It's very nice to be here tonight.
今晚能來到 TED 實在太棒了!
So I've been working on the history of income and wealth distribution for the past 15 years, and one of the interesting lessons coming from this historical evidence is indeed that, in the long run, there is a tendency for the rate of return of capital to exceed the economy's growth rate, and this tends to lead to high concentration of wealth. Not infinite concentration of wealth, but the higher the gap between r and g, the higher the level of inequality of wealth towards which society tends to converge.
我一直在研究有關 所得和財富分配的歷史,已經 15 年了, 從這些過往的證據裡 可以發現一個很有意思的道理, 那就是長期來說 資本報酬率有高於 經濟成長率的趨勢, 這種趨勢容易造成財富高度集中, 雖然並不是無止境的財富集中, 但是資本報酬率 (r) 與經濟成長率 (g) 差距越大, 財富不均的程度就會越嚴重, 社會裡的不平等也會越嚴重。
So this is a key force that I'm going to talk about today, but let me say right away that this is not the only important force in the dynamics of income and wealth distribution, and there are many other forces that play an important role in the long-run dynamics of income and wealth distribution. Also there is a lot of data that still needs to be collected. We know a little bit more today than we used to know, but we still know too little, and certainly there are many different processes — economic, social, political — that need to be studied more. And so I'm going to focus today on this simple force, but that doesn't mean that other important forces do not exist.
這就是我今天要談的主要因素, 不過讓我先說明, 這並不是所得和財富分配變動的 唯一重要因素, 還有許多其他因素 在所得和財富分配的長期變動上 扮演著重要的角色。 而且還有許多資料有待蒐集。 今天我們比以前懂多一些, 不過懂的還是太少了, 而且一定還有許多不同的演變過程, 像是經濟、社會、政治, 需要再多做研究。 而我今天會鎖定在這個單一因素, 但這並不是說就沒有 其他重要因素了。 我接下來要呈現的資料
So most of the data I'm going to present comes from this database that's available online: the World Top Incomes Database. So this is the largest existing historical database on inequality, and this comes from the effort of over 30 scholars from several dozen countries. So let me show you a couple of facts coming from this database, and then we'll return to r bigger than g. So fact number one is that there has been a big reversal in the ordering of income inequality between the United States and Europe over the past century. So back in 1900, 1910, income inequality was actually much higher in Europe than in the United States, whereas today, it is a lot higher in the United States. So let me be very clear: The main explanation for this is not r bigger than g. It has more to do with changing supply and demand for skill, the race between education and technology, globalization, probably more unequal access to skills in the U.S., where you have very good, very top universities but where the bottom part of the educational system is not as good, so very unequal access to skills, and also an unprecedented rise of top managerial compensation of the United States, which is difficult to account for just on the basis of education. So there is more going on here, but I'm not going to talk too much about this today, because I want to focus on wealth inequality.
大部分來自可上網取得的資料庫: 「全球高所得資料庫」。 這是現存最大的 所得不均歷史資料庫, 得力於數十個國家 超過三十位學者的貢獻。 就讓我來帶大家看一些 從資料庫裡得出的事實, 然後我們再回來談 r 大於 g。 事實一, 美國和歐洲所得不均的排行 在上個世紀發生了大逆轉。 時間拉回到 1900 年、1910 年, 歐洲所得不均的排名確實高於美國, 而今天美國排名卻遠高於歐洲。 我先聲明, 這裡主要的原因並不是 r 大於 g, 而是與以往不同的人才供需、 教育跟科技間的競賽、 全球化有關, 也許和美國不平等的 技能學習管道大有關係。 美國有非常好、頂尖的大學, 但基礎教育卻沒有很好。 因此不平等的技能學習管道 再加上美國高階主管的薪資福利 史無前例的大幅提升, 很難以教育為基礎來解釋這個問題。 因此這之中還有許多因素, 但我今天不打算在這上面講太多, 因為我要聚焦在財富不均。
So let me just show you a very simple indicator about the income inequality part. So this is the share of total income going to the top 10 percent. So you can see that one century ago, it was between 45 and 50 percent in Europe and a little bit above 40 percent in the U.S., so there was more inequality in Europe. Then there was a sharp decline during the first half of the 20th century, and in the recent decade, you can see that the U.S. has become more unequal than Europe, and this is the first fact I just talked about. Now, the second fact is more about wealth inequality, and here the central fact is that wealth inequality is always a lot higher than income inequality, and also that wealth inequality, although it has also increased in recent decades, is still less extreme today than what it was a century ago, although the total quantity of wealth relative to income has now recovered from the very large shocks caused by World War I, the Great Depression, World War II.
