在自然的面前，人类是那么渺小。过去的一周里，我什么也做不了，只能默默的在难过，感动，和自豪中交替。每次想说点什么，却眼睛红红鼻子酸酸嗓子堵着什么也说不出来。

 

今年对中国是多灾多难的一年。天将降大任于斯国也，必先覆其大雪，砸其股市，裂其圣地，抢其火炬，撞其火车，涨其物价，染其口足，震其国土，空乏其民，行拂乱邻邦之所为，所以动心忍性，曾益其所不能。

 

但不知为什么，从雪灾开始，难过的感觉却越来越多越来越频繁的被感动和自豪所替代。曾经以为我们的民族是一盘散沙，个个是龙加起来是虫；曾经以为我们的社会人心冷漠道德沦丧，助纣为虐笑贫不笑娼；曾经以为我们的政府只知道贪污腐败中饱私囊，哪管民间疾苦血汗工厂；曾经以为我们的军队是新时代的八旗绿营，是穿制服的地痞流氓。

 

但是我错了。我很高兴我错了。我很自豪我错了。

 

今年的雪，特别的大，爸爸还有妈妈，回不了家。
有群坏人，来把人吓，烧了我的学校，砸我的花。
那个喇嘛，叽里呱啦，长鼻子的洋人，假装眼瞎。
巴黎铁塔，伦敦警察，抱火炬的姐姐，人见人夸。
汽笛嘟嘟，铁轨哗哗，去天堂的列车，还没到达。
龙又翻身，大地垮塌，教室的瓦砾下，埋了童话。
重重的墙，将老师压，我们在他身下，都很听话。
没过很久，听到喇叭，外面有个爷爷，叫我别怕。
叔叔的手，使劲地挖，解放军的飞机，送我回家。
经过灾难，我已长大，永远不会忘记，二零零八...

老傅今天写了篇很牛的blog谈民主，偶也有些不成熟的想法来抛砖引玉。

 

首先，民主没有一个广泛接受的精确的定义，所以这里特指一般人所理解的选举议会和政府。其次，偶主要关心的是民主对于经济发展的作用。很多朋友认为民主本身就是普世的价值，这个嘛，偶比较俗，在吃不饱穿不暖上不起学看不起病养不起车供不起楼的时候，偶对于几年一次给几个偶一点不熟悉的上台了也不会听我的候选人投一张预期作用比中彩票的概率还小的选票的确不太感冒。

 

从事实开始。世界上最富裕的几个大国，比如北美，西欧，以及日本，都是民主国家，这也是一般人向往民主的一个重要原因，榜样的作用嘛。不过，这个世界上多少称的上是民主国家的有一百多个，而里面大多数是穷国，包括世界上最大的民主国家——印度。可见民主大概不是经济发展的充分条件。有的同学可能会说民主在“长期”来说是好的，可是印度独立开始民主已经有快50年了，这个长期再长也该到了吧。

 

当然也不是所有的富国都是民主国家，最明显的就是香港（香港是祖国不可分割的一部分，恩，咱不能犯政治错误的说）和新加坡。最近三十年里最大的经济增长的故事——中国——不是民主国家（fine，人民民主专政，如果非要玩文字游戏），最近几年里经济增长最快的国家——越南——也不是民主国家。另外有一个很重要的事实就是，绝大多数，如果不是全部，的富国都是在到达了一定的富裕程度之后才开始民主的。台湾（同香港）和韩国是咱们身边比较近的例子，而英美是比较远但是可能更可比的例子。可见民主大概不是经济发展的必要条件。

 

虽然民主既不是充分条件也不是必要条件，这不代表民主对经济发展就一定没有任何的积极作用。不过很可惜，很多实证研究都无法证实民主对于经济发展的促进关系，比如说这一篇

 

暂时性的不完整的结论：也许在经济发展到一定程度，人民素质提高到一定程度，法制建设到一定程度的时候，会有对民主的需求，而且这时候民主和经济发展也许会实现一个良性循环。中国现在到没到那一步呢？不知道。

 

其实偶并不从根本上反对民主，偶反对的是那种不顾实际把民主当成绝对真理的本末倒置的民主原教旨主义者，偶反对的是只看到西方发达国家民主的好处而忽视和中国更类似的发展中的民主国家为政体付出的代价，偶反对的是只看到海市蜃楼的美而不考虑中国的现实。西方的民主也不是几个智者设计出来的，而是几百年里不断试错不断演变而成的。为什么不许中国去尝试一下自己的政治发展道路呢？

 

其实中国已经在开始尝试了，比如很多地方政府现在在做一些重要的决策的时候会与群众进行比较广泛的磋商和协调，让不同的声音发出来，让不同的利益表达出来来相互妥协和平衡。在英国这叫consultation。借用个比方，西方的选举民主好比让大家选择厨师，但是一旦选上了菜单是由厨师定。而consultation好比厨师永远就那么一个，但是大家可以点菜。不是说consultation就没有坏处——那个唯一的厨师也许厨艺有限，但是请给中国一个机会试一下。

 

偶以前讨论过，长久以来，在neoclassical economics所统治的世界银行以及IMF一直对发展中国家宣扬及强力推行以经济全面自由化（私有化，解除监管，开放市场，开放汇率，消除关税和补贴，保护知识产权）为核心的“华盛顿共识”。长期执行这套政策的后果就是，现在WB和IMF已经几乎没有什么衡量经济自由化的成就的兴趣了。相反的，他们开始本末倒置的以一个国家经济自由化和开放程度为标准来衡量一个国家的经济成就。WB在亚洲金融危机前夕所发表的报告正是最好的注解：

 

“Developing countries show considerable variation in the capital market attributes needed for financial integration. The most dynamic emerging markets, where progress has been particularly intense during the last five years, include most of high-growth Asia (Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand, with Indonesia and the Philippines not far behind) and two markets in Latin America (Chile and Mexico, with Brazil also ranking well)…. The lagging emerging markets … are in South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) and China.”

