让.梯若尔：政府制定产业政策须让独立、有资格的专家来选择资助项目

梯若尔：

Well, thank you so much, David. And thank you, to say it, actually, for inviting me. It's a great honor to be part of this conference. I'm going to share with you a few thoughts about the role of government in the 21st century economy. Okay, sorry. I'm going to now share right？

非常感谢David，感谢你的邀请。很荣幸能参加这次会议。我想和大家分享一些关于政府在21世纪经济中的角色的想法。我现在共享一下屏幕。

So I'm going to argue that the role of government is really a matter of balance, a balance between various things. And I'm going to start with the division of labor between the political side, which is the executive, and legislative as something which is more independent from politics, so the independent agencies, and ultimately the private sector of course. It is a big question in the West about whether the state is back, and to some extent it is.

我将论证政府的角色实际上是一个平衡问题，是各种事物之间的平衡。我将从政治方面的分工开始，也就是行政和立法，而立法则是更加独立于政治的东西，此外还有独立机构，当然最终会讲到私营部门。在西方有一个很大的问题，就是国家权力是否回来了。在某种程度上来说，它是回来了。

There is a renewed popularity of industrial policy, and also plans for re-shoring. Of course, after COVID, while there was some disruption of supply chains, some, I'm saying, because actually they hold up pretty, pretty well given the circumstances. But of course, now with the invasion of Ukraine, we also have disruption supply chains.

产业政策重新受到欢迎，还有企业回流计划。当然，在新冠疫情之后，虽然供应链有一点中断，我说的是有一点，因为实际上供应链在疫情下维持得相当好。但当然，现在伴随着俄乌冲突，也出现了供应链的中断。

And of course, this is not the most important part of the world, but they still, if you think, e.g. about neon, which is used for chips, 50% of it is being produced in Ukraine. Now, the re-shoring, is that a short term reaction or permanent trend? I just want to point out that there are alternatives to re-shoring.

当然，乌克兰不是世界上最重要的地方，但仍然很重要。例如，用于芯片的氖，50%产于乌克兰。还有企业回流，这会是一个短期的现象还是永久的趋势？我只想指出，企业不一定要回流，还有其他解决方法。

One is geopolitical diversification. The other one is, of course, the storage of essential inputs if we have only a short term crisis.

一个是地缘政治的多样化。另一个就是，如果危机只是短期的，就储存基本资源。

And the 2nd point I want to make is that there are limits to re-shoring. The first is that you cannot have access to what the entire world has to offer to you, and therefore there is a loss of welfare, loss of purchasing power. The second point is that the creation of international supply chain is very much like a fixed cost and once it has been spent, it’s sunk.

第二点，回流是有限制的。首先，你无法获得其他国家的资源，因此会损失福利和购买力。其次，国际供应链的建立就是固定成本，一旦建了，成本就沉没了。

You know, for example, for the Western companies to invest in China, actually it was a big investment. But now this investment has been made, so that's such as that maybe there will be some re-shoring, but not a huge amount.

例如，西方公司在中国投资，实际上是很大的投资。现在投资已经完成了，所以这就意味着也许会有一些回流，但量不会很大。

My vision of the modern state, and I see the state as a regulator, a referee, and it’s going to correct market failures. So market failures, I refer you to my book, Economics for the Common Good. You can think of that as being, for example, externalities, e.g. carbon emissions, and try to make sure that the general interest coincide with the individual interest and reduce emissions.

关于我对现代国家的看法，我认为国家是监管者，是裁判员，它要纠正市场失灵。谈到市场失灵，大家可以看看我的书《共同利益经济学》。你可以把市场失灵看作是外部性，例如碳排放，你需要试图确保普遍利益与个人利益相吻合，减少排放。

It can be market power, that's why we have competition policy. It can be the consumer lack of information, that's why we have food safety regulation, or banking regulation. That could be inequality, of course, because there is no reason why the market is going to deliver the proper distribution of income and wealth and so on and so forth.

它可能是市场力量，这就是为什么我们有竞争政策。它可能是消费者缺乏信息，这就是为什么我们有食品安全监管，或银行监管。当然，也可能是不平等，因为市场不会平等分配收入和财富，等等。

So it's basically a market fixer and a regulator or referee. Of course, the state has to be an enabler by providing various infrastructure like the legal framework. So good legal framework is, of course, very important for economic growth.

