重塑西班牙经济是摆脱债务危机的根本途径

    欧洲领导人们马不停蹄地出席一个又一个紧急会议，引得全球屏息关注。但与此同时，我们不能因为这一出出高潮迭起的政治大戏就忽视一个基本的事实，若想解决欧债危机，南欧国家的公司必须改变自身的竞争方式。这一点在西班牙尤为显著——精英阶层苦恼于贷款利率，街头抗议者则大声疾呼，要求封锁边境，恢复易货贸易。

    几乎没人讨论如何提高实体经济的生产率。根据我们与IESE商学院（IESE Business School）同事布鲁诺•卡斯曼的研究，1990-2010年间西班牙劳工生产率（即工人的实际人均产值）只提高了15%，明显低于中北欧的25%。同期，西班牙单位劳工成本上涨了120%，而中北欧仅增长60%。这意味着西班牙单位产品劳工成本的增长比中北欧快了3倍——中北欧包括法国、德国这两个西班牙的主要贸易伙伴。意大利和希腊的生产率增长同样滞后。

    成本劣势如此明显，西班牙如何竞争？首先，要摒弃“封锁边境有助竞争”的想法。过去20年，那些产品和服务可以国际化交易的公司生产率的提升是纯内向型企业的5倍。贸易繁荣需要西班牙公司进行升级。以葡萄酒行业为例，西班牙是世界第二大葡萄酒出口国，但出口重“量”不重“质”。2010年，西班牙葡萄酒出口平均售价仅为每升1.36美元，甚至低于10年前的每升1.74美元。提升档次，然后售价向一流葡萄酒企业看齐，这条路似乎是提高生产率最可行的方式。

    创新的西班牙企业提高生产率的速度也比不创新的企业更快。飞速发展的小型葡萄酒企业Matarromera就是一个典型的例子。这家公司号称30%的收入都用于创新，成功案例包括为穆斯林国家开发的一款无醇葡萄酒。

    另一个机会来自于信息科技产业。相比美国，西班牙在信息科技领域的投资比例极低，也没有对提高生产率方面有所贡献。如今资金匮乏，但随着云计算等技术的推进，期初资金投入已经不再高得吓人。

    最后，西班牙需要培育大中型企业。按照中北欧的标准，西班牙就业不成比例地集中于小微企业。如果西班牙拥有与德国相同数量的大中型公司，我们的计算显示，很多产业的生产率将提高10-20%。

    推而广之，只有企业变得更加国际化、提高创新能力、拥有更高科技和更大规模，才能重构南欧经济。这是西班牙、意大利、希腊和其他国家摆脱当前险境的唯一途径。

    --Pankaj Ghemawat是《世界 3.0 版》（World 3.0）一书的作者，他和Stijn Vanormelingen两人在IESE商学院从事生产率研究。

    译者：早稻米

    As Europe's leaders attend one emergency meeting after another, the political high drama shouldn't make us lose sight of the fact that if the debt crisis is to be solved, Southern European companies need to change how they compete. Nowhere is that more evident than in Spain, whose elites fret over interest rates while protesters in the streets call for closing the borders and a return to barter.

    Almost no one there is talking about how to make the real economy more productive. According to our research with IESE Business School colleague Bruno Cassiman, Spanish labor productivity (real output per worker) went up by only 15% between 1990 and 2010, vs. 25% in Northern Europe. Meanwhile Spanish costs per worker went up by 120%, vs. 60% in Northern Europe. That means labor costs per unit produced in Spain rose three times faster than in Northern Europe -- the region that includes its two largest trading partners, France and Germany. Italy and Greece have fallen behind the productivity curve as well.

    How can Spain compete with this cost disadvantage? First, forget the idea that closing the borders would help. Over the past two decades Spanish companies in sectors where products and services can be traded internationally raised their productivity five times more than their counterparts in purely domestic sectors. Raising prosperity through trade will require Spanish firms to upgrade. Consider the wine sector. Spain is the world's second-largest wine exporter but has focused on volume rather than value. In 2010, Spanish wines were exported, on average, for only $1.36 per liter, compared with $1.74 per liter 10 years ago. Moving upscale and thus being able to charge what other leading producers do seems the most plausible way to boost productivity.

    Spanish firms that innovate also increased productivity faster than firms that didn't. Matarromera, a small but fast-growing winemaker that claims to spend 30% of its revenue on innovation, is one example. Its successes include a nonalcoholic wine for Muslim countries.

    Another opportunity is provided by information technology. Compared with the U.S., Spanish rates of investment in IT have been abysmally low and haven't paid off in productivity improvements. Funds are scarce these days, but with developments such as cloud computing, the initial cash outlays required are no longer quite so daunting.

    Finally, Spain needs to create bigger companies. Spanish employment is, by Northern European standards, disproportionately concentrated among very small firms. If Spain had the same number of big and medium-size companies as Germany, that would, we calculate, increase productivity in a number of sectors by 10% to 20%.

    The broader point, once again, is that the restructuring of the Southern European economies will not happen until firms become more international, more innovative, more high tech, and bigger. It's the only way Spain, Italy, Greece, and others will walk away from the edge of the current precipice.

    --Pankaj Ghemawat, author of World 3.0, and Stijn Vanormelingen do productivity research at IESE.