Issues of inequality, fairness, middle-class living standards and job creation have been central to the US presidential campaign.

不平等、公平、中产阶级生活水平和创造就业，这些问题一直是美国总统大选的核心问题。

Rightly so. For many years, the incomes of all groups tended to move together. Indeed, as a graduate student in the late 1970s, I was taught that it was a “stylised fact” that the shares of US total income going to profits and to wages, and to the rich and to the poor, was constant.

理应如此。许多年来，所有群体的收入往往同步变动。实际上，作为毕业于上世纪70年代末的人，我接受的教育是，美国整体收入分别流向利润和薪资、富人和穷人的比例是固定不变的，这是一个“不证自明的事实”。

All of this has changed. It is totally appropriate that widening inequality and the associated stalling of middle-class living standards should become an urgent political issue.

如今一切都已改变。不断加剧的不平等以及与之相关的中产阶级生活水平停滞，完全应当成为一个紧迫的政治问题。

What is unfortunate is that many people, in their eagerness to focus on fairness, neglect the single most important determinant of almost every aspect of economic performance: the rate of growth of total income, as reflected in the gross domestic product.

遗憾的是，许多人热衷于公平，忽视了决定经济表现几乎所有方面的最重要因素：国内生产总值(GDP)反映出来的整体收入增长率。

Because those who champion strategies that centre on business tax-cutting and deregulation and favour the wealthy have placed the most emphasis on growth over the past 35 years, the objective of increasing growth has been discredited in the minds of too many progressives.

因为那些致力于捍卫企业减税、去监管化以及取悦富人政策的人，在过去35年里一直最重视增长，因此太多进步人士心中不再相信促增长的目标。

The reality is that more growth means more employment. And with the college-graduate unemployment rate only 2.5 per cent, the newly employed are disproportionately less educated and disadvantaged.

现实情况是，更多的增长意味着更多的就业。考虑到大学毕业生失业率只有2.5%，新的劳动参与者将更多地是教育程度较低者和弱势群体。

It can hardly be an accident that the decades of maximum growth, the 1960s and 1990s, also saw the most rapid job growth and most rapid increase in middle-class living standards.

增长最快的上世纪60年代和90年代同时也是就业增长和中产阶级生活水平提升最快的年代，这不太可能是巧合。

Growth provides the wherewithal for increased federal revenue and so encourages the protection of vital social insurance programmes such as Social Security and Medicare. It creates headroom for new initiatives such as expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

增长为联邦收入增加提供来源，从而鼓励政府保护社会安全福利(Social Security)和联邦医疗保险(Medicare)等关键社保项目。增长为“劳动所得税额抵减”(EITC)的扩大等新举措创造了空间。

Tight labour markets are the best social programme, as they force employers to hire and mentor inexperienced people in order to be adequately staffed. Some years ago, I estimated that for each 1 per cent point increase in adult male employment, the employment of young black men rose 7 per cent. More recent research confirms economic growth has an outsized benefit for younger people and minorities.

劳动力市场用工紧缺是最好的“社会保障”，因为这种市场状况迫使雇主招聘并培养缺乏经验的劳动者以维持足够人手。数年前，我估计，成年男性就业率每增长1个百分点，年轻黑人男性的就业率就会上升7个百分点。较近的研究证实，经济增长更多地让较为年轻的劳动者和少数族裔受益。

Rising growth has other benefits, as well. It strengthens the power of the American example in the world. It obviates the need for desperation monetary policies that risk future financial stability. Greater growth also has historically operated to reduce crime, encourage environmental protection and contributes to public optimism about the country that our children will inherit.

快速的增长还有其他益处。它增强了美国在世界上的示范力量。它使得美国政府不用无奈地出台可能危及未来金融稳定的货币政策。历史经验表明，较快的增长还能减少犯罪、鼓励环境保护。较快的增长还能让公众对这个将由我们的后代继承的国家感到乐观。

The reality is that if American growth continues to have a 2 per cent ceiling, it is doubtful that we will achieve any of our major national objectives.

现实情况是，如果美国增速持续无法突破2%，我们能否实现任何一个主要国家目标就不好说了。

If, on the other hand, we can boost growth to 3 per cent, interest rates will normalise, middle-class wages will rise faster than inflation, debt burdens will tend to melt away and the power of the American example will be greatly enhanced.

另一方面，如果我们可以将增速提升至3%，利率将会正常化，中产阶级薪资增速将会超过通胀，债务负担将逐渐减轻，美国的示范力量将会得到极大的增强。

How, then, can growth be accelerated? In an economy like that of the US, the vast majority of job creation and income growth comes from the private sector. If the next president is lucky enough to preside over the creation of 10m jobs from 2017-20, more than 8m of them will surely come from businesses hiring in response to profit opportunities.

那么，如何促进增长？在一个与美国类似的经济体内，绝大多数就业创造和收入增长来自私人部门。如果下任总统足够幸运，能够实现2017年至2020年新增1000万个就业岗位，那么其中超过800万个无疑将来自为追逐利润而招人的企业。

The question is not whether business success is desirable. The question is how it can best be achieved. At a moment when capital costs are close to zero, the stock market is at a record high and businesses are earning record profit margins, we do not need to bribe businesses to make investments that now do not seem worthwhile to them.

问题不是商业的成功好不好，而是如何才能最好地实现这种成功。当前资金成本接近零，股市处于创纪录高位，企业的利润率达到历史最高水平，我们不需要拿好处哄着企业去进行它们现在认为不值得的投资。

There is no case for reducing already low corporate taxes or removing regulations unless it can be shown that these have costs in excess of benefits.

我们也没有理由降低业已很低的企业税率或者废除监管，除非有迹象表明，现行的企业税率和监管造成的成本超过了利润。

What is needed is more demand for the product of business. This is the core of the case for policy approaches to raising public investment, increasing workers’ purchasing power and promoting competitiveness.

我们需要的是加大对商业活动成果的索取。这是出台政策加大公共投资、增加劳动者购买力以及提升竞争力的核心理由。

That such policies also contribute to fairness is not a reason to lose sight of the central objective of promoting growth.

此类政策也有助于公平，但没有理由因为这一点而忘记促增长的主要目标。

Often in economics there are trade-offs. But not always. We can and must promote both fairness and growth.

经济学中往往会有取舍。但并非始终如此。我们可以而且必须同时促进公平和增长。