What economists believe

                                           经济学家相信什么

Click here to read the results of a new survey of AEA members. This updates previous survey results, summarized in Chapter 2 of my favorite textbook.

点击这里阅读来自美国经济学联盟成员的一项新的调查结果。  这次更新了前次调查的结果，在我最喜欢的教材的第二章里，总括了这方面内容。

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Note that 83 percent agree that "the United States should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade." I presume that would apply to tariffs on Chinese tires.

请注意，有83%的人同意“美国应消除现存的关税和其他贸易壁垒。”我相信这将适用于对中国轮胎税案。

Thanks to Tyler Cowen for the pointer.

感谢泰勒·考恩告诉我这个消息。

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                                                 A Coming Trade War?

                                                 一场即将爆发的贸易战?

In case you have not been following the headlines, here is a recap:

如果你没留意新闻标题，那么这里做一下回顾：

Obama to impose tariffs on Chinese tires: Obama imposes tariffs on China tires for 3 years, a decision that could anger Asian powerhouse

奥巴马计划增加中国轮胎税：奥巴马将在今后三年，对中国轮胎提高关税，这个决定可能惹怒亚洲大国

China Strikes Back on Trade: Beijing Threatens U.S. Chicken, Car Parts After Washington Slaps Stiff Tariffs on Tires

中国在贸易上的回击：在华盛顿方面硬征中国轮胎税后，北京方面威胁，将对美国的鸡肉和汽车零件增加关税。

Stocks head lower on US-China trade concerns: Major indexes fall in early dealings amid concerns about US-China trade dispute

美中贸易问题影响股市指数走低：美中贸易战役初期，主要指数滑落。

Tire Tariffs Are Cheered by Labor: Mr. Obama ordered the tire tariffs after the United States International Trade Commission, an independent government agency, determined that a more than tripling of Chinese tire imports had disrupted the $1.7 billion tire market....President George W. Bush had rejected four similar recommendations from the trade commission, angering organized labor

劳工为轮胎税欢呼：奥巴马总统决定征收轮胎税后，美国国际贸易委员会，一个独立的政府机构，坚持认为，对于中国超过三倍的轮胎进口，扰乱了17亿美元的美国轮胎市场....布什总统已拒绝了四项贸易委员会提出的类似建议，这激怒了劳工组织。

The Least Surprising Correlation of All Time

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The NY Times Economix blog offers us the above graph, showing that kids from higher income families get higher average SAT scores.

NY Times Economix blog，给出了上面的图形，说的是：高收入家庭后代的平均SAT成绩比较高。

Of course! But so what? This fact tells us nothing about the causal impact of income on test scores. (Economix does not advance a causal interpretation, but nor does it warn readers against it.)

当然如此！但是，又怎么样呢？这个事儿，并没有说明收入与考试成绩之间的因果关系。（Economix也没有给出一个因果解释，但是，它也没有让读者不要去找其中的因果关系。）

This graph is a good example of omitted variable bias, a statistical issue discussed in Chapter 2 of my favorite textbook. The key omitted variable here is parents' IQ. Smart parents make more money and pass those good genes on to their offspring.

这个图形是典型的“遗漏变量偏差”，在我所喜欢的教科书的第二章里，讨论了这个统计问题。这里遗漏的关键变量就是“父母的智商”。聪明的父母会挣更多的钱，而且，会将那些好的基因传给自己的后代。

Suppose we were to graph average SAT scores by the number of bathrooms a student has in his or her family home. That curve would also likely slope upward. (After all, people with more money buy larger homes with more bathrooms.) But it would be a mistake to conclude that installing an extra toilet raises yours kids' SAT scores.

假设我们想画出平均SAT成绩与学生家里的洗手间数量之间的关系。这个曲线也很可能是斜向上的。（毕竟，有钱人，买的大房子拥有的洗手间的数量也会更多。）但是，如果说“安装多余的洗手间，能够小孩的SAT成绩”，那一定是谬之千里了。

It would be interesting to see the above graph reproduced for adopted children only. I bet that the curve would be a lot flatter.

如果对领养的小孩，也画出上面的这个图形，肯定挺有意思。我估计，曲线会平坦很多很多¹。

注释：

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1.因为剔除了智商相关的遗传因素。

2.克鲁格曼注意到了这篇文章，显然他还是认为”收入具有一定的作用“。下面是他的回应：

                      Heredity, environment, justice

                             遗传、环境、正义

Oh, Kay. Greg Mankiw looks at a graph showing that children of high-income families do better on tests, and suggests that it’s largely about inherited talent: smart people make lots of money, and also have smart kids.

嗯啊!曼昆研究了一个图，图的意思是：高收入家庭的后代，考试情况更好一些。他还说，这种情况主要与遗传的天分有关：聪明人挣到好多钱，也有了聪明的小宝贝。

But, you know, there’s lots of evidence that there’s more to it than that. For example: students with low test scores from high-income families are slightly more likely to finish college than students with high test scores from low-income families.

但是，大家知道吗？有很多证据表明还有更多的故事没有讲。譬如：相比于收入贫寒、考试高的学生来说，家境优裕、考试成绩不好的小孩，他们完成大学学业的可能性要更大一些。

It’s comforting to think that we live in a meritocracy. But we don’t.

想到我们生活于一个精英政体之中，就会心里舒坦一些。但是，事实却非如此。

3.关于克鲁格曼的这篇争论,曼昆给出了一个更进一步的说明,语气还是一如既往的和缓.

And I thought I was being boring

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My previous blog post on SAT scores and income generated a surprising amount of blogosphere pushback. See, for example, this post by Paul Krugman.

我前面关于SAT考试成绩与收入之间的文章,想不到引来了博客空间的强烈反对。譬如，克鲁格曼就写了一篇文章与我讨论。

I say "surprising" because I almost did not post the piece at all, thinking that it was a bit pedantic and pedestrian. In other words, a big yawn. I did not think my point about omitted variable bias was particularly new or controversial.
我说我自己“想不到”，是因为我差不多没有贴那篇文章，是因为我觉得那篇东西学究气太重，也缺乏想象力。让人要打呼噜睡着的。我觉得，我说它有“遗漏变量偏差”，也不是特别新颖，也没有什么争议性。

In essence, what I said was

本质上，我的意思是：

1. People vary in their innate talents, as measured by, say, IQ tests.

人们天生的才华有差异，譬如，可以IQ测试来检测。

2. More talented people tend to earn higher incomes.

更聪明的人，挣到大钱的可能性更大。

3. More talented people tend to have more talented biological children--that is, talent is partially heritable.
更聪明的人，可能会有生理上更聪明的小孩，即：聪明具有部分的遗传性。

4. As a logical implication of the above three points, the raw correlation of kids' SAT scores and family income conflates the true effects of family income with the biological transmission of talent.
以上三点的逻辑结论就是：小孩的SAT成绩与家庭收入之间的粗糙的相关性，将家庭收入的真实效应与天分的生物遗传，混在了一起。

I would be curious which of the above four points Paul does not agree with.
我不知道克鲁格曼对于以上四点，有什么不同意见。

Paul himself is a good case illustrating my point. He is smart, and he has high income. I don't think those two facts are a mere coincidence. Instead, his innate talent is a large element of his success. I would bet that if he had had children, they would likely have been smart as well, even if he spent only average resources rearing them (such as, for example, if he put them up for adoption).

