经济学家解释尽管通胀上升但企业利润创纪录
2022 年 2 月 13 日
美国国家公共广播电台 (NPR) 的米歇尔·马丁 (Michel Martin) 与经济学教授伊莎贝拉·韦伯 (Isabella Weber) 讨论了伴随企业利润飙升而出现的物价上涨和通货膨胀。
米歇尔·马丁，主持人：
各地的价格都在上涨——加油站、杂货店、停车场。 本周，联邦政府报告称，与一年前相比，商品成本全面上涨 7.5%。 居民消费价格指数显示，住房上涨4%，肉类价格上涨12%，购买二手车的成本上涨超过40%。
但这是另一个现实。 当家庭面临高昂的价格冲击时，将这些商品上架的公司的利润却在飙升。 美国商务部的数据显示，企业利润率达到70年来最高水平，这引起了参议员伯尼·桑德斯和伊丽莎白·沃伦等进步派领导人的强烈抗议，称一些企业利用疫情作为掩护，提高利润。 价格远远超出合理范围。
正如经济理论所关注的情况一样，对此有各种各样的观点，所以我们称伊莎贝拉·韦伯为人。 她是马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校的经济学教授。 她研究了快速经济转型背景下的定价政策，现在她和我们一起谈论这一切。 韦伯教授，欢迎光临。 非常感谢您加入我们。
伊莎贝拉·韦伯：非常感谢你邀请我，米歇尔。
马丁：所以我们看到几乎所有东西的价格都在上涨，我们被告知这是供应链中断或劳动力短缺，这两者都与流行病有关。 与此同时，企业报告的利润创历史新高，这对许多人来说似乎违反直觉。 那么您对为什么这两件事同时发生有何看法？
韦伯：是的。 我的意思是，首先，我们必须意识到供应链问题是非常现实的，对吧？ 所以在平时，公司，甚至是非常大的公司，主要竞争的是能够快速交付产品，通过广告吸引客户等等。 因此，如果需求增加，他们基本上会通过提供更多他们正在生产的产品来做出反应。 但现在发生的事情是突然发生的，因为这个巨大的传送带系统，如果你愿意的话，不能正常工作，东西会被卡住。 突然之间，公司，甚至是非常大的公司，在交付方面都遇到了困难。
马丁：我想人们都明白这一点。 要知道，如果人们想买东西，而这些东西供不应求，那当然会更贵。 但我想问题是，正常的市场运作和市场操纵之间的界限是什么？ 有很多吗？谁决定那条线是什么？
韦伯：公司总是希望利润最大化，对吗？ 在当前情况下，他们突然无法再像以前那样提供那么多服务。 这创造了一个机会，让他们可以说，好吧，我们面临着成本增加。 我们面临着所有这些问题。 因此我们可以向客户解释我们正在提高价格。 没有人知道这些价格到底应该上涨多少。 每个人都有某种理解，哦，是的，存在一些问题，所以，是的，当然，公司正在以他们在正常情况下无法证明的方式提高价格。
但这并不意味着实际的价格上涨幅度是由成本的增加来证明的。 而事实上，我们看到的是利润在暴涨，这意味着企业提高价格的幅度超过了成本。 在收益报告中，公司吹嘘他们如何成功地领先于通货膨胀曲线，他们如何成功地将价格抬高到超过成本，从而实现了创纪录的利润。
马丁：拜登政府在 11 月份将目标瞄准了能源成本。 总统表示，他将让联邦贸易委员会调查能源行业可能存在的市场操纵或价格欺诈行为。 那会是什么样子呢？
韦伯：拜登总统表示，未成品汽油的价格下降了 5%，其中加油站的价格上涨了 3%。 换句话说，在加油站销售天然气的公司正在进一步提高价格，或者在这种情况下，并没有像 11 月份那样享受价格下降。 这是总统的论点。 所以，是的，总统必须介入。具体如何去做超出了我作为经济学家的专业知识。
马丁：在我们让你走之前，你是否有这样做的意愿？ 我知道这严格来说不是您的专业领域，但是在与您交谈过的人中，您的同行经济学家中，对于这里的前进方向是否达成了共识？
韦伯：嗯，我想说，我们正处于相当未知的水域，因为我们正处于具体价格飙升的情况下，这是我们很长一段时间没有看到的，因为我们拥有这个全球供应链系统，是的 ，一直存在我们现在看到的漏洞，但在稳定时期一直运行得很好。 因此，从这个意义上说，我认为经济体还没有做好充分准备来思考我们面临的问题。 因此，我们需要考虑一种不同的反应，这要求我们进行非常开放的对话，而不是我们最近几周观察到的那种对抗和下意识的反应。
马丁：那是伊莎贝拉·韦伯。 她是马萨诸塞大学阿默斯特分校的经济学家和教授。 韦伯教授，非常感谢您与我们交谈。 这真是令人着迷。
韦伯：非常感谢你邀请我，米歇尔。
Economist explains record corporate profits despite rising inflation
NPR's Michel Martin talks with economics professor Isabella Weber about the price hikes and inflation occurring alongside skyrocketing corporate profits.
