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The Economist explains 經(jīng)濟學(xué)人釋疑 Why have containers boosted trade so much? 為何集裝箱大規(guī)模地促進了世界貿(mào)易？ May 21st 2013, 23:50 by E.H.  AT FIRST glance they may just appear to be humble metal boxes. But containers—uniform boxes that can be easily moved between lorry, train and ship—have reshaped global trade over the past few decades. Why have containers boosted trade so much？ 一眼看去，集裝箱僅如同一個個簡陋的金屬箱子。然而，集裝箱（這種大小有標準的'箱子'，能夠在卡車、火車以及輪船間便利地運輸）在過去的數(shù)十年里改變了世界貿(mào)易格局。集裝箱為什么能在世界貿(mào)易發(fā)展中起到如此大的推力呢？ Uniform metal containers were invented by Malcom McLean, an American trucking magnate, in 1956. Before then goods were shipped as they had been for centuries. Crammed in to the hold of a ship, loose cargo in wooden crates would be loaded and unloaded by vast crews of dockworkers. The process was unwieldy, unreliable and so slow that ships often spent longer docked than they did at sea. Theft of transported goods was rampant: as an old joke put it, dock workers used to earn “$20 a day and all the Scotch you could carry home.” 1956年，美國貨運業(yè)巨頭馬爾科姆·麥克林發(fā)明了標準化的集裝箱。在此之前，傳統(tǒng)的貨物運載方式已經(jīng)延續(xù)了數(shù)世紀。大量的碼頭工人在船頭熙熙攘攘，木箱 中的散裝貨物被裝卸于甲板之上。整個過程顯得那么的笨拙，那么的讓人難以置信，那么的緩慢以至于運輸船只停港逗留時間比起海上時間還要長。貨物運輸過程中 盜竊猖獗，正如一句聽厭了的笑話所描述的那樣：碼頭工人們經(jīng)常賺到的是“20塊一天呀，蘇格蘭威士忌統(tǒng)統(tǒng)帶回家呀！” Containers changed this in several ways. The price of everything fell, starting with the cost of loading and unloading. When Mr McLean looked at the costs of his first container ship, he found that it cost $0.16 per tonne to load compared with $5.83 per tonne for loose cargo. Between 1965 and 1970 the amount of capital locked up per tonne of inventory in transit between Hamburg to Sydney fell by half. Because containers were packed and sealed at the factory, losses to theft plummeted, which in turn drastically reduced insurance costs. More could also be loaded: in 1965 dock labour could move only 1.7 tonnes per hour onto a cargo ship; five years later they could load 30 tonnes in an hour. As a consequence, ships could get bigger and more efficient while still spending less time in port. As containers made inland distribution by train and lorry easier, ports became bigger and fewer in number. (In 1965 there were 11 loading ports in Europe; by 1970 there were three.) This, along with increased productivity, meant fewer dockworkers were needed, undermining their bargaining power and reducing the number of strikes. 集裝箱改變了這一切。隨著裝卸成本的下降導(dǎo)致了所運輸貨物價格的下跌。當麥克林查看他首批集裝箱貨運船成本的時候，發(fā)現(xiàn)相對于散裝貨裝貨成本為5.83美 元/噸，集裝箱裝貨每噸成本為0.16美元。1965年至1970年間，漢堡至悉尼海運途中收錄在貨物目錄中的每噸貨物成本跌了一半。由于集裝箱在工廠里 面裝貨密封，盜竊損失逐漸減少，這又反過來減少了保險費用。愈來愈多的貨物能夠被裝到船上：1965年的時候，每小時僅能運載1.7噸貨物至貨輪上；五年 以后，每小時能運載30噸！結(jié)果導(dǎo)致了貨輪噸位越來越大，更有效率，同時節(jié)省了很多停留在港口的時間。隨著集裝箱使得內(nèi)陸火車和卡車物流運輸更便利，港口 規(guī)模變得更大了，也更集中了。（1965年，歐洲有十一個裝貨港；1970年，變成了三個）隨著生產(chǎn)力的不斷發(fā)展，這意味著不需要那么多的碼頭工人了，削 弱了工人們的工資議價能力，減少了碼頭罷工事件的發(fā)生。 For many years it was thought to be impossible to quantify the value of containerisation, because the advent of the metal box coincided with a global reduction in trade barriers as a result of European integration and the work of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). But a paper published in February cleverly disentangles the impact of trade deals from that of containers. Looking at 22 industrialised countries, it finds that containerisation is associated with a 320% increase in bilateral trade over the first five years and 790% over 20 years. A bilateral free-trade agreement, by contrast, boosts trade by 45% over 20 years, and membership of GATT raises it by 285%. In other words, containers have boosted globalisation more than all trade agreements in the past 50 years put together. Not bad for a simple box. 多年來，人們一直認為集裝箱運輸?shù)膬r值無法量化，因為集裝箱的誕生碰巧遇上了貿(mào)易壁壘的全球性削減（歐洲一體化和關(guān)貿(mào)總協(xié)定——WTO的前身——帶來的結(jié) 果）。但是，二月份發(fā)表的一篇文章巧妙地區(qū)分了世界貿(mào)易中來自集裝箱的影響。該文章從22個工業(yè)國家中發(fā)現(xiàn)，集裝箱運輸與過去五年來雙邊貿(mào)易320%的增 幅和過去20年來790%的增幅有關(guān)聯(lián)。相比之下，在過去20年一項雙邊貿(mào)易協(xié)定促進貿(mào)易增幅45%，關(guān)貿(mào)總協(xié)定成員身份使之貿(mào)易增幅285%。換句話而言，50年來集裝箱化促進的全球化程度超過了所有的貿(mào)易協(xié)定。對一個簡簡單單的箱子來說，還算不錯。 |
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