【经济学人】搜寻昂贵无用之物 | 2017.1.14 | 总第783期

CHINA is proud of its infrastructure: its cavernous airports, snaking bridges, wide roads, speedy railways and great wall. This national backbone (minus the wall) bears the weight of the world’s second-largest economy and its biggest human migration, as hundreds of millions of people move around the country during the lunar new-year holidays—the rush officially begins on January 13th.

中国对其基础建设引以为傲：机场高旷，桥梁蜿蜒，道路宽阔，高铁飞驰还有万里长城。这些基础设施作为国家支柱（除了长城）承载着世界第二大经济体和它春运期间数亿群众全国大规模迁移的重担——春运高峰从1月13日正式开始。

Western leaders often shake their heads in disbelief at the sums China spends on its huge projects. And some analysts question how much of it has been wisely spent. In a widely circulated study published last autumn, Atif Ansar of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and his co-authors say the world’s “awe and envy” is misplaced. More than half of China’s infrastructure projects have “destroyed economic value”, they reckon. Their verdict is based on 65 road and rail projects backed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or the World Bank since the mid-1980s. Thanks to the banks’ involvement, these projects are well documented.

西方领导人不赞同中国在这些巨大工程上的投入。还有些分析家质疑这其中有多少花得明智。牛津大学Saïd商学院的Atif Ansar和其合著者，在去年秋季发表的一项广为流传的研究里，说世界的“敬畏和羡慕”是不合适的。他们认为中国超过一半的基础建设工程“破坏经济价值”。其结论基于自上世纪九十年代中期以来，受亚洲开发银行（下文简称亚行）或世界银行支持的65个公路铁路项目。由于两个银行的参与，这些项目都有据可查。

亚洲开发银行

One example is a 1o47-km, four-lane toll road in southern Yunnan province, which was built with the help of an ADB loan approved in 1999. The ADB expected the Yuanjiang-Mohei highway (Yuan-Mo for short) to cut travel times, reduce traffic accidents and lower the costs of fuelling and repairing vehicles, adding up to a compelling economic return of 17.4% a year. By 2004, however, traffic was 49% below projections and costs were more than 20% over budget, thanks to unforgiving terrain prone to landslides.

一个例子是云南省南部全长147公里、含有四条车道的收费公路，在1999年亚行批准的贷款的帮助下建造而成。亚行希望沅江-磨黑高速公路（简称沅磨高速）能缩短旅途时间，减少交通事故并降低车辆的燃油和维修费用，加起来每年有17.4%的可观回报。然而到2004年，由于地形复杂容易山体滑坡，导致交通量比预期低49%，花费也比预算超出20%。

• Terrain 地形

• Landslides 山体滑坡

Were such setbacks enough to damn over half of the projects they examined? As a rule, the ADB and World Bank will approve an undertaking only if they expect its broad benefits (the economic gains from reduced travel times, fewer accidents, etc) to exceed its costs by a large margin, leaving ample room for error. Mr Ansar and his co-authors assume this margin is 40%: they posit a ratio of expected benefits to costs of 1.4 for every project. They scoured the banks’ review documents for examples of cost overruns and traffic shortfalls. Given these assumptions, a project becomes unviable if costs overrun by more than 40%, traffic undershoots by 29%, or some combination of the two. Of the 65 projects, 55% fell into this category. Yuan-Mo was one.

这些挫折足够用来指责被他们审查的超过一半的工程吗？通常来说，亚行和世界银行只有预估各方面利益（缩短旅途时间，减少事故等等带来的经济效益）大幅度超出成本，给误差留出充足空间，才会去支持一项工程。Ansar先生和他的合著者假设这个收益是40%：假定每个工程的期望收益和成本的比例是1.4。他们翻遍银行的审查文件寻找费用超支和交通量不足的案例。倘若假设成立，一项工程如果成本超支40%，运输量低出29%，或者二者皆有，就是不可行的。在65个项目里，有55%落入此类范畴。沅磨高速是其中之一。

• unviable 不可行的 
  

• Damn 指责

• by a large margin 大幅度地

• scoured 搜查，翻找

沅江-磨黑高速公路

These projects may not be representative of China’s infrastructure-building as a whole. But there is little reason to think they are unusually bad. They are often managed with greater rigour, thanks to the involvement of outside lenders.

这些工程或许不能作为中国基础设施建设整体的代表。但是几乎没有理由认为它们非常地糟糕。由于国外贷款者的参与，它们的管理往往更加严格。

The authors’ conclusion, however, rests on their assumption about the margin for error built into the projects they looked at. Take Yuan-Mo, for example. Its projected benefits, over its first 20 years of operation, were several times greater than its costs. But as often with roads, the costs arrive early; the benefits are spread thinly over many years. In the time it takes for an investment to pay off, the resources used could have been earning a return elsewhere. So it is necessary to reduce the future payoffs by some annual percentage, known as a “discount rate”. The higher this is, the lower the value placed today on tomorrow’s gains.

然而，作者的结论建立在对他们关注项目的误差范围的假设上。以沅磨高速为例，它的预期收益在投入使用的前20年是成本的好几倍。但正如修路常情，成本早早到来，而收入多年都是微弱扩大。在它回报投资的时间里，投入的资源本可以用在别处赚钱。所以有必要以一定的年度百分比减少未来收益，称为 “贴现率”。贴现率越高，为了明天的收益，现值就越低。

• discount rate 贴现率

So a lot turns on what rate is chosen. For historical reasons, the ADB adopts a high one of 12%. At that rate, Yuan-Mo’s ratio of expected benefits to costs equals 1.5, roughly in line with the authors’ assumptions. But at a gentler rate of 9%, the ratio improves to about 2. At a rate of 5.3% (more in line with government borrowing costs) the ratio rises to 3. With these higher margins for error, many fewer elephants turn white. At a ratio of 2, the share falls to 28%. If the ratio is assumed to be 3, the proportion of duds falls to just 8%.

所以许多事取决于选择什么利率。由于历史原因，亚行选择12%的高利率。按这个利率算，沅磨高速预期收益和成本比是1.5，大体符合作者的假设。但在更和缓的9%的利率下，比例大约提高到2。在5.3%的利率下（更符合政府的借款成本）比例升高到3。有这些更高的利润留出误差余地，昂贵而无用的基础建设工程会减少很多。在2%的利率下，无用工程的比重下降到28%。如果假定比例是3，其比重下降到仅有8%。

The authors also assume that any traffic shortfall persists throughout its life. That is not always the case. Traffic on Yuan-Mo, for example, has rebounded, according to the road’s operator. By 2015 it was 31% higher than the ADB projected back in 1999. Around last year’s lunar new-year holiday the road handled record numbers. Some white elephants turn grey with age.

作者还认为，任何交通量不足的情况会持续整个生命周期。情况并不总是如此。例如沅磨高速的交通量，根据道路运营商所说，已经有所回升。到2015年，它比亚行在1999年的预测要高出31%。在去年春节假期前后，沅磨高速处理的交通量创下纪录。随着时间推移，有些工程充当摆设的局面开始好转。

翻译 ▍人文第一组

审核 ▍ww

编辑 ▍澜意

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