MIT Economics Professor Paul Krugman wrote an article "The Myth of Asia's Miracle" published in Foreign Affairs in 1994. In that article, he denounced the Asian miracle and believed that Asia's growth could not be sustained. During his visit to Singapore last month, he talked about the current Asian economic crisis and suggested some radical measures. The following is an abstract of his interview with Business Times.
Q: In your 'Foreign Affairs' article, you argued that Asia's growth could be basically explained by high rates of investment. But how did that growth manage to be sustained for so long --close on 30 years?
A: There were three things going on. The first was high rates of investment. The second was high rates of labour force growth. Finally, you had increases in education levels. So if you took into account those triple sources of growth, which were all measurable inputs, they somewhat surprisingly seemed to explain pretty much all of what had happened in Asia. There's nothing paradoxical about that: the mobilisation of resources was immense.
Q: What were the earliest signs of things being wrong?
A: The stuff I talked about in 1994 wasn't a sign of an impending crisis -- at least I didn't think so. But I suppose you could look at the indicators there and say there were signs there that Asia's growth at that pace was not sustainable. The first I began to see that some kind of crisis might be in the offing was some time in 1995 or early 1996, when I began to notice how similar the balance of payments developments were in South-east Asia to those in Latin America a couple of years before. Like a lot of people, I saw the very large current account deficits and the buildup of short-term debt and I thought: this looks awfully like Mexico and Argentina in 1993-94. And since I had already decided on the basis of my earlier work that Asia was impressive but still human and subject to the normal limitations that affect other countries, I began saying: Gosh, there could be a currency crisis here. But I never imagined that anything like what has happened could happen. Looking back, I think we didn't pay enough attention to the Mexican crisis of 1995. It was over relatively quickly, the rescue plan worked and we all kind of filed it away as just a blip -- a horrific blip, but still a blip. We really should have looked at it more closely because it was an indication that a new kind of economic crisis might be possible -- one that did not involve irresponsible monetary or fiscal policies and yet led to all hell breaking loose.
Q: Why didn't the approach that worked in Mexico work in Asia?
A: One reason was that Mexico was extremely fortunate, not just to have the US as a neighbour, but to have the US experiencing an unexpectedly vigorous expansion. And Asia has been unexpectedly unlucky by having Japan being a deadweight instead of a locomotive. The sheer scope of the crisis --- the fact that it wasn't just South Korea or Indonesia, but this whole arc of countries, with each country affecting the others -- was another feature. There were also issues of financial structure. The IMF strategy is designed for countries that have a basically sound structure -- it's a strategy of buying time and waiting for confidence to return. There were also technical issues: you had this bank-centred finance in Asia and very high levels of internal leverage. Now Mexico went through a period of extremely high interest rates -- 75 per cent for quite some time --- but many Mexican companies were able to weather them because they did not have such a high degree of leverage or a dependence on short-term internal loans. Indonesia or South Korea, for example, couldn't do that. So basically, everything that went right for Mexico went wrong for Asia.
Q: So what's your radical prescription?
A: It's something I hate to recommend, but I think Asian countries need some breathing space. They need the ability to reflate without having to constantly worry about satisfying capital market investor confidence. That means delinking the domestic capital market from the external capital market. It certainly means debt moratoria and probably currency controls on a temporary basis.
Q: Would you also be suggesting this for an economy like Singapore, where domestic demand is relatively small?
A: No. Singapore is a kind of odd man out here -- as, in different way, is Hong Kong. But Singapore would be a major beneficiary of a strategy along these lines, because it is a major service provider to surrounding economies. The prime candidate is Indonesia, which is playing a waiting game with no light at the end of the tunnel. That would be the most extreme case.
Q: What's your worst-case scenario for Asia?
