Economists and Economic Policy
Economists and Economic Policy
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经济学家和经济政策
DOI：
10.1111/j.1465-7295.1986.tb01793.x
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发表时间：
1986
期刊：
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
M. Friedman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Friedman
我也不例外地概括了经济学家处理公共政策的典型方法。我自己处理公共政策的大部分工作都有着同样的特点，就好像我是在向那些致力于公共利益的政府官员讲话一样。正如你所知，多年来我一直在研究和分析货币政策。在此基础上，我试图说服联邦储备系统，它做错了事情，应该采取不同的政策。那是浪费的时间。它对联邦储备系统的行为没有产生明显的影响，这是有充分理由的：因为政府的公共利益特征基本上是有缺陷的。这种看待政府的方式与我们看待商业的方式截然不同。我们不认为商人是献身于公共利益的商人。我们认为商人在商业中是为了改善自己的福利，为自己的利益服务。亚当·斯密告诉我们：“我们的晚餐不是来自屠夫、酿酒师或面包师的仁慈，而是来自他们对自己利益的关注。我们不是对他们的人性，而是对他们的自爱，从不对他们谈论我们自己的需要，而是他们的优势。用他的名言来说，虽然“每个人都奥利自己的利益，但他...被一只看不见的手引导着去促成一个并非他本意的目的。“为什么我们要对政府官员另眼相看？他们的目标也是为自己的利益服务，在政府中，正如在企业中一样，我们必须努力建立这样的制度，在这种制度下，那些只想获得自己利益的个人被一只看不见的手引导着为公共利益服务，而不是像经常发生的那样，被一只”看不见的脚”引导着为他们无意为之服务的私人利益服务。我们对待政府和对待企业之间的不一致性早就被认识到了，但通常只是在一旁。“由安东尼·唐斯（Anthony Downs）在《民主的经济理论》（The Economic Theory of Democracy）一书中，以及詹姆斯·布坎南（James Buchanan）和戈登·塔洛克（Gordon Tullock）在《同意的计算》（The Calculus of Consent）一书中发展出来的公共选择理论，其巨大贡献在于明确了这种不一致性，并迫使我们所有人认识到，我们应该像分析商人一样分析政府官员，我可以用它来说明为什么试图让美联储接受我的观点是浪费时间，以此来说明这种观点转变的重要性。假设10年或20年前，联邦采纳了我和其他货币主义者提出的政策。假设它开始实施一项政策，年复一年地以3%的速度增加货币数量，除此之外什么也不做--至少在总量货币政策方面是这样。我相信，一般经济学家，特别是货币经济学家，
I'm no exception to my generalization about the typical approach of the economist in dealing with public policy. Most of my own work dealing with public policy has had the same çharacter of proceeding as if I were addressing governmental officials selflessly dedicated to the public interest. As you know, for many years I have studied and analyzed monetary policy. On the lbasis of that work, I have attempted to persuade the Federal Reserve System that it was doing the wrong thing and that it ought to adopt a different policy. That was time ill-spent. It has had no appreciable results on the behavior of the Federal Reserve System and there is a good reason why it did not: because the public-interest characterization of government is basically flawed. That way of viewing government is very different from the way we view business. We do not regard a businessman as selflessly devoted to the public interest. We think of a businessman as in business to improve his own welfare, to serve his own interest. Adam Smith taught us that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." In his famous phrase, though “every individual intends orly his own gain, he is... led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention." Why should we regard government officials differently? They too aim to serve their own interest, and in government as in business we must try to set up institutions under which individuals who intend only their own gain are led by an invisible hand to serve the public interest, instead of, as so often happens, by an" invisible foot" to serve private interests that it was no part of their intention to serve. The inconsistency between our treatment of government and our treatment of business has long been recognized, but generally only in asides." The great contribution of what has become known as the theory of public choice, developed by such writers as Anthony Downs in The Economic Theory of Democracy, and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock in The Calculus of Consent, has been to make this inconsistency explicit, and to force all of us to recognize that we should analyze govern-mental officials in the same way that we analyze businessmen, as promoting their own self-interest.I can illustrate the importance of this change of viewpoint by using it to show why it was a waste of my time to try to convert the Fed to my point of view. Suppose that ten or twenty years ago the Federal Reserve had adopted the policies that I and other monetarists were proposing. Suppose that it had then embarked om a policy of increasing the quantity of money at about 3 percent a year, year after year, and doing nothing else-at least in respect of aggregate monetary policy. I believe that there would be wide agreement among economists in general and monetary economists in particular that