Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems

住房是發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家許多問(wèn)題的根源

Since the second world war, governments across the rich world have made three big mistakes, says Callum Williams

卡勒姆?威廉姆斯(Callum Williams)表示，自二戰(zhàn)以來(lái)，富裕國(guó)家的政府犯下了三大錯(cuò)誤

Jan 16th 2020 |?

THE FINANCIAL crisis of 2008-10 illustrated the immense dangers of a mismanaged housing market. In America during the early to mid-2000s irresponsible, sometimes illegal, mortgage lending led many households to accumulate more debt than they could sustain. Between 2000 and 2007 America’s household debt rose from 104% of household income to 144%. House prices rose by 50% in real terms. The ensuing wave of defaults led to a global recession and nearly brought down the financial system.

2008-10年的金融危機(jī)說(shuō)明了管理不善的房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)的巨大危險(xiǎn)。在本世紀(jì)頭十年的早期到中期，美國(guó)不負(fù)責(zé)任的，有時(shí)是非法的抵押貸款導(dǎo)致許多家庭積累了超過(guò)他們所能承受的債務(wù)。2000年至2007年間，美國(guó)家庭債務(wù)占家庭收入的比例從104%升至144%。實(shí)際房?jī)r(jià)上漲了50%。隨后的違約潮導(dǎo)致了全球經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退，幾乎拖垮了金融體系。

詞匯

Immense/ ?巨大的

From the 1960s to the 2000s a quarter of recessions in the rich world were associated with steep declines in house prices. Recessions associated with credit crunches and house-price busts were deeper and lasted longer than other recessions did. Yet the damage caused by poorly managed housing markets goes much deeper than financial crises and recessions, as harmful as they are. In rich countries, and especially in the English-speaking world, housing is too expensive, damaging the economy and poisoning politics. And it is becoming ever more so: from their post-crisis low, global real house prices have since risen by 15%, taking them well past their pre-crisis peak.

從20世紀(jì)60年代到21世紀(jì)頭十年，發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家四分之一的經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退都與房?jī)r(jià)的急劇下跌有關(guān)。與信貸緊縮和房?jī)r(jià)下跌相關(guān)的衰退比其他衰退更嚴(yán)重，持續(xù)的時(shí)間更長(zhǎng)。然而，管理不善的房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)造成的損害比金融危機(jī)和衰退要嚴(yán)重得多，盡管它們危害很大。在富裕國(guó)家，尤其是英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)言的國(guó)家，住房太貴了，破壞了經(jīng)濟(jì)，毒害了政治?，F(xiàn)在更是如此:從危機(jī)后的低點(diǎn)，全球?qū)嶋H房?jī)r(jià)已經(jīng)上漲了15%，遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)了危機(jī)前的峰值。

Traditionally politicians like it when house prices rise. People feel richer and therefore borrow and spend more, giving the economy a nice boost, they think. When everyone is feeling good about their financial situation, incumbent politicians have a higher chance of re-election.

傳統(tǒng)上，政客們喜歡看到房?jī)r(jià)上漲。他們認(rèn)為，人們感覺(jué)更富有了，因此會(huì)增加借貸和支出，從而給經(jīng)濟(jì)帶來(lái)良好的提振。當(dāng)每個(gè)人都對(duì)自己的財(cái)政狀況感覺(jué)良好時(shí)，現(xiàn)任政客連任的機(jī)會(huì)就更大。

But there is another side. Costly housing is unambiguously bad for the rich world’s growing population of renters, forcing them to trim spending on other goods and services. And an economic policy which relies on homebuyers taking on large debts is not sustainable. In the short term, finds a study by the IMF, rising household debt boosts economic growth and employment. But households then need to rein in spending to repay their loans, so in three to five years, those effects are reversed: growth becomes slower than it would have been otherwise, and the odds of a financial crisis increase.

