Jean-Paul Fitoussi und Joseph Stiglitz zu „Was hat die Einkommensverteilung mit der Krise zu tun?“ – BEIGEWUM

Jean-Paul Fitoussi und Joseph Stiglitz zu „Was hat die Einkommensverteilung mit der Krise zu tun?“

am 13. August 2009 um 22:22h

Jean-Paul Fitous­si, einer der bekann­tes­ten Ökonom/​inn/​en Frank­reichs und Direk­tor des OFCE, und Joseph Stiglitz, einer der welt­weit bekann­tes­ten Ökonom/​inn/​en, „Öko­no­mie­no­bel­preis-trä­ger“ und ehe­ma­li­ger Chef­öko­nom der Welt­bank, argu­men­tie­ren in ihrem Auf­satz „The Ways Out of the Cri­sis and the Buil­ding of a More Cohe­si­ve World“ (http://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/dtravail/WP2009-17.pdf), die aktu­el­le Welt­wirt­schafts­kri­se habe ihre Ursa­che in der seit den 1980er Jah­ren unglei­cher wer­den­den Einkommensverteilung.

 

Laut Fitous­si und Stiglitz sta­gnie­ren die Medi­an­löh­ne in den meis­ten indus­tria­li­sier­ten Län­dern, sowie wei­ten Tei­len der rest­li­chen Welt. Ein­kom­men wur­de zu Guns­ten der obe­ren Schich­ten umver­teilt. Da Bezieher/​innen nied­ri­ger Ein­kom­men eine höhe­re Kon­sum­nei­gung auf­wei­sen, hat die Ein­kom­men­sum­ver­tei­lung einen Nach­fra­ge dämp­fen­den Effekt. Um die ent­stan­de­ne Nach­fra­ge-schwä­che zu kom­pen­sie­ren sank in den USA die Spar­quo­te und die Ver­schul­dung wur­de aus­ge­wei­tet. In den euro­päi­schen Län­dern führ­te die zuneh­men­de Ein­kom­mens­kon­zen­tra­ti­on hin­ge­gen zu nied­ri­gem Wachs­tum und einem Anstieg der Spar­quo­ten; hin­zu kam eine restrik­ti­ve Geld- und Fis­kal­po­li­tik. Zusam­men mit ande­ren Regio­nen der Welt, die vor allem aus Angst vor Wäh­rungs­kri­sen ihre Devi­sen­re­ser­ven deut­lich aus­wei­te­ten, trug Euro­pa zur Finan­zie­rung der stei­gen­den Ver­schul­dung in den USA bei. Tem­po­rär konn­te auf die­sem Weg die Nach­fra­ge-schwä­che über­brückt werden.

 

Hier im Originalwortlaut:

The cri­sis has struc­tu­ral roots. The aggre­ga­te demand defi­ci­en­cy pre­ce­ded the finan­cial cri­sis and was due to struc­tu­ral chan­ges in inco­me dis­tri­bu­ti­on. Sin­ce 1980, in most advan­ced coun­tries the medi­an wage has sta­gna­ted and ine­qua­li­ties have sur­ged in favour of high inco­mes. This is part of a broa­der pro­cess which has also affec­ted several parts of the deve­lo­ping world. This trend has many cau­ses, inclu­ding asym­metric glo­ba­liz­a­ti­on (with grea­ter libe­ra­liz­a­ti­on of capi­tal than of labour mar­kets), defi­ci­en­ci­es in cor­po­ra­te gover­nan­ce and a break­down of the ega­li­ta­ri­an social con­ven­ti­ons that had emer­ged after WWII. As the pro­pen­si­ty to con­su­me out of low inco­mes is gene­ral­ly lar­ger, this long-term trend in inco­me redis­tri­bu­ti­on by its­elf would have had the macroeco­no­mic effect of depres­sing aggre­ga­te demand.

In the US the com­pres­si­on of low inco­mes was com­pen­sa­ted by the reduc­tion of house­hold savings and by moun­ting indeb­ted­ness that allo­wed spen­ding pat­terns to be kept vir­tual­ly unch­an­ged. At the same time, the limi­ted safe­ty nets for­ced the government to pur­sue acti­ve macroeco­no­mic poli­ci­es to fight unem­ploy­ment, incre­a­sing government debt as well. Thus, growth was main­tai­ned at the pri­ce of incre­a­sing public and pri­va­te indebtedness.

Most Euro­pean coun­tries tread a dif­fe­rent path. The redis­tri­bu­ti­on to hig­her inco­mes resul­ted in an incre­a­se in natio­nal savings and depres­sed growth. In the past fif­teen years the insti­tu­tio­nal set­ting, nota­b­ly the defi­cit cons­traints embed­ded in the Maas­tricht cri­te­ria and in the Sta­bi­li­ty and Growth Pact, resul­ted in low reac­ti­vi­ty of fis­cal poli­ci­es and restric­ti­ve mone­ta­ry poli­cy. Tog­e­ther with a finan­cial sec­tor less pro­ne to inno­va­ti­on, this limi­ted con­su­mer bor­ro­wing. The shift in dis­tri­bu­ti­on resul­ted in soft growth.

The­se two paths were mutual­ly rein­for­cing becau­se the savings from the EU zone con­tri­bu­t­ed to the finan­cing of US bor­ro­wing, along with sur­plu­ses of other regi­ons which for dif­fe­rent rea­sons – essen­ti­al­ly to insu­re them­sel­ves against macroeco­no­mic insta­bi­li­ty cau­sed by Balan­ce of Pay­ments cri­ses and the sub­se­quent loss of sov­er­eig­n­ty due to the inter­ven­ti­on of IFIs – also expe­ri­en­ced high savings rates (nota­b­ly East Asia and Midd­le Eas­tern oil pro­du­cing coun­tries). Thus, the com­bi­na­ti­on of struc­tu­ral dise­qui­li­bria that goes by the name of glo­bal imba­lan­ces resul­ted in a fra­gi­le equi­li­bri­um that tem­pora­ri­ly sol­ved the aggregate

demand pro­blem on a glo­bal sca­le at the expen­se of future growth. An important com­po­nent of this fra­gi­le equi­li­bri­um was lax mone­ta­ry poli­cy. In effect without a con­ti­nuous­ly expan­sio­na­ry mone­ta­ry poli­cy aggre­ga­te demand defi­ci­en­cy would have affec­ted eco­no­mic acti­vi­ty. In a way mone­ta­ry poli­cy was endo­ge­nous to the struc­tu­ral dise­qui­li­bri­um in inco­me dis­tri­bu­ti­on.” (Fitoussi/​Stiglitz 2009, S. 3–4)

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  1. Simon Sturn am 14.August 2009 um 14:12h

    Auch lesens­wert: Fitous­si im FTD-Interview

    http://www.ftd.de/wirtschaftswunder/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=1939&blogId=10


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