Europe's eroding wealth of knowledge
Since the Lisbon summit in 2000, the European Union has set itself the goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy. While policymakers may regret the hype that surrounded the launch of the strategy, most still find value in the Lisbon goals and, if anything, the focus on knowledge has been strengthened in recent years.
The assumption behind this strategy is that as hundreds of millions of unskilled workers join the global economy, the EU, which is endowed with a relatively skilled labour force, needs to keep this comparative advantage. But are the Europeans really skilled and those new workers unskilled? As graduates from China and India have entered the global labour force, Princeton University's Alan Blinder recently observed that the fear of offshoring has spread to computer programmers, radiologists and security analysts.
The issue is not whether university graduates are being produced in emerging countries. Of course they are. Nor is it whether they can compete with graduates from European and US universities. Not all of them can, but many do. It is whether the industrialised countries are and will remain better endowed with skilled labour and retain a relative advantage in human capital-intensive products and services.
Comparative data on education compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and by Robert Barro from Harvard and Jong-Wha Lee from Korea University are far from perfect and do not correct for quality, but they do allow assessment of the distribution of human capital across the world. Three facts emerge.
The first is that the average EU adult is significantly less educated than adults in other industrialised countries: he or she has spent some two years less studying than the US citizen and one year less than the Japanese. This is not due to enlargement (there is no difference in educational attainment between new and old member states) but to the fact that in most of Europe the generalisation of secondary education took place much later than in the US. A large part of the EU population has completed only primary education and less than 20 per cent (against 40 per cent in the US or Japan) has reached tertiary level.
Since educational investment started later, the EU performs better for flows (the number of students) than stocks (the number of graduates). There are now slightly more students in the EU25 than in the US, although this is for a significantly larger population. But the second fact is that the rest of the world is catching up even faster. Globally, one-quarter of adults who have had access to higher education are in the US, one-fifth in the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and less than 15 per cent in the EU25. But the Brics now account for one-third of students and other middle-income countries for one-quarter, against 16 per cent in the EU and 15 per cent in the US.
The picture is strikingly different as regards physical capital (buildings and equipment). The advanced economies have a much higher stock of physical capital per capita than emerging and developing countries. Machines, even more than education, are what make the difference. This especially applies to the EU, where the intense capital accumulation of the post-second world war period has resulted in a sizeable capital stock, representing one-quarter of the world's physical capital, which exceeds that of the US in absolute terms. Even after the investment boom in the US in the 1990s and the 2000s, the investment-to-gross-domestic-product ratio of the EU15 remains higher. The third fact is, therefore, that Europe is much better endowed with buildings and machines than brains.
There is a clear gap between the US and the EU as regards human capital. The US economy is ahead of the pack for both human and physical capital, the EU for physical capital only. This shows up in trade structures. The US mostly exports skills-intensive goods, such as high-technology products, while the EU specialises in goods of high capital intensity and medium-skill intensity, such as cars and chemicals.
This puts the US and the EU in different positions vis-a-vis globalisation. Harvard University's Richard Freeman notes that globalisation means an almost sudden "doubling of the global labour force": that is, the entry into the world economy of new workers initially deprived of access to capital. In this context, there is an advantage in specialising in capital-intensive goods for which there are few competitors. In the short run, globalisation increases the world demand for those goods - and the countries that specialise in them benefit from a form of rent. Its trade specialisation puts Europe on the side of globalisation's winners, as its advantage is actually strengthened by the entry of new players. This explains why European exports have thrived in recent years - and suggests that many complaints about the effects of globalisation ignore its benefits to Europe.
The good news, however, may stop here. Europe's high savings helped in accumulating capital in the low capital mobility context of the past, but those times have gone and capital is gradually moving to the countries with good economic institutions, infrastructures and human capital. With migrations, human capital to some extent agglomerates at the same places. Here the EU risks being at a disadvantage because of its slowness in developing and upgrading its education systems, especially universities and other tertiary institutions. Also, few countries have devised a skilled migration policy that makes them an attractive place to study and work.
The US has about equal infrastructure, more investment in human capital, better economic institutions and a more active skilled migration policy. Capital is thus more inclined to move there as well as to the best-performing emerging countries. This should erode Europe's comparative advantage.
The upshot is that the focus on knowledge is right but that the sense of urgency is lacking. Europe's prosperity will not last if it does not address its underinvestment in human capital. With roughly as much public money and much less private money going to education than in the US, and significantly fewer outstanding educational institutions, it can expect a slow but inexorable erosion of the basis of its prosperity. It needs to start reversing the trend without delay.