但也有另一面。毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，昂貴的住房對(duì)富裕國(guó)家日益增長(zhǎng)的租房者來(lái)說(shuō)是不利的，這迫使他們削減在其他商品和服務(wù)上的支出。依賴(lài)購(gòu)房者承擔(dān)巨額債務(wù)的經(jīng)濟(jì)政策是不可持續(xù)的。國(guó)際貨幣基金組織的一項(xiàng)研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，在短期內(nèi)，不斷增加的家庭債務(wù)會(huì)促進(jìn)經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)和就業(yè)。但家庭隨后需要控制支出以?xún)斶€貸款，因此在三到五年內(nèi)，這些影響將被逆轉(zhuǎn):經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)將比不這樣做時(shí)更慢，金融危機(jī)發(fā)生的幾率將增加。

Malfunctioning housing markets also hit the supply side of the economy. The rich world’s most productive cities do not build enough new houses, constraining their growth and making them more expensive than they would otherwise be. People who would like to move to London, San Francisco or Sydney cannot afford to do so. Since productivity and wages are much higher in cities than outside, that reduces overall GDP.

失靈的房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)也打擊了經(jīng)濟(jì)的供應(yīng)面。發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家最具生產(chǎn)力的城市沒(méi)有建造足夠多的新住房，這限制了它們的發(fā)展，使居住成本比原本要昂貴得多。想搬到倫敦、舊金山或悉尼的人負(fù)擔(dān)不起。由于城市的生產(chǎn)率和工資遠(yuǎn)高于城市以外，這就降低了整體GDP。

So it is bad news that, in recent decades, the rich world has got worse at building new homes. A recent paper by Kyle Herkenhoff, Lee Ohanian and Edward Prescott argues that in America this process has “slowed interstate migration, reduced factor reallocation, and depressed output and productivity relative to historical trends”. Constraints on urban growth also make it harder to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, since big cities are the most efficient built forms. In America there are more building restrictions in places which have lower emissions per household.

因此，近幾十年來(lái)，發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家在建造新房方面的表現(xiàn)越來(lái)越差，這是個(gè)壞消息。Kyle Herkenhoff、Lee Ohanian和Edward Prescott最近發(fā)表的一篇論文認(rèn)為，在美國(guó)，這一過(guò)程“放緩了州際移民，減少了要素再分配，并相對(duì)于歷史趨勢(shì)壓低了產(chǎn)出和生產(chǎn)率”。對(duì)城市發(fā)展的限制也使得減少二氧化碳排放變得更加困難，因?yàn)榇蟪鞘惺亲罡咝У慕ㄖ问健Ｔ诿绹?guó)，在人均排放量較低的地方有更多的建筑限制。

Housing is also a big reason why many people across the rich world feel that the economy does not work for them. Whereas baby-boomers tend to own big, expensive houses, youngsters must increasingly rent somewhere cramped with their friends, fomenting millennials’ resentment of their elders. Thomas Piketty, an economist, has claimed that in recent decades the return to capital has exceeded what is paid to labour in the form of wages, raising inequality. But others have critiqued Mr Piketty’s findings, pointing out that what truly explains the rise in the capital share is growing returns on housing.

房地產(chǎn)也是許多富裕國(guó)家的人覺(jué)得經(jīng)濟(jì)不適合他們的一個(gè)重要原因。嬰兒潮時(shí)期出生的人往往擁有又大又貴的房子，而年輕人卻越來(lái)越多地與朋友合租，這激起了千禧一代對(duì)長(zhǎng)輩的怨恨。經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家托馬斯?皮凱蒂(Thomas Piketty)聲稱(chēng)，最近幾十年，資本回報(bào)率超過(guò)了以工資形式支付給勞動(dòng)力的回報(bào)率，加劇了不平等。但其他人對(duì)皮凱蒂的發(fā)現(xiàn)提出了批評(píng)，他們指出，資本份額上升的真正原因是住房回報(bào)率的增長(zhǎng)。

詞匯

Foment/ ?煽動(dòng)；挑起

Other research, meanwhile, has found that housing is behind some of the biggest political shocks of recent years. Housing markets and populism are closely linked. Britons living in areas where house prices are stagnant were more likely to vote for Brexit in 2016, and French people for the far-right National Front in the presidential elections of 2017, according to research from Ben Ansell of Oxford University and David Adler of the European University Institute.