克鲁格曼本身就是一个能够说明我观点的好例子啊。他很聪明，他的收入也很高。我觉得，这两个事实不只是简单的巧合。相反，他遗传的天分，是其成功的很大因素呢。我敢说，如果他有后代，他们也很有可能是很聪明的，即使他在养育小孩上面只花与一般人相同的费用或资源（譬如，如果他把小孩送给人家抱养。）

By the way, the conjecture in the final sentence of my last post about adopted kids was in part based on existing evidence in the nature-nurture debate. See, for instance, this paper.

顺便说一句，我那个文章最后一句中关于“领养小孩”的猜想，一部分是基于“先天条件-后天条件”的现在证据，而给出的。譬如，可以看（上面链接中的）那篇文章。

4.显然，曼昆的直觉是正确的。他在原文中说：“养子女与亲生父新之间”的关系也具有原来的“收入-成绩”关系。下面是David Cesarini给他写来的信，证明了这个结论：

Test Scores and Biological Father's Income

考试成绩与生父的收入

MIT's David Cesarini sends me the above chart with this note:

MIT的David Cesarini给我发来上面的图形,并写了下面的便条:

Dear Professor Mankiw,

亲爱的曼昆教授:

I prepared a graph which I think nicely illustrates the simple point you made in your blogpost on the spurious association between SES and test scores. The graph is attached. The dataset is comprised of a large sample of men born in Sweden between 1955 and 1970 who took an IQ test at conscription, at the age of 18. Income is measured as the biological father's income in the 1970 census.

我画了上面的这个图,我想,它会很好地说明你在文章里写的SES与考试成绩之间的伪关系问题.图在附件里.这个数据的样本很大,是1955-1970年间出生的男性,他们在18岁应征入伍时进行了IQ测试.收入是1970年普查中亲生父亲的收入.

The red line is the average measured IQ of the non-adoptees, plotted against the biological father's income decile. The blue line shows the same relationship for adoptees and their biological fathers. The patterns are remarkably similar,even though the biological fathers of adoptees did not raise these children.The fact that the biological father's income is almost an equally strong predictor of a child's test scores even when the biological father was not present in the household clearly suggests that most of the association between income and test scores does indeed arise because of omitted variable bias. Of course, an important caveat here is that it is quite likely that non-random assignment of adoptees may explain some of the similarity between the two lines.

红线是非养子女所测得的平均IQ,横线为亲生父亲的收入十分制指数.蓝线表示是养子女与其生父之间的关系，与上面相同。虽然养子女的生父没有养育自己的小孩，但是，曲线的形式是极为相似的。即使生父并没有明显地出现在他的生活环境之中，但是，生父的收入,依然是小孩考试成绩的一个很强的预测指标。这个事实说明:大人收入与小孩成绩之间的关系,大部分确实是因为“缺失变量偏差”所致。当然，有一个重要的说明，以防误解，即：养子女的非随机分配，这个情况很可能可以用来解释这两条曲线的某些相似性。

I hope you find this useful.

我希望这个东西对你有帮助。

Best wishes,

祝
David Cesarini

Thanks, David.

感谢David的来信！

编辑手记:

* 按Eugene的指导,对其中的两处误译进行了修正.so what句,和and also句.(8月31日)

* 又新增了曼昆关于“成绩-收入”关系的一篇新文章。（9月1日）

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We are all supply-siders now

Liying Zhu[译]

From a great article by David Leonhardt and Geraldine Fabrikant:

In the three decades after World War II, when the incomes of the rich grew more slowly than those of the middle class, the top marginal rate ranged from 70 to 91 percent. Mr. Piketty, one of the economists who analyzed the I.R.S. data, argues that these high rates did not affect merely post-tax income. They also helped hold down the pretax incomes of the wealthy, he says, by giving them less incentive to make many millions of dollars.

来自大卫·莱昂哈特和杰拉尔丁的一篇文章：

在二战后的三十年里，当富人的收入增长速度比中产阶级的要慢时，最高边际税率在70%到91%之间。Piketty先生——分析美国国税局数据的经济学家之一，认为这些高比率并不仅仅影响税后收入。他说，通过给富人较少赚取几百万美元的激励，它们也有助于控制富人的税前收入

POTUS makes a wise choice

Liying Zhu[译]

I am delighted that President Obama has decided to reappoint Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve. While there is certainly room for reasonable people to question some of the specific decisions Ben has made, in general he has led the Federal Reserve System with humility, intelligence, wisdom, and grace.

 我祝贺总统作出了一个很好的决定，也对本不得不在接下去的四年中过度工作和报酬过低表示深切慰问。

Blanchard on the Outlook

qianlaoda[译]

Regular readers of this blog may remember the following exchange from March:

常来本博客的读者们，也许会记得自三月以来，有以下的交锋：

1. I express some doubt about the administration's economic forecast because it assumes a trend-stationary processs for GDP rather than a process with a unit root.

1．本人对政府所做的经济预测持一定的怀疑态度，原因是：它假设GDP是“趋势平稳过程”，而没有假设为“单位根过程”。

2. Paul Krugman accuses me of "deliberate obtuseness."

2.克鲁格曼骂我，说我“故意地反应迟钝”。

3. I ask Paul to place a wager on the administration's forecast. (He never responds.)

3．我让克鲁格曼为政府预测押宝。（他没有理我的茬。）

Well, now, the IMF's Olivier Blanchard writes the following:

好了，现在，IMF的奥利弗·布兰查德写下了如下的观点：

The historical evidence is worrisome, however. The IMF’s forthcoming World Economic Outlook presents evidence from 88 banking crises over the past four decades in a wide range of countries. While there is large variation across countries, the conclusion is that, on average, output does not go back to its old trend path, but remains permanently below it. The possible good news is that the trend itself appears to be unaffected: on average, crises permanently decrease the level of output, but not its growth rate. So, if past is prologue, the world economy likely will return to its past growth rate. But, especially in advanced countries, the period of above-average growth, characteristic of normal recoveries, may be short-lived or nonexistent.

然而，历史的证据，令人揪心。IMF将要发布的《世界经济前瞻》，发布了包括相当多国家在内的过去四十年间的88次银行危机情况。虽然国家之间存在很大的差异，但是，结果却是：平均来说，经济产出不会回到原有的趋势路径上去，而是持久地处于原有趋势之下。一个可能的好消息就是：趋势本身看似不受影响：平均来说，危机持续降低了产出水平，但是没有降低经济增长率。因此，如果过去就是一个序幕，那么，世界经济可能将会回到它原有的增长率上去。但是，尤其在发达国家，平均水平以上的增长时期——它作为正常的经济复苏的标志——会是很短命的，或者根本就不存在。

What Olivier is saying is that the shocks to the level of GDP from banking crises are typically permanent. That is, in econometric terms, there is a unit root. Of course, Olivier could be wrong. But I am pretty sure that he is not guilty of "deliberate obtuseness."