請看這項 關於所得不均的簡易指標。 這是所得前 10% 者的所得 佔總所得的比重, 所以你可以看到在一個世紀以前, 歐洲的比例是在 45% 至 50% 之間, 美國稍微高過 40%, 所以歐洲的所得較不平均。 到了二十世紀上半葉, 比重大大下滑, 接著近數十年來, 你可以發現美國所得不均的現象 變得比歐洲更嚴重, 這正是我剛說的第一個事實。 第二項事實跟財富不均更有關係, 核心的事實就是 財富不均一直遠高於所得不均。 雖然近幾十年來財富不均日益嚴重, 但是比起上一個世紀, 現在已經沒那麼極端了。 然而現在與所得有關的財富總量 已從一次世界大戰、大蕭條、 第二次世界大戰的重創中 恢復正常了。 請各位看這兩張圖表,
So let me show you two graphs illustrating fact number two and fact number three. So first, if you look at the level of wealth inequality, this is the share of total wealth going to the top 10 percent of wealth holders, so you can see the same kind of reversal between the U.S. and Europe that we had before for income inequality. So wealth concentration was higher in Europe than in the U.S. a century ago, and now it is the opposite. But you can also show two things: First, the general level of wealth inequality is always higher than income inequality. So remember, for income inequality, the share going to the top 10 percent was between 30 and 50 percent of total income, whereas for wealth, the share is always between 60 and 90 percent. Okay, so that's fact number one, and that's very important for what follows. Wealth concentration is always a lot higher than income concentration.
解釋了事實二和事實三。 首先,如果你注意看財富不均的程度, 這是財富前 10% 者持有財富 佔總財富的比重, 你可以發現 美國與歐洲之間有相同的逆轉, 就跟過去所得不均的逆轉一樣。 所以百年前歐洲財富集中的情形 高過於美國, 現在就顛倒過來了。 另外你也可以看出兩件事情, 第一、財富不均的程度 普遍高於所得不均。 記得所得不均的情況, 前 10% 者擁有的所得 是總所得的 30% 至 50%, 然而他們擁有的財富比例 卻一直在 60% 至 90% 之間。 這就是事實一, 對之後要說的很重要。 財富一直都 遠比所得更為集中。 事實二、
Fact number two is that the rise in wealth inequality in recent decades is still not enough to get us back to 1910. So the big difference today, wealth inequality is still very large, with 60, 70 percent of total wealth for the top 10, but the good news is that it's actually better than one century ago, where you had 90 percent in Europe going to the top 10. So today what you have is what I call the middle 40 percent, the people who are not in the top 10 and who are not in the bottom 50, and what you can view as the wealth middle class that owns 20 to 30 percent of total wealth, national wealth, whereas they used to be poor, a century ago, when there was basically no wealth middle class. So this is an important change, and it's interesting to see that wealth inequality has not fully recovered to pre-World War I levels, although the total quantity of wealth has recovered. Okay? So this is the total value of wealth relative to income, and you can see that in particular in Europe, we are almost back to the pre-World War I level. So there are really two different parts of the story here. One has to do with the total quantity of wealth that we accumulate, and there is nothing bad per se, of course, in accumulating a lot of wealth, and in particular if it is more diffuse and less concentrated. So what we really want to focus on is the long-run evolution of wealth inequality, and what's going to happen in the future. How can we account for the fact that until World War I, wealth inequality was so high and, if anything, was rising to even higher levels, and how can we think about the future?
