It is a little unsettling that the intellectual underpinning of tax policy in the United States today was jotted down on a napkin at the Two Continents Restaurant in Washington in December 1974.
當今美國稅收政策的學術支點是在1974年12月華盛頓兩陸飯店的一張餐巾紙上草草奠定的， 這有點讓人不安。
That was when, legend has it, Arthur Laffer, a young economist at the University of Chicago, deployed the sketch over dinner to convince Dick Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, aides to President Gerald R. Ford, that raising tax rates would reduce tax revenue by hampering growth.
據傳說， 當時芝加哥大學年輕的經濟學家亞瑟·拉夫吃飯時隨手一寫，
It was another economy. The top marginal income tax rate was 70 percent then. For three decades, just over 10 percent of the nation’s income had gone to the 1 percent earning the most. Economists believed Simon Kuznets’ proposition that though market forces would widen inequality at early stages of growth, further economic development would ultimately lead it to narrow. The paramount policy challenge of the day was how to raise productivity.
當時的經濟是另一番景象， 最高邊際收入稅率高達70%。 三十年來， 只有10%強的國家收入流入賺錢最多的1%手中。 經濟學家人認為西蒙·庫茲涅茨的主張， 即市場力量會在增長早期加大不平等， 經濟進一步發展會最終讓不平等收窄。 當時主要的政策挑戰是如何提高生產率。
To many economists, Mr. Laffer’s basic argument that high taxes would at some point discourage effort and reduce growth made sense: Why work or invest more if the government will keep almost all the fruits of your troubles? Even Arthur M. Okun, who had been President Lyndon B. Johnson’s chief economic adviser, was writing about leaky buckets to illustrate a trade-off between efficiency and equity: Taxing the rich to pay for programs for the poor could slow growth down, in part by reducing the incentive of the rich to earn more.
許多經濟學家而言認為拉夫先生的基本論斷是有道理的， 即高稅收會讓人洩氣， 並抑制增長：如果政府把你辛苦種的果子都摘走了， 你幹嘛還工作或是投資呢？甚至曾擔任林登·詹森總統首席經濟顧問的亞瑟·奧肯也曾寫過漏桶模型，
It is unclear whether reality ever followed Mr. Laffer’s prescription. “In 1986 we dropped the top income tax rate from 50 to 28 percent and the corporate tax rate from 46 to 34 percent,” said Bruce Bartlett, a policy adviser in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. “It’s hard to imagine a bigger increase in incentives than that, and I can’t remember any big boost to growth.”
現實是否符合拉夫先生的藥方尚不清楚。 “1986年， 我們把最高收入稅率從50%調低到28%， 把公司稅從48%調低到34%， ”羅奈爾得·雷根政府的政策顧問布魯斯·巴特萊特說。 “很難想像更大力度的刺激措施了， 我不記得對增長有什麼促進。 ”
Nonetheless, tax policy today is still being driven by his decades-old argument, devised in an economy that looks nothing like today’s.
然而， 今天的稅收政策仍然基於幾十年來來的論斷， 該論斷提出時的經濟和今天天差地別。
Today, 1 percent of the population is taking in more than 20 percent of the nation’s income, twice as much as when the fateful dinner took place. Today’s top marginal tax rate, 39.6 percent, is a little over half what it was then.
今天， 1%的人口拿走超過20%的國家收入， 比那次要命的晚餐時多一倍。 今天的最高邊際稅率不過39.6%， 只比當時的一半多一些。
Critically, how the pie is sliced has become as important as how to raise productivity further. Indeed, the questions are intertwined. Compelling new economic research suggests that in the economy in which we live, cutting taxes on the rich further won’t just fail to foster growth, it could even make the economic pie smaller.
時不我待， 如何分蛋糕同如何提高生產力同樣重要。 實際上，
The direct case against lower taxes on the rich was made most clearly a few years ago by the French economist Thomas Piketty — noted for his analysis of inequality trends over the centuries — and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard University.
幾年前法國經濟學家湯瑪斯·皮凱蒂給出反對向富人少收稅的直接證據， 他以分析了幾個世紀以來的不平等趨勢而著稱， 提出類似觀點的還有加州大學伯克利分校和哈佛大學的同事。
Looking at a set of industrialized countries from the 1970s until the years preceding the financial crisis, the economists found no meaningful correlation between cuts in top tax rates and economic growth. Big tax cutters like the United States did not grow faster than countries like Denmark, which kept taxes high. What did respond to lower taxes was inequality: The income share of the top 1 percent grew much more sharply among big tax cutters like the United States than in countries like France or Germany, where top tax rates changed little.
