安倍经济学初见效 普通日本人却高兴不起来

TOKYO — Hiroyuki Hara has increased prices at his flower shop in recent months, part of a broad reversal of the deflation that has long plagued Japan’s economy. Getting prices rising is a national goal, but Mr. Hara isn’t sure the new landscape is any more vibrant.

东京——最近几个月，原裕之（Hiroyuki Hara，音译）经营的花店涨价了。这反映了一个宏观趋势，即长期困扰日本经济的通货紧缩正在扭转。让物价上涨是一项国家目标，但原裕之不确定的是，新的状态是否算得上更具活力。

“We used to get a lot of office workers in here, but now it’s mostly just older people, the ones with savings,” he says. Sales are down this year. He blames the shrinking buying power of his customers’ paychecks.

“过去我们的顾客中有许多白领，现在主要是年龄稍大的人，有积蓄的那些，”原裕之说。销售额在今年出现了下降。他认为这是因为顾客收入的购买力缩水了。

Mr. Hara’s own costs are mounting too, as a precipitous decline in the value of Japan’s currency has made imported flowers pricier. And although he is charging more, the extra money is going to the government, which controversially raised sales taxes in April. A further tax increase is planned for next year. “It has me worried,” Mr. Hara says.

原裕之的经营成本也在上涨，因为日元的急剧贬值已经让进口花卉变得更昂贵。尽管他提高了价格，但多收的钱都流向了政府。今年4月，日本政府在争议声中提高了消费税。还有计划明年再次增税。“这让我很担心，”原裕之说。

Japan’s audacious campaign to reinvigorate its economy is entering a make-or-break phase.

日本旨在振兴经济的大胆行动，正在进入一个成败攸关的阶段。

After nearly two years of aggressive stimulus under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, joblessness has plunged, big companies like Toyota are earning record profits and corrosive price declines have been replaced by something Japan has rarely seen in decades — inflation.

在首相安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)政府积极的经济刺激措施实施了近两年之后，失业率大幅下降，丰田(Toyota)等大型企业的利润正创下新高，对经济有害的价格下跌的状况消失了，取而代之的是几十年来在日本十分罕见的通货膨胀。

Yet the benefits of Abenomics, as the program is known, have been unevenly distributed. Many consumers and businesses simply don’t feel better off.

然而，这种被称为“安倍经济学”的政策带来的益处并不均衡。许多顾客和企业并没有感到情况出现了改善。

The problem threatens to undermine support for the effort at a critical juncture. Economic output fell sharply in the second quarter, immediately after April’s sales tax increase — evidence that consumer confidence remains fragile. Mr. Abe will soon have to decide whether to move forward with the next tax increase or table it.

这一问题可能会在当前的紧要关头削弱对刺激政策的支持。在4月份上调了消费税之后，二季度经济产出大幅下降，这证明了消费者信心仍然相当脆弱。安倍晋三很快需要决定，是再次增税，还是暂时搁置这一计划。

“There is a spreading sense of disappointment with Abenomics,” says Masazumi Wakatabe, an economics professor at Waseda University in Tokyo. The fact that prices are rising is not, by itself, a bad thing. Just the opposite: The government and most economists see it as preferable to the deflation that has dogged Japan since the late 1990s.

“对安倍经济学的失望情绪正在蔓延，”东京早稻田大学(Waseda University)的经济学教授若田部昌澄(Masazumi Wakatabe)说。物价上涨本身不是坏事。恰恰相反：日本政府和多数经济学家认为，它比通货紧缩要好。自上世纪90年代末开始，日本就一直受到通货紧缩的困扰。

When prices fall, it encourages households and businesses to squirrel away cash, holding back growth. Deflation also makes it difficult for central banks to rally an economy by cutting interest rates, which in Japan have been stuck at zero for years.

当物价下降时，就会鼓励家庭和企业把现金囤积起来，这就抑制了增长。通货紧缩还让央行更加难以通过下调利率来提振经济。日本已连续多年保持零利率水平。

Yet the public is showing clear signs of inflation fatigue. In a poll published on Monday by the Tokyo Broadcasting System, a national television network, nine in 10 respondents said they had no “real feeling” that the government initiatives were improving living standards.