因此，国家基本上是市场修复者、监管者或裁判员。当然，它必须通过提供法律框架等基础设施，成为一个推动者。一个良好的法律框架对于经济增长是非常重要的。

Well, I will be more reluctant to have the state as a producer because in that matter, it's less efficient than the market in the private sector. Let me see why. So state owned enterprises as always, often inefficient. For several reasons.

我不愿意让国家成为生产者，因为在这个问题上，它的效率比私营部门的市场要低。我来解释一下。国有企业往往效率不高。有几个原因。

The first is that they are given often a fuzzy mission, so you know what they are trying to optimize? Not completely clear. They have conflicting objectives. For example, they are being asked to be profitable, but at the same time, they may be asked to support the local industry or do various other things.

第一是他们的使命往往是模糊的，所以你知道他们要优化什么吗？并不完全清楚。他们的目标互相矛盾。例如，他们要盈利，但同时，又可能被要求支持当地产业或做其他各种事情。

The second danger, of course, is that the government may actually select buddies for the top corporate jobs as a reward, but, you know, this may not be the most appropriate appointments.

第二个危险是，作为奖励，政府可能会选择亲信担任公司的高层，但是他可能不是最合适的人选。

The third issue is the so-called soft budget constraint, the fact that if a state owned enterprise loses money and it's about to go bankrupt, then in general, the government is going to bail it out.

第三个问题是所谓的预算软约束，即如果一个国有企业亏损并即将破产，那么一般来说，政府会进行救助。

And of course, the anticipation of bailouts is going to create moral hazard so the managers are going to be less concerned about losing money, that they will put less effort into avoiding lawsuits.

当然，对救助的期待会产生道德风险，经理们会对亏损不太在意，也不会努力避免诉讼。

And finally, the state owned enterprises may, in some cases, lobby the government so as to have no competitors at all, because, of course, a monopoly is a quiet life.

最后，在某些情况下，国有企业可能会游说政府，消除所有竞争对手，因为垄断是很爽的。

Another remark I want to make is that there's a lot of power of the state in France and Europe. There's been over the last 40 years. Before that, there was actually a gain of power by the state, which went together with a very welcome rise in the welfare state. So we built a welfare state, and therefore welfare state became more important.

我想说的另一点是，在法国和欧洲，国家有很大的权力。在过去的40年里一直如此。在此之前，实际上有一个国家权力增加的阶段，与之相伴的是福利国家的发展。有了国家福利，国家变得更加重要。

There were also some other reasons, like there were some nationalizations after World War Two, especially in France. However, from the 1980s on, and there was what I would call a triple whammy.

还有一些其他的原因，比如二战后出现了一些国有化，特别是在法国。然而，从20世纪80年代开始，出现了我称之为三重打击的现象。

First, there was some privatization of those state owned enterprises. Then there was a globalization with lower costs of doing trade, with trade agreements starting in the eighties, nineties and so on. And that globalization, of course, created more competition. The market became more important. Um at the expense a little bit to the state.

首先，这些国有企业进行了一些私有化。然后是全球化，贸易成本降低，从80年代、90年代开始有贸易协定。当然，这种全球化创造了更多的竞争。以牺牲一点国家利益为代价，市场的重要性增加。

In Europe, you had some other reasons for why the state lost importance. In France, for example, you had the devolution in 1982 of power to regions and everywhere in the European construction, which meant that some of the power went to the operation. And finally, we had a different state, which was the rise of the independent agencies. I'm going to ask, why? Why did this happen?

在欧洲，也有其他原因导致国家的重要性下降。例如，法国1982年将权力下放到各地区以及在欧洲建设的各个地方，这意味着一些权力被用于操作层面。最后，出现了一种新的国家形态，那就是独立机构的崛起。为什么？为什么独立机构会崛起？

So to do that, we need to open the state’s black box. The state is a big thing, and here at the top is some kind of constitution. And the constitution is really about the broad principle, not very details, just the values of society and what we want to achieve through the intervention of the state. It's a spirit of policy making.

要做到这一点，我们需要打开国家的黑匣子。国家是一个大概念，首先是某种宪法。而宪法实际上是关于广泛的原则，并不详尽，只是社会的价值观以及我们想通过国家的干预实现什么目标，是一种政策制定的精神。

Then the details, which are extremely important of course, a letter is determined by various actors, competitors, which is with checks and balance. I'm going to fill out the details. I'm going to explain why I call them competitors, because basically they have to cooperate at the same time. They are not necessary the same objective if they want to implement the checks and balances.