布兰查德说的就是：银行危机对GDP水平所造成的冲击，一般来说是永久性的。换言之，用计量经济学的术语来说，它是一个单位根过程。当然，布兰查德可能不对。但是，我却极度相信，他可不是犯“故意反应迟钝”的错误。

By the way, the administration's midsession review, with its updated forecast, should be coming out soon. Will Team Obama continue to forecast a rebound to the previous trend path, as they did earlier in the year, or will they change their view and take to heart the kind of evidence Olivier describes above? Either way, it will be noteworthy.

顺便说一句，政府的中期评估，会包含最新预测，也快要出台了。奥巴马团队会像今年早些时候那样，依然认为经济会反弹至原有趋势路径吗？或者，他们改变了看法，将布兰查德前面所说的那类证据记在心头？无论如何，这个预测一定是值得关注的。

编辑手记:

* 这个问题,在本博客中多有涉及,也是一个相当有趣的话题.曼昆有相应的回归分析.也是本博客与克鲁格曼网易博客最有趣的地方.

                                                                      The Town Pier

                                                                          城镇码头

Yesterday, I chartered a sailboat so my family and I could spend a couple of hours out on the waters off Nantucket. The captain of the boat met us at the town pier, loaded us onto a small skiff, and then took us to a mooring out in the harbor, where the boat was waiting.

 昨天，我租了一条帆船，这样，我和我的家人就可以离开楠塔基特岛，出海玩几个小时了。船长在城镇码头把我们载上一条小艇，然后把我们带到海港外的一个候船停泊处。

 He explained to us that he would prefer to keep his sailboat at the pier, which would make loading and unloading passengers much easier, but he could not get a space there. Every year, he told us, the town has a lottery to allocate the right to rent one of the scare docking slots. For quite a few years, the captain has been putting his name into the lottery, but he has never won. "There are just not enough spaces," he said.

 他跟我们解释说，他想把他的帆船停靠在码头，好让装货和卸货的乘客更方便一些，但他拿不到码头泊位。他告诉我们，每年，镇上有一个彩票活动，中彩的人能享有出租一个稀缺泊位的权利。多年以来，船长一直去投彩，但他从来没有中过。 “就是没有足够的泊位，”他跟我们说。

 Ever the economist, I replied, "It seems to me that the price isn't high enough."

  我以一位经济学家的身份，回答说：“我看，价格不算高啊。”

 "Well, actually," the captain said, "if you want to pay more, you can go down there." He pointed to the next dock over.

 “嗯，实际上，”船长说，“如果你愿意多付钱，你就能得到那边的泊位。”他指着对面邻近的码头。

 Apparently, next to the town pier is another pier that is privately owned and operated. The price for a docking space there is about five times as high as it is at the town pier. But there is never any significant shortage. Anyone can sign up for a slot, as long as you are willing and able to pay.

 显然，城镇码头旁边是另一个私人经营的码头。如果在那里靠岸，价格大约是城镇码头的五倍。但是，那里从来没有什么大的泊位短缺现象。只要你愿意去付钱，任何人都可以得到一个泊位。

 What a wonderful illustration of basic economic principles! In one way or another, scarce resources need to be allocated among competing uses. Free markets typically use the price system. Governments, often in the name of "fairness," seem to prefer other mechanisms, which don't always direct resources to their highest value use.

 这真是一个奇妙的带有经济学原理的例子！究竟采取哪种方式，让稀缺资源必须在相互竞争中，得到很好地利用。那么，自由市场通常使用的是价格体系。虽然，各国政府，往往打着“公平”的旗号，但似乎更青睐于其他机制，那些并不总是把资源的本身价值最大化的使用机制。

 The sailboat ride was a bit of a bust, by the way. The day was warm and sunny, and the captain was a delightful storyteller, but the wind was not nearly sufficient for a good sail. Sadly, there are some shortages even the price system is not able to correct.

 顺便提一嘴，我们乘坐的帆船有点破。船长是一个讨人喜欢爱说话的家伙，这一天温暖而阳光明媚，只是风不够大，扬不起帆。令人遗憾的是，还有一些甚至连价格体系都无法纠正的缺陷。

 Question for Ec 10 students: If the town raised the rental price of a docking slot at the town pier, what would happen to the price at the private pier?

 给学经济学导论的同学出个问题：如果城镇提高了在城镇码头租赁泊位的价格，私人码头的价格又会发生什么变化呢？（请大家也讨论一下这个问题）

Jason Kuznicki on Aug 12th 2009

(Attention Tyler Cowen…)

[译]xy

I love Chinese food. I always have. And I mean the authentic dishes, not the made-for-Americans glop that they try to fob off on us.

我很喜欢中餐。我总是去吃中餐。我是指货真价实的中国菜，不是那种专门给美国人做的难吃的东西，那些东西是用来哄骗我们。

So why is it that these superior dishes are always hidden away on a secret, Chinese-only menu? I recently went to Chinatown Express, my favorite local restaurant, with a group of friends, including one from Taiwan.

那么为什么那些好菜总是被藏在一份秘密的，专为中国人准备的菜单里？最近和一些朋友一同光顾了Chinatown Express，那是我在华盛顿最喜欢的餐馆，同行的还有一位台湾朋友。

Naturally, he ordered in Chinese, and he received a dish I’d never seen at that restaurant before. (I hadn’t even known that they had a secret Chinese menu.) It was a plate of crispy fried egg noodles with mixed seafood and vegetables in a clear, Cantonese-style sauce.

It was delicious. And, naturally, it wasn’t on the American menu.

很自然地，他用中文点菜了，然后他吃到了一道我从来没有在那家餐馆看到过的菜。（我以前都不知道这家餐馆有一张秘密的中文菜单。）那是一盘油炸鸡蛋面，配上几种海鲜和蔬菜，淋上一种清爽的广式酱汁。很好吃。并且，这道菜不在给美国人的菜单上。

I’ve even gotten the same treatment at a dim sum restaurant, which is harder to pull off. After all, we could see and smell dozens of wonderful plates of marinated tofu skins, salted pork ears, tiny whole squid, and other forbidden delights… as they passed by on their way to nearby Chinese patrons.

我在一家点心店里也有过类似遭遇，不过这家店比较难成功做到有秘密菜单而不被发现。毕竟当点心车经过我们桌送菜给附近的中国客人的时候，我们就能看到、闻到很多菜的味道，像是腌制的豆腐皮，咸猪耳朵，整只的小乌贼，以及其他除了中国人以外都点不了的美味。

They had a different dim sum cart for the white folks. If it had been a soul food restaurant, we’d have had grounds for a lawsuit.

他们给白人准备的点心车是不一样的。如果这时家做美国黑人传统食品的餐馆，我们能因为区别对待客人告他们。

Here are my questions:

这么一来我有几个问题：

1.    Do any other types of ethnic restaurants routinely hide the good stuff?

还有没有其他具有民族特色的餐馆总是把好东西藏起来？

2.    Do Chinese places realize that at least some white diners would eat there more often if they had access to more variety and authenticity?

中餐馆有没有意识到如果白人食客能吃到更多种菜，能在更诚信透明的环境里吃饭，他们会来得更勤？

3.    As it is, I go to Chinatown Express so often that they recognize me immediately when I walk in the door. I’m proficient with chopsticks, and I obey the basics of Chinese table manners. What else does it take, people???

