日本経済の壮大な歴史実験から他国が学べること

　米国での関心としては民主党候補の熾烈な争いという文脈なのだが、ヒラリー・クリントンがぶちあげた経済政策について、ビル・エモット（Bill Emmott）元英エコノミスト誌編集長が２８日付ワシントン・ポストに”Lessons From Japan's Malaise（日本沈滞からの教訓）”（参照）という興味深い反論の寄稿をしていた。クリントンは、日本の大手紙の社説の英訳でも読んだのか、「米経済は日本型停滞に陥るから財政出動あるべし」みたいなことを言ってしまったらしい。
　エモットは、「極東ブログ: [書評]日本の選択」（参照）ではどちらかというと控えめなのだが、この件については、それは違うよということ声高に言っている。
　で、その反論を読んでいると、当の日本人としては、ちょっと花見酒にはよさげなやけくそな気分になってきてしまった。というわけで、ちょっとご紹介。試訳も付けたけどご参考程度に。
　話はこう始まる。

A little knowledge can be not just dangerous but grossly misleading. That is the right conclusion to draw from the latest, surprisingly reassuring data about the U.S. economy and from the interview in yesterday's Wall Street Journal in which Sen. Hillary Clinton warned that America must avoid a "Japanese-like situation."

知識の不足は危険であるばかりではなく、大きな錯誤の道を導くことになる。米国経済についての最新の心強いデータと、昨日のウォールストリート・ジャーナルのインタビュー記事でヒラリークリントン上院議員が、米国は「日本のような事態」を避けなければならないとした警告から引き出された結論が、これに当たる。

　ようするに、エモットが言いたいのは、クリントンの日本経済観は半可通なので、そんな知識を元に米国経済を論じると、ひどいことになりますよ、ということだ。

Clinton should have researched what actually happened in Japan after its financial crash before using the bogeyman of a Japan-style malaise to support her proposal that taxpayers' money be used to bail out holders of troubled mortgages. She thinks that Japan's mistake was to rely excessively on monetary policy to rescue its economy, rather than on fiscal and other measures. The truth is the exact opposite.

クリントンは、日本式停滞のお化けをダシにしてまでして、抵当問題を抱える人の救済に納税者のお金を使うべきだとする提案を出す前に、日本の財政崩壊後に実際に起きたことを調査すべきだった。彼女は日本の間違いは、財政で他の処置を取るより経済救済のために過度に金融政策に頼ったとしている。事実はまったく逆だ。

　エモットのクリントン理解が違っているとも言えるのかもしれないが、エモットにしてみると、クリントンは「日本が金融政策で失敗したので財政政策を取れ」と理解したのだろう。
　ちょっと考えると普通の国際的な知識人ならそんな誤解ができるわけもないような気がするが、クリントンのことだからようするに政府がカネを出せばいいとか言いそうな感じもしないではない。クリントンもオバマの経済面では大丈夫だろうか。「オレは経済知らない」とかぬけぬけ言うマケインのほうがましかも。
　エモットの話は、クリントンの経済政策批判という枠組みだが、以降縷々といかに日本が失敗したかを説明していく。読んでいて泣ける泣ける。痛い痛い。
　まず失われた１０年の認識から。

Japan's stock market collapse began in January 1990 and continued throughout that year. The property market followed, with a lag. Yet the Bank of Japan did not try to prevent this financial crash from damaging the real economy by cutting interest rates, as the U.S. Federal Reserve has done spectacularly during the past three months. To the contrary, Japan's central bank used its monetary policy as if to make sure that the country's asset-price bubble had truly burst: It carried on raising interest rates until September 1990 and did not make its first cut until July 1991, 17 months after the financial crisis began.

日本の株式市場崩壊は１９９０年１月から始まり、その年を通して続いた。少し遅れて、不動産市場が続いた。それでも日本銀行は金利を下げることで、実体経済の打撃から財政崩壊を防ごうとはしなかった。が、連邦準備制度理事会は過去３か月の間手際よく実施してきた。対照的に、日本の中央銀行は資産バブルを徹底的に潰すために金融政策を使った。１９９０年９月まで金利を上げ続け、財政危機の後の１７か月も経った１９９１年７月までその初回の下げを実施しなかった。

　「バブルへＧＯ！！ タイムマシンはドラム式」（参照）はお笑い陰謀論だし、あのプロットの裏知恵もなんだかなだが、それにしてもあそこまで資産バブルを潰すことはなかったんでないのかなとかぼんやり眺める今日の桜は美しい。
　日本の経済政策としてはどうか。

In fact, the Bank of Japan did not begin using monetary policy as an aggressive tool to arrest the slump until deflation had set in toward the end of the 1990s. Japan did do two things: It used a massive increase in public spending, particularly on construction projects, to try to rescue indebted firms and to inject public money into the economy; and it helped banks conceal the true extent of their losses and their bad-debt burdens, in order to prevent markets from clearing at painfully low prices.