然后是细节，细节当然是极其重要的，法律是由各个行为者、竞争者决定的，这是有制衡的。我要把细节补上。我解释下为什么我称他们为竞争对手，因为基本上说，他们必须同时合作。如果想实施制衡，那么各方的目标并不一定相同。

Now, having checks and balances in general as a stabilizing effect of a public decision, so there are not huge swings when the government changes. And it creates some competition in politics, because absolute power may corrupt.

现在，一般来说，有了制衡作为一个公共决策的稳定效果，当政府换届时，不会出现动荡。而且它在政治上创造了一些竞争，因为绝对权力可能会腐败。

Monopoly, wherever it comes from, it can come from elite capture, there are lots of accusations of that in the West, the party, or cliques or whatever, it's going to, generally the monopoly generates a feeling of superiority and impunity, and also group think.

垄断，不管怎么来的，可能来自精英捕获（在西方有很多这样的指控）、党派、或小团体或任何东西，一般来说，垄断会产生一种优越感和有罪不罚的感觉，还有群体思维。

So group think is really when everybody thinks the same and nobody dares to present any contrary argument. And that's bad, of course, because after a while of group think, then you end up with very bad decisions.

群体思维实际上是指每个人的想法都一样，没有人敢于提出任何相反的论点。这当然是不好的，因为经过一段时间的群体思维，你最终会做出非常糟糕的决定。

There's some, uh, some balance between the legislative and executive branch, and of course, there is also some balance between the civil service and the politicians. And there we have a long standing debate about the difference between the civil service and civil servants.

立法和行政部门之间有一些平衡，当然，公务员和政治家之间也有一些平衡。在这里，我们有一个关于公务员制度和公务员之间区别的长期辩论。

The civil service refers to a long term institution that serves the public interest. Civil servant is supposed to serve the interest of the government of the day. Of course, the government of the day in every country is going to say, I'm serving the public interest. But of course, there is no reason to believe that. It's not quite the case. And we have to be careful with the difference between civil service and civil servant.

公务员制度指的是为公共利益服务的长期制度。公务员服务的则是当时的政府的利益。当然，每个国家的在任政府都会说，我在为公共利益服务。但当然，我们没有理由相信这一点。情况并不完全如此。因此我们必须谨慎对待公务员制度和公职人员之间的区别。

But in any case, what we need is some competition. So we need some cooperation, otherwise nothing is done. But at the same time, the civil service and the legislative branch have should not be yes men.

但无论如何，我们需要的是竞争。同时我们也需要合作，否则什么也做不了。但与此同时，公务员和立法部门也不应该唯命是从。

Now, that brings me to a different conception of the state, which is independent agencies. That's not a new conception, if you think about justice, for example a basic principle of justice is that the government cannot be judge and jury at the same time.

接下来，我想到了国家的另一种概念，即独立机构。这不是一个新的概念，比如说你想想司法。司法的一个基本原则是，政府不能同时是法官和陪审团。

Um, you need someone who is independent, and probably one of the examples was the British crown. The judges in England became independent in the early 18th century from the British crown. But of course, they decided that you need independent players in government, for example, that has been very important to develop anti-trust without intervention from ministers in favor of some firms.

你需要一个独立的人，英国王室可能是一个例子。英国的法官在18世纪初从英国王室中独立出来。但当然，社会需要政府中的独立角色，例如，这对发展反垄断、阻止部长干预以偏向某些公司是非常重要的。

That has been very important for regulation, industrial policy agencies, for central banks. In most countries in the world, now, central banks are independent, and that's how we were able to tame in and for example, and also to do better banking regulation. And we want to avoid the prevalence of lobbying and electioneering, rulers’ interests into those decisions.

这对监管、产业政策机构和中央银行来说非常重要。如今世界上大多数国家的中央银行都是独立的，这就是我们能够驯服以及更好地进行银行监管的原因。我们希望避免游说和选举活动的盛行，避免统治者的利益进入这些决策。

Now, independence, in general, facilitated protection. It protects the agency from the temptation to pander, to please someone. So basically be more faithful to the mission, whether it's central banking or a competition policy or what not.

独立一般来说有利于保护。它可以保护机构不受诱惑去迎合、去取悦某人。因此，无论是中央银行还是竞争政策或其他方面，这些机构更忠实于使命。

That basically makes it easier to fulfill the mission and to have more expertise based public policy with a lot of transparency. Because the manager of the agency, other politicians, they are not elected or anything. And therefore they can explain very clearly why they took this decision and have a consultation they open where people who disagree express their views, and so on. And that's good.