 

不管怎么说，一般学界和政界的公开的共识是经济自由化的措施的确是发达国家成为发达国家的秘诀。就是说，它也许不适合今天的发展中国家，但是它的确是发达国家，尤其是英国和美国，在成为发达国家之前所采取的措施。这篇文章却告诉我们一个完全相反的事实——总的来说，发达国家在经济起飞以前是采取了几乎完全相反的措施，而它们今天鼓吹发展中国家所做的事情，完全是过河拆桥上墙蹬梯。鉴于经济史和经济学史在牛校，尤其是美国牛校，经济系里的地位，现代的主流经济学家把历史事实完全搞错还是很有可能的。

 

================================================================================

 

Ha-Joon Chang   (Cambridge University, UK)

 

There is currently great pressure on developing countries to adopt a set of “good policies” and “good institutions” – such as liberalisation of trade and investment and strong patent law – to foster their economic development. When some developing countries show reluctance in adopting them, the proponents of this recipe often find it difficult to understand these countries’ stupidity in not accepting such a tried and tested recipe for development. After all, they argue, these are the policies and the institutions that the developed countries had used in the past in order to become rich. Their belief in their own recommendation is so absolute that in their view it has to be imposed on the developing countries through strong bilateral and multilateral external pressures, even when these countries don’t want them.

 

Naturally, there have been heated debates on whether these recommended policies and institutions are appropriate for developing countries. However, curiously, even many of those who are sceptical of the applicability of these policies and institutions to the developing countries take it for granted that these were the policies and the institutions that were used by the developed countries when they themselves were developing countries.

 

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the historical fact is that the rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and the institutions that they now recommend to, and often force upon, the developing countries. Unfortunately, this fact is little known these days because the “official historians” of capitalism have been very successful in re-writing its history.

 

Almost all of today’s rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies.

 

Contrary to the popular myth, Britain had been an aggressive user, and in certain areas a pioneer, of activist policies intended to promote its industries. Such policies, although limited in scope, date back from the 14th century (Edward III) and the 15th century (Henry VII) in relation to woollen manufacturing, the leading industry of the time.  England then was an exporter of raw wool to the Low Countries, and Henry VII for example tried to change this by taxing raw wool exports and poaching skilled workers from the Low Countries.

 

Particularly between the trade policy reform of its first Prime Minister Robert Walpole in 1721 and its adoption of free trade around 1860, Britain used very dirigiste trade and industrial policies, involving measures very similar to what countries like Japan and Korea later used in order to develop their industries. During this period, it protected its industries a lot more heavily than did France, the supposed dirigiste counterpoint to its free-trade, free-market system. Given this history, argued Friedrich List, the leading German economist of the mid-19th century, Britain preaching free trade to less advanced countries like Germany and the USA was like someone trying to “kick away the ladder” with which he had climbed to the top.

 

List was not alone in seeing the matter in this light. Many American thinkers shared this view. Indeed, it was American thinkers like Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary of the USA, and the (now-forgotten) economist Daniel Raymond, who first systematically developed the infant industry argument. Indeed, List, who is commonly known as the father of the infant industry argument, in fact started out as a free-trader (he was an ardent supporter of German customs union – Zollverein) and learnt about this argument during his exile in the USA during the 1820s.

 

Little known today, the intellectual interaction between the USA and Germany during the 19th century did not end there. The German Historical School – represented by people like Wilhelm Roscher, Bruno Hildebrand, Karl Knies, Gustav Schmoller, and Werner Sombart – attracted a lot of American economists in the late 19th century. The patron saint of American Neoclassical economics, John Bates Clark, in whose name the most prestigious award for young (under 40) American economists is given today, went to Germany in 1873 and studied the German Historical School under Roscher and Knies, although he gradually drifted away from it. Richard Ely, one of the leading American economists of the time, also studied under Knies and influenced the American Institutionalist School through his disciple, John Commons. Ely was one of the founding fathers of the American Economic Association; to this day, the biggest public lecture at the Association’s annual meeting is given in Ely’s name, although few of the present AEA members would know who he was.

 

Between the Civil War and the Second World War, the USA was literally the most heavily protected economy in the world. In this context, it is important to note that the American Civil War was fought on the issue of tariff as much as, if not more, on the issue of slavery. Of the two major issues that divided the North and the South, the South had actually more to fear on the tariff front than on the slavery front. Abraham Lincoln was a well-known protectionist who cut his political teeth under the charismatic politician Henry Clay in the Whig Party, which advocated the “American System” based on infrastructural development and protectionism (thus named on recognition that free trade is for the British interest). One of Lincoln’s top economic advisors was the famous protectionist economist, Henry Carey, who once was described as “the only American economist of importance” by Marx and Engels in the early 1850s but has now been almost completely air-brushed out of the history of American economic thought. On the other hand, Lincoln thought that African Americans were racially inferior and that slave emancipation was an idealistic proposal with no prospect of immediate implementation  – he is said to have emancipated the slaves in 1862 as a strategic move to win the War rather than out of some moral conviction.