與此同時(shí)，其他研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，住房是近年來(lái)一些最大的政治沖擊背后的原因。住房市場(chǎng)與民粹主義緊密相連。根據(jù)牛津大學(xué)(Oxford University)的本?安塞爾(Ben Ansell)和歐洲大學(xué)研究所(European University Institute)的戴維?阿德勒(David Adler)的研究，居住在房?jī)r(jià)停滯地區(qū)的英國(guó)人更有可能在2016年投票支持英國(guó)退歐，而在2017年的總統(tǒng)選舉中，法國(guó)人更有可能支持極右翼的國(guó)民陣線(National Front)。

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This special report will argue that since the second world war, governments across the rich world have made three big mistakes. They have made it too difficult to build the accommodation that their populations require; they have created unwise economic incentives for households to funnel more money into the housing market; and they have failed to design a regulatory infrastructure to constrain housing bubbles.

本特別報(bào)道認(rèn)為，自二戰(zhàn)以來(lái)，發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家的政府犯了三大錯(cuò)誤。他們已經(jīng)很難建造他們的人口需要的住所;它們?yōu)榧彝ハ蚍康禺a(chǎn)市場(chǎng)注入更多資金創(chuàng)造了不明智的經(jīng)濟(jì)激勵(lì);他們也未能設(shè)計(jì)出一個(gè)監(jiān)管基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施來(lái)抑制房地產(chǎn)泡沫。

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Happily, they are at last starting to recognise the damage caused by these policies. In Britain the government now openly says that the housing market is “broken”. Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister, has pledged to make housing more affordable. Canada’s recent election was fought partly on who would do more to rein in the country’s spiralling housing costs.

令人高興的是，他們終于開(kāi)始認(rèn)識(shí)到這些政策造成的損害。在英國(guó)，政府現(xiàn)在公開(kāi)表示房地產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)已經(jīng)“崩潰”。澳大利亞總理斯科特?莫里森(Scott Morrison)已承諾讓人們更能負(fù)擔(dān)得起住房。加拿大最近的選舉在一定程度上取決于誰(shuí)會(huì)采取更多措施來(lái)控制該國(guó)不斷上升的住房成本。

詞匯

Spiralling/螺旋形運(yùn)動(dòng)；使……成螺旋形；急劇增長(zhǎng)

They need to learn from places where the housing market broadly works—and those places do exist. As this report shows, flexible planning systems, appropriate taxation and financial regulation can turn housing into a force for social and economic stability. Singapore’s public-housing system helps improve social inclusion; mortgage finance in Germany helped the country avoid the worst of the 2008-10 crisis; Switzerland’s planning system goes a long way to explaining why populism has so far not taken off there. Governments across the world need to act decisively, and without delay. Nothing less than the world’s economic and political stability is at stake.

他們需要向那些住房市場(chǎng)普遍有效的地方學(xué)習(xí)——這些地方確實(shí)存在。正如這份報(bào)告所顯示的，靈活的規(guī)劃系統(tǒng)、適當(dāng)?shù)亩愂蘸徒鹑诒O(jiān)管可以將住房轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)樯鐣?huì)和經(jīng)濟(jì)穩(wěn)定的力量。新加坡的公共住房系統(tǒng)有助于提高社會(huì)包容性;德國(guó)的抵押貸款融資幫助該國(guó)避免了2008-10年危機(jī)的最糟糕階段;瑞士的計(jì)劃體制在解釋民粹主義至今未在該國(guó)盛行方面走了很長(zhǎng)的路。世界各國(guó)政府需要果斷行動(dòng)，刻不容緩。世界經(jīng)濟(jì)和政治穩(wěn)定正處于危險(xiǎn)之中。

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