他们也更容易履行使命，并有更多的带有透明度的基于专业知识的公共政策。因为机构管理者、其他的政治家，他们不是选举上来的，所以他们可以非常清楚地解释他们为什么做出这个决定，并有一个公开的咨询，让不同意的人表达他们的意见，等等。这就很好。

Now, I have to warn you, an independent agency, and I like independent agencies, it's only as good as the quality of its staff. So in an independent agency, if you put the wrong staff, it is not a good thing. So you have to find people who have expertise, who are independent from the government and from lobbies, and are honest. So the selection process is very important.

我必须警告各位的一点是，一个独立机构，虽然我喜欢独立机构，但它的好坏只取决于其员工质量。因此，在一个独立机构中，如果雇错了人，那就糟了。所以必须找到有专业知识的人，他们独立于政府和游说团体，并且诚实。所以选拔过程是非常重要的。

And the independent authorities also are never completely independent in that, you know, they take a decision and it cannot be challenged. But you know, over the years, of course, if it doesn't fulfill the mission, then you could have, for example, the Parliament remove the head of the agency.

独立机构也从来没有完全独立，你知道，他们做出的决定不能被质疑。但是多年来，如果它没有完成使命，那么议会可以开除该机构的负责人。

Now, let me come to the 2nd part of my talk. Um, what creates trust in government. Now, I'm going to look at different kind of balance between the state and its clients, its users, the citizens and companies. And I'm going to make four suggestions for building trust.

现在，到我今天谈话的第二部分：什么创造了对政府的信任。我将谈一下国家和它的客户、用户、公民和公司之间的不同平衡。我将为建立信任提出四个建议。

The first is kind of obvious, it is to achieve bureaucratic efficiency. The state is there, at the service of the people. And of course, it's business of cooperation, but it's basically at the service of the people.

第一条是显而易见的，那就是要提高官僚系统的效率。国家就在那里，为人民服务。当然，它也是合作的业务，但它基本上是为人民服务的。

So it has to achieve low cost of doing business and low cost of being a citizen. So that implies that you should have simplicity of use. So it should be very easy to implement the various regulations that are designed by the government and for employees, household and companies, a maze of support mechanisms or regulations have very negative consequences.

因此，它必须实现做生意的低成本和作为一个公民的低成本。因此，这意味着应该有使用的简单性。因此，政府设计的各种规章应该做到非常容易执行，错综复杂的支持机制或规章制度会给员工、家庭和公司带来非常负面的后果。

And one of them is obvious, which is we may be spending a lot of time understanding and trying to take advantage of the rules. So, in France, for example, but in many countries, you know, you try to find a grant for everything. You finance a university, and business and so on.

一个显而易见的后果就是，人们可能会需要大量时间才能理解和试图利用这些规则。比如在法国和其他很多国家，如果你想要得到政府拨款，或者你要资助一所大学或一家企业，

Conversely, there can be discouragement, because if it’s too hard to find out how to do it, then there may be a low take-up rate of the benefits. And it’s not a fair mechanism anyway, because it rewards people who do have information, so we don’t want that.

你会感到很挫败，因为如果你很难弄清怎样才能实现这些需求，福利的吸纳率也会变低。而这个机制本来就是不公平的，了解内部信息的人会更占优势，所以我们不希望这样。

So, we have to achieve bureaucratic efficiency. We have to also avoid bloated States. So, bloated State involves over staffing, too many people for doing the job. The swelling of administration relative to operations.

我们必须提高政府效率，必须避免政府臃肿。政府臃肿也就是人员过多，太多的人在政府工作。和运营部门相比，政府的行政部门要更臃肿。

So, for example, in school hospital, you may have too many people doing administration, not enough people teaching, or surgeons or the like. Duplication of agencies or local authorities having similar prerogative. So, we need to avoid all those things.

这就像校医院里有太多人在做行政工作，而没有足够的人去指导教学，或者做外科医生之类的工作。此外，还有一些机构或地方当局之间职能重复，并且都具有相似的特权。以上是我们需要避免的事情。

I have a few suggestions here, and they are not new. I mean, they are just kind of obvious. So, first is evaluate, evaluate, evaluate, the efficiency of the public sector. And of course, to do that, you need auditing agencies which are independent of the political power, as it's very important, because a State cannot be judge and jury at the same.

在此，我有一些建议，虽然都不是什么新建议，但是很值得一提。首先，要对公共部门的效率进行评估、评估、再评价。当然，要做到这一点，你需要独立于政府的审计机构。这非常重要，因为政府就如同在法庭上，不能同时做法官和陪审团。

In the evaluation, you can use benchmarking. So, you systematically compare the governments of countries with other countries. For example, how many teachers do they have? How many…how much do they pay their teachers? And can you do better and get better education for your children? Between regions, between agencies, between universities and the like.