 

In protecting their industries, the Americans were going against the advice of such prominent economists as Adam Smith and Jean Baptiste Say, who saw the country’s future in agriculture. However, the Americans knew exactly what the game was. They knew that Britain reached the top through protection and subsidies and therefore that they needed to do the same if they were going to get anywhere. Criticising the British preaching of free trade to his country, Ulysses Grant, the Civil War hero and the US President between 1868-1876, retorted that “within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade”. When his country later reached the top after the Second World War, it too started “kicking away the ladder” by preaching and forcing free trade to the less developed countries.

 

The UK and the USA may be the more dramatic examples, but almost all the rest of the developed world today used tariffs, subsidies and other means to promote their industries in the earlier stages of their development. Cases like Germany, Japan, and Korea are well known in this respect. But even Sweden, which later came to represent the “small open economy” to many economists had also strategically used tariffs, subsidies, cartels, and state support for R&D to develop key industries, especially textile, steel, and engineering.

 

There were some exceptions like the Netherlands and Switzerland that have maintained free trade since the late 18th century. However, these were countries that were already on the frontier of technological development by the 18th centuries and therefore did not need much protection. Also, it should be noted that the Netherlands deployed an impressive range of interventionist measures up till the 17th century in order to build up its maritime and commercial supremacy. Moreover, Switzerland did not have a patent law until 1907, flying directly against the emphasis that today’s orthodoxy puts on the protection of intellectual property rights (see below). More interestingly, the Netherlands abolished its 1817 patent law in 1869 on the ground that patents are politically-created monopolies inconsistent with its free-market principles – a position that seems to elude most of today’s free-market economists – and did not introduce another patent law until 1912.

 

The story is similar in relation to institutional development. In the earlier stages of their development, today’s developed countries did not even have such “basic” institutions as professional civil service, central bank, and patent law. It was only after the Pendleton Act in 1883 that the US federal government started recruiting its employees through a competitive process. The central bank, an institution dear to the heart of today’s free-market economists, did not exist in most of today’s rich countries until the early 20th century – not least because the free-market economists of the day condemned it as a mechanism for unjustly bailing out imprudent borrowers. The US central bank (the Federal Reserve Board) was set up only in 1913 and the Italian central bank did not even have a note issue monopoly until 1926. Many countries allowed patenting of foreign invention until the late 19th century. As I mentioned above, Switzerland and the Netherlands refused to introduce a patent law despite international pressure until 1907 and 1912 respectively, thus freely “stole” technologies from abroad. The examples can go on.

 

One important conclusion that emerges from the history of institutional development is that it took the developed countries a long time to develop institutions in their earlier days of development. Institutions typically took decades, and sometimes generations, to develop. Just to give one example, the need for central banking was perceived at least in some circles from at least the 17th century, but the first “real” central bank, the Bank of England, was instituted only in 1844, some two centuries later.

 

Another important point emerges is that the levels of institutional development in today’s developed countries in the earlier period were much lower than those in today’s developing countries. For example, measured by the (admittedly highly imperfect) income level, in 1820, the UK was at a somewhat higher level of development than that of India today, but it did not even have many of the most “basic” institutions that India has today. It did not have universal suffrage (it did not even have universal male suffrage), a central bank, income tax, generalised limited liability, a generalised bankruptcy law, a professional bureaucracy, meaningful securities regulations, and even minimal labour regulations (except for a couple of minimal and hardly-enforced regulations on child labour).

 

If the policies and institutions that the rich countries are recommending to the poor countries are not the ones that they themselves used when they were developing, what is going on? We can only conclude that the rich countries are trying to kick away the ladder that allowed them to climb where they are. It is no coincidence that economic development has become more difficult during the last two decades when the developed countries started turning on the pressure on the developing countries to adopt the so-called “global standard” policies and institutions.

 

During this period, the average annual per capita income growth rate for the developing countries has been halved from 3% in the previous two decades (1960-80) to 1.5%. In particular, Latin America virtually stopped growing, while Sub-Saharan Africa and most ex-Communist countries have experienced a fall in absolute income. Economic instability has increased markedly, as manifested in the dozens of financial crises we have witnessed over the last decade alone. Income inequality has been growing in many developing countries and poverty has increased, rather than decreased, in a significant number of them.

 

What can be done to change this?

 

First, the historical facts about the historical experiences of the developed countries should be more widely publicised. This is not just a matter of “getting history right”, but also of allowing the developing countries to make more informed choices.

 

Second, the conditions attached to bilateral and multilateral financial assistance to developing countries should be radically changed. It should be accepted that the orthodox recipe is not working, and also that there can be no “best practice” policies that everyone should use.

 

Third, the WTO rules should be re-written so that the developing countries can more actively use tariffs and subsidies for industrial development. They should also be allowed to have less stringent patent laws and other intellectual property rights laws.

 

Fourth, improvements in institutions should be encouraged, but this should not be equated with imposing a fixed set of (in practice, today’s – not even yesterday’s – Anglo-American) institutions on all countries. Special care has to be taken in order not to demand excessively rapid upgrading of institutions by the developing countries, especially given that they already have quite developed institutions when compared to today’s developed countries at comparable stages of development, and given that establishing and running new institutions is costly.