A: Gosh, for Indonesia, the worst-case scenario is virtually bottomless. An absolute worst case would be radical political unrest and five million boat people. But leaving that aside -- and that's only amateur political futurology -- I think the worst case is a kind of early-1930s scenario in which the non-Japan Asian countries try desperately to adhere to financial orthodoxy and at the same time fail to generate the political credibility that will bring back investor confidence. At the same time, Japan slides deeper into a slump, and we see all the output declines of this past year repeated. Indonesia's slump in the last year is possibly the worst that any country not at war has ever had. It appears to be just about the same as the US in 1932. But what happened in 1932 wasn't in isolation; it was part of four consecutive years of catastrophe. So that would be my worst-case scenario: that in a few years, we would end up with output in South-east Asia being 30 to 40 per cent below what it was in 1997, with who knows what consequences. 克魯格曼：亞洲成就并非奇跡美國麻省理工學院教授及的經(jīng)濟學家克魯格曼(Paul Krugman)，曾于1994年在《外交事務》發(fā)表一篇名為《亞洲奇跡的神 話》的文章。他在這篇具爭論性的文章里否定了“亞洲奇跡”，并認 為亞洲無法持續(xù)長期的經(jīng)濟增長?？唆敻衤蟼€月來新加坡時，針對 整頓亞洲經(jīng)濟危機，提出了的激進建議與看法。以下是他接受《商業(yè) 時報》訪問的摘要。
問：你在《外交事務》的文章里指出，亞洲的增長基本上是大量 投資造成，但這個增長為什么能夠持續(xù)這么久——接近30年？
答：當時出現(xiàn)三種現(xiàn)象：首先是大量投資的涌入，第二是高速的 勞力增長，最后是教育水平的提高，它們都是可計算的投入。令我感 到頗為意外的是，如果將這三重的增長因素加在一起，大致上就可以 解釋亞洲的發(fā)展；大量資源的動用是個無可爭論的事實。
問：局勢出現(xiàn)問題的最初征兆有哪些？
答：我在1994年所提出的論點不是針對危機即將發(fā)生而做的預言 ，至少我不這么認為。不過，我想你可以從一些跡象中看出亞洲是無 法長期維持那樣的高速增長。我第一次察覺危機即將來臨是1995年間或1996年初的事。我發(fā)現(xiàn) 東南亞國家的收支平衡發(fā)展跟拉丁美洲幾年前的情況非常相似。同許多人一樣，我有注意到巨額的經(jīng)常帳目赤字以及短期貸款的 累積。我覺得這個現(xiàn)象同墨西哥和阿根廷從1993至1994年的情況實在 太相似了。根據(jù)我較早的研究，我已經(jīng)斷定亞洲國家的成就雖然驕人 ，但并非什么奇跡，所以會面對跟其他國家一樣的限制，因此我當時 表示：糟了！亞洲可能發(fā)生貨幣危機！可是近來事態(tài)的轉(zhuǎn)變卻是我當 時萬萬意想不到的?；仡欉^去，我認為我們對1995年的墨西哥危機不夠重視。由于當 時的拯救計劃行得通，所以危機相當快便結束。因此大家都把它當成 短暫性的波動——盡管波動幅度很大，它卻是暫時的。我們其實應該 更加仔細地檢討問題，因為那是一種新式經(jīng)濟危機可能產(chǎn)生的跡象： 一種不是因為不負責任的貨幣或財政政策而產(chǎn)生的災難性危機。
問：為什么在墨西哥危機中所采取的策略這次在亞洲卻行不通？
答：其中一個原因是墨西哥當時非常幸運，不但有美國這強大鄰 國幫助，又正好碰上美國一次出人意表的蓬勃經(jīng)濟擴展。亞洲則特別 不幸：日本不但無法成為一股推動復蘇的力量，反而加重了亞洲負荷 。另一不同處，是這次危機所波及的范圍很廣，不單是韓國或印尼受 影響，整個區(qū)域的國家都被牽連，而且一個國家的問題會影響到其余 國家。此外，還有金融結構的問題。國際貨幣基金組織的策略只適合結 構穩(wěn)固的國家，它是一個拖延時間以等待信心恢復的策略。另一個關 鍵則是技術性的問題：亞洲的融資以銀行貸款為主，國內(nèi)的負債率也 很高。墨西哥曾一度實行高利率政策，利率有相當長時間保持在75% 的水平。不過許多墨西哥公司都能承受這樣高的利率，因它們的負債 率沒這么高，也不會那么依賴國內(nèi)的短期貸款?？墒窍裼∧峄蝽n國等 （亞洲國家），就不能效仿這種做法。因此，對墨西哥有效的策略在 亞洲基本上都行不通。
問：那么你建議的激進策略是什么？
答：我很不喜歡這個建議，但我覺得亞洲國家需要一些呼吸的空 間。亞洲必須取得通貨回脹，卻不能時時顧及投資者對資金市場投資 信心的需求。這表示亞洲國家必須斷絕國內(nèi)資金市場與對外資金市場 的連系。這意味著有必要延遲償還債款的期限，或許也有暫時實行貨 幣管制措施的必要。
問：新加坡的國內(nèi)需求比較小，你會建議像新加坡這樣的經(jīng)濟體 系同樣采取你的策略嗎？