Prices are up all over the place - at the gas pump, at the grocery store, at the car lot. This week, the federal government reported a 7.5% increase in the cost of goods all across the board compared to a year ago. The consumer price index showed a 4% rise in housing, a 12% increase in the price of meat, and the cost to buy a used car is up more than 40%.
But here's another reality. While families are dealing with sticker shock, profits for companies that put these goods on shelves - well, those are skyrocketing. Data from the U.S. Commerce Department shows that corporate profit margins are the largest they've been in 70 years, and that's caused progressive leaders like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to cry foul, saying some companies are using the pandemic as a cover to raise prices far more than is warranted.
As is often the case where economic theory is concerned, there are a variety of opinions about this, so we've called Isabella Weber. She is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has studied pricing policies in the context of rapid economic transitions, and she is with us now to talk about all this. Professor Weber, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
ISABELLA WEBER: Thank you so much for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: So we see the price of pretty much everything going up, and we are told that these are supply chain disruptions or labor shortages, both of which are pandemic-related. And at the same time, corporations are reporting record profits, and that just seems counterintuitive to many people. So what's your take on why those two things are happening at the same time?
WEBER: Yeah. I mean, first of all, we have to realize that the supply chain issues are very real, right? So in normal times, companies, also very large companies, mainly compete over being able to deliver their products quickly, attracting customers through advertisement and so on. So if demand goes up, they basically react by delivering more of the stuff that they are producing. But what's happening now is that suddenly, because this gigantic conveyor belt system, if you want so, is not working properly, stuff gets stuck. And suddenly, companies, even very large companies, have difficulties delivering.
MARTIN: I think people understand that. You know, if people want to buy things and they're in short supply, of course they will be more expensive. But I guess the question would be, what is the line between kind of normal market functioning and market manipulation? Is there a lot, and who decides what that line is?
WEBER: Companies always want to maximize profits, right? In the current context, they suddenly cannot deliver as much anymore as they used to. And this creates an opening where they can say, well, we are facing increasing costs. We are facing all these issues. So we can explain to our customers that we are raising our prices. No one knows how much exactly these prices should be increased. And everybody has some sort of an understanding that, oh, yeah, there are issues, so, yes, of course companies are increasing prices in ways in which they could not justify in normal times.
But this does not mean that the actual amount of price increase is justified by the increase in costs. And as a matter of fact, what we have seen is that profits are skyrocketing, which means that companies have increased prices by more than cost. In the earnings reports, companies have bragged about how they have managed to be ahead of the inflation curve, how they have managed to jack up prices more than their costs and as a result have delivered these record profits.
MARTIN: So the Biden administration in November took aim at energy costs. The president said he would have the Federal Trade Commission investigate possible market manipulation or price gouging in the energy sector. So what would that look like?
WEBER: President Biden has called out that the prices for unfinished gasoline were down by 5%, where the prices at the gas station went up by 3%. So in other words, companies that are selling gas at the gas station are increasing prices by more, or, in this case, are not handing down the price decrease that they had enjoyed in November. This was the argument of the president. So, yes, the president has to step in. How exactly to do it is beyond my expertise as an economist.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, do you see a will to do that? I know that that's not strictly your area of expertise, but among the people that you talked to, your sort of peer economists, is there a consensus about the way forward here?
WEBER: Well, I'd say that we are in pretty uncharted waters because we are in this situation where specific prices are shooting up, which we haven't seen in a long time because we have had this global supply chain system that, yes, had always the vulnerabilities that we are seeing now but in stable times has been working pretty well. So in that sense, I think that economies are not terribly well-prepared to think about the problems that we are facing. So we need to think about a different kind of response, and this requires us to have a very open conversation instead of the kind of confrontations and often knee-jerk reactions that we have been observing in recent weeks.
MARTIN: That's Isabella Weber. She is an economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professor Weber, thanks so much for talking with us. It's been fascinating.
WEBER: Thank you so much for having me, Michel.