在评估过程中可以确定一个基准，系统性地在各国政府间做比较。例如，参考其他国家有多少老师？他们给老师多少薪水？在这里人们能过得更好，让孩子接受更好的教育吗？你可以在各个地区、机构、大学之间做比较。

So, for example, you can compare…you know, if you are a Western country, and you want to do a reform of the State, you can compare with the success stories of Sweden, Canada or Australia, for example. Sometimes to create benchmarking, you need to experiment. So if you are a uniform policy that prevents comparing and seeing what works and what doesn't work…and You know, China in the 80s and 90s actually destroyed that, because the experimentation allowed China to see what works and what doesn't work.

如果你来自一个西方国家，并且想对国家进行改革的话，你可以和瑞典、加拿大或澳大利亚这些成功案例做比较。有时候，要确定基准，就得进行尝试。（一般来说，）单一政策国家不会通过做比较来确定什么方法有效、什么无效，而中国在80和 90年代实际上打破了这个定论，因为中国通过尝试看到了什么是真正有用的做法。

And you have to share. So you know, this is not going to go into a drawer. You need to share the evaluations with officials and citizens as well.

评估成果必须得到分享。成果不应自动存档并被封存起来，你需要与官员和公民分享评估结果。

Second recipe, in a sense, you have to ensure fair treatment. There is a frenzy of regulatory loopholes in many countries. So, for example, some people pay carbon tax. Some people don't pay carbon tax. You have different pension schemes, and you have lots of tax loopholes. Some people pay the taxes, others don't. You can have protection of competitions in some industries and so on.

第二个建议：从某种意义上说，必须保证一视同仁。许多国家的监管漏洞比比皆是。比如，有些人要缴纳碳税，而有些人不缴，人们的养老金计划各不相同，还有很多税收漏洞，有些人纳税，有些人不纳税，某些行业的竞争受到保护，等等。

And this is both inefficient and unfair. So, it's inefficient because you don't meet the objectives. You don't reach the objectives that you have, uh, you have designed, but also in terms of political economy, that means that everybody's going to lobby this government to have access to this exemption or obtain an override.

这既低效又不公平。低效，是因为你没有达到所计划的目标。从政治经济学的角度来看，为了获得豁免权或者反对权，人们都会游说其政府。

It's unfair, and it's going to create a feeling of inequity for those who do not have access to the loopholes.

这也是不公平的，而且会给无法利用这些漏洞的人制造一种不公平感。

So, in principle, you have to avoid hubris. You have to be humble when you are in government. And that's normal, because, you know, government officials don't have all the information that is needed, and that's quite…you know, regulation is in big part an issue with information that you have.

所以，原则上，必须避免骄傲自大。当你在政府部门工作时，必须保持谦逊。这很正常，因为政府官员掌握不了所有需要的信息，而监管在很大程度上就是一个掌握信息的问题。

But the consequence of that is that you have to realize that you don't always have information, but you should not design public interventions that are dependent on data that the public authorities do not possess. Otherwise you are going to give…you're going to create cronyism and arbitrariness.

所以，你必须意识到政府并不总是掌握信息，但也不应该采取公共干预措施、利用非当局所有的数据。否则，这就无非是任人唯亲、任意妄为。

And actually, insufficient information is why we're using so many, what I would call untargeted policies. So, R&D subsidies that actually goes to every firm, experience rating for layoffs, a uniform carbon price, which all economies almost recommend.

实际上，正是因为信息不足，我们才使用这么多我所称的非针对性政策。比如给予所有公司研发补贴、裁员经验评级、统一碳价格。几乎所有经济体都建议使用这些政策。

But sometimes we want, nonetheless, to use finer information. So, some kind of industrial policy that favors and supports specific industries, specific technologies or firms, and picks “winner”, but then it's very crucial that you adopt the proper governance.

尽管如此，有时我们还是希望有更细节的信息。比如一些偏向特定行业、特定技术或公司的产业政策，试图挑选其中关于最佳的信息，对其进行适当使用，这是非常关键的。

And in my book, Economics for the Common Good, in chapter 39, I list the best practices for industrial policy. So, you must use independent and qualified experts to select the project for public funding if you do industrial policies. So, you need to have the experts, the scientists, for example. And after being independent, they are not there to please and go, and they are there to actually make things happen.

