Trade is not bad for the American job market
This month Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the US administration's Council of Economic Advisers, remarked that higher productivity was "probably a plus for the economy in the long run". The reaction was immediate and hostile. Professor Mankiw's theory "fails a basic test of real economics", said Dennis Hastert, speaker of the House of Representatives. "We can't have a healthy economy unless we have more jobs here in America." Senate Democrats even signed a resolution urging President George W. Bush to denounce his top economist.
This, I hasten to state, did not happen. Prof Mankiw did not need to defend higher productivity. Nor would politicians have attacked him if he had. It was his views on trade that awoke this ire. Yet it would be just as logical to rail against productivity growth as against cheap imports. Indeed, it would be rather more so, because productivity growth has been a far more significant source of job losses. The only relevant difference between productivity and trade is the all too visible involvement of foreigners, who do not have votes. They make wonderful scapegoats for unscrupulous politicians.
The explanation for the wave of protectionist sentiment is not at all hard to find. The current recovery is remarkable for the weakness in employment (see chart). For this there are two explanations: exceptional productivity performance and the weakness of the recovery (partly explained by the shallowness of the previous recession). Output per hour in the non-farm business sector has risen at a rate of 4 per cent over the past three years. This is far higher than the growth of the economy, at a little over 2 per cent. The fall in employment has been the inevitable result.
The decline in manufacturing employment, at 2.63m between March 2001 and January 2004, was greater than that in the whole economy, at just 2.35m. By January 2004, employment in manufacturing was 17 per cent below its level in June 2000, the peak month for manufactured output in the last cycle. The proximate cause of the job losses was a 17 per cent increase in output per worker, while output fell by a mere 3 per cent (see chart).
Yet even politicians know that the ability of the US to produce twice as much manufactured output today as it did two decades ago, with even fewer workers, is a good thing. So why do they not celebrate increased trade, since it also permits a country to obtain goods and services more cheaply than it otherwise could, just as rising productivity does?
Trade does, as critics stress, mean painful adjustment for those affected, as well as shifts in the rewards for different workers. Yet this is just as true of productivity. Information technology destroyed the jobs of armies of clerks and raised the wages of educated workers relative to those of less educated ones. But it had no deleterious impact on employment. Between 7 and 8 per cent of US private jobs are lost every quarter. But employment has still increased. Neither rising productivity nor growing imports will
By increasing competition and lowering the prices of inputs, trade can also generate higher productivity directly. This is particularly true for IT, a point made with great force by Catherine Mann, of the Washington-based Institute for International Economics, in her analysis of "offshoring" of IT services, which is, alas, the current focus of protectionist paranoia.*
In the late 1990s, argues Ms Mann, globalisation of IT hardware production made hardware about 10 to 30 per cent cheaper than it would otherwise have been. Real GDP growth might have been some 0.3 percentage points less a year if IT production had not been globalised. Now it is IT software where opportunities are largest. The potential for faster productivity growth in the economy, as cheap foreign skills are applied to this sector, are enormous. Some jobs will disappear in the software-producing sectors of the economy. But more activity will be generated elsewhere.
The same point is made, in a different way, by the McKinsey Global Institute's study of offshoring.** It argues, persuasively, that the US will capture economic gains through several channels: reduced costs (about $0.58 for each dollar spent overseas); new revenues, as overseas providers buy US goods and services (about $0.05 per dollar spent); repatriated profits (about $0.04 per dollar spent); and redeployment of domestic US labour (about $0.45-$0.47 per dollar spent). Overall, then, the US gains $1.12-$1.14, while the foreign country gains another $0.33 (see chart). Nobody should take the specific estimates seriously. But the broad point is powerful. As Prof Mankiw did, in fact, say, there is nothing exceptional about services. As he argued, "more things are tradable than were tradable in the past. And that's a good thing."
Suppose the politicians did succeed in halting offshoring. Would that save the jobs of programmers or call centre operators? In all probability, no. Both are vulnerable to technology in any case. All it would do is raise costs to users and slow economic advance.
What is depressing about the debate is not just the blaming of foreigners but also its irrelevance to the challenges confronting the US. The most immediate of these is to create sustained growth in demand. Equally, the US confronts significant structural challenges. If its people are to gain from the emerging division of labour, they need high-quality education, as Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, argued last Friday. In addition, a case can be made for subsidising the wages of the working unskilled.
What must be avoided are policies that undermine increases in living standards, threaten the US commitment to liberal trade and, not least, attack the nascent exports of a poor and gigantic democracy that is, at last, trying to participate in the global economy. US legislators need to take a grip of themselves. Attacking cheap imports of services is no more logical than bewailing rising productivity. The US, they should remember, benefits hugely from both.
* Globalization of IT Services and White Collar Jobs: The Next Wave of Productivity Growth, December 2003,
www.iie.com; ** Offshoring: Is it a Win-Win Game?