然而公众正明显表现出通胀疲劳的迹象。在东京广播公司(Tokyo Broadcasting System)周一公布的民意调查中，每10个受访者中就有九人表示，没有“真正感到”政府的行动正在改善生活水平。

Instead of the balanced rise in prices and wages that Mr. Abe promised, pay has lagged, in effect making workers poorer. Adjusted for price changes, household incomes were down a full 6 percent in September compared with a year earlier.

工资水平没有像安倍承诺的那样，与物价同步增长，而是停滞不前，实际上让工薪阶层更贫穷了。根据物价水平变化进行调整之后，日本人的家庭收入9月同比下降了6%。

Kathy M. Matsui, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, says sluggish wage growth is partly the flip side to Japan’s protective employment practices. “The social contract is what? It’s when times are tough, unlike in the West, we’ll keep you on the payroll, although we’ll slash your wages,” she says. “But then when times get good, you don’t get as much of what you might get elsewhere.”

高盛公司(Goldman Sachs)的分析师凯茜·松井(Kathy M. Matsui)说，工资增长缓慢一定程度上是日本保护性雇佣惯例的副作用。“社会契约是什么？就是我们和西方不同，在经济困难的时期，我们还是会给你发工资，虽然会减薪，”她说。“但当情况好转之后，你也不会获得可以在其他地方拿到的高工资。”

Rather than ease efforts to create inflation, the central bank has redoubled them. In an unexpected decision, the Bank of Japan said on Friday that it would expand its program of buying government bonds and other assets to the equivalent of more than $700 billion a year. The move, intended to stimulate borrowing and spending, spurred a rally in global stocks.

央行没有放松制造通胀的做法，而是付出了加倍的努力。日本银行(Bank of Japan)周五出人意料地宣布，将扩大购买政府债券和其他资产的行动，使之达到每年价值逾7000亿美元的规模。此举旨在刺激借贷和消费，全球股市应声上扬。

“We are at a critical point for escaping deflation,” Haruhiko Kuroda, the central bank governor, said, adding that “half measures” would only bring back Japan’s “deflationary mind-set.” Hinting at what could be more stimulus to come, he added that the Bank of Japan would do whatever it took to meet its official target of 2 percent “core” price increases, a measure that excludes the effect of taxes and other items.

“我们正处在摆脱通货紧缩的关键时刻，”央行行长黑田东彦(Haruhiko Kuroda)说，“半途而废”只会让日本的“通缩思维”卷土重来。他说，日本央行将采取一切必要手段，达到“核心”通胀率2%的官方目标，这一指标剔除了税负和其他项目的影响。这一表态暗示着，未来可能会推出更多刺激措施。

But the aggressive stimulus, which has pushed down the value of the yen, is only complicating matters. At the outset, the currency’s retreat was universally embraced as a relief for Japan’s many exporters. Now it is feeding concerns that imports are too expensive. The value of the yen is down more than 30 percent against the dollar since 2012. Exports were supposed to flourish in response, but the trade balance has instead been stuck in deficit.

但积极的刺激措施只是让事情变得更加复杂了。这些做法压低了日元汇率。一开始，日元的贬值受到了普遍的欢迎，被当做了许多日本出口商的福音。如今，它却开始激发进口商品过于昂贵的担忧。自从2012年以来，日元对美元贬值超过30%。出口本应该因此增长，但恰恰相反，日本仍处于贸易逆差。

It is not just the flowers in Mr. Hara’s shop that are costlier, but also big-ticket items like oil and natural gas, consumption of which has soared since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. Nuclear power plants remain closed nationwide, and electricity bills have leapt by double digits as a consequence.

涨价的不光是原裕之店里的花卉，还有石油和天然气等高价商品。自2011年福岛核事故发生以来，石油和天然气的消耗量飙升。日本各地的核电站仍处于关闭状态，电费因此出现了两位数的上涨。

“If the yen weakens any further, it would be bad for Japan’s economy as a whole,” Genichi Tamatsuka, the president of Lawson, one of Japan’s biggest convenience store chains, told reporters this week.