在我所著的《共同利益经济学》的第39章中，我列出了产业政策的最佳实践方法。在制定产业政策时，政府必须让独立、有资格的专家来选择公共资助的项目，这个过程需要专家与科学家的参与。如果他们是独立的，他们就不会为了利益来取悦他人，而是去真正地做实事。

You have to pay attention to the supply side. So you must see, if I spend money there, I'll say the people wanted to make it happen. So you have to plant where the soil is fertile.

你一定要关注供给方。你必须明白，如果政府花了钱，一定是想让事办成。所以供给一定要对应需求。

You should not prejudge your solution. So, if you see…if you go back to COVID and the vaccines, when we thought about possible vaccines, we actually didn't know which technology, you know, old-style virus, or viral vector or messenger RNA, would work. Nobody knew. Nobody knew.

你应该避免预先判断解决方案是否可行。回头来看新冠疫苗的研发，人们当时其实并不知道哪种技术能行。到底该用旧式病毒、病毒载体还是信使RNA？没人知道。

And it turns out that messenger RNA actually worked very well, and that was a little bit of a surprise. Um, So we should not prejudge a solution. We must have a goal, not selected technology.

事实证明，信使RNA的效果非常好，这是很多人都没料到的。所以我们不应该预先判断一个解决方案是否可行。我们必须要有一个目标，而不是一个精挑细选的技术。

We have to evaluate intervention, publish the results, withdraw support if the project doesn't work or is no longer needed, and we have to involve a private sector in risk taking.

我们需要评估干预措施，公布评估结果。如果项目行不通或不再需要，就撤回该项目。在承担风险方面，我们必须让私营部门参与进来。

 Surprisingly, the role models there is DARPA-E. So you know, we are interacting through computers, and many of the computer technology actually come from fundamental research financed by the DARPA or DARPA-E.

人们想不到，DARPA-E（美国国防部高级研究计划局）是一个正面例子。现在政府通过计算机进行交流，而其中许多计算机技术其实来自于由 DARPA 或 DARPA-E所资助的基础研究。

 “E” is for energy now, but at the time, that was about computer science mainly. But other things like grant funding agencies for science in the universities and outside universities. That's very important if you want to actually achieve a good industrial policy.

这里的“E”是能源的意思，但在当时，DARPA主要是研究计算机科学的。但是大学内外的科学研究拨款机构也很重要，这对于拥有好的产业政策至关重要。

And my last point, which is very important, is that you have to address what I call “time bombs”. So what is the “time bomb”? A “time bomb” is a policy area where if you don't do anything for a year or two, it doesn't matter.

我的最后一点，也是非常重要的一点，那就是必须拆除我所说的“定时炸弹”。那么什么是定时炸弹呢？“定时炸弹”指一个政策领域，在这个领域，如果政府在一两年内什么都不做，不会有什么关系。

So, think about climate change. If you don't act on climate change for a year or two years, it just doesn't make a big difference. Almost no difference in the short term, and the entire difference will be in the long term.

比如气候变化问题，如果你在一两年内不对气候变化采取行动，结果也不会有太大的不同。在短期内几乎没有什么差别，而在长期内的结果却大相径庭。

But of course, that means this is bad in a sense. Because it means that you have political procrastination with years or decades of inaction. Actually, in the case of climate change, we have had all over the world, except in a couple of countries, like Sweden, basically inaction. Three decades of inaction because of this time issue.

但是当然，这在另一种层面上是不好的。因为这意味着你有政治拖延，几年甚至几十年都无所作为。在气候变化方面，我们就发现除了瑞典等几个少数国家外，全世界几乎所有国家都曾有过三十年不作为的阶段，理由就是我刚才所述的时间问题。

And climate change is not the only example of that. If you think about the education, it's the same thing. If you don't do anything for a year or two, it doesn't really matter. But of course, in a long time, it's a disaster. Higher education, R&D, public debt, health prevention, domestic and international harmony…Avoiding repression and belligerent attitude. It's a short-term policy. It’s not a long-term solution.

而气候变化也不是唯一的例子。可以思考一下教育领域，也是一样的。一两年不作为没有什么关系，但假以时日，就会导致灾难性的后果。高等教育、研究与开发、公共债务、疾病预防、国内外的和谐状态……不使用压制手段、避免显露好战的态度，只是短期政策，不是长久之计。

Now, there's this debate about whether democratic or autocratic regimes are more prone to create time bombs. The answer is: I don't know what the answer is. It's true that in democratic countries, politicians may privilege reelection, and basically not act. But at the same time, the autocratic regimes may be blinded by the absence of the democratic opposition, or NGOs. And actually, if you think, like climate change, you have a lot of procrastination in both camps.

