竞争是激烈的，但总统奥巴马已经赢得连任。对美国和世界来说，现在的问题是，在新的四年任期里他会做些什么。

　　在经济依然疲软、失业率接近8%的时候赢得连任并不容易。近年来，许多领导人——眼前马上浮现出萨科齐、布朗、萨巴莱塔等人的身影——都因经济令人不满而被赶下了台。尽管金融灾难是在共和党总统小布什执政的八年后爆发的，但奥巴马需要接过复苏不振的重担。

　　奥巴马获胜的原因不仅在于其卓越的韧性，也在于足够多的中产阶级选民尽管不满经济复苏速度，但仍认为奥巴马当总统能够比其共和党挑战者罗姆尼偏袒富人的政策更好地帮助自己。此外，美国的人口结构变化决定了无法获得拉丁裔和其他少数族裔支持的候选人更难管理好国家了，而罗姆尼在这方面劣势昭然。

　　此次竞选的一些特点，特别是投入的资金和负面宣传让很多观察者感到震惊，并对此表示质疑。但美国民主的竞争力——替代者总是存在，掌权者需要努力奋斗才能保住手中的权力——仍受到了全世界羡慕的关注目光。

　　奥巴马将在全球经济的十字路口开始自己的第二个任期。在美国，疲软而不平等的复苏是由不同寻常的宽松货币政策和持续的大规模财政赤字支撑起来的。企业囤积着大量现金，私人投资却停滞不前。日本则仍然在寻找稳健经济表现之道，走马灯似地换着首相。

　　类似地，欧洲也在靠输血救命——欧洲央行行长德拉吉巧妙的周旋和无限制干预主权债务市场的承诺。但失业率正处于几十年来的最高水平，增长已经事实停滞（即使德国也是如此），与此同时，受困南欧经济体深陷衰退泥淖。此外，希腊的社会稳定已经无法维持；希腊是个小国，但它的全面崩溃可能对其他地区造成极严重的消极金融和心理效应。

　　全球新兴市场经济体情况要好一些，但是，尽管它们潜在产出的基本趋势增长率比发达经济体高得多，却仍然不可能做到周期性脱钩。世界经济是一个相互联系的整体：任何重要部分遇到麻烦都会传染全球。即使将视界放宽到狭义宏观经济问题之外，情况仍然如此：比如，气候变化问题已不容忽视。

　　美国不可能单枪匹马决定世界经济的未来，但美国决定怎么做仍然对世界有着巨大的影响，因为它仍是世界第一大经济体，在IMF、世界银行和G20中仍然一言九鼎。美国的观点继续影响着世界政策争论。

　　那么，奥巴马在第二个任期中应该把什么作为经济政策的当务之急？尽管全球经济面临着诸多困难，但在美国、中国、德国和其他国家还存在着巨额可投资资源。尽管存在气候和资源约束，但我们仍站在技术革命的开端，拥有无限潜力增加生产率、创造繁荣，与此同时，劳动力和就业也面临着挑战性影响。

　　但可持续的经济增长要求手握可投资资源的国家真的开始投资。而这在包括美国在内的发达经济体中等收入和低收入群体全面复苏、提供投资者所等待的需求持续反弹之前是不可能发生的。

　　利润空间很大——实际资本税率并不太高，企业部门也可以获得廉价的融资。但收入向顶尖阶层集中——比如，美国2011年经济增长好处的90%流向了最顶尖的1%——在阻挠全面复苏，导致宏观经济在继续“刺激”需要和创纪录低利率导致公共债务和资产泡沫的风险之间摇摆不定。

　　换句话说，更平衡的收入分配不仅是一个社会和道德问题；它对于宏观经济——事实上，对企业的长期成功也是如此——也很关键。这对于很多国家来说是决定性的大问题，尤其是美国和中国。

　　此外，美国和全世界对教育和合适技能培养需求迫切。由于缺少适合尚处于雏形阶段的新技术的技能，太多工人将保持失业状态。将全面高质量教育作为当务之急的一个关键好处是这也有助于解决收入分配问题。

　　最后，还需要有效的国际合作。中国经常项目盈余已有所下降，但如今北欧国家盈余达到了5000亿美元，而南欧的需求在崩溃，美国也维持着近5000亿美元的赤字。气候变化和极端天气模式长期挑战也要求全球合作和大选后美国向全面参与转变，只有美国的参与才能开启多层次清洁能源革命，刺激大规模就业创造型投资和新的增长周期。

　　在美国长时间艰苦的选战之后，是时候进行全面政策改革了。我们希望美国国会也认识到这一点，领导人们支持能够帮助上亿美国和世界人民的政策。

　　克马尔•德尔维什（Kemal  Dervi）是前土耳其经济部长，联合国发展计划署主任，世界银行副行长，现为布鲁金斯研究所副主席

 

The Second Coming of Barack Obama  

By Kemal Dervis

WASHINGTON, DC - The race was tough, but US President Barack Obama has won re-election. The question now, for the United States and the world, is what will he do with a fresh four-year term?

