中文摘要
衰退往往发生在住房、消费者耐用品和商业资本快速积累的时期之后。这一观察使得一些经济学家，最著名的是弗里德里希·哈耶克，得出结论：衰退往往反映了由过去的过度投资导致的必要清算期。根据该观点的主要支持者，不应使用政府支出或任何其他形式的总需求政策来缓解这种清算过程，因为这样做只会导致必要的调整被推迟。相反，自凯恩斯的著作问世以来，许多经济学家一直将衰退视为需求不足的时期，应通过积极的财政政策加以应对。在本文中，我们在价格灵活但并非所有交易都由集中市场协调的设定下重新审视了衰退的清算视角。该模型阐明了为什么清算很可能导致以总需求不足为特征的衰退，并据此表明凯恩斯与哈耶克关于衰退的观点可能密切相关。在我们的框架中，旨在刺激总需求的干预面临一种权衡：当前的刺激会推迟调整过程从而延长衰退，但某些刺激政策可能依然是合意的。
Abstract
Recessions often happen after periods of rapid accumulation of houses, consumer durables and business capital. This observation has led some economists, most notably Friedrich Hayek, to conclude that recessions often reflect periods of needed liquidation resulting from past over-investment. According to the main proponents of this view, government spending or any other form of aggregate demand policy should not be used to mitigate such a liquidation process, as doing so would simply result in a needed adjustment being postponed. In contrast, ever since the work of Keynes, many economists have viewed recessions as periods of deficient demand that should be countered by activist fiscal policy. In this paper we reexamine the liquidation perspective of recessions in a setup where prices are flexible but where not all trades are coordinated by centralized markets. The model illustrates why liquidations likely cause recessions characterized by deficient aggregate demand and accordingly suggests that Keynes’ and Hayek’s views of recessions may be closely linked. In our framework, interventions aimed at stimulating aggregate demand face a trade-off whereby current stimulus postpones the adjustment process and therefore prolongs the recessions, but where some stimulative policies may nevertheless remain desirable.