竞争力与产业政策外文翻译.docVIP

外文翻译 原文 Competitiveness and industrial policy Material Source: International Journal of Social Economics Author: John P.Tiemstra Defining the Problem “The competitiveness problem” may not be the most descriptive term to attach to the long-run difficulties the US economy has faced for the last 20 years, but by now everybody knows what is meant by it. The cluster of problems includes a rate of productivity growth that is low by historical standards, a long, slow decline in the average level of real wages, an unsustainably large international trade deficit, and a loss of worldwide market share in key manufacturing industries in which we were once the world leaders. However, once we get beyond that simple description of the problem, there are many differences. The pundits and economists do not agree on the priority of the various aspects of the problem, the underlying causes, the loci of responsibility for dealing with the problems, the policy objectives to be pursued, or the policies that should be adopted. To professional economists, trained to be concerned about economic growth and the overall standard of living, it is clear that the declining average real wage is the most serious of these problems, and that slow productivity growth is the reason for it. Then the policy objective clearly must be to raise the productivity growth rate, and that means enhancing investment and RD. The trade deficit did not appear until ten years after “competitiveness” became a concern, and seems to be related more to short-run macro issues. It is important, but it appears not to be responsible for the larger difficulty, and it is much easier to solve. Market shares in manufacturing are of great concern to the business professionals who have contributed to this literature, but to the economists they seem to be a poor proxy for the really important variable, productivity. What puzzles many economists is that ordinary people are not more upset about declining real wages and living stand