer argued:
“I think that what the Fed needs instead is a regime shift. A number of economists have suggested that the Fed adopt a new framework for monetary policy, like targeting a path for nominal GDP. If the Fed adopted such a nominal GDP target, they would start in some normal year before the crisis and say nominal GDP should have grown at a steady rate since then. Compared with that baseline, nominal GDP is dramatically lower today. Pledging to get back to the pre-crisis path for nominal GDP would commit the Fed to much more aggressive policy – perhaps more quantitative easing and deliberate actions to talk down the dollar. Such a strong change in the policy framework could have a dramatic effect on expectations, and hence on the behavior of consumers and businesses.”
She, in turn, was riffing off of a classic piece by Peter Temin and Barrie Wigmore on the end of the Great Contraction of the 1930s (titled "The end of one big deflation").
The problem, it seems, is that the Fed is naturally conservative. It is willing to react to persistent disappointment, but only slowly, carefully, and incrementally, so as not to generate any surprising effects. But surprising effects may be precisely what the situation calls for. The great risk is that at the end of all this the Fed will say, "Well, we've tried everything", when in fact they've only tried one thing: a slow pace of monetary easing insufficient to deliver the necessary change in market expectations.
Post-script: On thinking it over, I'm tempted to argue that regime change at the Fed might require regime change at the Fed. In other words, those itching for a more expansionary monetary policy may have taken heart at Barack Obama's re-election, since he is widely expected to name the relatively dovish Ms Yellen to the chairmanship after Mr Bernanke departs. Yet dovishness may do little good if Ms Yellen has essentially bought into the FOMC's current framework. Given the hard work Mr Bernanke has done building internal support for the framework, the nomination of any present member of the FOMC to the top spot would carry such a risk. An outsider would be a better option: perhaps Ms Romer herself. But it is unclear whether Republicans would confirm someone on record advocating a starkly different policy path, or whether Mr Obama has any interest in appointing such a person.
【字数652】
【计时四】
Are Business Schools Clueless or Evil?
by Gianpiero Petriglieri
The last decade has been a one of soul-searching for business schools worldwide. Since the collapse of Enron, through the financial crisis, to the insider trading and LIBOR scandals, the question just keeps recurring: How did those institutions of higher learning, whose claim is to develop business leaders, influence the conduct of leaders who let so many people down?
The public and the press are not alone in raising the question. The list includes the brightest stars in the firmament of management thinkers. Pfeffer, Goshal, Bennis, Mintzberg, Adler, Khurana, Starkey, Podolny, to name a few. Leading scholars, best-selling authors, deans. All agree that business schools share responsibility for the lapses of judgment and unfettered self-interest that wreaked havoc on the global economy and sank people's trust in corporations.
Where these notables disagree is in their judgment of whether the sin has been one of omission or one of commission.
The omission camp portrays business academia as clueless, a distracted caste moved by "physics envy" to churn out arcane research that bears little relevance to business in the real world. Condemned by its frenetic irrelevance to neglect its educational calling.
The commission camp goes further, casting business academia as a force for evil. A beacon of instrumentalism using its pulpit to proselytize an amoral view of the world, peddling theories that justify managers' selfish elitism, hinting that the value of values is merely to boost the bottom line.
These critiques have brought about some change. Most business schools have introduced mandatory ethics courses and revamped curricula to incorporate concerns about personal principles and social responsibility. But is that enough?
Hardly.
【字数278】
【计时五】
The root of the issue runs deeper than that. Business schools are neither clueless nor evil. They are — like most students that flock to their classrooms — in transition. Overtly working to improve their competence and image and covertly wrestling with questions about identity and purpose. Asking, "what should I do?" as a placeholder for the much harder question, "who am I?"
Many curricular innovations, like the critiques they address, remain anchored to a traditional view of the business school as a knowledge hub whose function is to create and disseminate cutting-edge management theories and best practices.
