Until Japan tackles its old troubles, recovery is doomed
The Japanese economy is back. Or so optimists believe. But we have been here before, in the brief recoveries of 1992, 1997 and 2000. That is a good reason for scepticism. But there is something even more telling about this recovery than that: it is happening more because Japan has not reformed than because it has.
Let us start with the good news: the economy has now enjoyed seven successive quarters of economic growth. According to the latest economic survey of Japan from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, gross domestic product is set to rise by 2.7 per cent this year. Next year, growth could be 1.8 per cent.
The proximate causes of this recovery are traditional. In 2002, exports grew by 8.1 per cent. With imports rising by only 2 per cent, net exports increased by 0.7 per cent of GDP. This offset the decline in domestic investment, to generate modest economic growth. Then, in 2003, private non-residential investment picked up sharply, with growth forecast at 10.3 per cent. This has combined with growth in net exports of 0.5 per cent of GDP to deliver satisfactory overall growth.
How, I wondered during a recent visit, would this story look in Tokyo? Confused is the answer. The debate remains as divided as before between "supply-siders", who emphasise microeconomic reform, "bank-siders", who emphasise the need to recapitalise the banks, and "demand-siders", split, in turn, between monetarists, who demand more money, and fiscalists, who recommend bigger fiscal deficits. But two points seem to be widely agreed, at least among the insiders: first, the external sector is proving a great boon; second, the Bank of Japan has moved from being part of the problem towards being part of the solution.
Both points are right. Exports rose at a 12 per cent annual rate during the 18 months through mid-2003. A third of the increase in exports over that period was to Asian markets, led by China. Similarly, the prevarication of the Bank of Japan under Masaru Hayami, its former governor, has gone. Under its new management, the bank is committed to sustaining zero interest rates and quantitative monetary easing until the majority of board members forecast above-zero inflation.
A bigger current account surplus and a more aggressive monetary policy are necessary conditions for ending the Japanese malaise. Japan needs to export more of its surplus private savings. It also needs inflation, to reduce the overhang of domestic debt. But the changes so far are inadequate.
The current account surplus is still about 3 per cent of GDP, which is far too small to mop up the country's excess of private savings over current (let alone equilibrium) levels of private investment. Similarly, monetary policy is still not aggressive enough to end the deflation that has been under way since the mid-1990s. The GDP deflator - the broadest measure of price changes in the economy - fell by 1.7 per cent last year. According to the OECD, it is set to fall by another 2.5 per cent in 2003. Moreover, the OECD forecasts a significant output gap - and so persistent deflationary pressure - at least until 2005.
These are not the only reasons for doubt, however. Those who argue that the country faces structural handicaps are right. It is just that they usually fail to identify them correctly, since they are more macroeconomic than microeconomic. Among the most significant features is a corporate sector that invests far too much. For this reason the present recovery, which is built, as usual, on a surge in private investment, rests on sand.
Andrew Smithers, of London-based Smithers & Co, has done more than anybody else to explain how peculiar the behaviour of the Japanese corporate sector is. As the chart shows, the share of corporate investment in Japanese GDP has been consistently higher than in the US. Yet the US economy has been growing at a little over 3 per cent a year over the past 10 years, while Japan's has limped along at just over 1 per cent.
The US labour force is also growing at about 1 per cent a year, while the Japanese labour force is shrinking at 0.5 per cent a year. Both of these are reasons for expecting corporate investment to be substantially higher in the US than in Japan. If both economies were equally competitive and open to international capital markets, that would be the case. The evidence shows they are not.
Because it takes almost three times as much capital to produce an additional unit of GDP in Japan as in the US, Japanese returns on capital must be much lower, probably less than half. This might cease to be the case if, as the supply-siders believe, aggregate productivity growth were to rise far more quickly than in the US. That is not inconceivable, since Japan's output per hour is only 70 per cent of US levels. But no sign of such a renaissance can be seen. On the contrary, the growth of labour productivity has been falling in the past decade, to below 2 per cent a year.
Why then does investment remain so stubbornly high? One reason is that the unreformed Japanese corporate sector is indifferent to returns to shareholders. Another is that profitability is mismeasured, because of the failure to understand the implications of deflation. Under deflation, real interest rates are higher than nominal ones. For a highly indebted corporate sector, this makes a huge difference to returns on equity. Adjusted for changes in asset prices, for example, the return on equity moves from plus 5 per cent to minus 5 per cent (see chart).
One implication of this analysis is that, to the extent that this recovery lasts, it can only be because Japanese companies continue to waste capital. It is, in other words, only because Junichiro Koizumi, the prime minister, has made so little difference to the operations of Japan Inc that an investment-led recovery is under way. But it is unlikely to last, for the same reason. Losing money is not a sound long-run proposition even for a corporate sector as well-shielded from capital markets as the Japanese.
What is happening at the moment is business as usual. Japan is benefiting from growth overseas, together with successful management of the domestic symptoms of its disease. That is certainly less painful than treatment. But Japan is as far from a cure as ever.
