经济学界两大泰斗激辩欧元未来

    罗伯特•蒙代尔和艾伦•梅尔策都是半个世纪以来最具影响力的经济学家。哥伦比亚大学（Columbia University）教授蒙代尔于1999年获得诺贝尔奖，获奖的部分原因就在于他的“最优货币区”研究。从来没有哪位学者像他这样，亲眼见证自己的理论在付诸实践后取得了巨大的成功，同时还为他赢得了“欧元之父”等等类似的美誉。蒙代尔创建的单一货币理论架构是让政客和经济学家们打消疑虑的一股重要力量，并一度将这个由17个国家组成的欧元区变成足可睥睨美国的经济强区，一直到最近这场危机爆发。

    梅尔策是一位非常有影响力的货币主义者，他撰写的《联储历史》（A History of the Federal Reserve）一书被誉为最详尽的美联储编年史。他曾在肯尼迪总统时期担任美国财政部官员，也曾出任里根总统的经济顾问委员会（Council of Economic Advisors）。梅尔策强烈反对当前以提振房价或股价为短期目标的权宜货币政策，因为长期来看，这些价格的上涨必定远高于通胀。

    两位经济界泰斗中，79岁的蒙代尔更擅舞台表演，曾在诺贝尔颁奖宴会上为众人唱了爵士歌王弗兰克•辛纳屈《我的道路》（My Way）中的一段。

    如今，蒙代尔和梅尔策在当今最重大的经济问题，也就是欧元的未来这个问题上针锋相对。我没能联系到蒙代尔进行采访，他给我发的电子邮件称，他目前正在欧洲，在意大利托斯卡纳一栋风景如画的别墅里消暑。但从他近期大量的采访和文章中可以清楚地看到，他依然信奉欧元的原因以及他给出的危机解决之道。

    研究蒙代尔依然信奉欧元的理由，这一点很重要。在蒙代尔看来，过去欧洲弱国过度依赖本币贬值来保持竞争力，因而背负上了高通胀和高利率的包袱，结果导致经济增长缓慢。本币贬值也使得这些国家得以继续延续僵化的劳动法，政府规定的高福利及工资涨幅应超过通胀的条例等因素致使这些国家的劳动力价格畸高。如果不能再通过本币贬值，降低他们生产的电脑、家电或提供的度假服务在国际市场上的价格，这些国家就必须努力提高生产率，节制工资，这是保持竞争力的唯一途径。由此，欧元产生的市场压力有望废除几十年来在欧洲已经成为一种制度、但抑制经济发展的劳动法。

    蒙代尔在2011年的一篇文章中曾指出，他预测的这些欧元好处正是遵循了理论的指导。他说，欧元的一大好处是强化工资自律。“在欧洲，一个国家无法改变汇率。因此，当劳工或工会要求涨工资，比如10%的涨幅，而生产率增幅是2-3%，他们明白一定会导致失业或破产。因为无法进行本币贬值，所以工会不得不克制要求。”

    那么，为什么如今欧洲的状况如此糟糕？蒙代尔坚持称，欧元“表现出色”，问题在于政府支出无度，赤字过高。如果欧洲建立“更完美的联盟”，授权一个中央机构对支出无度的政府实施严格的财政约束，同时由德国和其他富国为南部邻国提供融资，直到欧元得到拯救，经济恢复增长。

    84岁的梅尔策坚决反对。梅尔策认为，主要问题不是支出（虽然支出无度），而是竞争力。他指出，弱国竞争力大幅下降是引入欧元的直接结果，同时这个结果也是意料之中的。事“欧元区绝不是想蒙代尔设想的那样一个联盟，”梅尔策在上上周接受电话采访时告诉我。“引入欧元之前，希腊和德国属于不同的世界，之后也是一样。人们不应相信欧元神话。”

    梅尔策认为，深陷欧元危机的欧洲各国央行和政客们现在完全找错了目标。“他们正在埋头研究债务问题，”他说。“这不是他们该干的事。更大的问题是生产成本。”梅尔策称：“只要西班牙和意大利的生产成本比德国高30%”，南部国家就不会实现增长，“而现在的情况就是这样。”

    梅尔策认为，主要问题在于蒙代尔预测的生产率（每个工人每小时生产的卡车或半导体数量）趋同现象并未出现。相反，趋同出现在了不该出现的领域：西班牙、意大利、爱尔兰和希腊的工资上涨速度都远超德国。但生产率更高的是德国，而不是这些邻国。从2000年到2008年，德国劳工成本上涨了15%，而意大利的涨幅是28%，西班牙是43%，爱尔兰更是高达49%。