近幾十年來財富不均惡化的情況 還不致於像 1910 年那樣嚴重。 與過去不同的是, 現在的貧富差距依然很大, 前10% 的富人擁有 60% 至 70% 的總財富, 但好消息是 情況的確已經比上個世紀好多了, 當時 90% 的總財富 落入了前 10% 富人的口袋裡。 那麼今天你們看到的是 我稱為中間 40% 的人, 不是前 10 %, 也不是墊底的 50%, 他們可以說是財富的中產階級, 擁有總財富、國家財富的 20% 至 30%; 然而上個世紀他們卻是窮人, 因為那時候基本上沒有 財富的中產階級。 所以這是很重大的改變, 而且看到財富不均沒有完全恢復到 第一次世界大戰之前的程度也很有趣, 即便財富總量已經是恢復了。 沒問題吧? 這是相較於所得的財富總值, 你可以看到特別是歐洲, 我們幾乎是回到了 第一次世界大戰之前的程度。 這件事其實有兩個不一樣的面向, 一個是關於我們累積的財富總量, 當然累積一大堆財富 這件事本身沒有不好, 特別是假如財富更分散, 又比較不那麼集中的時候。 那麼我們真正關心的是什麼? 是財富不均的長期演變, 還有未來會發生什麼事。 我們要如何解釋 第一次世界大戰以前, 財富差距如此大, 而且是大到前所未有的程度, 那麼我們該如何看待未來呢?
So let me come to some of the explanations and speculations about the future. Let me first say that probably the best model to explain why wealth is so much more concentrated than income is a dynamic, dynastic model where individuals have a long horizon and accumulate wealth for all sorts of reasons. If people were accumulating wealth only for life cycle reasons, you know, to be able to consume when they are old, then the level of wealth inequality should be more or less in line with the level of income inequality. But it will be very difficult to explain why you have so much more wealth inequality than income inequality with a pure life cycle model, so you need a story where people also care about wealth accumulation for other reasons. So typically, they want to transmit wealth to the next generation, to their children, or sometimes they want to accumulate wealth because of the prestige, the power that goes with wealth. So there must be other reasons for accumulating wealth than just life cycle to explain what we see in the data. Now, in a large class of dynamic models of wealth accumulation with such dynastic motive for accumulating wealth, you will have all sorts of random, multiplicative shocks. So for instance, some families have a very large number of children, so the wealth will be divided. Some families have fewer children. You also have shocks to rates of return. Some families make huge capital gains. Some made bad investments. So you will always have some mobility in the wealth process. Some people will move up, some people will move down. The important point is that, in any such model, for a given variance of such shocks, the equilibrium level of wealth inequality will be a steeply rising function of r minus g. And intuitively, the reason why the difference between the rate of return to wealth and the growth rate is important is that initial wealth inequalities will be amplified at a faster pace with a bigger r minus g. So take a simple example, with r equals five percent and g equals one percent, wealth holders only need to reinvest one fifth of their capital income to ensure that their wealth rises as fast as the size of the economy. So this makes it easier to build and perpetuate large fortunes because you can consume four fifths, assuming zero tax, and you can just reinvest one fifth. So of course some families will consume more than that, some will consume less, so there will be some mobility in the distribution, but on average, they only need to reinvest one fifth, so this allows high wealth inequalities to be sustained.