That is still necessary — but it is no longer sufficient. Leaders are not made of knowledge and skills alone. It may have been enough for business schools to train students' minds and hands when other institutions — local communities, long-term employers — took care of hearts and souls. This division of labor, however, is disappearing fast.
A growing segment of the workforce no longer spends their careers in the same organization, city, or even country. These nomadic professionals have looser ties with local communities. Their relationships with employers are often instrumental, lasting as long as each side brings value to the other.
Business schools, my research suggests, serve a broader function in the lives of these men and women. They don't just give them tools to succeed in their jobs. They provide a field of dreams, and a tribe of sorts.
Within their walls, managers revisit their identities and aspirations. Strive to align what they can do with who they want to be. Refine their view of what it means to lead and whom they are meant to serve. Join communities that pressure, guide and support them long after classes break.
【字数285】
【剩余部分】
In short, business school courses serve as rites of passage — shaping the values, commitments, habits and mores of aspiring leaders. Let me be clear. I am not saying they should. I am saying that they already do. The questions are: how mindfully? How skillfully? On whose behalf?
"I agree with this broader view of business education," many a seasoned professor has told me, "but many of us don't see our job that way. After all, we are trained as social scientists and managers. We are more at ease with sharing evidence and dispensing advice than with leading change and assisting growth."
In that we resemble our students, who usually get to leadership positions as a reward for mastery in a technical field — and often struggle until they realize that their role is not just bigger but altogether different, that succeeding will take not more effort but a shift in mindset.
Similarly, the recent criticism of business schools is not an invitation to do our usual work better — come up with new theories, add classes on trendy topics, repopulate the pantheon of guest speakers and case protagonists with role models who suit our times. Just changing the buzzwords, theories, heroes — and saying good luck with the rest — means assuring that everything remains the same.
The criticism is rather an exhortation to embrace our function as developers of leaders on behalf of organizations and society at large. Not only in marketing rhetoric but also in educational practice.
That means giving equal weight to instrumental and humanistic aims, rather than casting either as means for the other's ends. Making the case for authenticity, service, equality, concern for the planet just as fervently as the case for shareholder value maximization. Balancing instruction and assisted reflection, on oneself and on the cultures we live in. Brokering new connections. Stimulating imagination.
Only when they become as good at strengthening purpose and communities as they are at boosting ability and ambition, will business schools fulfill the functions they're called to play in this global day and hyper-mobile age. Giving managers the tools to do well at work and the presence to remember why they work, and for whom. Graduating leaders who are true to their heart, tied to their people and at home in the world.
【字数379】
【越障】
How Economists Got Income Inequality Wrong
by Jonathan Schlefer
Since the financial crisis, economists such as Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia, Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, and even staffers at the International Monetary Fund have begun to argue that income inequality causes economic damage. Not only does extreme inequality such as now seen in the U.S. threaten social comity, they argue, but also, by tending to fuel crises and other busts, it undermines a nation's capacity to sustain growth.
This new focus on inequality merits a cheer — but not three. Economists close to the mainstream have not dared to challenge a crucial yet unrealistic theory about income — inserted into first-year texts, carried through graduate courses, and employed in journal articles — that points just the opposite way. It says that markets determine wages, and any social or political tampering just creates inefficiency.
In his best-selling textbook Economics, even the progressive economist Paul Samuelson announced as an undisputable verity that social efforts to equalize income such as minimum-wage laws or union bargaining just kill jobs, while "a labor market characterized by perfectly flexible wages cannot underproduce or have involuntary unemployment." In the 1990s, a whole subfield of economics reached "virtually unanimous agreement," as a survey in the Journal of Economic Perspectives noted, that in the context of technological change, markets themselves inevitably drove U.S. income inequality.
As a result, we have come to rely on progressive taxes and social programs to soften income inequality. Opponents have taken aim at these policies, too, arguing that inequality is entirely market-determined, and even fighting it in roundabout ways causes inefficiencies. But President Barack Obama and other politicians who wish to soften inequality should take heart. Markets do not determine income inequality. It is fundamentally a social decision.