贸易对美就业市场并非坏事
美国政府经济顾问委员会主席格里高利o曼昆(Gregory Mankiw)本月发表评论，更高的生产率"从长期来看可能对经济是有利的。"他的评论即刻引起反响并遭到攻击。曼昆教授的理论"没能通过真正经济学基本的检验"，众议院议长丹尼斯o哈斯特（Dennis Hastert）说。"如果我们不能在美国创造更多的就业岗位，那么我们的经济就不健康。"民主党参议员甚至在一份提案上签名，敦促总统乔治Wo布什公开谴责他的首席经济学家。
这一点，我要赶快声明，没有发生。曼昆教授不需要对较高的生产率进行辩护。即使他辩护的话，政治家也无法对他进行攻击。正是他在贸易问题上的观点，激起了对他的义愤。但是，抱怨生产率的增长和抱怨廉价进口是同样的逻辑。事实上，更应当怪罪生产率的增长，因为对就业损失来说，生产率增长的影响更为显著。生产率和贸易之间唯一相关的明显差别是，后者涉及外国人，而没有外国人投票权。对于不择手段的政客来说，外国人是最好不过的替罪羊。
找到新一轮保护主义思潮的解释并不难。当前的经济复苏有一显著特点，即就业依然低迷（见图表）。对此有两种解释：一是生产率表现尤为突出，二是复苏疲软（部分可以由以前次衰退程度较低来说明）。在过去3年中，非农业部门每小时产出以4％的速度提高，大大高于2％稍高一点的经济增长率。就业下降是无可避免的结果。
从2001年3月到2004年1月，制造业就业减少263万个，大于整个经济就业减少的235万。2004年1月与上次周期就业最高点2000年6月时相比，制造业就业减少17％。就业下降最直接的原因是人均产出增加17％，而同期的产出仅下降3％（见图表）。
甚至连政治家们也知道，与20年前相比，美国今天有能力生产两倍于那时的产出，甚至使用更少的工人，这是好事。既然贸易允许一国以更低价格获得商品和劳务，与生产率提高有同样的结果。为什么他们不赞赏贸易的增长呢？
正如批评人士强调指出的那样，贸易对于受到影响的人们来说，意味着痛苦的调整，以及使奖励在工人之间进行再分配。但这与生产率提高带来的调整是一样的。IT技术夺走了大批职员的饭碗，与教育程度较低的工人相比，受教育程度较高工人的工资获得增加。但是，对就业并没有造成有害影响。每个季度，美国私人部门工作机会会丧失有7%至8%，但是就业仍然增加。只要劳动市场富有灵活性，提高生产率和增加进口都不会损害总体就业。
贸易通过强化竞争和降低投入品价格，也直接导致生产率的提高。IT产业尤其是如此。华盛顿国际经济学研究所的凯瑟琳o曼恩（Catherine Mann）在她对信息服务的"离岸业务"分析中，强有力地论证了这个观点。而这点正是当前偏激的保护主义者关注的焦点。*
曼恩女士指出，1990年代末期，IT硬件生产的全球化，使硬件价格与没有全球化相比降低10-30％。如果没有IT生产的全球化，实际GDP增长可能每年会减少0.3％。现在机会更多的是IT软件。由于该部门正在利用更廉价的外国技能，经济生产率更快增长的潜力是巨大的。经济中的软件开发部门将会失去某些工作，但是更多的活动将在其他方面创造出来。
麦肯锡环球研究所在对离岸业务的研究中，从不同的角度阐述了同样的观点。**该研究很有说服力地指出，美国将通过几种渠道获取经济好处：降低成本（每1美元用于海外购买降低成本大约0.58美元）；外国个人购买美国产品和劳务创造新的收入来源（每1美元用于海外购买增加收入大约0.05美元）；遣返利润（每1美元用于海外购买返回大约0.04美元）；替代美国国内劳动力（每1美元用于海外购买创造大约0.45-0.47美元）。总体而言，美国获益1.12-1.14美元，而外国另外获益0.33美元（见图表）。虽然人们不应该过于重视个别的估计，但是总体的论点是有力的。事实上，如同曼昆教授所说，在服务方面也没有什么例外。他表示，"与过去相比，更多的东西可以进行贸易，这是好事情。"
假若政治家们阻止离岸业务的企图获得成功，那么这将能够保住程序员和呼叫中心接线员的工作吗？最终的答案是否定的。不管怎样，这类工作都将受到技术发展的威胁。所能够达到的效果，只是提高用户成本，放缓经济进步。
最令人遗憾的是，这场争论不仅仅责怪外国人，而且也与美国面临挑战的关键问题无关。最重要的挑战，是创造可持续增长的需求。同样，美国面临重大的结构调整。正如联邦储备委员会主席艾伦o格林斯潘上周五表示的那样，如果自己的人民要从新产生的国际分工中享受好处，他们需要高质量的教育。除此之外，有理由对非技术工人的工资予以补贴。
任何有损生活水平提高、威胁美国自由贸易承诺、攻击贫穷但人口众多的民主国家新获得出口机会（至少表明了其试图参与全球经济活动的意愿）的政策，都必须加以避免。美国国会议员需要有一个自我把握。攻击廉价服务进口并不比哀叹生产率提高更合乎逻辑。他们应当记住，美国会从两者中获得巨大利益。
*IT服务全球化和白领工作：下一波生产率增长，2003年12月，
www.iie.com；**离岸业务：一种双赢游戏吗？