 

By being allowed to adopt policies and institutions that are more suitable to their conditions, the developing countries will be able to develop faster. This will also benefit the developed countries in the long run, as it will increase their trade and investment opportunities. That the developed countries cannot see this is the tragedy of our time.

 

___________________

 

Ha-Joon Chang (hjc1001@econ.cam.ac.uk) teaches in the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. This article is based on his new book, Kicking Away the Ladder – Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, which was published by Anthem Press, London, on 10 June 2002.

今天伦敦四月飘雪，奥运火炬传递高潮迭起。一干爱国热血青年如summer，leo，葱葱，和老傅同学顶风冒雪的冲在了捍卫火炬抗击藏独的第一线，而我却在温暖的家里睡到了下午一点。。。由此可见我皮袍下面藏着的小来。不过说实话我对于反藏独的确产生了一定的审美疲劳（革命热情不够坚定的说）。我觉得leo同学说的很对：“我说他们其实很可怜，因为他们所追求的目标，没有the slimmest possibility to realize. How pathetic is that.”。于是偶给自己找到了一点小小的开脱的借口。另外偶对于summer同学描绘的五星红旗与Gucci一色，黄皮肤共LV齐飞的景色很是激动：咱们祖国人民很富有，而且物质的拜金的人民群众也有着高昂的爱国热情，多摸的振奋人心啊。

 

不过说正经的，这段时间西方媒体对中国进行了铺天盖地的肆无忌惮的明目张胆的明火执仗的妖魔化。在国人令人欣慰的从对西方“自由公正”的媒体的图腾崇拜中醒悟过来之时，我们也不得不非常吃惊的认识到，他们这么做是有着深厚的群众基础的——西方民众对于中国的无知和由之产生的自然的恐惧。那么咱们应该怎么去教育他们？但是每次想到这个问题，我总是觉得非常的才疏学浅力不从心，因为我对中国懂的也太少了。中国太大太复杂了，每次多了解一些，就多了一些我在盲人摸象的感觉；中国变的又太快了，不用说爸妈那一辈的很多经验都失效了，即使是我们自身若干年前在国内的经验都很快没法与时俱进。

 

这段时间我一直在考虑几个近年来自从我决定暂时留在英国工作就一直在困扰我的问题（对于在外国工作从而有option的留学生来说，处理自己是否回国，什么时候以及怎么回国，也许是咱们这辈子最重要的risk management activity）：中国到底是什么？中国将往何处去？中国将怎样影响世界并被世界影响？不幸的是脑袋不够灵光，想破了也想不出了子丑寅卯来。好在老祖宗教导我们说思而不学则殆。于是在这个雪花纷飞的日子里，偶窝在万恶的美帝国主义腐朽生活的代表之一的starbucks里看完了两本（偶有个坏毛病：同时看几本书，因为连续看一本容易审美疲劳）好书：吴晓波的《激荡三十年》的下册以及Mark Leonard的What does China think?

 

好困，今天先写到这里吧。太监一把，下周接着写书评和感想

反正咱也不是替政府发公文，技术上有什么偏差的（比如到底是台湾还是台湾省还是中华民国什么的）在所难免，大家不要计较，反正知道怎么回事就行了。

 

最近几周小马哥的领先优势曾一度岌岌可危，而且谁也不知道最后关头会不会又出来个枪击事件。但是最后接近60%的选票的大胜使得民进党用一些选后盘外招的胜算和可能性小了很多。总统加上立法院超过2/3的席位，国民党终于咸鱼翻身了。希望之能够利用现在难得的机会，为两岸民众谋福利。

 

我知道说这个可能会招人骂，但是我还是两岸最重要的不是是否统一，什么时候统一，怎么统一，而是两岸的民众能够享受到繁荣与稳定。我不是不支持统一。谁不想自己的国家强大啊。但是我只是觉得统一不应该是不惜一切代价的。OK说具体一些。

 

第一，这种问题面临的极大的不确定性，所以在很大一个范围内的不同观点都是合理的。这个是讨论与解决这个问题的原则，跟我持有的具体观点（比如说到底该不该打）无关。有人觉得只要台湾宣布法理独立就应该打，我觉得这个是也有可能是合理的，但是我现在不同意也不会支持这个观点。OK这个不是活稀泥——承认不确定性的存在以及异己观点的潜在的合理性才能使大家进行有建设性的讨论和谈判。我不排除将来在了解更多情况获得更多的知识和经验之后改变我的具体观点，但是我不太可能会改变这个原则。

 

第二，从趋势上来说，我个人觉得将来的统一是非常有可能的。不是因为大陆的武力，而是因为共同的文化遗产和实际的现实需要——大陆有着台湾需要的市场和车间，台湾有着大陆需要的科技（包括物质科技以及社会科技比如说公民社会）。其实在经济上文化上（特别是娱乐圈）现在两岸已经非常统一了，将来小马哥打造两岸经济共同体的计划如果顺利实现的话，两岸经济的统一只会进一步加强。这种你中有我我中有你的统一是很难逆转的。至于这个过程有多久，中间会不会就波折和反复，我就不知道了。

 