那麼讓我來做一些說明, 以及預測未來。 我先聲明, 解釋財富為什麼比所得 還要更集中的最佳經濟模型 大概是一種動態、世代的經濟模型, 其中每個人都長期 為了各種理由來累積財富。 假使人們累積財富 只是為了因應生命週期, 為了在他們老的時候 還有能力花錢消費, 那麼財富不均的情形 應該和所得不均的情形 相差不遠。 可是你很難說明 為什麼財富不均要比所得不均更嚴重, 只憑生命週期理論, 所以你需要一個情境, 在其中的人們會為了 其他理由累積財富。 一般來說,他們想把財富 交給下一代、他們的小孩, 或者有時候他們累積財富 是為了特權──伴隨財富而來的權力。 所以累積財富一定有除了 生命週期以外的理由, 來解釋我們在資料裡發現的情況。 在這種累積財富 是為了累積世代財富的變動模式之中, 會有各種毫無規則且加倍的衝擊。 舉例來說: 有些家庭有非常多的小孩, 因此財富就會分散, 有些家庭的小孩則較少。 你也會對資產報酬率感到吃驚, 有的家庭有大筆資本利得, 有的卻投資失利。 因此財富累積的過程 總是會有一些流動, 有些人會往上升、 有些人則會往下掉。 重點是任何在這種模型下, 有這種特定的變動衝擊, 財富不均的水平 會成為急遽升高的 r 減 g 函數。 財富報酬率與經濟成長率之間的差異 為什麼重要, 想當然是因為只要 r 減 g 的數值越大, 最初財富不均的情況就會被擴大得更快。 舉個簡單的例子: 假設 r 是 5% 而 g 是 1%, 財富持有人只需要再投資 資本所得的五分之一, 他們財富增加的速度 就會跟經濟成長一樣快。 因此創造和保有大筆財富就更容易, 因為你可以消費五分之四, 假設零稅率, 你就可以再投資五分之一。 當然有些家庭會消費多一些、 有的則消費較少, 分配上就會有一些變動, 但是總的來看, 他們只要再投資五分之一, 這樣就能維持財富高度不均。 現在你應該不會驚訝於
Now, you should not be surprised by the statement that r can be bigger than g forever, because, in fact, this is what happened during most of the history of mankind. And this was in a way very obvious to everybody for a simple reason, which is that growth was close to zero percent during most of the history of mankind. Growth was maybe 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 percent, but very slow growth of population and output per capita, whereas the rate of return on capital of course was not zero percent. It was, for land assets, which was the traditional form of assets in preindustrial societies, it was typically five percent. Any reader of Jane Austen would know that. If you want an annual income of 1,000 pounds, you should have a capital value of 20,000 pounds so that five percent of 20,000 is 1,000. And in a way, this was the very foundation of society, because r bigger than g was what allowed holders of wealth and assets to live off their capital income and to do something else in life than just to care about their own survival.
r 永遠可以大於 g 這句話了, 因為事實上, 這種情況在人類史上很常見。 這種情況大家都能看得一清二楚, 理由很簡單, 因為史上大多數時候 經濟成長率幾乎是 0%。 經濟成長率也許是 0.1%、0.2% 或 0.3%, 但人口和人均產出的成長率非常慢, 那時候資本報酬率 當然不會是 0%。 以土地來說, 在工業化以前的社會, 土地是典型的資產, 報酬率通常是 5%。 任何讀過珍奧斯汀作品的人都知道。 假如你想要得到一千英磅的年所得, 你應該要有價值兩萬英鎊的資本, 兩萬的 5% 就是一千。 這就是以前社會的基礎, 因為 r 大於 g 就會讓財富以及資產的持有者可以 靠著資本所得過生活, 還能在生活中做些別的事, 而不是只關心能不能填飽肚子。
Now, one important conclusion of my historical research is that modern industrial growth did not change this basic fact as much as one might have expected. Of course, the growth rate following the Industrial Revolution rose, typically from zero to one to two percent, but at the same time, the rate of return to capital also rose so that the gap between the two did not really change. So during the 20th century, you had a very unique combination of events. First, a very low rate of return due to the 1914 and 1945 war shocks, destruction of wealth, inflation, bankruptcy during the Great Depression, and all of this reduced the private rate of return to wealth to unusually low levels between 1914 and 1945. And then, in the postwar period, you had unusually high growth rate, partly due to the reconstruction. You know, in Germany, in France, in Japan, you had five percent growth rate between 1950 and 1980 largely due to reconstruction, and also due to very large demographic growth, the Baby Boom Cohort effect. Now, apparently that's not going to last for very long, or at least the population growth is supposed to decline in the future, and the best projections we have is that the long-run growth is going to be closer to one to two percent rather than four to five percent. So if you look at this, these are the best estimates we have of world GDP growth and rate of return on capital, average rates of return on capital, so you can see that during most of the history of mankind, the growth rate was very small, much lower than the rate of return, and then during the 20th century, it is really the population growth, very high in the postwar period, and the reconstruction process that brought growth to a smaller gap with the rate of return. Here I use the United Nations population projections, so of course they are uncertain. It could be that we all start having a lot of children in the future, and the growth rates are going to be higher, but from now on, these are the best projections we have, and this will make global growth decline and the gap between the rate of return go up.