其实我总是Chinatown Express，我进店门的时候他们都能立刻认出我。我很会用筷子，而且也遵守基本的中国餐座礼仪。还要我怎么改进呢？

To be further Cowenesque, here are some theories:

为了进一步解释，有如下理论：

1.    Path dependence (a): Americans have some very set though inaccurate ideas about what “Chinese food” really is. They will generally balk at anything else. More people will break this way, and avoid the restaurants, than will break my way, and go to them more often, if they are offered something new and different.

定律（a）：美国人中有一个群体对“中国菜”到底是什么理解不当。他们不愿意尝试其他的事物。如果中餐馆在菜式方面改变、创新，更多的人会改变他们去中餐馆的习惯，不再光顾，而不是像我这样，改变自己的行事方式，反而去得更勤。

2.    Path dependence (b): Setting up a restaurant is a ton of work. Someone or some entity tells Chinese restaurants what they must to sell to appeal to Americans, and all the restaurants are following the same bad advice. The agent(s) to blame aren’t as subject to market forces because Chinese immigrants have fewer contacts than most others in America. If this seems speculative, consider how few different brands of chopsticks you’ve seen at Chinese restaurants, from the fabulous ones to the truly wretched. There aren’t that many.

定律（b）：建一个餐馆是个大工程。一些人或者团体告诉中餐馆什么菜合美国人的口味，所有的餐馆都按照这个坏建议来做。这些该被谴责的机构并不是根据市场力量给出建议，因为比起其他人来说，中国移民与美国人交流更少。如果这看上去比较像是主观臆断，那么就想想你在各家良莠不齐的中餐馆里看到过多少不同品牌的筷子？其实筷子的品牌就那么几个。

3.    I hate to bring up the obvious, but… chauvinism. Chinese people have certain ideas about Americans, including that our culinary tastes are incredibly narrow. Obviously, this may be partially true, given (1) above.

我不想提出这么显而易见的……沙文主义¹。中国人对美国人有成见，包括我们能接受的口味就那么几种。显然，这种观点可能部分准确，就像第一条里所说。

4.    The high costs of offering so many different dishes. I’m skeptical of this one, because Chinese people are usually offered the Chinese menu, if there is one, while Americans get the American menu. The costs of being able to prepare the dishes are in place either way.

供应很多种不同的菜式成本很高。我怀疑这条定律的准确性，因为中国人总是用中文菜单点菜（如果有中文菜单的话），而美国人用给美国人的菜单。准备很多种不同的菜单的高成本无论如何都是存在的。

译者注：

1．沙文主义：原指极端的、不合理的、过分的爱国主义（因此也是一种民族主义）。如今的含义也囊括其他领域，主要指盲目热爱自己所处的团体，并经常对其他团体怀有恶意与仇恨。

                                                                         Ken's Dystopia

                                                                         Ken的反面乌托邦

My Harvard colleague Ken Rogoff writes:

我的哈佛同事Ken Rogoff写道：

Within a few years, western governments will have to sharply raise taxes, inflate, partially default, or some combination of all three。

 用不了几年， 西方国家都将不得不大幅度地提高税收、大幅度地搞通货膨胀，部分地拖欠赖账，或者采用前三者的某种组合方式。

注释：

 1.  乌托邦：三个字合起来的意思即为“空想的国 家”，用于比喻无法实现的理想或空想的美好社会。

  2.   反面乌托邦：假想的政治、经济都一塌糊涂的地方。

 3.EUGENE评论： sharply 修饰两个动词raise, inflate. 但是partially修饰一个动词 default. 
Some combination of all three, 这是指前三者的某种组合。 
      重译： 用不了几年， 西方国家都将不得不大幅度地提高税收、大幅度地搞通货膨胀，部分地拖欠赖账，或者采用前三者的某种组合方式。

Wonky Talk about Carbon Taxes

I appreciate David Leonhardt’s kind words about my recent Times column on the problems with giving away, rather than auctioning, carbon allowances. I thought it might be useful to explain a bit more some of the economics behind what he calls my Rorschach test. Here is the more wonky way of putting some of the arguments.

感谢David Leonhardt。我最新的《纽约时报》专栏上讨论了“二氧化碳配额”的分配（而非拍卖）的问题，他给予了善意的评价¹。我认为，就他所说的“曼昆的罗尔沙赫氏测试”背后的经济学，给予多一点的解释，可能还是有意义的。下面是一些比较书生气的解释，来说明我的一些观点。

We can think of the typical household as having to make two decisions. First, the household decides how much to work and consume. This is the standard consumption-leisure tradeoff. Second, the household decides how to allocate consumption between carbon-intensive products and less carbon-intensive products.

我们可以设想，典型的家庭必须进行两个选择。第一个选择是：家庭必须决定工作量和消费量。这是标准的消费-闲暇权衡模型。第二个选择是：家庭要决定在二氧化碳的关联产品和非二氧化碳关联的产品上的消费分配。

Mathematically, we might write utility as

数学上，我们可以将效用记为如下形式：

U = u(C) + v(L)

where C is consumption and L is leisure. Consumption is a composite of carbon-intensive consumption C1 and less carbon-intensive consumption C2, which we can write as

其中，C为消费量，L为闲暇量。消费包括“二氧化碳关联产品”的消费量C₁ 和“非二氧化碳关联产品”的消费量C₂, 因此，消费就可以写为：

C=F(C₁,C₂).

There are two margins of adjustment: between C and L, and between C₁ and C₂.
存在两个边际调整：C和L之间，以及C₁和C₂之间.

We start in a situation in which each of these margins of adjustment is distorted. Because earnings are taxed via income and payroll taxes, people have too little incentive to work and consume. In addition, because there is a negative externality associated with carbon, people have too little incentive to move their consumption basket toward less carbon-intensive products. In other words, the relative price of consumption compared to leisure is too high, and the relative price of carbon consumption compared to noncarbon consumption is too low.

我们的初始状态是：这两个边际调整，每一个都是扭曲的。因为人们的所得有两种税收：收入税和工资税，所以，他的工作激励和消费激励是非常小的。同时，因为存在“二氧化碳的负外部性”，所以，人们的消费转为“非二氧化碳关联产品”的激励，也非常小。换言之，消费相对于闲暇的相对价格，是非常高的；而且，“二氧化碳产品”的消费相对于“非二氧化碳产品”的消费的相对价格，也是非常低的。

The trick is how to fix the second distortion without making the first one worse. A tax on carbon with the revenues used to cut income taxes does that. Everyone who thinks there are negative carbon externalities should agree that is the efficient policy.
关键在于：如何能固定第二种扭曲，而不使得第一种变得更差。对二氧化碳征税，并将税收收入用于削减收入税，就可以实现这个目标。每一个认为“存在二氧化碳的负外部性”的人，都应该会知道：这就是有效的政策。

A tax on carbon with the revenue squandered via lump-sum handouts to powerful special interests, however, fixes the second distortion but makes the first one worse. The good thing about this policy is that it raises the price of carbon-intensive consumption relative to less carbon-intensive consumption. The bad thing about it is that it also raises the price of consumption relative to leisure—in other words, it depresses the real wage. The basic problem is that a new tax on carbon-intensive products C1 is also an additional tax on consumption C, unless there is some other offsetting tax change.