答：不會。新加坡是個特殊例子，從不同的角度看，香港也是。 但是若類似的激進策略被其他國家采用，新加坡將會成為受益國 ，因為新加坡是鄰近經(jīng)濟體系的重要服務供應國。印尼是實行策略的 主要對象，因為它目前正在打一場成功希望渺茫的仗，但那將是最極 端的情況。
問：你認為在亞洲可能發(fā)生的最惡劣情形會是怎樣？
答：我看對印尼而言，局勢惡化的程度簡直是無止境的。最惡劣 的情況，就是發(fā)生激進的政治*，以致500萬難民四處逃亡，不過 這只是我對未來政治局勢的淺薄看法。撇開這個不說，我認為最糟的 情況，是出現(xiàn)類似30年代初期的局面：除了日本以外，其他亞洲國家 都拼命嚴守正統(tǒng)的金融系統(tǒng)，卻無法樹立政治可信度以博回投資者的 信心。與此同時，日本將陷入更深的經(jīng)濟衰退困境；今年各方面所經(jīng) 歷的出產(chǎn)量衰退情況將會重現(xiàn)。印尼過去一年的衰退，是有史以來非戰(zhàn)亂國家所遭受的最嚴重經(jīng) 濟打擊。美國在1932年似乎也經(jīng)歷過同樣的困境，但那不是孤立事件 ，而是連續(xù)4年的災難的一部分。我預測的最糟情勢將是如此：在幾 年的時間內(nèi)，東南亞的產(chǎn)量比1997年的少30至40%，到時的后果將不 堪設想。
Q: In your 'Foreign Affairs' article, you argued that Asia's growth could be basically explained by high rates of investment. But how did that growth manage to be sustained for so long --close on 30 years?
A: There were three things going on. The first was high rates of investment. The second was high rates of labour force growth. Finally, you had increases in education levels. So if you took into account those triple sources of growth, which were all measurable inputs, they somewhat surprisingly seemed to explain pretty much all of what had happened in Asia. There's nothing paradoxical about that: the mobilisation of resources was immense.
Q: What were the earliest signs of things being wrong?
A: The stuff I talked about in 1994 wasn't a sign of an impending crisis -- at least I didn't think so. But I suppose you could look at the indicators there and say there were signs there that Asia's growth at that pace was not sustainable. The first I began to see that some kind of crisis might be in the offing was some time in 1995 or early 1996, when I began to notice how similar the balance of payments developments were in South-east Asia to those in Latin America a couple of years before. Like a lot of people, I saw the very large current account deficits and the buildup of short-term debt and I thought: this looks awfully like Mexico and Argentina in 1993-94. And since I had already decided on the basis of my earlier work that Asia was impressive but still human and subject to the normal limitations that affect other countries, I began saying: Gosh, there could be a currency crisis here. But I never imagined that anything like what has happened could happen. Looking back, I think we didn't pay enough attention to the Mexican crisis of 1995. It was over relatively quickly, the rescue plan worked and we all kind of filed it away as just a blip -- a horrific blip, but still a blip. We really should have looked at it more closely because it was an indication that a new kind of economic crisis might be possible -- one that did not involve irresponsible monetary or fiscal policies and yet led to all hell breaking loose.
Q: Why didn't the approach that worked in Mexico work in Asia?