“如果日元进一步走低，会对整个日本经济造成不良影响，”日本大型便利连锁店罗森(Lawson)的总裁玉塚元一(Genichi Tamatsuka)本周告诉记者。

In parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Abe was forced to defend the central bank actions that have depressed the currency. “When the yen falls, there are issues that go with that fall, and we have to deal with them,” he said, though he gave no sign that he would pressure Mr. Kuroda to reverse course.

周二在国会，安倍晋三不得不为央行压低日元汇率的行为进行了辩解。他说，“日元贬值时，会产生很多问题，需要我们加以解决。”不过他没有表示会要求黑田东彦改变路线。

The sales tax increase has drawn the most intense opposition. The two-stage rise was authorized by a previous government, as a means of tackling Japan’s vast public debt. The second part, which is scheduled for October, will take the rate to 10 percent — double what it was before the first increase.

提高消费税税率一事招致了最为激烈的反对。增税是由之前的政府批准的，分两阶段进行，为的是消化日本的巨额公共债务。第二阶段定于明年10月执行，将把税率提至10%，是第一次增税前税率的两倍还多。

Mr. Abe has the authority to stop it if he judges the economy too fragile. But he must make his choice by next month to get a revised tax law through parliament in time. So far he has been coy, saying only that he wants to make a “coolheaded decision.”

如果安倍晋三认为经济过于脆弱，他有权不予实施。不过，他必须在下月作出决定，才能让修定的税法及时获得国会通过。截至目前，他一直不愿明确态度，只是表示自己希望做出“冷静的决定”。

Some lawmakers and economists close to the government have urged the prime minister to postpone, by perhaps 18 months, thus, giving time, they hope, for wages to catch up to prices and create a less painful kind of inflation. “We need to prioritize economic growth,” Kozo Yamamoto, a lawmaker in Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party who helped plan the stimulus policies, said in an interview.

一批与政府关系密切的议员和经济学家敦促他推迟增税，比如延期18个月。他们希望，这样就能留出时间来，让民众的薪资赶上物价的上涨，创造一种不那么令人痛苦的通胀。“我们需要把经济增长放到首位，”山本幸三议员(Kozo Yamamoto)接受采访时称。他来自来安倍晋三所在的自民党，参与了经济刺激政策的筹划工作。

Most of Japan’s business and political leaders are lined up on the other side of the debate, citing potential danger to the country’s creditworthiness if financial markets conclude the country is turning away from fiscal discipline. The powerful finance ministry, corporate executives, bankers and even the largest opposition party favor going ahead as planned. Sadayuki Sakakibara, chairman of Keidanren, the lobby group that represents Japan’s biggest companies, has called the tax increase a “national issue” that “can’t be avoided.”

不过，日本商界与政界的多数领导人物都持相反的看法。他们的理由是，假如金融市场断定日本背离财政自律，有可能会让国家信誉受损。颇有权势的财务省、企业高管、银行业高层、乃至最大的反对党，一致青睐按原定计划增税。代表日本大企业的游说团体“日本经济团体联合会”(Keidanren)的会长榊原定征(Sadayuki Sakakibara)表示，增税是“不可逃避”的“国家问题”。

Even Mr. Kuroda, the Bank of Japan governor, is pushing for the tax rise to go ahead. He is doing so despite complaints that it will widen the gap between wages and prices and discourage the precise thing he is trying to foster, consumer spending.

就连日本央行行长黑田东彦也在推动如期增税。尽管有人抱怨，增税将拉大薪资与物价的差距，抑制他正竭力促进的消费性开支，但他依然主张这样做。

A finance ministry official before he became a central banker, he views the tax as essential to addressing the debt, which relative to the size of the economy is the largest in the world. By printing money freely, he is creating what he hopes will be a cushion against its economic impact.

供职央行之前，黑田东彦曾是财务省的官员。日本国债的规模与经济总量的比例为全球第一。他认为，消费税是应对这一问题的关键所在。他希望通过大肆印钞，来创造出一个缓冲，减轻增税对经济的影响。

“If there were a loss of confidence in the government’s finances,” Mr. Kuroda said last week, “it would be extremely difficult to deal with.”

“如果对政府的财务状况丧失了信心，”黑田东彦本周称。“应对起来就会非常困难。”