然而，对二氧化碳征税，但是，税收收入却通过一次性地将配额转移给“有权势的特殊利益群体”而分散，就是“固定了第二种扭曲”却使得第一种扭曲变得更糟糕。这种政策的好处在于：它提高了“二氧化碳关联产品”消费相对于“非二氧化碳关联产品”消费的价格。它的坏处在于：它也提高了消费相对于闲暇的价格——换言之，它压抑了真实工资。基本的问题就是：除非存在一种抵偿性的税收变化，对二氧化碳产品C₁的新增税收，也是对总消费C的新增税收。

This is where the Rorschach test comes in. A carbon tax without a compensating income tax cut makes one problem better and one worse. The question then is which problem is bigger. I don’t think there is a consensus among economists on this last question. That is why reasonable people can disagree about the bill being debated in Congress.

现在，罗氏测试就出现了。对二氧化碳征税，却不进行补偿性的收入税的消减，使得一种问题变好，又使另一种问题变差。这时的问题就是：哪一个问题更加大一些？我认为，在这个新问题上，经济学家之间并不存在共识。这就是理性的人们并不同意正在国会讨论的那个法案的原因。

But there is a consensus, more or less, that we could fix one margin of adjustment without distorting the other margin more. But that requires a cut in income or payroll taxes to be a key part of the environmental policy.

但是，差不多还是有一个共识的。即：我们可以固定一个边际调整，而不使另一个边际调整更加扭曲。但是，这就需要对收入税或工资税进行削减，这就是环境政策的核心部分了。

注释：

1.     关于善意评价。即：无论你自己位于哪个阵营，我也要推荐曼昆的专栏。他的模型使人能理解复杂的问题。（Whichever side you find yourself on, I recommend Mr. Mankiw’s column. It’s a model of making a complex issue comprehensible.）

2.     关于边际调整。这是一个很简单的名词。最典型的就是高考时候老师的说法：“你这一门课已经很好了，再用功也就多得一两分；还不如在你的弱课上用功，一下子就能得到十来分。”

The Difference Between a “B” and a “B”-Plus
By Daniel Hamermesh
[译]xy

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. Classes start in three weeks, and the bosses have mandated a revolution at the University of Texas, Austin: we can no longer give only “A,” “B,” and “C” grades, but must give +/- grades too, such as A-, B+, etc.
唉...唉...唉...还有三周就要开学了，头儿批准了德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的一项改革：我们再也不能只给出“A”，“B”和“C”这样的成绩，而是要加上+或者-号，就像是A-，B+这样的。

With 600 students this fall, I can imagine a big change in griping.
这个学期学校有600个学生，我估计发牢骚这事儿也会有点变化。

One colleague says there will be less — because with less to argue over, each argument will be less heated. I say more there will be more; with more dividing points, more students think they’re on the edge of a better grade. The first effect is a negative change at the intensive margin, the second a positive change at the extensive margin.
一个同事说牢骚会少了……因为争辩的人少了，每次争辩也就不那么激烈了。我觉得牢骚会变多：因为划分点更多了，越来越多的学生们会觉得他们差一点儿就能取得更好的成绩了。第一个影响是就内涵（或深度）边际而言，牢骚减少了；第二个是就外延（或广度）边际而言，牢骚变多了¹。

The issue is analogous to the effect of some incentives on hours per worker (the intensive margin) or labor-force participation (the extensive margin). It’s similar too to the breakdown of the unemployment rate into the duration of unemployment spells and their incidence (number of people unemployed this year). The burden of workplace injuries also depends on their severity and number. In these other examples, the costs to society are greater if duration or severity increases than if the number affected rises.

这个问题类似于某种激励对每个工人的劳动时间（内涵边界）的效果， 或某种激励对劳动大军参予（外延边际）的效果。也类同于把失业率分解为每次失业持续时 间和失业发生次数（今年失业的人数）。工作场所工伤的负担也取决于各次工伤的严重程度和工伤的发生次数。在后面这些其他例子中，失业持续时间或者工伤严重 程度增加对社会负担成本的影响比失业发生次数或者工伤发生次数的增加要大。

With grading complaints, though, better for me would be a few very unhappy people rather than lots of smaller complaints.
对于打分的抱怨，我觉得一些人很不开心比很多人都有小小的牢骚来得好一些。

注释:

1.第一种效应是在内涵（或深度）边际上发生的负变化。 第二种效应是在外延（或广度）边际上发生的正变化。 (Eugene, 8月12日)

编辑手记:

* 热烈欢迎xy!

* 按Eugene的指导,对其中的两处进行了修改.(8月12日)

Man vs. Mutt

By THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Liying Zhu[译]

In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog.

过去几年，我有机会比较了英国人类和其他动物的医疗服务。总的来说，狗的待遇比人要好。

As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.

在英国，狗可以自己选择兽医，虽然我承认这必须通过中间人。如果不喜欢这个兽医，必要时可以捡起皮带，去其他地方。任何一个兽医都会马上看到，并会立即进行所需要的治疗，不会出现延误。狗无需排队等待，手术也不会因为后面还会有更重要的事情而被推迟，也不会出现因为其他狗或仓鼠来得早而要等上几年这样的骇人听闻的事。

 The conditions in which you receive your treatment are much more pleasant than British humans have to endure. For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; above all, the atmosphere is different. There is no tension, no feeling that one more patient will bring the whole system to the point of collapse, and all the staff go off with nervous breakdowns. In the waiting rooms, a perfect calm reigns; the patients’ relatives are not on the verge of hysteria, and do not suspect that the system is cheating their loved one, for economic reasons, of the treatment which he needs. The relatives are united by their concern for the welfare of each other’s loved one. They are not terrified that someone is getting more out of the system than they.

狗的医疗条件比英国人所要忍受的要好得多。首先，不用用在翻白浪的湍流里划独木舟者的技巧与官僚机构就技术进行谈判；最重要的是，气氛不同。这里没有紧张的氛围，不用担心再多一个病人就会使整个系统崩溃，使工作人员们精神失常。在候诊室里，一切都非常安静；病人们的亲属不会处于歇斯底里的边缘，不会怀疑这个系统是否出于经济原因在病人所需的治疗上欺骗他们深爱的人。亲属们因对彼此亲人的健康的担忧而团结起来。他们并不担心别人会比自己从这个系统中得到的更多。

The latter is the fear that also haunts Americans, at least those Americans who think of justice as equality in actual, tangible benefits. That is the ideological driving force of health-care reform in America. Without manifest and undeniable inequalities, the whole question would generate no passion, only dull technical proposals and counterproposals, reported sporadically on the inside pages of newspapers. I have never seen an article on the way veterinary services are arranged in Britain: it is simply not a question.

后者是担心，这也困扰着美国人，至少是那些认为正义就是在实际、有形利益方面大家平等的美国人。那是美国医改的意识形态驱动力。没有明显的、不可否认的不平等，整个问题将不会产生激情，只有枯燥的技术提议和反对意见，零星地出现在报纸的内页。我从未见过关于英国兽医服务的文章：这根本不是一个问题。

Nevertheless, there is one drawback to the superior care British dogs receive by comparison with that of British humans: they have to pay for it, there and then. By contrast, British humans receive health care that is free at the point of delivery. Of course, some dogs have had the foresight to take out insurance, but others have to pay out of their savings. Nevertheless, the iron principle holds: cash on delivery.