A: One reason was that Mexico was extremely fortunate, not just to have the US as a neighbour, but to have the US experiencing an unexpectedly vigorous expansion. And Asia has been unexpectedly unlucky by having Japan being a deadweight instead of a locomotive. The sheer scope of the crisis --- the fact that it wasn't just South Korea or Indonesia, but this whole arc of countries, with each country affecting the others -- was another feature. There were also issues of financial structure. The IMF strategy is designed for countries that have a basically sound structure -- it's a strategy of buying time and waiting for confidence to return. There were also technical issues: you had this bank-centred finance in Asia and very high levels of internal leverage. Now Mexico went through a period of extremely high interest rates -- 75 per cent for quite some time --- but many Mexican companies were able to weather them because they did not have such a high degree of leverage or a dependence on short-term internal loans. Indonesia or South Korea, for example, couldn't do that. So basically, everything that went right for Mexico went wrong for Asia.
Q: So what's your radical prescription?
A: It's something I hate to recommend, but I think Asian countries need some breathing space. They need the ability to reflate without having to constantly worry about satisfying capital market investor confidence. That means delinking the domestic capital market from the external capital market. It certainly means debt moratoria and probably currency controls on a temporary basis.
Q: Would you also be suggesting this for an economy like Singapore, where domestic demand is relatively small?
A: No. Singapore is a kind of odd man out here -- as, in different way, is Hong Kong. But Singapore would be a major beneficiary of a strategy along these lines, because it is a major service provider to surrounding economies. The prime candidate is Indonesia, which is playing a waiting game with no light at the end of the tunnel. That would be the most extreme case.
Q: What's your worst-case scenario for Asia?
A: Gosh, for Indonesia, the worst-case scenario is virtually bottomless. An absolute worst case would be radical political unrest and five million boat people. But leaving that aside -- and that's only amateur political futurology -- I think the worst case is a kind of early-1930s scenario in which the non-Japan Asian countries try desperately to adhere to financial orthodoxy and at the same time fail to generate the political credibility that will bring back investor confidence. At the same time, Japan slides deeper into a slump, and we see all the