第三，从实际操作上说，短时间内通过非军事的手段实现完全的或者政治的统一是不现实的。这个大家都明白，不用多说了。

 

第四，我并不太担心短期内不统一的后果。有人可能会觉得台湾离开大陆越久，对自己是中国人的身份认同就越差。这不是没有道理，但是我觉得还有别的因素在发挥作用，比如说随着中国越来越富强以及来大陆旅游工作定居的台湾同胞越来越多，他们对大陆的认同感反而会增加。说到底是哪一种因素起决定性作用的问题，我个人觉得认同感增加的因素是决定性的。这次入联公投的投票率还是可以从一定程度上反应台湾真实的民意的（不排除很多人是被吓的不敢去投票了）。OK有人说如果大陆发展变慢或者倒退了这个因素不发挥作用了怎么办？那样的话台湾留在外面未尝不是一件好事。改革开放以来港台的投资占了国外直接投资的半壁江山，如果当年建国的时候香港台湾就收回来了，那这三十年来的经济发展可能会慢很多。有人可能会说台湾不收回来在军事战略上很危险。是，台湾的战略地位很重要，但是如果依靠和平的手段一时半会收不回来，值不值得为了将来可能的利益牺牲当前的而去打一仗呢？见仁见智了。

 

第五，如果台湾宣布独立怎么办？好在这个似乎若干年内都不会有实质性的危险，就留给政府去操心好了，我就不废话了。有人可能会担心台湾独立会造成西藏和新疆都独立，我到不担心，毕竟这些政府控制下的内陆省份和台湾的实际情况天差地远。OK我就是双重标准，现实就是残酷和肮脏的。

 

第六，现在政府的官方立场（法理独立就打）明不明智，现实不现实？这种战术性的问题我也不操心了——想操心也没得操，看政府的吧。我想起了传说中当时80年代中英谈判香港回归的时候的一件轶事。据说香港的某大亨问小平同志：“大陆承诺香港制度50年不变，那50年之后怎么办啊？”小平同志意味深长的说：“50年后还用变么？”现在大家都应该知道这是什么意思了，伟人就是伟人的说。

 

PS上周似乎是中石油复盘的时候因为技术原因A股大盘瞬间掉了几十点，很多人就在讨论是不是台海打起来了。。。现在选举和公投的结果出来了，大家神经不用绷的这么紧了。。。

 

PS2昨天忘说了，偶把台湾同胞当同胞看，但是如果有人诋毁中国（大陆）支持藏独抵制奥运，那你们是自作孽不可活。

本来其实憋着不想写——一写就想骂人。但是既然被点名了，咱不能不给面子的说。

 

事实很清楚——暴乱，对策也很显然——镇压。圣经教导基督徒在左脸被打的时候要把右脸也送上去，但是虔诚的美国人显然只记住了以眼还眼以牙还牙。对待恐怖分子不要跟我说什么人权不人权的，你觉得小布什在911之后会跟本拉登说：哥们，撞的好，撞的妙，快点把白宫也和谐了吧。在Guantanamo Bay之后还好意思讲人权，见过不要脸的，没见过这么不要脸的。

 

这两天看看Economist和BBC上的论坛上的争论，挺无奈的。世界上就是有很多很有趣的人，自己不会说中文，没去过中国，不知道西藏在地图上的什么地方，说不出西藏什么有名的地方有名的人，但是却非常自信的觉得西藏一直就是一独立的国家，觉得西藏人在中国受尽压迫（WTF，高考录取线比我们低几百分到成了压迫了），觉得13亿人，包括很多在国外学习和生活过很长时间，懂英文，看BBC和CNN，受过西方教育，在西方工作过的人都被洗脑了。不认识达赖，没见过达赖，却觉得达赖是非常好的人（我不知道达赖到底是什么样，但是这篇文章比较有意思）。你说跟这种人还有什么好说的。还是一哥们在Economist上说的话糙理不糙：西藏就是我们的，怎么着，不服啊？不服有种的来开打啊。You bunch of losers^_^

 

=======================心情平复的分隔线=========================

 

OK，骂完了，出气了，说点正经的。不管怎么说，中国和政府在这次西藏问题里在媒体和西方世界里还是问题多多的——麻烦的是西方人很多只信达赖不信中国。咱们再有理，也都得让人知道不是么。政府需要危机公关了。也许应该让西方的媒体去西藏采访，不论有多少记者会蓄意歪曲，总还是会有客观正面的报道的。让西方记者来说我们的好话，比咱自己怒火攻心的跟人掐架有用多了。另外不论达赖好也好，坏也好，从中国的角度看他还是很有用的一张牌的。这次的暴动已经有极端民族主义和恐怖主义的苗头了，等哪天达赖转世了，反而没有人可以约束那些恐怖分子了，别弄成北爱或者巴斯克才好。达赖也好，教皇也好，其实都可以发邀请参加奥运会，来不来随他们，总之我们天朝很大度。他们不来没趣的是他们，来了乱撒野丢脸的也是他们。

 

说句题外话，这两天小马哥就西藏问题撒欢撒的可high了。虽然说选举期间说的话比放屁还不如，但是这也显示了丫还是对自己不够台湾很心虚。这么看来其实谢长廷上台对两岸可能还是好事——出身越极端，在现实需要的时候妥协起来就越容易。比如说尼克松，比如说安培晋三，比如说沙龙。