然而，与英国人相比，得到优越服务的英国狗也有一个不利条件：它们必须当场为此付费。相比之下，英国人接受医疗服务的那一时点是免费的。当然，一些有先见之明的狗已经采取了保险，但另外的就只能用储蓄进行支付。铁一般的原则仍存在：货到付款。

But what, I hear social philosophers and the shade of the late John Rawls cry, of British dogs that have no savings and cannot afford insurance? What happens to them? Are not British streets littered with canines expiring from preventable and treatable diseases, as American streets are said by Europeans to be littered with the corpses of the uninsured?

但是，但是，我听到社会哲学家们和已故约翰·罗尔斯幽灵的哭诉，没有储蓄又买不起保险的狗怎么办呢？在它们身上会发生什么事？英国大街上难道不是狗尸枕藉，尽管患可预防、可治疗的病却还是死去吗？ 就如被欧洲人称为满是未投保尸体的美国街道那样？

Strangely, no. This is not because there are no poor dogs; there are many. The fact is, however, that there is a charitable system of veterinary services, free at the point of delivery, for poor dogs, run by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, the PDSA. This is the dog’s safety net.

奇怪的是，没有。这不是因为没有穷狗；事实上有很多。实际上是因为有一个慈善兽医服务系统，它由患病动物的药房所运营，在交付时点提供免费服务。这是狗的安全网。

Honesty compels me to admit that the atmosphere in the PDSA rather resembles that in the National Health Service for British humans, and no dog would go there if he had the choice to go elsewhere. He has to wait and accept what he’s given; the attendants may be nice, or they may also be nasty, he has to take pot luck; and the other dogs who go there tend to be of a different type or breed, often of the fighting variety whose jaws once closed on, say, a human calf cannot be prised open except by decapitation. There is no denying that the PDSA is not as pleasant as private veterinary services; but even the most ferocious opponents of the National Health Service have not alleged that it fails to be better than nothing.

诚实迫使我承认，PDSA的气氛在一定程度上与给英国人提过的国家卫生服务相似，所以如果狗可以选择去其他地方，没有狗愿意去那儿。它不得不等待，并接受所给的服务；服务人员可能很友好，也可能很讨厌，这就要看它的运气了。其他去那儿的狗，往往类型不同或血统不同，而且常常是好战的种，狗嘴一旦咬住东西， 比方说，一个人的小腿，是再也松不开的，除非将狗头斩掉。
 不可否认，PDSA并不像私人兽医服务那么令人满意，但即使是国民医疗服务制度最凶猛的反对者也没有声称，没有PDSA比有更好。

What is the solution to the problem of some dogs receiving so much better, or at least more pleasant, care than others? Is it not a great injustice that, through no fault of their own, some dogs are treated in Spartan conditions while others, no better or more talented than they, are pampered with all the comforts that commerce can afford?

一些狗能得到比其他狗更好，至少更舒服的照顾，那么，如何解决这一问题呢？经过它们自己没有任何过错，一些狗受到的是斯巴达的待遇，而另一些没有比它们更好、更优秀的狗却享受着商业社会所能提供的所有舒适，这难道不是很不公平吗？

One solution to the problem of the injustice in the treatment of dogs would be for the government to set up an equalizing fund from which money would be dispensed, when necessary, to sick dogs, purely on the basis of need rather than by their ability to pay, though contributions to the fund would be assessed strictly on ability to pay.

狗的不公正待遇这一问题的一个解决方式，是由政府建立一个补偿基金，必要时，其中的钱分配给患病的狗，完全根据需要而不是支付能力分配，虽然资金的募集将严格按支付能力评估。

Of course, from the point of view of social justice as equality, it wouldn’t really matter whether the treatment meted out to dogs was good or bad, so long as it was equal. And, oddly enough, one of the things about the British National Health Service for human beings that has persuaded the British over its 60 years of existence that it is socially just is the difficulty and unpleasantness it throws in the way of patients, rich and poor alike: for equality has the connotation not only of justice, but of hardship and suffering. And, as everyone knows, it is easier to spread hardship equally than to disseminate blessings equally.

当然，从社会平等的角度来看，只要待遇平等，狗得到的治疗是好是坏并不真的重要。奇怪的是，为人类提供的英国国民医疗服务制度已经用它60年的存在说服英国人，它是社会公平的，无论对富人还是穷人，它给病人造成的麻烦和不快是一样的：平等的内涵不仅是公正，还有困难和痛苦。正如人人都知道的那样，公平地传播痛苦比公平地传播祝福要容易得多。

I hope I shall not be accused of undue asperity towards human nature when I suggest that the comparative efficiency and pleasantness of services for dogs by comparison with those for humans has something, indeed a great deal, to do with the exchange of money. This is not to say that it is only the commercial aspect of veterinary practice that makes it satisfactory: most vets genuinely like dogs at least as much as most doctors like people, and moreover they have a pride in professional standards that is independent of any monetary gain they might secure by maintaining them. But the fact that the money they receive might go elsewhere if they fail to satisfy surely gives a fillip to their resolve to satisfy.

如果我说，与人类接受的服务相比，为狗提供的服务的相对效率和愉悦确实与金钱交易有很大关系，希望我不会被指责为对人类的本性过于粗糙。这并不是说，仅仅是兽医实践的商业方面使服务令人满意；至少多数兽医爱狗像医生爱人一样，而且，他们在行业标准上有一种自豪感，这与他们维持标准所能获得的货币受人毫无关系。但是，如果没有达到标准，他们得到的钱可能会有所减少，这一事实也刺激了他们维持标准的决心。

And I mean no disrespect to the proper function of government when I say that government control, especially when highly centralized, can sap the will even of highly motivated people to do their best. No one, therefore, would seriously expect the condition of dogs in Britain to improve if the government took over veterinary care, and laid down what treatment dogs could and could not receive.

我并没有不尊重适当的政府职能的意思，但政府控制，尤其是高度集中的控制，会逐渐削弱人尽其能的愿望，包括最积极的人。因此，当政府接管兽医护理，并规定狗可以和不能接受哪些治疗时，没有人会真正期待狗在英国的待遇有所提高。

It might be objected, however, that Man, pace Professor Singer, is not a dog, and that therefore the veterinary analogy is not strictly a correct or relevant one. Health economics, after all, is an important and very complex science, if a somewhat dull one, indeed the most dismal branch of the dismal science. Who opens the pages of the New England Journal of Medicine to read, with a song in his heart, papers with titles such as ‘Collective Accountability for Medical Care—Toward Bundled Medicare Payments,’ or ‘Universal Coverage One Head at a Time—the Risks and Benefits of Individual Insurance Mandates’? On the whole, I’d as soon settle down to read the 110,000 pages of Medicare rules.