The writer is the director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think-tank
欧洲知识经济落后了
自
2000年的里斯本峰会开始，欧盟(EU)便制定了成为知识经济区域的目标。这一目标战略的推出曾被大肆宣传，尽管政策制定者或许会后悔这种宣传，但多数人仍认为，里斯本目标是有价值的，而且，如果说有什么改变的话，那就是近年来欧盟对知识的关注加强了。
这一战略背后的设想是，欧盟拥有技术相对熟练的劳动力大军，而随着数以亿计的非技术工人加入全球经济，欧盟需要保持这种比较优势。但是，真的是欧洲人技术熟练，而新工人技术不熟练吗？由于中国和印度的大学毕业生加入了全球劳动力市场，普林斯顿大学(Princeton University)的艾伦?布林德(Alan Blinder)最近发现，对外包的恐惧已经扩散至计算机程序员、放射线学者及证券分析师等。
评估全球人力资本
问题不在于新兴国家是否在产生大学毕业生(答案当然是肯定的)，也不在于他们能否与欧美的大学毕业生竞争(不是所有人都能，但许多人可以)；问题在于，在技术劳动力方面，工业化国家是否仍拥有、而且将继续拥有更有利的条件？是否在人力资本密集型产品和服务方面保持着相对优势？
经济合作和发展组织(OECD)、哈佛大学(Harvard)的罗伯特?巴罗(Robert Barro)及高丽大学(Korea University)的李钟和(Jong-Wha Lee)汇编了一份教育方面的各国比较数据。尽管其内容还远未完善，且未经质量校正，但通过这一数据，我们仍可对全球人力资本的分布状况进行评估。于是如下三个事实浮出水面。
首先，在欧盟，成年人平均受教育程度明显低于其它工业化国家：欧盟成年人受教育时间比美国人少两年左右，比日本人少1年。其原因不在于欧盟规模扩大（新旧欧盟成员国的受教育程度没有区别），而是在于，多数欧洲国家中等教育普及时间远远晚于美国。相当一部分欧盟人口仅完成了初等教育，达到高等教育水平的人不足20%（美国或日本为40%）。
由于教育投资起步较晚，欧盟的流量（学生数量）表现好于存量（毕业生数量）。如今，欧盟25国的学生已略多于美国，尽管欧盟人口基数大得多。
但第二个事实是，世界其它国家正以更快的速度赶上来。在全球范围内，四分之一受过高等教育的成年人来自美国，五分之一来自“金砖四国”(Brics，巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国)，只有不到15%来自欧盟25国。然而在学生数量中，金砖四国如今占三分之一，其它中等收入国家占四分之一，而欧盟和美国仅分别为16%和15%。
在物质资本方面（建筑和设备），情况则明显不同。发达经济体的人均物质资本存量远高于新兴国家和发展中国家。造成这种差距的更多地是由于机器，而非教育。这一点在欧盟尤为明显。二战后资本的大量积聚使欧盟拥有了可观的资本存量，占全球物质资本的四分之一，绝对额超过了美国。即便在美国经历了20世纪90年代和21世纪以来的投资热潮后，欧盟15国投资占GDP的比例仍然高于美国。
因此，第三个事实是，欧洲在建筑和机器方面的条件要好于人才方面。
美国欧盟人力资本差距
美国和欧盟在人力资本方面存在明显差距。美国经济在人力资本和物质资本两方面都位于前列，而欧盟只在物质资本方面比较领先。这一点在贸易结构上得到了体现。美国主要出口技术密集型产品，如高科技产品，而欧盟的专长是资本密集程度高和技术密集程度中等的产品，如汽车和化学制品。
这使美国和欧盟在全球化过程中处在了不同的位置。哈佛大学的理查德?弗里曼(Richard Freeman)指出，全球化意味着“全球劳动力”几乎突然“翻倍”，也就是说，最初不能获得资本的新工人进入了全球经济。在这种情况下，专门生产资本密集型产品的国家就有了一种优势，因为竞争者寥寥无几。在短期内，全球化增加了全世界对这些产品的需求――专长于这些产品的国家以租金的形式而受益。贸易专业化使欧洲成为全球化过程中的赢家，因为新来者的加入实际上增强了它的优势。这解释了欧洲出口近年来繁荣发展的原因――而且表明，许多欧洲人对全球化影响的抱怨都忽略了它为欧洲带来的好处。
不过，好消息或许仅止于此。欧洲的高储蓄率在过去资本流动性较低的背景下促进了资本积累，但那样的时代已经过去，资本正逐渐移向拥有良好经济体制、基础设施和人力资本的国家。由于移民，人力资本在某种程度上也聚集在相同的地方。在这点上，欧盟有可能出于劣势，因为它发展和改善教育体系的步伐缓慢，尤其是在大学和其它高等教育机构上。此外，欧洲没有几个国家出台了积极的技术移民政策，使自己成为有魅力的学习和工作所在。
与欧盟相比，美国基础设施水平不相上下，但人力资本投资更多，经济体制更完善，技术移民政策更积极。因此，资本更倾向于流向美国和表现优秀的新兴国家。这肯定会削弱欧盟的比较优势。
总而言之，欧洲注重知识是正确的，但它缺乏紧迫感。如果不能解决人力资本投资不足的问题，欧洲的繁荣就不会持久。由于欧洲在教育方面投入的公共资金与美国大致相当，而私人方面的投资远远低于美国，而且一流教育机构的数量明显不及美国，因此可以预见，欧洲繁荣的基础将缓慢而无情地被侵蚀。欧洲需要立刻着手扭转这种趋势。