俺老板跟Rachman的老板一样喜欢掐架。前两个礼拜偶做了个presentation试图指出现代主流经济学的基本假设之一的理性人假设所存在的根本问题，然后俺老板昨天也做了个presentation来回应俺。偶老板的presentation就不放上来了，没版权的说，但是其基本思想就是说很多看起来不理性的行为（bounded rationality），其实都可以用理性人假设加上某些限制条件来解释。比如说大家一般在做决策的时候都不会像理性人一样把所有的东西都考虑进来，而且不太考虑遥远的将来。偶老板就引入了thinking cost作为constraint，然后给出了一个例子说明有时候不考虑所有的东西是理性的选择。

 

本着把掐架进行到底的精神，偶回复了一篇如下。

 

 

 

We all agree that, in actual decision making, human beings do not quite exhibit the perfect rationality (PR) as assumed by neoclassical economics.  We are over-confident and myopia, we tend to look at evidence that support our belief, and we blindly follow others in herds.  All these significant deviations from the neoclassical PR paradigm need to be modelled.

 

 

As said any set of empirical evidence could be consistent with many competing or even contradictory theories.  So are the deviations from PR.  One might model them using rational agent with constraint (e.g. cost of thinking) as you did, or one might treat agents as partial rational (i.e. still optimisation but with deficiencies), or one might ditch the optimisation paradigm all together and regard human beings as inductively rational (IR).

 

You may have known I'm a fan of the last school of thought, and more will be on it later on.  Indeed I believe that the suitability of each type of theories to particular situations needs to be judged case by case, but I also believe that approaches based on PR (weather with constraints or with partial PR) is a dead end for the purpose of scientific research.  A paradigm shift is needed.

 

 

In general I'm suspicious of the feasibility of large-scale changes in anything, so I feel the need to demonstrate the feasibility (i.e. a new paradigm is achievable).  I do not have at hand an IR theory readily developed to make its feasibility self-evident, but I want to argue that paradigm shifts of comparable scale have previously been done in the subject of economics.

 

I'll use Marxism as the example – although it might have never gained prominence in Anglo-Saxon economies, it had nevertheless been the economic orthodox for substantial part of human beings and significant amount of time.  One of the central themes of Marxism is that it regards goods as having intrinsic values, which are solely determined by production functions.  However, the orthodox economic theory nowadays could not be more different: the value of any goods only depends on individual preferences.  In short, the existence of intrinsic value: yes vs. no; the determinant of value: supply vs. demand.  So another dramatic change in one of the fundamental assumptions in economic theory is likely to be feasible.

 

If you found my argument above reasonable and tend to agree with me, then you might understand why I'm an IR fan: I have argued inductively (there is no logical connection between the value of any goods and the behaviour of human beings), not deductively.  If you found my argument reasonable it's because human beings in general reason inductively and using analogy (or, in the jargon of cognitive science, pattern recognition).

 

 

I was once a hardcore believer of PR.  It's so neat and elegant – or beautiful, in the sense of scientific philosophy.  I had tried hard to embed it in my decision making and behaviours, but to no avail.  I couldn't solve the simplest problems.  For instance, I really don't know how to compare my preferences on eating an apple with that on listening to some new music.  I have some vague idea on how relatively attractive each option is, but experience told me such vague idea is not reliable anyway.  Nor could I solve the most important problems.  Say job hunting: I only roughly know what I don't like, but not sure of what I like.  And my career aspirations kept been shaped dramatically by new knowledge and experience in the ways I hadn't anticipated or expected.

 

Initially I thought it was because I wasn't rational enough, so I tried to study economics even harder.  But after enough puzzles and frustrations, I suddenly came to realise: hang on, I'm not stupid, and I have received one of the best trainings in economics in the world.  If I'm not as rational as assumed by PR, then how can others be?

 

 

Human beings are not designed by God (please stop reading if you believe otherwise) – we evolved through billions of years from non-organisms.  So is our intelligence.  Although I believe the intelligence of current human beings is greater than both current other creatures and our ancestors, it's still far from perfect.  The difference between bounded rationality and PR looks to me like night and day, just like the difference between arbitrarily big but finite numbers and infinite.

 

So that's why I tend to regard approaches based on PR is a research dead-end and why I found evolution-based IR attractive.  I explain (or, more accurately, copy) below what is meant by IR so please suspend disbelief for now.  However, I have to warn you that my knowledge in IR is second-hand and very limited, so take this with great pinch of salt.

 

At the moment there is no standard, widely agreed-upon model of IR, but various researchers have shown that at least it is possible to build precisely-stated, mathematical models of IR.  So the rigorousness of IR models is not necessarily less than the traditional PR models.

 

An IR model mostly has the following four components (the following bullet points are copied from Eric Beinhocker The Origin of Wealth):

 

The first two components are standard parts of traditional PR models, but the last two are the crucial difference.  The last component is very intuitive, as in our daily life, we adopt certain actions mostly not because they have been logically proved to be correct, but because they have worked previously.

 

Personally I feel a significant advantage of IR models is that we do not need to pre-assume any type of environment (as I have demonstrated in my presentation, optimisation is meaningless without presumptions on the environment), which is exactly the situations human beings are facing (we are not gods, anyway).

 

 

IR does not mean we don't use or need deductive reasoning.  Indeed the explosive growth of knowledge and wealth since the establishment of scientific method has demonstrated how useful and helpful deductive reason is.