我的歷史研究 有一個重要的結論是 現代工業的發展並未如我們期待 改變這個簡單的事實太多。 當然經濟成長率 隨著工業革命後增加, 通常是多出零到 1% 或 2%, 不過同一時間 資本報酬率也增加了, 所以貧富差距沒多少改變。 二十世紀 是由許多事件交織成的特殊時代。 首先是非常低的報酬率, 肇因於 1914 年和 1945 年 戰爭造成的衝擊、 財富破壞、通貨膨脹、 以及大蕭條期間的破產, 以上原因讓個人的財富報酬率 在 1914 到 1945 年時 下降到異常低的程度。 接著在戰後期間 出現異常高的經濟成長率, 部分歸功於重建。 在德國、法國和日本, 在 1950 到 1980 年之間, 出現過 5% 的經濟成長率, 大部分歸功於重建, 也歸功於大量的人口成長, 也就是嬰兒潮世代。 顯然那無法持續太久, 或者至少未來 人口成長應該會下降, 我們有的最佳預測是 長期經濟成長率 將會是 1% 至 2%, 而不是 4% 至 5%。 如果你看到這邊, 這是全球國內生產毛額、 資本報酬率、 也就是平均資產報酬率的最佳預測。 你能看到人類史上 大多數時間的 經濟成長率非常低, 遠低於資本報酬率, 後來在 20 世紀期間, 真的就是人口成長, 戰後的人口成長率非常高, 而重建的過程 讓經濟成長率 與資產報酬率間的差距縮小了。 我用的是聯合國的未來人口預測, 當然這些數字還不確定。 也許是我們開始準備 要在未來生很多的小孩, 而經濟成長率就會更高一些, 但是從現在開始, 這些就是我們現有的最佳預測, 這將使得全球的經濟成長下滑、 還有與資產報酬率之間的 差距將會擴大。
Now, the other unusual event during the 20th century was, as I said, destruction, taxation of capital, so this is the pre-tax rate of return. This is the after-tax rate of return, and after destruction, and this is what brought the average rate of return after tax, after destruction, below the growth rate during a long time period. But without the destruction, without the taxation, this would not have happened. So let me say that the balance between returns on capital and growth depends on many different factors that are very difficult to predict: technology and the development of capital-intensive techniques. So right now, the most capital-intensive sectors in the economy are the real estate sector, housing, the energy sector, but it could be in the future that we have a lot more robots in a number of sectors and that this would be a bigger share of the total capital stock that it is today. Well, we are very far from this, and from now, what's going on in the real estate sector, the energy sector, is much more important for the total capital stock and capital share.