日本经济：改革不到位 复苏难持久
日本经济已经复苏。至少乐观人士是这么看的。不过我们有过类似的经历，如1992年，1997年和2000年曾出现的短暂复苏。这足以让人对当前的复苏持怀疑态度。但此次复苏还有更说明问题的地方：之所以出现经济复苏，更多的是因为日本没有推行改革，而不是相反。
先说好消息：迄今日本已实现了连续七个季度的经济增长。根据经济合作与发展组织(OECD)对日本进行的最新经济调查，国内生产总值(GDP)今年将增长2.7%。明年的增长率将达到1.8%。
本次复苏的"近因"是传统性的。2002年，出口增长了8.1%。在进口仅增长2%的情况下，净出口总值的增量相当于GDP的0.7%，从而抵销了国内投资的下滑，拉动了适度的经济增长。进入2003年之后，私人非住宅投资开始激增，预期今年的增长率为10.3%，再加上相当于0.5% GDP的净出口增量，今年的日本经济就实现了令人满意的总体增长。
我在想，在最近一次对日本东京的访问中，这样的论述在当地会遭遇什么反应？答案是"弄糊涂了"。在日本，辩论各方仍与以前一样观点迥异：其中包括注重微观经济改革的"供应学派"，强调需要对银行进行资产重组的"银行学派"，以及由主张增大货币发行量的"货币学派"和主张增大财政赤字的"财政学派"构成的"需求学派"。但各方(至少在知情者中间)看来都认同两点：首先，外部环境起了可观的拉动作用；其次，日本央行已从问题的一部分转变为解决方案的一部分。
这两点都是正确的。截至2003年中期的18个月间，日本的出口达到12% 的年增长率，其间有三分之一的出口增量是对以中国为首的亚洲市场的出口。同时，日本央行也一改其前任行长速水优在任期间的推诿搪塞作风。在央行董事会的多数成员预报正数的通胀率之前，其新管理层将坚定奉行零利率和定量宽松银根政策。
要治愈日本的疾患，更大的经常帐户盈余和更积极的货币政策都是必要条件。日本需要将其庞大私人储蓄中的更大一部分出口。它还需要通货膨胀，籍以减轻国内债务的重负。但迄今为止日本的改革并不到位。
日本的经常帐户盈余仍为GDP的大约3%，远远不足以在现有私营部门投资水平(且不提均衡状态)之上吸收多余的私人储蓄。同样，要结束自二十世纪九十年代中期以来一直持续的通货紧缩，货币政策还不够积极。去年，GDP缩减指数 （ 经济体中价格变动的最广泛衡量尺度 ） 下降了1.7%。根据OECD的预测，2003年还将再下降2.5%。更有甚者，根据OECD的预报，显著的产出缺口 ，以及由此形成的持续的通缩压力 ， 将至少持续到2005年。
不过，这些还不是持怀疑态度者的所有依据。认为日本面临结构性缺陷的人是对的，只不过他们通常不能正确地认清问题，因为这些问题主要是在宏观经济而不是微观经济层面。最明显的特点之一就是投资过度的企业界。与历次复苏一样，本次复苏也是建立在私营部门投资激增的基础上，因而也同样是不牢靠的。
在剖析日本企业界行为的古怪程度方面，没有人比英国伦敦咨询机构Smithers & Co的安德鲁o史密瑟斯(Andrew Smithers)更为透彻。如图表所示，日本的企业投资占GDP的份额一向高于美国。但过去十年来美国经济每年以超过3%多一点的增长率稳步前进，而同期日本经济仅以略高于1%的年增长率蹒跚而行。
另一方面，美国的劳动力人数每年增长大约1%，而日本的劳动力人数每年减少0.5%。两者都使人预期美国的企业投资会大大高于日本。假如这两个经济体都同样具有竞争力，对国际资本市场也同样开放，情况确实会这样。但证据显示实际情况并非如此。
由于日本每增产一个GDP单位所需的资本几乎为美国的三倍，日本的资本回报率显然低得多，可能还不到美国的一半。假设，按照供应学派的主张，日本整体劳动生产率的增长远远快于美国，这个难题也许会迎刃而解。理论上，这种假设并非完全不可能成为现实，因为目前日本工人的每小时产出只达到美国水平的70%。但事实是人们看不到此等复兴的丝毫迹象。相反，过去十年来日本劳动生产率的增长幅度一直在下降，目前低于每年2%。
那么，为什么日本企业的投资水平一直居高不下呢？原因之一是，未经改革的日本企业界，依然不把回报股东当一回事。另一个原因是，由于未能理解通缩的影响，对盈利能力的衡量有误。在通货紧缩的经济体中，实际利率高于名义利率。对于负债累累的企业界而言，这会对股本回报率产生重大影响。比如，计入资产价格的变动后，股本回报率竟从正数的5% 变为负数的5% (见图表)。
这种分析意味着，本次复苏能够持续，只不过是因为日本的企业在继续浪费资本。换句话说，恰恰是因为首相小泉纯一郎对"日本公司"的经营束手无策，才造就了当前的投资复苏。但也正是出于同样的原因，这样的复苏不太可能持久。即使对于受到层层保护，不对资本市场开放的日本企业界来说，损失金钱也不是明智可行的长期出路。
日本的现状是一切依然如故。该国正得益于海外经济增长及其对于自身疾患症状的有效管理。这种做法自然没有治本那么痛苦。但距离治愈的境界，日本一如既往地相距遥远。