 

However, the fact that deduction is very helpful does not mean it is the inherent way human beings reason, and I would argue that we need to give inductive reasoning the central role that has been denied by traditional PR models like neoclassical economics.

 

I'll use another analogy.  Computers are unbelievably useful and helpful to us, but they do not replace human beings in decision making.  They simply assist.  It seems to me that induction is like the human beings while deduction is like the computers.

 

 

Having said all the things above, I want to clarify that I'm not advocating for the complete discard of neoclassical economics, which, before alternative theories have been reasonably developed, is neither practical nor desirable.  Or maybe not desirable even after the development of better theories, just like Newton Mechanism is still widely used and taught long after the discovery of Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics.  See, another analogy.

这个不是什么新闻了，不过可喜可贺的是世行终于认识到以均衡分析为基石的现代主流发展经济学的严重不足以及在为发展中国家设计经济政策时实事求是的必要性。世行行长佐立克虽然是共和党人，但是好在不是所有的共和党人都是像小布什一样的原教旨主义者。

 

林毅夫的生平还是很传奇的，据说当年在台军里服役的时候抱着一个篮球从金门游到大陆。后来辗转去了芝加哥念博士，并于94年回国开办中国经济研究中心（CCER）。这可能是现代经济学在中国里启蒙的开始（虽然偶经常指摘现在主流经济学的不是，它比起马克思主义经济学还是有质的飞跃的）。林毅夫对于经济政策的观点里最令人振奋的还是务实主义，比如说，他认为中国最值得推广和借鉴的就是“摸着石头过河”的“务实主义”。中国通过一种渐进的改革，逐步建立起一个完善的、现代的市场经济。转型经济体的目标就是建立完善的市场经济，而中国通过渐进式的改革过渡到这个目标，就是重要的经验。尤其是在评论中国的汇改政策时，他认为“没有政策就是最好的政策”。这个观点和世行以及国际货币基金组织传统上主张的有着放之四海而皆准的发展模式的观点极为不同。虽然中国经济的长期快速发展让许多发展中国家羡慕不已并希望能迎头赶上，但林毅夫仍旧认为中国无法提供一个适合所有发展中国家的解决方案，中国政府在制定政策方面的灵活性才是最值得仿效的。

 

想到这里，感慨一下时间还是能改变人的观点的。当年偶在CCER上课和做助教的时候还是愤青一个，觉得林毅夫是“御用经济学家”，光为政府说话的，所以对之比较不屑。后来出国读书读了经济学，毕业之后也在英国和欧盟经济政策相关的领域混了几年，再加上中国这几年在国际媒体和商界的崛起，回头看看似乎不认识在国内理解的那个中国了。以前在国内虽然很爱国，但是还是觉得中国这里不好那里不好。现在不在此山中了，虽然还是一样忍不住要看中国足球队惨不忍睹的比赛，却对国内的问题宽容了很多。

 

首先，发达国家也不是那么的完美。很惭愧，小时候想出国的主要原因是想天天吃鸡腿，但是现在国内的超市饭馆比国外的不要好太多。以前在国内的时候痛恨腐败无能的官员浪费钱财，但是现在发现有着世界上最悠久的清廉历史的英国政府同样会犯不少很傻很天真很贵很浪费的错误。意大利是欧洲最富有的国家之一，但是意大利人却喜欢说意大利的经济都是在晚上发展的，因为那时候政府官员在睡觉。

 

其次，比较的标准要合理。跟发达国家比来找差距是必要的，毕竟革命尚未成功同志仍须努力，但是不能因为跟发达国家有差距就抹杀已有的成就。这就是到底杯子是半空还是半满的道理。就像虽然十有八九国青队是踢不过国家队的，但是一般中国球迷都会觉得国青队更争气。

 

其实这几年的书读下来工作做下来，最大的收获不是知道自己懂了多少，而是知道人类的知识还差很多。这个世界太复杂多变了，虽然无知不是不作为的借口，但是人类还是需要保持谦虚。对远古存在的神，用谦卑的身份。

这期Economist有一篇文章介绍Tim Harford（FT专栏作家，经济学家）的新书《The logic of life: undercovering the new economics of everything》。

 

我得承认我没看过这本书——实在是不想浪费时间——不过我倒是经常看这位的FT专栏。俗话说同行是冤家，但是我鄙视这位同行到不是因为他跟我抢饭碗，而是因为他是太正宗的主流经济学家了：在他们的眼里，所有人都是理性的机器，所有的决定和行为都是为了达到利益最大化而精心计算的结果。在某些证据已经汗牛充栋罄竹难书的反对这些假设的领域，还是死皮赖脸的坚持自己误人子弟的理论。

 

这里面流毒最深的应该就是芝加哥学派，而芝加哥学派里理性假设的代表之一是Gary Becker。其最臭名昭著的理论之一就是理性上瘾说：瘾君子是完全理解吸毒的后果并自己主动选择上瘾的，因为他们计算过上瘾带来的快感超过痛苦。What the f**k is he talking about...