另一件 20 世紀發生的特殊事件, 如同我剛才提到的, 就是財產破壞、資本稅, 這邊是稅前的報酬率; 而這是稅後、財產破壞後的報酬率, 這是課稅後、財產破壞後的平均報酬率, 就是稅金和財產破壞 讓平均報酬率 長時間低於經濟成長率。 但是如果沒有財產破壞和資本稅, 這些就不可能發生。 所以讓我這麼說吧, 資本報酬率以及經濟成長率之間的平衡 取決於許多難以預料的各種因素, 像是科技和資本密集技術的發展。 在目前的經濟裡, 資本最密集的行業是 地產業、房屋業、能源業, 不過未來有可能 在部分部門中 我們會用上一大堆機器人, 這些行業就會佔有 比今天更高的總資本量比例。 但那還遙不可及, 從現在來說不動產業、能源業 發生的變化, 對資本總量還有所佔比例 更加重要。
The other important issue is that there are scale effects in portfolio management, together with financial complexity, financial deregulation, that make it easier to get higher rates of return for a large portfolio, and this seems to be particularly strong for billionaires, large capital endowments. Just to give you one example, this comes from the Forbes billionaire rankings over the 1987-2013 period, and you can see the very top wealth holders have been going up at six, seven percent per year in real terms above inflation, whereas average income in the world, average wealth in the world, have increased at only two percent per year. And you find the same for large university endowments — the bigger the initial endowments, the bigger the rate of return.
另一個重要的課題是 投資組合管理的規模效果, 結合金融的複雜性 與財政法令鬆綁, 使得大型的投資組合 更容易得到較高的報酬率, 這對億萬富翁、大型資本捐贈來說 似乎格外有效。 給你看個例子, 這是富比士的億萬富翁排名, 1987 年到 2013 年期間的資料, 你可以看到財富最多的那群人 財富實質上每年都比 通貨膨脹高 6% 至 7%, 但是世界上的平均所得、平均財富 每年卻只增加 2%。 你也會看到同樣的情形 出現在大學的大型捐贈, 起始的捐贈基金規模越大, 報酬率就越高。
Now, what could be done? The first thing is that I think we need more financial transparency. We know too little about global wealth dynamics, so we need international transmission of bank information. We need a global registry of financial assets, more coordination on wealth taxation, and even wealth tax with a small tax rate will be a way to produce information so that then we can adapt our policies to whatever we observe. And to some extent, the fight against tax havens and automatic transmission of information is pushing us in this direction. Now, there are other ways to redistribute wealth, which it can be tempting to use. Inflation: it's much easier to print money than to write a tax code, so that's very tempting, but sometimes you don't know what you do with the money. This is a problem. Expropriation is very tempting. Just when you feel some people get too wealthy, you just expropriate them. But this is not a very efficient way to organize a regulation of wealth dynamics. So war is an even less efficient way, so I tend to prefer progressive taxation, but of course, history — (Laughter) — history will invent its own best ways, and it will probably involve a combination of all of these.
我們可以做什麼呢? 第一件事我認為我們需要 財務更加透明。 我們對全球的財富流動所知不多, 因此我們需要銀行資訊在國際間傳遞, 我們需要全球性的金融資產登記制度, 並且在財富稅上做更多協調, 縱使財富稅用較低的稅率, 仍會是提供資訊的方式, 如此一來我們就能 依據發現的問題來調整政策。 在某個程度來說, 對抗避稅天堂、 自動傳遞資訊 都促使我們朝這個方向前進。 現在有其他重新分配財富的方法 讓人非常想要採用, 像是通貨膨脹, 比起擬定稅務規則, 印鈔票是簡單多了, 所以那非常誘人, 可是有時候你不清楚要怎麼處理錢, 這就是問題了。 充公是非常吸引人的方式, 只要你認為有些人太富有了, 你就讓他們的財產充公。 但是制定讓財富流動的法令 並不是非常有效的辦法; 而戰爭更是無效的辦法, 所以我比較偏好累進式稅制, 當然了,歷史…(笑聲) 歷史會找到當下的最佳方法, 那可能會是所有方法的匯總。
Thank you.
謝謝!
(Applause)
(掌聲)
Bruno Giussani: Thomas Piketty. Thank you.
