退税經濟學

中國時報 - 2008.09.04 中時小社論

退税經濟學

全世界經濟景氣都差，各國政府現在流行「退稅救經濟」。先是美國吹起退稅號角，之後，新加坡、香港、南韓、日本、中國大陸等亞洲國家，或者已經退稅，或者即將退稅。

　四條小龍，三條退稅，剩下台灣還沒退。於是，包括在野黨，各方頗跑出不少聲音，呼籲政府退稅救經濟。

　經濟學上，針對搶救景氣，有兩派主要學說。一派稱為貨幣學派，主張用利率、匯率等金融手段，反制景氣循環。另一派稱為凱因斯學派，主張透過增發公債、擴大公共建設支出，提振景氣。

　有很長一陣子，貨幣學派在美國是顯學，所以，總是靠聯邦準備理事會，透過升降利率，調節經濟。總之，景氣太熱往上衝，物價走高之際，就調升利率；反之，景氣蕭條往下走，物價穩定之際，則是降低利率。

　不過，當前世界經濟走勢邪氣，竟然是漲價與蕭條一起來，成為「停滯性通貨膨脹」，利率升也不是，降也不是，貨幣學派玩不轉了。於是，中央銀行（聯準會）一邊涼快去，換財政部上場，改走凱因斯學派路線。

　於是乎，就跑出了發鈔票退稅行動，指望老百姓拿了錢，大方花光，刺激消費，增長經濟。問題是，大環境還是冷灶一個，就算放把火，也是只曇花一現，燒個幾 分鐘熱度，就復歸冷寂。各國政府其實已經技窮，但又不能不有所作為，於是，只好退稅發鈔票，表示點心意。台灣退不退稅，基本上，跑不出這個框框。

Tax-refund economics

The world economy is in recession. Each country’s government is taking to tax refunds to save their economies. First it’s America tooting the tax-refund horn, then it’s Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, China and the other Asian countries. They’ve either already issued refunds or about to.

Among the four Asian tigers, three have already issued tax refunds. Taiwan remains the only one that hasn’t. Due to this, there are calls from all sides, including the DPP, to issues a rebate to restart the economy.

In terms of economics, when pulling an economy out of a slump, there are two main schools of thought. The first school, called Monetarism, advocates using interest rates, exchange rates and other financial means to counteract the downturn in the economic cycle. The other school, called Keynesianism, advocates using deficit spending to increase government expenditure in order to revive the economy.

For a long time, Monetarism was the dominant school in America. Due to this, there was a constant reliance on the Federal Reserve. Through the raising and lowering of the interest rates they were able to make adjustments to the economy. If the economy started to overheat and prices started to rise, the Fed would raise rates. If the economy started moving towards recession and prices stayed stable, then the Fed would lower rates.

However, the current world economy is very unhealthy with both rising prices and recession appearing together, so-called “stagflation.” Increasing interest rates won’t help, decreasing rates also doesn’t work. The monetarists have nowhere to turn. In response, the Fed while has quietly moved to change the management at the Department of the Treasury to move towards a Keynesianist approach.

Due to this, they rushed to get out rebate checks in the hopes that taxpayers would take the money and go spend it all, jumpstarting consumption and growing the economy. The problem it’s still like a cold stove. Even if you light it, it’s still only a flash in the pan, it’ll burn for a few minutes and then go out. Each country is already helping the poor, but they can’t not take some extra action, so they’ve issued rebates to show they care. In deciding to whether to issues rebates, Taiwan can’t escape these fundamentals.