这可能会遭到反对，人并不是狗，因此，兽医类比严格意义上是不正确的或不相关的。毕竟，卫生经济学是重要的、非常复杂的科学，即使它有些枯燥，是最沉闷的科学中最沉闷的分支。有谁会哼着歌，打开新英格兰医学杂志，阅读题如《医疗保健的集体问责制——走向医疗保险支付捆绑》或《全体覆盖——个人保险的风险与利益》的文章？总的来说，我会尽快安顿下来去读110，000也医疗保险规则。

A few simple facts seem established, however, even in this contentious field. The United States spends a greater proportion of its gross domestic product on health care than any other advanced nation, yet the results, as measured by the health of the population overall, are mediocre. Even within the United States, there is no correlation between the amount spent on health care per capita and the actual health of the population upon which it is spent.

即使是在这有争议的领域，少数简单的例子似乎是成立的。美国在医疗保健上所花费的国内生产总值比例比任何一个发达国家都多，但以人口的健康状况来衡量，其结果是平庸的。即使在美国，用于人均医疗卫生的数额与人口的实际健康状况并不存在相关性。

The explanation usually given for this is that physicians have perverse incentives: they are paid by service or procedure rather than by results. As Bernard Shaw said, if you pay a man to cut off your leg, he will.

对这一事实解释通常是，医生们的激励机制不当：他们是按服务或程序，而不是结果收费。正如Bernard Shaw说的那样，如果你付钱让人切掉你的腿，他会这么做。

But the same is true in France, which not only spends a lesser proportion of its GDP on health care than the U.S. but has better results, as measured by life expectancy, and is in the unusual situation of allaying most of its citizens’ anxieties about health care. However, the French government is not so happy: chronically in deficit, the health-care system can be sustained only by continued government borrowing, which is already at a dangerously high level. The French government is in the situation, uncomfortable for that of any democracy, of having to reform, and even destroy, a system that everyone likes.

但是，法国在医疗上花费的国内生产总值比例比美国要少，以平均寿命衡量，却得到了更好的结果，并减轻了多数公民对医疗保健的忧虑，这是一种罕见的情况。然而，法国政府并不高兴：长期赤字，保健系统只能通过持续的政府借款得以维持，而政府借贷已经高到了一个危险的水平。法国政府的情况是对于任何民主、改革都不满，甚至会去破坏一个人人都喜欢的系统。

Across the Channel, there is very little that can be said in favor of a health system which is the most ideologically egalitarian in the western world. It supposedly allots health care independently of the ability to pay, and solely on the basis of clinical need; but not only are differences in the health of the rich and poor in Britain among the greatest in the western world, they are as great as they were in 1948, when health care was de facto nationalized precisely to bring about equalization. There are parts of Glasgow that have almost Russian levels of premature male death. Britain’s hospitals have vastly higher rates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (a measurement of the cleanliness of hospitals) than those of any other European country; and survival rates from cancer and cardiovascular disease are the lowest in the western world, and lower even than among the worst-off Americans.

横跨海峡，几乎很少有人支持在西方世界思想最平等的医疗系统。据称，它将完全根据临床需要，独立于支付能力来分配医疗保健；但英国富人和穷人健康状况的差异不仅仅在西方世界中是最大的，也与1948年时一样大，那时医疗改革实际上是为了实现平等化的国有化。有部分格拉斯的男性过早死亡水平与俄罗斯几乎相同。英国医院的耐甲养西林金葡菌（医院清洁度的衡量标准）大大高于欧洲其他国家的医院；其癌症和心血管病的生存率是西方世界中最低的，甚至比情况最糟的美国人还要低

Even here, though, there is a slight paradox. About three quarters of people die of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, and therefore seriously inferior rates of survival ought to affect life expectancy overall. And yet Britons do not have a lower life expectancy than all other Europeans; their life expectancy is very slightly higher than that of Americans, and higher than that of Danes, for example, who might be expected to have a very superior health-care system. Certainly, I would much rather be ill in Denmark than in Britain, whatever the life expectancy statistics.

即使在这里，也有轻微的矛盾。大约四分之三的人死于心血管疾病和癌症，低生存率会影响整体的平均寿命。但英国人的平均寿命并不比其他欧洲人低；他们的平均寿命略高于美国人，且高于一直被认为享受高级医疗保健系统的丹麦人。当然，无论平均寿命统计如何，我宁愿在丹麦生病，而不是在英国。

Perhaps this suggests that there is less at stake in the way health-care systems are organized and funded, at least as far as life expectancy is concerned (not an unimportant measure, after all), than is sometimes supposed. Or perhaps it suggests that the relationship of the health-care system to the actual health of people in societies numbering many millions is so complex that it is difficult to identify factors with any degree of certainty.

也许这表明，医疗保健系统的组成和筹资并没有有时设想的那么危险，至少就平均寿命而言（毕竟这不是一个毫不重要的标准）。或者，这表明，医疗保健系统与人们实际健康状况的关系是非常复杂的，以至于很难以任何程度的确定性来辨别一些因素。

In the New England Journal of Medicine for July 3, 2008, we read the bald statement that ‘Medicare’s projected spending growth is unsustainable.’ But in the same journal on Jan. 24, 2008, under the title ‘The Amazing Noncollapsing U.S. Health Care System’ we had read that ‘For roughly 40 years, health care professionals, policy-makers, politicians, and the public have concurred that the system is careening towards collapse because it is indefensible and unsustainable, a study in crisis and chaos. This forecast appeared soon after Medicare and Medicaid were enacted and have never retreated. Such disquieting continuity amid changes raises an intriguing question: If the consensus was so incontestable, why has the system not already collapsed?’

在2008年7月3日的《新英格兰医学杂志》中，我们可以看到一个明显的陈述——医疗保健制度所计划的开销增长是不可持续的。但2008年1月24日，同样是这本杂志，在一篇题为《惊人的、不会崩溃的美国医疗保障系统》中，我们读到“大约四十年来，医护专业人员、决策者、政治家和公众一致认为，这个系统正在走向崩溃，因为它是站不住脚的、不可持续的，是危机和混乱中的一次试验。这个预测在医疗保险和医疗补助颁布后很快就出现了，并且从未回落过。这种处于变化中的令人不安的连续性引发了一个有趣的问题：既然共识是如此不可争议，这个系统为什么到现在还没有崩溃呢？”

The fact that collapse has not occurred in 40 years does not, of course, mean that it will not collapse tomorrow. The fact that a projection is not a prediction works in all directions: prolonged survival does not mean eternal survival, any more than a growth in the proportion of GDP devoted to health care means that, eventually, the entire GDP must be spent on health care.

当然，该系统在四十年内未崩溃这一事实并不意味着明天它不会崩溃。预言并不能预测各个方面：延长的生存并不意味着永恒的生存，任何国内生产总值用于医疗保健比例的增长并不意味着，最终，整个国内生产总值必须用于医疗保健。

Therefore I, who have no solution to my own health-care problems, let alone those of the United States, say only, beware of health-care economists bearing statistics that prove the inevitability of their own solutions. I mistrust the fact that, while those people who work for commercial companies (rightly) have to declare their interests in writing in medical journals, those who work for governmental agencies do not do so: as if government agencies had not interests of their own, and worked only for the common good.

