请输入关键字
教授观点
Global Supply Chains after the Pandemic
作者:Edmund Phelps日期:2020-11-15

(本文摘自新瑞学院名誉院长费尔普斯教授在中国发展高层论坛2020发表的主题演讲《后疫情时代的全球供应链》)

我很荣幸能在中国发展高层论坛上发表演讲。我从2016年开始参加这个论坛,并经常在2005-2009年期间在它的前身——北京诺贝尔奖获得者论坛上发言。

众所周知,连接中国与西方,尤其是美国的供应链的显著出现,在过去的20年里,中国经济生产率继前几十年的巨大增长,出现了非凡的成绩。当然,美国的生产率也有提高,但增幅远不及中国——因为在这些新的供应链出现之前,中国的生产率水平就已经很高了。

这次疫情导致许多供应链断裂,以及中美在贸易政策上的分歧,向许多美国公司表明,它们在供应链受到冲击时变得多么脆弱。据报道,一家美国制造商由于一些必要部件停止生产而被迫停产数周。一些制药公司出现了短缺。

在商业和政府两个层面上已经有了反应。在商业层面上,一家将生产所需的某些部件外包出去的国内公司,如果不能依赖该部件的供应,可能会被迫自己制造该部件。即使这样做会严重增加成本,但它可能会觉得无法承受依赖另一家公司提供关键投入的不确定性。

在政府层面,对美国制造商施加了新的政治压力,要求他们从依赖海外供应必要部件转向依赖自己的供应,以提高美国工人的工资水平,从而恢复男性劳动力在经济中的参与度。

那么,中国近期会有什么预期?美国工业国内生产的大幅增长,是因为所有者和管理者避免海外零部件再次出现短缺,还是政府要求使用国产零部件的压力,或两者兼而有之?或者这种国内生产的增长微乎其微?显然,中国想知道这个问题的答案。

当然,我不知道这个问题的答案,但我想分享我的想法。

在我看来,美国人对外包的态度,以及对贸易的态度,在很大程度上取决于工人对他们的工作的满意度,以及他们对受到政府公平对待的感受。对于前者,从70年代到近年来,美国的“工作满意度”一直在持续下降。就后者而言,从70年代开始,美国中部地区工人似乎越来越感觉到,他们的工资一直停滞不前,而富裕阶层的收入却持续增长(股价也一样)。

我猜想,美国对广泛供应链的态度可能在某种程度上取决于中国采取的做法。我认为中国可以通过继续发展其经济来提供帮助——它积累的资本和它创造的新技术。这将有助于提高美国和世界其他地区的工资水平。中美两国在减少污染方面的共同努力可能会开启一个合作的新时代。

有一点是肯定的:我们都必须努力鼓励国际合作。毫无疑问,这样的合作对每个国家都是有益的。


附原文:

It is an honor to be a speaker at the China Development Forum. I started coming to this Forum in 2016 and was often a speaker at its predecessor, the Beijing Nobel Laureate Forum, from 2005 to 2009.

As we all know, the remarkable emergence of supply chains linking China with the West, especially the U.S., has brought – in just the last two decades – an extraordinary rise of productivity in China’s economy following the enormous rise in the previous decades. Of course, there was a rise of productivity gains in the U.S. too, but the percentage rise was not nearly as large as that in China – since the level of productivity was very high even before these new supply chains.

The breakage of many of these supply chains caused by the pandemic – coming in addition to differences over trade policy between China and the U.S. – demonstrated to many American companies how very vulnerable they had become to shocks to their supply chains. One U.S. manufacturer was reportedly driven to shut down for some weeks as a consequence of the stoppage of some necessary component. Some pharmaceutical firms ran into some shortages.

There have been reactions on two levels – commercial and governmental. On the commercial level, a domestic firm that had come to outsource some component needed for producing its final output may feel forced to make that component by itself if it cannot rely on the supply of that component. Even if doing so will add seriously to its costs, it may feel it cannot afford to bear the uncertainty of having to rely on another firm for a crucial input

On the governmental level, there are renewed political pressures on American manufacturers to switch from reliance on overseas supplies of necessary components toreliance on their own supplies in order to pull up wage rates of American workers and thus restore male labor force participation in the economy.

So what may China expect in the near-term future? A major increase of home production in American industry, whether prompted by the desire of owners and managers to avoid a repetition of shortages in overseas components or prompted by the pressure of the government to employ home-produced components or both? Or perhaps very little increase of such home production? Obviously, China would like to know the answer to that question.

I do not really know the answer to that question, of course, But I would like to share my thoughts about it. 

As I see the matter, American attitudes toward outsourcing – and toward trade in general, for that matter – will very much depend working people’s satisfaction with their work and their sense of being treated fairly by the government. On the former, there has been a continuing decline of “job satisfaction” in America from the ‘70s to the recent years. On the latter, there appears to have been an increasing sense among workers in the heartland of the country – beginning in the ‘70s – that their wages have been rather stagnant while the incomes of the more advantaged have managed to continue to grow (and share prices too).

I would guess that American attitudes toward widespread supply chains might depend somewhat on the approach taken by China. I think China can help by continuing to develop its economy – the capital it accumulates and the new technologies it creates. That can be expected to help pull up wages in America and the rest of the world. A joint effort of China and America to cut down on pollution might inaugurate a new era of cooperation.

One thing is certain: We must all work to encourage international cooperation. Without doubt, such cooperation can beneficial for every nation.