布魯諾.吉桑尼: 托瑪.皮凱提,謝謝你。
Thomas, I want to ask you two or three questions, because it's impressive how you're in command of your data, of course, but basically what you suggest is growing wealth concentration is kind of a natural tendency of capitalism, and if we leave it to its own devices, it may threaten the system itself, so you're suggesting that we need to act to implement policies that redistribute wealth, including the ones we just saw: progressive taxation, etc. In the current political context, how realistic are those? How likely do you think that it is that they will be implemented?
托瑪,我想請教你兩、三個問題, 因為你運用資料的方式 讓人印象深刻,這是當然的了, 不過基本上你指出的是 財富集中的增長算是 資本主義的自然趨勢, 如果我們放任它不管, 也許它會傷害到 資本主義本身的系統, 所以你認為我們需要採取 落實財富重分配的政策, 包含我們剛剛看到的 累進稅制…等等。 在當前的政治環境裡, 那些方法的可能性有多高呢? 你又認為這些方法 有多少可能性會被採用?
Thomas Piketty: Well, you know, I think if you look back through time, the history of income, wealth and taxation is full of surprise. So I am not terribly impressed by those who know in advance what will or will not happen. I think one century ago, many people would have said that progressive income taxation would never happen and then it happened. And even five years ago, many people would have said that bank secrecy will be with us forever in Switzerland, that Switzerland was too powerful for the rest of the world, and then suddenly it took a few U.S. sanctions against Swiss banks for a big change to happen, and now we are moving toward more financial transparency. So I think it's not that difficult to better coordinate politically. We are going to have a treaty with half of the world GDP around the table with the U.S. and the European Union, so if half of the world GDP is not enough to make progress on financial transparency and minimal tax for multinational corporate profits, what does it take? So I think these are not technical difficulties. I think we can make progress if we have a more pragmatic approach to these questions and we have the proper sanctions on those who benefit from financial opacity.
托瑪.皮凱提:好的,我認為 如果你回頭看, 所得、財富還有稅制的歷史 總令人意外, 所以我對那些事先知道 將來會或不會發生什麼事的人 並沒有留下太深刻的印象。 我想一個世紀前, 許多人會說, 累進式所得稅不可行, 但後來卻實現了。 甚至是在五年前, 很多人會說瑞士的銀行保密 會永遠罩著我們, 因為瑞士對其他國家來說太強勢了。 後來突然間美國對瑞士 提出一些制裁,--- 要求大幅改變, 現在我們的財務會漸漸變得更透明。 所以我認為要在政治上 做更多協調不是太難的事。 不久後會有一項協定 由全球半數 GDP 的國家共同協議, 包含美國和歐盟, 如果佔全球半數 GDP 的國家 還不足以改善財務透明、 對跨國公司的獲利課點稅, 那需要多少才夠呢? 所以我認為並沒有技術上的困難, 我認為我們可以改善, 只要我們有更務實的方法 來解決這些問題, 並且有恰當的制裁手段 對付因為財務不透明而獲利的人。 吉桑尼:有一項爭議
BG: One of the arguments against your point of view is that economic inequality is not only a feature of capitalism but is actually one of its engines. So we take measures to lower inequality, and at the same time we lower growth, potentially. What do you answer to that?
和你的觀點相左, 那就是經濟不平等 不只是資本主義的特色, 更是經濟的引擎之一, 因此我們採取手段減少不平等現象, 但同時我們也不經意減少了經濟成長, 你怎麼回應這點呢? 皮凱提:我認為
TP: Yeah, I think inequality is not a problem per se. I think inequality up to a point can actually be useful for innovation and growth. The problem is, it's a question of degree. When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility. And for instance, the kind of wealth concentrations that we had in the 19th century and pretty much until World War I in every European country was, I think, not useful for growth. This was destroyed by a combination of tragic events and policy changes, and this did not prevent growth from happening. And also, extreme inequality can be bad for our democratic institutions if it creates very unequal access to political voice, and the influence of private money in U.S. politics, I think, is a matter of concern right now. So we don't want to return to that kind of extreme, pre-World War I inequality. Having a decent share of the national wealth for the middle class is not bad for growth. It is actually useful both for equity and efficiency reasons.