To win re-election with a still-weak economy and unemployment close to 8% was not easy. Many leaders - Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero come to mind - have been swept away by economic discontent in recent years. Although the financial disaster erupted on George W. Bush's watch, after eight years of a Republican presidency, Obama had to carry the burden of an anemic recovery.

Obama won not only because of his extraordinary personal resilience, but also because a sufficient number of middle-class voters, while unhappy with the pace of economic progress, sensed that an Obama presidency would help them more than the policies championed by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, which were perceived as tilted to the affluent. Moreover, America's ongoing demographic transformation makes it harder for candidates who are unable to reach out strongly to Latinos and other minority communities - something that Romney singularly failed to do - to carry the country.

Some aspects of the campaign, particularly the amount of money spent and its negative tone, struck many observers as objectionable. But the competitiveness of American democracy - the fact that an alternative always exists, and that those in power have to fight hard to stay there - was on admirable display for the whole world to see.

Obama will embark on his second term with the global economy at a crossroads. In the US, the uneven and weak recovery has been sustained by extraordinarily expansive monetary policies and ongoing large fiscal deficits. While corporate coffers hold mountains of cash, private investment stagnates. In Japan, solid economic performance remains elusive, while prime ministers succeed each other at a breathtaking pace.

Likewise, Europe is on life support, thanks to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi's astute maneuvering and promises of unlimited intervention in sovereign-debt markets. But unemployment is at its highest in decades and growth has essentially stalled, even in Germany, while the troubled southern economies are mired in deep recession. The situation in Greece, moreover, has become socially unsustainable; Greece is small, but a total collapse there could have very negative financial and psychological effects elsewhere.

The world's emerging-market economies are in better shape; but, while their underlying trend growth in potential output is much higher than that of the advanced economies, there is no cyclical de-coupling. The world economy is an interdependent whole: trouble in any important part of it is transmitted globally. That is true beyond the purview of narrowly macroeconomic problems as well: for example, the need to address climate change can no longer be ignored.

The US cannot determine the world economy's future on its own, but the course taken by America nonetheless has huge global importance, given that it remains the largest economy and retains considerable influence in venues such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the G-20. American ideas continue to affect the policy debate worldwide.

So, what should Obama's top economic-policy priorities be in his second term? Despite the difficulties facing the global economy, there are huge investible resources in the US, China, Germany, and elsewhere. While there are climate and resource constraints, we are still at the beginning of a technological revolution that holds tremendous potential for higher productivity and greater prosperity, along with challenging implications for labor and employment.

But sustainable economic growth requires that those with investible resources actually invest them. And that will not happen unless and until a broad-based recovery of the middle- and lower-income groups in advanced economies, including the US, delivers the prolonged rebound in demand for which investors are waiting.

There are plenty of profits to be made - actual taxes on capital are not too high, and cheap finance is available to the corporate sector. But the concentration of income at the top - more than 90% of the gains from US economic growth in 2011, for example, went to the top 1% - is constraining broad-based recovery and leaving macroeconomic policy caught between the need for continued "stimulus" and the dangers of growing public debt and asset bubbles inflated by record-low interest rates.

In other words, a more balanced income distribution is not only a social or ethical issue; it is crucial for macroeconomic and, indeed, long-term corporate success. This is vital for many countries, above all the US and China.

Then there is the pressing need - in the US and globally - for education and appropriate skill formation. Without the skills required by new and incipient technologies, too many workers will simply be unemployable. A key benefit of prioritizing broad-based quality education is that it also helps to solve the income-distribution problem.

Finally, there is the need for effective international cooperation. China's current-account surplus has declined, but now northern Europe runs a $500 billion surplus, while demand in southern Europe is collapsing and the US is running a deficit that is close to $500 billion. The longer-term challenge of climate change and extreme weather patterns also requires global cooperation and a post-election shift toward much stronger US engagement, which could unleash a multifaceted clean-energy revolution, fueling large job-creating investments and a new cycle of growth.

After America's long, hard-fought election campaign, it is time for comprehensive policy reforms. One hopes that the US Congress will recognize this as well, leading to support for measures that could help hundreds of millions of people in the US and around the world.

Kemal Dervis, a former minister of economy in Turkey, administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and vice president of the World Bank, is currently Vice President of the Brookings Institution. 

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