    蒙代尔最近承认了这个问题，承认欧元“可能导致生产率不同地区的工资过快趋同”。

    为什么工资持续上涨，完全与蒙代尔预测的新节制时代背道而驰？南部国家和爱尔兰很快就意识到了，不用提升竞争力就可以实现快速增长，那就是以诱人的低利率进行巨额借贷。廉价按揭和信用卡贷款推动的消费繁荣导致2000-2007年意大利、西班牙、爱尔兰、希腊和葡萄牙的通货膨胀率（3.2%）几乎达到了德国（1.7%）的两倍。

    Robert Mundell and Allan Meltzer rank among the most influential economists of the past half-century. Mundell, a professor at Columbia University, garnered a Nobel Prize in 1999, in part for his work in defining what he calls "optimum currency areas." No academic has ever enjoyed such success seeing his theories into practice: He's variously called the "father" or "godfather" of the euro. The intellectual architecture that Mundell created for the single currency was a major force in winning over skeptical politicians and economists, and, until the recent crisis, appeared to have transformed the 17-nation eurozone into a juggernaut rivaling the U.S.

    Meltzer is a highly influential monetarist who authored A History of the Federal Reserve, lauded as the most comprehensive chronicle of the central bank. He served as a Treasury official in the Kennedy administration and on President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors. Meltzer strongly opposes what he views as our current, improvisational monetary policy targeted at such short-term goals as boosting housing or equity prices, when the inevitable price will be far higher inflation.

    Mundell, 79, is the more theatrical of the pair, having serenaded folks at his Nobel banquet with a stanza from Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

    Now, Mundell and Meltzer are taking diametrically opposed positions on today's biggest economic issue, the future of the euro. I was unable to speak with Mundell, who emailed me to say he was in Europe, where he summers in a picturesque villa in Tuscany. But examining his many recent interviews and articles gives a clear view of both why he still believes in the euro's benefits, and his solution to the crisis.

    It's important to examine Mundell's arguments for the euro, justifications he presents to this day. In Mundell's view, the weaker European countries relied excessively in devaluations to remain competitive, saddling them with high inflation and interest rates, and slow growth. The crutch of devaluation enabled them to maintain labor laws that made workers overly expensive because of heavy government-mandated benefits and ensured that wages would rise faster than prices. By making it impossible to reduce prices of computers, appliances or vacations on in the global marketplace by devaluing, nations would be forced to lift productivity, and moderate wages, as the only route to staying competitive. Hence, the euro would exert market pressure to banish restrictive labor laws that had been a European institution, and economic curse, for decades.

    Mundell argued in a 2011 paper that the progress he predicted was actually following the theory. One of the euro's big benefits, he stated, is enhanced wage discipline. "In Europe, a country is not able to change exchange rates. Thus, when labor or unions make claims, for example, for a 10% wage increase, and productivity growth is 2% to 3%, they know it will result in unemployment or bankruptcies. The impossibility of depreciation causes labor unions to moderate their demands."

    So why is Europe faring so miserably? Mundell insists that the euro "has performed spectacularly" and that the problem is reckless government spending and excessive deficits. If Europe moves to "a more perfect union" in which a central authority is empowered to enforce strict fiscal discipline on wayward governments––and Germany and other rich nations help finance their southern neighbors until that happens––the euro can be saved and growth will resume.

    Meltzer, 84, adamantly disagrees¬¬. For Meltzer, the main problem isn't spending (though it's excessive), but competitiveness. He points to a shocking decline in competitiveness in the weaker countries that's a direct, and predictable, legacy of the euro. "The eurozone really isn't the union that Mundell thought it would be," Meltzer told me in a phone interview last week. "Greece and Germany were in different worlds before the euro was introduced, and they've stayed there. No one should have believed the euro story."

    For Meltzer, the central bankers and politicians facing the euro crisis are targeting the wrong issue. "They're hammering away the debt problem," he continues. "That's not what they need to do. The bigger problem is cost of production." The southern countries, Meltzer argues, will not grow "if production costs in Spain and Italy are 30% higher than in Germany, which is now the case."

    For Meltzer, the main rub is that the trend Mundell predicted, a convergence in productivity -- the number of trucks or semiconductors a worker makes per hour -- didn't happen. The convergence went in the wrong direction: Wages rose far more rapidly in Spain, Italy, Ireland and Greece than in Germany. But the Germans, not their neighbors, were the ones who got more productive. From 2000 to 2008, labor costs rose 15% in Germany, versus 28% in Italy, 43% in Spain and 49% in Ireland.

    Mundell recently nodded at the problem, admitting that the euro "might have brought about a too-rapid convergence in wages rates between areas where productivity was unequal."

    Why did wages keep rising, in defiance of Mundell's predictions of a new era of restraint? The southern nations and Ireland learned fast that they could grow rapidly not by increasing their competitiveness, but by borrowing enormous sums at irresistibly low rates. A consumption boom, financed by cheap mortgages and credit card loans, powered inflation at almost twice the rate in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal from 2000 to 2007 as in Germany, 3.2% compared to 1.7%.