觀察七十年代到金融危機發生前的一組工業化國家， 經濟學家發現降低最高收入稅率和經濟增長沒有關係。 美國等大幅減稅的國家並不比高稅率的丹麥增長更快。 但降低稅率卻導致了不平等：相比法國或德國等稅率變化較小的國家， 美國等大幅減稅國家中， 最富有的1%的收入， 其增長份額大得多。
The top marginal income tax rate has been cut sharply since the 1960s.
自六十年代以來， 最高邊際收入稅率已經大幅調低。
Highest marginal income tax rate
The findings contradicted the basic proposition on Mr. Laffer’s napkin. Indeed, they suggested an entirely different dynamic: Lower taxes did encourage executives and other top earners to raise their incomes, but not in ways that benefited the entire economy, like working and investing more. Instead, they were encouraged to manipulate the system in ways that, in fact, reduced the pie for everybody else, putting every decision at the service of increasing their pay.
研究結果與拉夫先生在餐巾紙上寫下的基本主張相悖。 事實上， 結果表明完全不同的情形：降低稅率確實鼓勵經理人和其他高收入者提高收入， 但對整個經濟體沒有好處， 他們並未工作更加努力，
Think about tax avoidance or outright evasion — which simply hides money from the Treasury, reducing the government’s ability to fund often critical programs, at no gain to the economy. But executives have been known to use other tricks — say, options backdating or earnings manipulation, or simply lobbying the compensation committee of their company’s board, or putting corporate strategy at the service of the current quarter’s earnings to give the share price a bump.
想想避稅或逃稅吧， 把錢藏起來不讓財政部發現， 這削弱了政府資助關鍵專案的能力， 對經濟體沒有益處。 但經理人使用其他手段， 期權倒簽或對收入做手腳， 或是直接遊說公司董事會的補償委員會， 或是讓公司戰略只看重當期收入以推高股價。
Taking into account all the ways top earners respond to taxation, Mr. Piketty and colleagues suggested that the optimal top tax rate on the Americans with the highest incomes — the rate raising the most money for the government — could exceed 80 percent with no harm to growth. Loopholes would have to be closed to prevent avoidance, but only the mega-rich would lose out. From an economic perspective, soaking the rich would, in fact, do good.
考慮到最高收入者對稅收做出的所有反應， 皮凱蒂先生和經濟學同儕們提議， 美國高收入者的理想最高收入稅率超過80%也不會對增長帶來任何影響， 這些稅收是政府的主要財源。 必須查漏補缺以避免避稅， 但只有超級富翁會失利。 從經濟學角度看， 讓富人出血事實上有好處。
The argument that inequality matters little and redistribution mars economic success has always been suspect. In more unequal societies, the disadvantaged will have less access to many of the things that improve productivity, like education, health and the internet. Rising inequality can hamper consumption by weighing on the income of the middle class.
不平等無所謂，再分配會損害經濟成功，這種論斷一向可疑。在更不平等的社會中，窮苦人無法獲得許多可以提升生產力的東西，如教育、健康和網際網路。不斷加深的不平等減少了中產階級的收入，從而不利於消費。
Douglas W. Elmendorf, former head of the Congressional Budget Office and now dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, once said that to assess the macroeconomic impact of cutting taxes and spending, it is indispensable to assess which taxes are cut and what spending is affected. “Major changes to benefits for lower-income people could have notable effects on the economy by altering labor supply, and those effects could be an important criterion in evaluating such changes,” he argued.
國會預算辦公室前主任、現哈佛大學甘迺迪政府學院主任道格拉斯·艾爾曼多夫曾說，要評價減稅和支出對宏觀經濟的影響，評價減了哪種稅，哪項支出受到影響，這是不可或缺的。“對低收入人群的重大利好可以通過改變勞力供給而產生顯著效果，這些效果是評價改革的重要標準。”他說。
In more unequal societies, the rich have more power to distort policy making to channel more of the fruits of growth in their direction by, say, cutting taxes and government spending that might improve productivity and growth. Politics becomes more polarized. And it becomes more difficult to recover from economic shocks: Citizens in unequal societies are less likely to buy government promises that sacrifice today will lead to gains tomorrow.