output declines of this past year repeated. Indonesia's slump in the last year is possibly the worst that any country not at war has ever had. It appears to be just about the same as the US in 1932. But what happened in 1932 wasn't in isolation; it was part of four consecutive years of catastrophe. So that would be my worst-case scenario: that in a few years, we would end up with output in South-east Asia being 30 to 40 per cent below what it was in 1997, with who knows what consequences. 克魯格曼：亞洲成就并非奇跡美國麻省理工學院教授及的經(jīng)濟學家克魯格曼(Paul Krugman)，曾于1994年在《外交事務》發(fā)表一篇名為《亞洲奇跡的神 話》的文章。他在這篇具爭論性的文章里否定了“亞洲奇跡”，并認 為亞洲無法持續(xù)長期的經(jīng)濟增長?？唆敻衤蟼€月來新加坡時，針對 整頓亞洲經(jīng)濟危機，提出了的激進建議與看法。以下是他接受《商業(yè) 時報》訪問的摘要。
問：你在《外交事務》的文章里指出，亞洲的增長基本上是大量 投資造成，但這個增長為什么能夠持續(xù)這么久——接近30年？
答：當時出現(xiàn)三種現(xiàn)象：首先是大量投資的涌入，第二是高速的 勞力增長，最后是教育水平的提高，它們都是可計算的投入。令我感 到頗為意外的是，如果將這三重的增長因素加在一起，大致上就可以 解釋亞洲的發(fā)展；大量資源的動用是個無可爭論的事實。
問：局勢出現(xiàn)問題的最初征兆有哪些？
答：我在1994年所提出的論點不是針對危機即將發(fā)生而做的預言 ，至少我不這么認為。不過，我想你可以從一些跡象中看出亞洲是無 法長期維持那樣的高速增長。我第一次察覺危機即將來臨是1995年間或1996年初的事。我發(fā)現(xiàn) 東南亞國家的收支平衡發(fā)展跟拉丁美洲幾年前的情況非常相似。同許多人一樣，我有注意到巨額的經(jīng)常帳目赤字以及短期貸款的 累積。我覺得這個現(xiàn)象同墨西哥和阿根廷從1993至1994年的情況實在 太相似了。根據(jù)我較早的研究，我已經(jīng)斷定亞洲國家的成就雖然驕人 ，但并非什么奇跡，所以會面對跟其他國家一樣的限制，因此我當時 表示：糟了！亞洲可能發(fā)生貨幣危機！可是近來事態(tài)的轉(zhuǎn)變卻是我當 時萬萬意想不到的?；仡欉^去，我認為我們對1995年的墨西哥危機不夠重視。由于當 時的拯救計劃行得通，所以危機相當快便結束。因此大家都把它當成 短暫性的波動——盡管波動幅度很大，它卻是暫時的。我們其實應該 更加仔細地檢討問題，因為那是一種新式經(jīng)濟危機可能產(chǎn)生的跡象： 一種不是因為不負責任的貨幣或財政政策而產(chǎn)生的災難性危機。
問：為什么在墨西哥危機中所采取的策略這次在亞洲卻行不通？
答：其中一個原因是墨西哥當時非常幸運，不但有美國這強大鄰 國幫助，又正好碰上美國一次出人意表的蓬勃經(jīng)濟擴展。亞洲則特別 不幸：日本不但無法成為一股推動復蘇的力量，反而加重了亞洲負荷 。另一不同處，是這次危機所波及的范圍很廣，不單是韓國或印尼受 影響，整個區(qū)域的國家都被牽連，而且一個國家的問題會影響到其余 國家。此外，還有金融結構的問題。國際貨幣基金組織的策略只適合結 構穩(wěn)固的國家，它是一個拖延時間以等待信心恢復的策略。另一個關 鍵則是技術性的問題：亞洲的融資以銀行貸款為主，國內(nèi)的負債率也 很高。墨西哥曾一度實行高利率政策，利率有相當長時間保持在75% 的水平。不過許多墨西哥公司都能承受這樣高的利率，因它們的負債 率沒這么高，也不會那么依賴國內(nèi)的短期貸款?？墒窍裼∧峄蝽n國等 （亞洲國家），就不能效仿這種做法。因此，對墨西哥有效的策略在 亞洲基本上都行不通。
問：那么你建議的激進策略是什么？
答：我很不喜歡這個建議，但我覺得亞洲國家需要一些呼吸的空 間。亞洲必須取得通貨回脹，卻不能時時顧及投資者對資金市場投資 信心的需求。這表示亞洲國家必須斷絕國內(nèi)資金市場與對外資金市場 的連系。這意味著有必要延遲償還債款的期限，或許也有暫時實行貨 幣管制措施的必要。
問：新加坡的國內(nèi)需求比較小，你會建議像新加坡這樣的經(jīng)濟體 系同樣采取你的策略嗎？
答：不會。新加坡是個特殊例子，從不同的角度看，香港也是。 但是若類似的激進策略被其他國家采用，新加坡將會成為受益國 ，因為新加坡是鄰近經(jīng)濟體系的重要服務供應國。印尼是實行策略的 主要對象，因為它目前正在打一場成功希望渺茫的仗，但那將是最極 端的情況。
問：你認為在亞洲可能發(fā)生的最惡劣情形會是怎樣？
答：我看對印尼而言，局勢惡化的程度簡直是無止境的。最惡劣 的情況，就是發(fā)生激進的政治*，以致500萬難民四處逃亡，不過 這只是我對未來政治局勢的淺薄看法。撇開這個不說，我認為最糟的 情況，是出現(xiàn)類似30年代初期的局面：除了日本以外，其他亞洲國家 都拼命嚴守正統(tǒng)的金融系統(tǒng)，卻無法樹立政治可信度以博回投資者的 信心。與此同時，日本將陷入更深的經(jīng)濟衰退困境；今年各方面所經(jīng) 歷的出產(chǎn)量衰退情況將會重現(xiàn)。印尼過去一年的衰退，是有史以來非戰(zhàn)亂國家所遭受的最嚴重經(jīng) 濟打擊。美國在1932年似乎也經(jīng)歷過同樣的困境，但那不是孤立事件 ，而是連續(xù)4年的災難的一部分。我預測的最糟情勢將是如此：在幾 年的時間內(nèi)，東南亞的產(chǎn)量比1997年的少30至40%，到時的后果將不 堪設想。