来源：《经济学人》
刊登日期：2021年4月8日
A paper published by three economists in early 2015 came to a hard-nosed conclusion. It looked at what had caused a surge in employment in America over the previous year. The jobs boom coincided with a cold-hearted Republican reform to make unemployment benefits less generous. The authors demonstrated, convincingly, that the one had caused the other, with the benefit cut leading to the creation of 1.8m extra jobs in 2014.
2015年初，三位经济学家发表的一篇论文得出了一个务实的结论。它研究了导致美国前一年就业激增的原因。与就业繁荣同时出现的，是共和党冷酷的改革，旨在降低失业救济的慷慨程度。作者们令人信服地证明了削减救济促成了就业激增，2014年福利削减带来了180万个工作岗位。
The notion that extravagant welfare benefits discourage work, so that cutting them makes people look harder for a job, is widely accepted not just by economists but by most politicians and voters. Nobody nowadays wins election by promising to indulge the unemployed with public funds. So it is surprising to find that the country with the world’s most generous offer to the out-of-work also has one of its best-functioning labour markets.
奢侈的福利会让人们不想工作，因此削减福利会让人们更努力找工作，这一观点不仅被经济学家广泛接受，也被大多数政客和选民广泛接受。如今，没有人是靠承诺用公共资金照顾失业者来赢得选举的。因此，令人惊讶的是，世界上对失业者最慷慨的国家，却拥有世界上运作最好的劳动力市场之一。
Danish benefits are worth more than 80% of previous earnings after six months out of work, compared with 60% across the rich world and less than 50% in Britain (America is even meaner). For Danish parents who lose their jobs, replacement rates can approach 100%.
丹麦失业六个月后的失业金超过之前薪资的80%，而发达国家的这一比例为60%，英国还不到50%（美国甚至更为吝啬）。对于失业的丹麦父母来说，替代率可以接近100%。
The generosity of Denmark’s unemployment system is the other side of its liberal regulation of employment contracts—a combination called “flexicurity”. Danish employers can hire and fire workers pretty much as they please. Jobs therefore come and go, but people’s incomes are stable. Yet the state’s generosity has not produced a class of irresponsible drifters. Denmark’s unemployment rate is lower than the rich-world average and its working-age employment rate is higher. Long-term unemployment is low. When Danish people lose a job, they find a new one faster than almost anyone else in the world, according to the OECD.
丹麦失业制度的慷慨是其对就业合同自由监管的另一面——一种被称为“弹性保障”的组合。丹麦的雇主可以随意雇佣和解雇员工。因此，工作时断时续，但人们的收入是稳定的。然而，政府的慷慨并没有培养出一批既无责任心又无稳定工作的人。丹麦的失业率低于发达国家的平均水平，适龄劳动就业率更高。长期失业率很低。经合组织称，当丹麦人失业时，他们找到新工作的速度几乎比世界上任何其他国家都快。
That is because Denmark makes it hard for people to live off welfare. Recipients must submit a CV to a coach within two weeks of becoming unemployed. They can be struck off for not trying hard enough to search for work or to keep up with adult-education programmes. As a share of GDP Denmark spends four times as much as the average OECD country, and more than any single one, on “active labour-market policies” to make people more employable.
这是因为丹麦让人们很难靠福利过活。福利接收者必须在失业后两周内向教练提交简历。他们可能会因为没有努力寻找工作或没有跟上成人教育计划而被取消福利资格。丹麦在“积极的劳动力市场政策”方面的投入占GDP的比例是经合组织国家平均水平的四倍，比任何其他OECD成员国都高，以使人们更有就业能力。
This offers a tough lesson for those arguing for more generous welfare states. Simply boosting benefits may dissuade employment, as it did in America before 2014. To stop this happening requires massive investment in training, monitoring and enforcement of the rules for those out of work—spending money to avoid wasting it, in other words. The world’s best welfare system does not come cheap.
这给那些主张国家福利更慷慨的人上了一课。仅仅提高福利可能会减少就业，就像2014年之前的美国一样。要阻止这种情况的发生，就需要在培训、监督和执行针对失业人群的规则方面进行大量投资——换句话说，这些钱是用来避免浪费钱的。世界上最好的福利体系来得并不便宜。