 

OK每个人都有表达自己想法的权利，而且很多established economists还很认同这些理论。问题是衡量一个理论好不好的关键不在于被多少paper引用被多少同行认同，而在于这个理论是不是很事实相符。我没吸过毒，但是我玩过游戏而且现在还上瘾。你要是告诉大家那些沉迷于网络游戏的未成年孩子是理性的计算过玩游戏的成本和收益，不光他们的家长想大嘴巴抽你，他们也会想。国人已经比较充分的认识到了八股文的危害，殊不知跟世界经济联系最紧密的学科之一现在却极度热衷于生产大量无用的八股文。

 

为啥呢？据不完全统计，大概有三个可能性。

 

第一，self-selection。只有比较相信那些鬼话的才会愿意投身于生产鬼话的事业中，就像四年前的我。

 

第二，group-thinking。即使不那么相信鬼话的，在满是鬼话的环境里呆久了只怕也信了。鬼话重复一千遍就是真理嘛。

 

第三，self-interest。即使有些明白人知道那些是鬼话，但是自己的生计全搭在这些鬼话上了，说皇帝没穿衣服不就是砸自己饭碗么。

 

愤青完毕，欢迎拍砖

今天在公司的staff meeting上做了presentation，slides在这里（read-only不需要密码）。话题是为什么optimisation（比如说utility和利润最大化）作为economic agent的行为的假设是不对的。不是因为人们和企业不想，是因为只有有限信息的它们做不到。

 

这是一个很有争议性的话题，因为这个直接的否定了现在主流经济学的根本（插一句，公平的说，虽然指出缺陷很重要——就像偶在这个presentation里试图做的——但是有缺陷本身却不足以justify抛弃现有的理论。找到更好的替代理论是必要的。就像相对论替代牛顿力学。）。不过俺快离职了，在走前告诉同事们他们学的或者做的东西很不靠谱，是不是不太地道。。。好在老板和同事们都很讲理，虽然提问的时候很猛很强大，但是整个讨论过程还是constructive和productive的。

 

Anyway，对经济学感兴趣的同学，hope you enjoy it~~

 

不过在准备slides的时候还是相通了一些很重要的事情。用posh的话来说，是paradigm shift。以前中理性主义的流毒太深，凡事总追求最优解（注意，不是完美主义！完美主义不考虑边际成本）。现在总算明白这世上绝大多数，如果不是全部，的事情都没有最优解。（从技术上来说，有两种情况：第一，客观上就不存在最优解；第二，客观上存在最优解，但是因为我们只有有限的信息，我们永远发现不了最优解。有的人argue说最我们可以根据我们的目标和我们对于概率分布的belief，或者view，或者whatever，然后来寻找最优化。但是实际上这个只是把问题推后了一个层次：怎么去form optimal belief or view。这个没有无限信息还是做不到的。关于俺怎么对主观概率分布和客观概率分布产生兴趣，参见这里。）

 

不过想通了这点，包袱少了不少。比如说投资。以前不敢投，总觉得自己懂的太少，找不到最优解。老老实实承认自己不懂对自己的钱包可能更负责一些。现在知道最优解不存在了，俺就更敢豁出去form views and place bets。

 

还是人民群众智慧高，比如说点点同学一直在教育偶人生苦短没必要想太多。Anyway，偶还是会继续鄙视对风险没有reasonable awareness的人。说到底，人类是一个90%的成员认为他们的驾驶技术属于upper50%的种族。

非常感谢Mingzhu JJ对俺的涂鸦严肃的评论。俺再涂鸦一篇以示尊重。

 

Mingzhu JJ的观点是民主政府好，即使印度的民主政府存在种种弊端，人民的生活水平还是比封建王朝的时候要高；而中国政府在过去三十年里制造的贫困不比减少的少，对弱势群体关注的不够。

 

俺的观点是民主政府对于中国和印度这样没有西方公民社会传统的人口众多的发展中国家也许好，也许不好，俺不知道。但是中国在过去三十年里发展的成就和人们生活水平的提高是实实在在的，中国政府对偶来说足够好。如果对于民主政府的要求就是比过去好就行，而对于中国的要求就是既要富又要公平，是不是不太fair？

 

数据说话：咱们用1950年做基准，因为当时两个国家都刚独立，有着差不多的人均GDP（中国$614，略高于印度的$597）。其他衡量生活水平的指标在1950年的数值找不到（哪位如果有数据还请不吝赐教），但是考虑到当时两国都刚独立，有着差不多的人口，且有着差不多的人均GDP，姑且认为两国的其他指标都一样。

 

现在快进到21世纪，50年后的两个世界人人口最多的国家，一个一直享受这民主，一个一直被“独裁”政府统治，结果如何呢？

 

人均GDP：中国是印度的两倍到两倍半（取决于用名义还是购买力平价）；

人均每日卡路里：中国是3030，印度是2426；

期望寿命：中国73岁，印度65到69岁（取决于数据来源）；

识字率：中国91%，印度61%；

贫困率：中国10%，印度34%；

基尼系数：中国0.47，印度0.37；

人类发展指数：中国明显高于印度。

 

如果说人均GDP不是衡量弱势群体生活水平的良好标准，而基尼系数显示中国有欠公平的话，那么其它的指标无可争议的显示作为弱势群体——最容易吃不饱，活不长，上不了学，生活在贫困中的人——生活在哪一国会比较好以及在过去50年里哪一国的弱势群体的生活水平提高的快。对于穷人来说，吃饱穿暖，颐养天年，孩子能有受教育摆脱贫困的机会，比什么都重要和实在。除非弱势群体有其它的定义，比如说离退休老干部？