実際のところ、日本銀行は、積極的に停滞を抑制する手段としての金融政策を、１９９０年代の終わりになるまで実施しなかった。日本が実際にやったことは２つあった。特に建設プロジェクトの分野で、負債企業救済の試行と、経済に公共支出の注入をした。もう１つは、痛ましいほど低価格で解消されないよう市場を守るために、銀行が損失規模と不良債権負担の実態を隠蔽することを助けた。

　この時代を生きた日本人としては、事此処に至って如何ともしがたい、というか、エモットの言うとおりでしょう。
　かくしてエモットがクリントンに授ける今北産業的まとめはこう。

The best that can be said about the Japanese experience is that its vast fiscal stimulus may have averted a deep recession at the price of a long stagnation. It also greatly delayed the necessary restructuring of the country's banking system and, by providing huge cash flows to political lobbies, greatly delayed political reform -- a mistake from which the country is still suffering.

日本が経験したこからせいぜい言えることといえば、膨大な財政刺激によって深刻な不況を避けたのかもしれないということだが、長期停滞という対価を支払うことにはなった。同時に日本の銀行システム再編の必要性を遅らせ、特定政策団体に巨額のカネを流すことで、政治改革も大きく遅延させた。この失策で日本はいまだに苦しんでいる。

　仔細に読むと若干エモットはブレがあるかもしれない。「極東ブログ: [書評]「陰」と「陽」の経済学―我々はどのような不況と戦ってきたのか（リチャード・クー）」（参照）のようなモデルも成り立つかもしれない。とはいえどちらも机上の空論的歴史のＩＦにすぎないのだが。
　日本から学べるエモットの教訓はこう。

The real lesson from Japan is: Be careful in jumping to judgment. Of course, it could be that the data speak the truth: that there are enough supportive elements in the economy, such as rising exports and an expansionary monetary policy, to keep the recession mild. It may be that corporate America as a whole has stronger balance sheets and less debt and so isn't affected the same way as was corporate Japan.

日本から本当に学べることはこうだ。結論にジャンプするには注意深くあれ。もちろん、データは真実であるかもしれないが、経済には多様な要因がある。例えば、不況を緩和させたいなら、輸出を増加させることや通貨拡張政策を取ることができる。アメリカ全体が強いバランスシートと少ない負債を維持することもできるし、であれば日本全体のような影響は受けない。

　ちょっと曖昧に書いているけど、ジャンプとは財政出動のことだろう。財政出動より他の手を組み合わせてなんとかしたほうがいいよ、と。
　さらに、痛みは痛みとして避けないほうがいいというのが日本の教訓だよ、とも。

The other lesson from Japan is that not allowing markets to clear, or at least reach some sort of new equilibrium, risks storing up even bigger problems for the future. The biggest differences between the U.S. and Japanese economic and financial systems lie in flexibility, transparency and rapid adjustment to new realities. America at its best is a mark-to-market, take-your-punches economy, whereas Japan was and is a cover-up economy.

日本から学べるもう一つのことは、市場を曖昧にして、ある種の均衡を維持し、未来に大きな問題を積み上げるというリスクを避けることだ。経済と財政制度において、米国と日本の最大の違いは、新しい課題に対して、柔軟性、透明性、早急な対応を取る点だ。米国の良い点は、市場対市場の経済であり、痛みを自分で受け止める経済であることだ。対照的に日本は隠蔽経済になっている。

　というか、嘘を嘘で固めると反対の反対は賛成なのだ、みたいになる奇妙な論理が日本かもしれない。どうにかならないのか日本とはちょっと思う。桜がきれいだ。
　エモットの話の締めがちょっとしんみりくる。

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Bernanke at least appears to have studied what actually happened in Japan during the 1990s.