Indeed, Adam Smith maintained just this view, writing in 1776 that each society settles on a sort of living wage, allowing workers to buy goods that "the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people . . . to be without." His successor David Ricardo concurred that income distribution depends on the "habits and customs of the people." As the Industrial Revolution marched on, labor leaders began to proclaim a more threatening twist: class conflict determines income distribution. Karl Marx was actually a latecomer to this view.
Around the turn of the 20th century, economists began to try to justify income inequality. "The indictment that hangs over society is that of 'exploiting labor,'" John Bates Clark, a founder of the American Economic Association, noted in 1899. Clark set out to disprove this indictment. The market rewards each of us according to our actual productive value, he insisted: "To each agent a distinguishable share in production, and to each a corresponding reward — such is the natural law of distribution." This supposed "natural law" slowly conquered the mainstream during the 20th century.
And by what mechanism was this natural law enforced? The reasoning goes something like this: Economists posit as an assumption that firms always have a wide variety of techniques to choose from. They can build cars by using, say, 50 fewer assembly workers and 100 more robots, or vice versa. If the robots are a little cheaper, install them and fire the workers. More broadly, whether making cars or doing accounting, firms shop for the best buy among "factors of production" — using more capital and less labor, or vice versa, depending on costs — just like smart shoppers looking for the best buy among products at the supermarket.
If firms can, indeed, make such substitutions and thus shop for factors of production as if they were consumer products, then markets do determine the value of each worker and each piece of capital. If firing 50 workers and installing 100 robots shaves just a little off production costs, then each of those workers is worth slightly less than two robots. And that's what firms pay.
Does production really work this way? It is so contrary to workaday experience that beginning economics students find it tough to grasp. Look at the raw muscle and crude machinery, so vividly depicted by Diego Rivera in the Detroit Institute of Art, that powered Ford's River Rouge plant in the 1920s. Could managers, like smart shoppers at the market, have chosen to employ more automated machinery instead of workers? Of course not. They had no idea how to.
Today, the textbook economist might counter, robots can be substituted for workers. But that doesn't really solve the problem. For example, in 2006, when Ford opened a plant in Chongqing, China, where wages were a fraction of the German level, a spokesman said it was "practically identical to one of its most advanced factories" in Germany. Ford managers could not use more cheap Chinese labor and less automated machinery because they had no idea how to. How could numerous workers replace computer-controlled tools and still achieve the precise tolerances required of modern automotive technology?
Of course, technology changes over time, but at a given state of the art, managers cannot tell what the future may offer. For example, in the 1980s, General Motors wasted $40 billion trying to implement the science-fiction fantasy of replacing recalcitrant workers with robots. Having utterly failed, GM undertook a medium-tech, $200 million joint venture with Toyota to implement "lean-production" methods relying more heavily on workers' skills — and boosted productivity 40%.
Since in the real world managers rarely have any sure idea how to use more capital and less labor, or vice versa, markets cannot determine how much workers earn. An old union joke (or anyway, union organizer's joke) underlines this point. Question: "What's the value of an assembly-line worker?" Answer: "It's the steering wheel." Everyone from the executive suite to the shop floor contributes as a team to production. Markets may determine what cars sell for but cannot tell how much of that value each team member contributes. Somehow, minimum wages, personnel departments, union bargaining — social custom, in other words — decide earnings.
As long as economists stick to their assumption about production, it will imply that markets determine wages, and do so most efficiently. Progressive economists will recognize that income inequality can harm economies — in their efforts to overcome it, clueless Americans borrowed extravagantly against supposed home values and helped cause the financial crisis. But given their fanciful assumption, these economists will continue to balk at direct and practical remedies for inequality such as negotiating more equitable wage structures. This assumption will continue to tie economic thinking in knots.
【字数1080】
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发表于 2012-11-15 19:56:31
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osner的超有逻辑blog文文读~~~）