不平等本身並不是個問題, 我認為不平等某種程度 對創新跟成長確實能有幫助, 問題是到什麼程度。 當不平等變得太嚴重, 對經濟成長就會沒有幫助, 而且它還可能有害, 因為它會導致永久的高度不平等, 以及低流動性。 舉例來說十九世紀, 甚至一直到第一次世界大戰以前 發生在歐洲各國的那種財富集中, 我認為對成長是沒有幫助的。 財富集中被悲劇事件和政策改變---- 一同摧毀了, 卻未阻擋經濟成長。 而且極度不平均可能 對我們的民主體制有害, 如果它造成取得政治發言權的不平等, 還有在美國政治裡 私人財富的影響力, 我認為那是現在該擔心的事了。 我們不想要回到那種極端, 像第一次世界大戰前那樣的不均。 讓中產階級享有適當比例的國家財富--- 對經濟成長不是壞事, 其實還有助於 公平與效率原則。 吉桑尼:開頭時我曾說
BG: I said at the beginning that your book has been criticized. Some of your data has been criticized. Some of your choice of data sets has been criticized. You have been accused of cherry-picking data to make your case. What do you answer to that?
你的書不斷被人批評, 有一些是批評你的資料, 有些是批評你對資料集的選擇, 你被指控只篩選某些資料做案例,--- 你要怎麼來回答這個問題呢? 皮凱提:我想說我真的很高興
TP: Well, I answer that I am very happy that this book is stimulating debate. This is part of what it is intended for. Look, the reason why I put all the data online with all of the detailed computation is so that we can have an open and transparent debate about this. So I have responded point by point to every concern. Let me say that if I was to rewrite the book today, I would actually conclude that the rise in wealth inequality, particularly in the United States, has been actually higher than what I report in my book. There is a recent study by Saez and Zucman showing, with new data which I didn't have at the time of the book, that wealth concentration in the U.S. has risen even more than what I report. And there will be other data in the future. Some of it will go in different directions. Look, we put online almost every week new, updated series on the World Top Income Database and we will keep doing so in the future, in particular in emerging countries, and I welcome all of those who want to contribute to this data collection process. In fact, I certainly agree that there is not enough transparency about wealth dynamics, and a good way to have better data would be to have a wealth tax with a small tax rate to begin with so that we can all agree about this important evolution and adapt our policies to whatever we observe. So taxation is a source of knowledge, and that's what we need the most right now.
這本書引起討論, 因為那也是這本書的目的之一。 我將全部的資料放上網路, 包括計算的細節, 是因為這樣一來我們可以 公開和透明的辯論。 所以我已經一一回應 每一個疑慮, 讓我這麼說吧, 假使我今天要重寫這本書, 我一定會斷言 財富不均日益嚴重的情形, 特別是在美國, 已經超過當初我在書中所述。 最近賽茲和祖克曼在一項研究中 採用的新資料 就是我出書時還沒有的, 研究顯示美國的財富已更加集中, 甚至高過於我所寫的。 未來還會有其他的資料, 某部分會有不同的走向, 你看,我們幾乎是每週 把資料放上網路, 將更新的歷程放上全球高所得資料庫, 而且我們未來也會繼續這樣做, 特別是在新興國家, 而我也歡迎所有想要 協助收集資料的人。 事實上我絕對同意 財富變動不夠透明,--- 取得較佳資料的好方法 就是要有財富稅, 一開始採取低稅率, 這樣我們都能認同 這項重要改革, 還有從我們觀察到的來調整政策。 所以稅收是重要的資訊來源, 而那正是我們現在最需要的。 吉桑尼:托瑪.皮凱提, 非常感謝(法語)!謝謝你!
BG: Thomas Piketty, merci beaucoup.
皮凱提:謝謝大家!(掌聲)
Thank you. TP: Thank you. (Applause)