现在，关于究竟是民主还是专制政权更容易制造“定时炸弹”，人们意见不一。我的答案是：其实我也不知道答案是什么。的确，在一些民主国家，政客更多地将特权给予连任选举，基本不作为。但是与此同时，专制政权也可能因为民主在野党和非政府组织的缺席而被蒙蔽。而且如果你思考一下，就会发现在气候变化这样的问题上，这两种政权形式都展现出了严重的拖延。

So let me stop here and just conclude. the government of the state is very complex. It's fuzzy because it has a very fuzzy mission. And it's nonetheless extremely important. The government may turn out to be extractive, or it may actually be a complement to economic activity. What I've tried to do is to share with you a few thoughts on a good functioning and I hope it has been useful. 到这里我的演讲就结束了。总结一下：国家政府是十分复杂的。它的边界是模糊的，因为它的职责本身就是不明确的。但即便如此，政府又是极端重要的。它可能是汲取性的，但也有可能对经济活动起到补充作用。刚才我和大家分享了一些关于政府良好运作的思考，希望对大家有帮助。

I wrote a report with Olivier Blanchard (if you are interested in reading it) last year, for the French presidency, but also for Europe, more generally on some major economic challenges. And of course, I wrote a book a few years ago, Economics for the Common Good. Thank you very much for inviting me. And I look forward to your questions.

我去年和奥利弗·布兰查德一起为法国总统和欧洲写了一篇报告，讲述了经济上一些主要的挑战，如果感兴趣的话可以一读。当然，我几年前还写了《共同利益经济学》这本书。感谢邀请，期待大家的提问。

 Jean, thank you very much for this wonderful presentation. You gave a very concise and very clear survey of such a complicated issue, and also you provide insightful suggestions as for how to improve the efficiency of the government. I have only one question on behalf of our audience, that is, the government, whether it consists of politicians or civil servants, consists of individuals, and how, in principle, these individuals can be provided with best incentives in order for them to be more efficient than they have been?

让，感谢你的精彩演讲。你阐述了对如此复杂问题的清晰观察，言简意赅，还针对如何提高政府效率提出了深刻的意见。我就代表观众提一个问题：不管政府是由政客还是公务员组成的，它都是由个体组成的，大体上如何给这些个体提供最好的激励，让他们能在现在的基础上更加高效呢？

 Well, that's a very good question, David, and a complicated one as well. You want, of course, officials to work hard for the government good. One of their tasks is, of course, to enhance the performance of the market economy. But it's not the only task. Of course, you want to achieve the common good in general. You know, the issue is really an issue of missions, as opposed to whether it's public or private. Actually, some countries have dedicated government missions, not only to independent agencies, but also to the private sector. What matters is what you achieve in the end.

David，你提的问题很好，也很难回答。当然，人人都希望官员为了政府努力工作，而他们的任务之一就是提升市场经济表现。但这并不是唯一的任务，大家也希望实现大众的共同利益。要知道，这归根结底是职责的问题，而不是公家或个人的问题。其实，一些国家不仅将政府使命委托给独立机构，私营部门也有承担。关键是最后成果如何。

The difficulty is measurement. The measurement, as I discuss, is difficult because, as I said, the particularity of government is that it has a fuzzy mission. It's supposed to do various things at the same time, and not only maximize profit. And that makes it more difficult, actually, to give a precise measure of performance, for the government and indirectly for the employees of the government.

难点是如何衡量表现。之所以困难，是因为政府的独特之处在于它的职责模糊。政府应该同时做很多事情，而不仅仅是追求最高利润。这使得精准地衡量政府表现及间接衡量政府职员的表现难上加难。

Sometimes you can, you can have an explicit incentive, so, for example, use your satisfaction. You can have also action by using your advocates. Again, independent. They have to be completely independent from the government, otherwise the government is judge and jury at the same time.

举例来说，有的时候可以利用他们的满足感给予直接的激励。也可以利用一些支持人士激励他们。需要重申，这些支持人士必须是独立的，因为不然政府就和既当法官、又当陪审员没什么区别了。

The case is like, for example, if you think about the power grid, then you can measure actually the loss which is created by mismanagement of the power grid. So, on the one hand, you have the loss. And the need to redispatch between low-cost plants and high-cost plants. On the other hand, you can have a cost of breakdown of the power system.