在更不平等的社會中，富人有更大權力扭曲決策，例如通過減稅和降低旨在提高生產力和增長率的政府支出，從而讓更多的增長果實流向自己。政治更加分化，更難從經濟衝擊中恢復：政府說今天做出犧牲，明天獲得收益，不平等社會的公民不太可能對這種說法買帳。
“We have not paid enough attention to macro distributional linkages,” said Jonathan D. Ostry, deputy head of research at the International Monetary Fund, who has published groundbreaking research linking inequality and growth. “Even if you are only interested in the aggregate gains, you are forced to think about equity, because equity matters for the aggregate. The distribution might come back to bite you.”
“我們沒有足夠重視宏觀分配關聯，”國際貨幣基金組織研究副主管喬納森·奧斯特瑞說，他發表了關於不平等與增長兩者關係的獨創性研究。“即便你只對總體收益感興趣，你也被迫要考慮公平，因為公平對總量也是總要的。分配不公會反噬你。”
Mr. Laffer may still be calling to cut tax rates, to provide an incentive for executives to earn even more. But tax policy today calls for a new napkin, one with a place for equity.
拉夫先生可能依然要求減稅，激勵經理人，讓他們賺得更多。但今天的稅收政策需要一張新的餐巾紙，騰一塊地方寫下公平二字。
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讓富人出血事實上有好處。The argument that inequality matters little and redistribution mars economic success has always been suspect. In more unequal societies, the disadvantaged will have less access to many of the things that improve productivity, like education, health and the internet. Rising inequality can hamper consumption by weighing on the income of the middle class.
不平等無所謂，再分配會損害經濟成功，這種論斷一向可疑。在更不平等的社會中，窮苦人無法獲得許多可以提升生產力的東西，如教育、健康和網際網路。不斷加深的不平等減少了中產階級的收入，從而不利於消費。
Douglas W. Elmendorf, former head of the Congressional Budget Office and now dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, once said that to assess the macroeconomic impact of cutting taxes and spending, it is indispensable to assess which taxes are cut and what spending is affected. “Major changes to benefits for lower-income people could have notable effects on the economy by altering labor supply, and those effects could be an important criterion in evaluating such changes,” he argued.
國會預算辦公室前主任、現哈佛大學甘迺迪政府學院主任道格拉斯·艾爾曼多夫曾說，要評價減稅和支出對宏觀經濟的影響，評價減了哪種稅，哪項支出受到影響，這是不可或缺的。“對低收入人群的重大利好可以通過改變勞力供給而產生顯著效果，這些效果是評價改革的重要標準。”他說。
In more unequal societies, the rich have more power to distort policy making to channel more of the fruits of growth in their direction by, say, cutting taxes and government spending that might improve productivity and growth. Politics becomes more polarized. And it becomes more difficult to recover from economic shocks: Citizens in unequal societies are less likely to buy government promises that sacrifice today will lead to gains tomorrow.
在更不平等的社會中，富人有更大權力扭曲決策，例如通過減稅和降低旨在提高生產力和增長率的政府支出，從而讓更多的增長果實流向自己。政治更加分化，更難從經濟衝擊中恢復：政府說今天做出犧牲，明天獲得收益，不平等社會的公民不太可能對這種說法買帳。
“We have not paid enough attention to macro distributional linkages,” said Jonathan D. Ostry, deputy head of research at the International Monetary Fund, who has published groundbreaking research linking inequality and growth. “Even if you are only interested in the aggregate gains, you are forced to think about equity, because equity matters for the aggregate. The distribution might come back to bite you.”
“我們沒有足夠重視宏觀分配關聯，”國際貨幣基金組織研究副主管喬納森·奧斯特瑞說，他發表了關於不平等與增長兩者關係的獨創性研究。“即便你只對總體收益感興趣，你也被迫要考慮公平，因為公平對總量也是總要的。分配不公會反噬你。”
Mr. Laffer may still be calling to cut tax rates, to provide an incentive for executives to earn even more. But tax policy today calls for a new napkin, one with a place for equity.
拉夫先生可能依然要求減稅，激勵經理人，讓他們賺得更多。但今天的稅收政策需要一張新的餐巾紙，騰一塊地方寫下公平二字。
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