ヒラリークリントンとは違い、バーナンキは少なくとも、実際に１９９０年代の間に日本で起こったことを研究したようだ。

ベン・バーナンキ
世界経済の新皇帝

　まあ歴史というのは人知の及ばぬところではある。バーナンキでもどうにもならないというか、過去と現在は違うかもしれない。でも、ドラム式がタイムマシンがあれば僧正を招聘してきたくもなるといった感じか。

追記： クリントンの元発言
　WSJ.com”Transcript: Clinton on Economy, Mortgage Crisis and Trade”（参照・会員のみ）

WSJ: Today, Paulson didn't criticize you by name but did criticize the idea, he said "we do not need a systemwide solution to underwater problems." It didn't mention you buy name but it was pretty clear that's what it was.

Sen. Clinton: Well, you know I'm pretty used to being criticized by the Bush administration. I have a very high regard for Hank Paulson. I have known him a really long time and I'm glad the administration is finally acknowledging that we've had these regulatory problems in the financial markets, but you know I'm somewhat skeptical. Count me as someone waiting to see what they'll actually do. Because when I first started talking about the problems in the subprime market back in March of last year, I was dismissed. I talked about it again in August. I talked about it again in October. I went to Wall Street in December and proposed the moratorium and the interest-rate freeze and I was again criticized by the administration. Yet now how many months later, sort of slowly and begrudgingly I see actions starting to be taken, including entertaining a moratorium approach that suggests there is a daunting recognition that this problem is not going away and there does have to be some government action to try to prevent it from really spiraling downward.

WSJ: Although the interest-rate freeze and the moratorium are still widely criticized, largely by people that say that you need to find a bottom basically … . You need to find a way in which you can get buyers into the market and that this might sort of delay that recognition and inadvertently … put us into a Japanese like situation where the problems never really get solved or take years and years.

Sen. Clinton: I obviously don't agree with that. Because I think to the contrary, we might be drifting into a Japanese like situation. It's one of the reasons I assume -- without any inside information -- that the Fed took such extraordinary action last weekend in acting to prevent a Bear Stearns bankruptcy with all of the cascading consequences that would have resulted in the economy. And I think we keep looking at only one end of the problem. What are we going to do about the financial-services industry? How are we going to do deal with them? Well, let's figure out how to back up J.P. Morgan Chase when they take the assets and liabilities of Bear Stearns … Let's try to keep dropping interest rates. I just don't believe we can work our way out, and that includes figuring out what the bottom is, unless and until we try to stabilize the housing market, and that means addressing the foreclosure crisis. We obviously see it differently. I think their record of inaction over the last several years certainly supports my position. Because they've never found a reason to act vigorously or preemptively to try to prevent some of these unfortunate developments so therefore I really don't know how much credibility they have in their critique of where we are now. And obviously the recommendations I've made about foreclosures are affordable, they would certainly restore confidence I believe, contrary to the critics who think it would somehow undermine it. I believe it would stop the bleeding and enable us to stabilize the patient.

WSJ: You were saying we might be drifting into a Japanese-like situation? ...What do you mean by that? What's your concern?

Sen. Clinton: Look where we are with monetary policy. Maybe we've had a few little spurts of positive response with the last two cuts by the Fed but I don't think we can work our way out of the problems we're in, in the broad-based economy, with monetary policy alone. I think the Japanese tried that and tried that and tried that and there was just a lot of other challenges that they did not confront until relatively recently. There are many other contributors. I don't think we'll have the strong growing economy we need until we have the strong energy policy, for example. I think that goes hand in hand with fiscal responsibility and being smart about how we move away from our dependence on foreign oil. Obviously the events of the past month or two have been deeply troubling when you look at how the price has increased with really no end in sight and the American government under President Bush doing nothing other than pleading with OPEC not to raise the price or to increase supply. I just think that the global economic verdict on the administration's management of the economy is pretty negative. If my memory is right, I recall reading an account of the last OPEC meeting after President Bush had asked them please to help us out, they said "no we won't." He said he was disappointed. And the spokesman for OPEC said something to the effect of there's enough supply in the world, the problems in America are due to their economic management. Unfortunately it hurts because I think there's some truth to it.

　ざっと見た感じでは、クリントンの日本経済理解（特に下線部）はエモットの指摘のように間違いであるように思われた。