举例来说，假如有一家电力公司，那你就可以衡量到底哪些损失是管理不当导致的。比如，一方面，损失可能是因为需要在高成本和低成本发电厂之间进行重新调度产生的。另一方面，可能是因为电力系统故障造成的。

We need to give more truly an intelligent sense of mission. For example, if you think about an agency which is trying to finance a breakthrough R&D, for example, a disruptive R&D. Obviously it has to take some risks, so it should not be obsessed with the number of failures. It's quite normal. If you try to develop a new vaccine, for example, there will be a number of failures. So, it's not that.

我们还需要对职责有更明智的认识。比如，如果一个机构想要投资一个突破性的、颠覆性创新的研究开发项目，当然它就要承担一定的风险。所以这个机构不能过度执迷于失败的次数，因为失败是很正常的。再比如，如果你想开发一种新疫苗，当然也会面临许多次失败。所以不能过度执迷。

And similarly, you should not just count a number of patents which are produced, because some of the patents, many of the patents, are kind of useless. And what matter are the more important patents. Or you should not judge according to the number of surviving firms that you have financed, because if all your firms survive, basically that means you haven't taken any risk.

同样的道理，你也不能只关注产生了多少专利。因为相当一部分专利都是没有用的。真正有价值的是那些重要的专利。也不能根据你投资的公司中有多少家存活来下判断，因为如果你的公司都存活下来了，基本就意味着你没有冒任何风险。

The second thing is that you have to benchmark. As I mentioned, this is very important. Benchmarking is extremely important. And for that, you have to decentralize. You have to experiment and so on. And then I do believe that you have to create agencies with a very narrow sense of mission.

其二，必须要对标评估，就像我刚才说的一样，这一点是非常重要的。对标是非常重要的。为了做到对标，就必须去中心化、进行试验等等。此外，我还认为必须建立职责范围窄的机构。

That's controversial, I must say. But you know, if you think about central banks, for example, of competition authorities. Those were given a relatively narrow sense of mission. So basically, central banks were about determine inflation and financial stability. Now they have taken on more roles in the last few years. And some of it was fine, actually. If you think that central banks actually stabilize the economic system， both during COVID and during the 2008 financial crisis, they did a pretty good job on average, in doing that. But they're expanding their mission.

必须承认，这一点是有争议的。但是可以想一下央行和一些竞争管理机构。这些机构的职责范围就是比较窄的。从前，央行的职责基本上就是控制通胀、维持金融稳定。但是在过去几年间，它们又承担了一些新的职责。而且其实在其中一些领域，它们做得也很不错。央行其实稳定了整个经济系统，无论是在新冠疫情还是在2008年金融危机中，整体来说都表现不俗。但它们正在不断扩张自己的职责范围。

Now, some people are asking (whether) we should expand the mission of central banks more. My own feeling is that it may be dangerous. Because, first, it makes it a more political agency. For example, if the central bank takes care of climate change, it's becoming more of a political agency, and it's going to lose its independence. Also, it doesn’t have the tools, actually, to take care of climate change. Because what you have to do is to measure emissions and set a carbon tax or carbon price, which is high enough. And immediately that's going to go into the political domain.

现在，有些人会问：是否以应该进一步扩大央行的职责范围呢？我个人认为这个做法是危险的。因为首先，这会使得它更倾向于一个政治机构。比如说，如果央行要负责解决气候变化，它的政治属性就更强，就会失去它的独立性。此外，它也缺乏解决气候变化的工具。因为要解决这一问题，就需要衡量排放，然后征收碳排放税或碳价，这二者现在已经很高了。这是属于政治领域的问题。

So at some point the government has to take its responsibility. But the secret of agencies, independent agencies that work well, is that they preserve the independence. And for that it’s compatible only with relatively narrow mission.

所以政府需要及时承担自身责任。但是那些独立机构运行良好的关键原因，就是它们的独立性。而要想拥有这种独立性，职责范围就一定相对狭窄。

Now, I realize, David, that you want to go deeper down into the hierarchy and see what happens, you know, are you incentivized? But if you incentivize the heads of the agencies, then you go along with who are incentivized, incentivizing the people down there. And it doesn't matter whether those people are civil servants or, “I have a kind of contract, work contract with a government” or not. What you want them is actually to achieve their mission and actually to work for the common good. Thank you.

我知道，David，你是想要深入这个等级森严的体系，来看看人们是不是被激励到了。但是如果你激励到了这些机构的领导者，你就能进而激励到在下层工作的人。这些人无论是公务员，还是和政府签署了工作合同，都不重要。你想看到的其实是他们都完成自己的职责使命、为共同利益做出贡献。谢谢。