因此，作为一个尚不能解决自己医疗保健问题的人，我不干涉美国的医保问题，只想说，要小心那些证明自己方法的必要性的医保经济学家们。我不相信，为商业公司工作的那些人不得不在医学杂志上写文章来获得他们的利益，而那些在政府机构工作的人却不用这么做：好像政府机构自身并无任何利益，只是单纯为了共同利益。

The one kind of reform that America should avoid is one that is imposed uniformly upon the whole country, with a vast central bureaucracy. No nation in the world is more fortunate than America in its suitability for testing various possible solutions. The federal government should concern itself very little in health care arrangements, and leave it almost entirely to the states. I don’t want to provoke a new war of secession but surely this is a matter of states’ rights. All judgment, said Doctor Johnson, is comparative; and while comparisons of systems as complex as those of health care are never definitive or indisputable, it is possible to make reasonable global judgments: that the French system is better than the British or Dutch, for example. Only dictators insist they know all the answers in advance of experience. Let 100—or, in the case of the U.S., 50—flowers bloom.

美国应避免的一种改革，是通过庞大的中央官僚机构，统一强加于整个国家的改革。就适合于试验各种可能的解决方法而言，世界上没有哪个国家比美国更幸运。联邦政府应少关注医疗卫生的安排，把这个问题完完全全交给州政府处理。我不想挑起一场新的内战，但这确实关乎各州的权利。约翰逊博士曾说过，所有的判断都是相对的；当像医疗保健一样复杂系统的比较是从未明确的、不可争议的时，就可能作出合理的全球性判断：例如，法国医保系统比英国或丹麦好。只有专制者坚持，他们在体验前就知道所有答案。在这个问题上，让百花齐放吧，或者说，就美国而言，五十朵花齐放。

Selfishly, no doubt, I continue to measure the health-care system where I live by what I want for myself and those about me.

毫无疑问，我将继续自私地以我自己想要的为标准来衡量我所居住的地方的医保系统。

And what I want, at least for that part of my time that I spend in England, is to be a dog. I also want, wherever I am, the Americans to go on paying for the great majority of the world’s progress in medical research and technological innovation by the preposterous expense of their system: for it is a truth universally acknowledged that American clinical research has long reigned supreme, so overall, the American health-care system must have been doing something right. The rest of the world soon adopts the progress, without the pain of having had to pay for it.

我想要的，至少是我在英国这段时间想要的，是做一只狗。无论我身在何处，我还希望美国人能通过他们医保系统荒谬的支出，继续支付世界医疗研究和技术革新的绝大多数费用：因为美国的临床研究长期以来都处于最领先的地位，这是举世公认的，所以，总的来说，美国的医保系统一直以来一定有其明智之处。世界其他国家很快就能获得进步，同时无需为此支付任何费用。

—Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of Anthony Daniels, a British physician.

—Theodore Dalrymple是一位英国医生Anthony Daniels的笔名

编辑手记：

* 按Eugene意见，对其中的一句误译进行了修改，postpone句。（8月11日）

* 接到Eugene来信,其中的五句译文进行了修改.(8月12日)

* 附来信如下:

1) For one thing, there is no bureaucracy to be negotiated with the skill of a white-water canoeist; 原译： 首先，不用与官僚机构就技术进行谈判

评论： 这句没有译出with the skill of a white-water canoeist. 用在翻白浪的湍流里划独木舟者的技巧（与官僚主义周旋）

2）at least those Americans who think of justice as equality in actual, tangible benefits. 原译：至少是那些认为公平就是实际利益的平等的美国人。

评论： 这句没有译出justice as equality in actual, tangible benefits这个重要的定义： 何谓正义（justice）, 正义就是平等（equality）。 哪个方面的平等？在实际的、有形的利益方面的平等。

重译：至少是那些认为正义就是在实际、有形利益方面大家平等的美国人。

3）But what, I hear social philosophers and the shade of the late John Rawls cry, of British dogs that have no savings and cannot afford insurance?

重译：但是，我听到社会哲学家们和已故约翰·罗尔斯幽灵的哭诉，没有储蓄又买不起保险的狗怎么办呢？

4）Are not British streets littered with canines expiring from preventable and treatable diseases?

原译：英国大街上难道不是狗尸枕藉，尽管患可预防、可治疗的病却还是死去吗？

5）and the other dogs who go there tend to be of a different type or breed, often of the fighting variety whose jaws once closed on, say, a human calf cannot be prised open except by decapitation.

重译：其他去那儿的狗，往往类型不同或血统不同，而且常常是好战的种，狗嘴一旦咬住东西， 比方说，一个人的小腿，是再也松不开的，除非将狗头斩掉。
 
 
 
 
 

A Missed Opportunity on Climate Change

By N. GREGORY MANKIW

Qianlaoda[译]

DURING the presidential campaign of 2008, Barack Obama distinguished himself on the economics of climate change, speaking far more sensibly about the issue than most of his rivals. Unfortunately, now that he is president, Mr. Obama may sign a climate bill that falls far short of his aspirations. Indeed, the legislation making its way to his desk could well be worse than nothing at all.

在2008年总统竞选活动中，奥巴马把自己树立为一位关注“气候变化经济学”的出色领袖，在讨论这个问题时，他的言论，要比其对手，来得远为通情达理得多。事有不幸，现在他已经大权在握了，可是，他所签署的气候法案，却远远不能满足他的雄心大愿。实际上，送上他案头的那份法案，比什么法案都没有，还要来得更加糟糕一些。

Let’s start with the basics. The essential problem of climate change, scientists tell us, is that humans are emitting too much carbon into the atmosphere, which tends to raise world temperatures. Emitting carbon is what economists call a “negative externality”— an adverse side effect of certain market activities on bystanders.

我们先来讲点基础知识吧。科学家们说，气候变化问题的本质在于：人们向大气中排放的二氧化碳，超量了，它会导致全球气温上升。排放二氧化碳这个事，就是经济学家们所说的“负外部性”——即：某种经济活动，对局外人产生了不利的负面影响。

The textbook solution for dealing with negative externalities is to use the tax system to align private incentives with social costs and benefits. Suppose the government imposed a tax on carbon-based products and used the proceeds to cut other taxes. People would have an incentive to shift their consumption toward less carbon-intensive products. A carbon tax is the remedy for climate change that wins overwhelming support among economists and policy wonks.

对于所有的“负外部性”，经济学教科书中给出了相应的解决方案，即：利用税收体系，来协调私人激励与社会成本（和社会收益）。假设政府对二氧化碳的产品以及生产过程收税，并用新增收入来减少其它的税收。人们就有消费激励，转而消费那些二氧化碳较少的产品。二氧化碳税，就是对气候变化的一个补救方法，经济学家和政治家们都给予了极大的拥护。

When he was still a candidate, Mr. Obama did not exactly endorse a carbon tax. He wanted to be elected, and embracing any tax that hits millions of middle-class voters is not a recipe for electoral success. But he did come tantalizingly close.

当奥巴马还是总统候选人时，他确实没有为二氧化碳税背书。他想的是当选，所以，他知道，绝不能支持那些影响数百万中产阶级选民的税收，那可不是竞争成功的法宝。但是，他所提出的法案，也与“税收”差不离。

What Mr. Obama proposed was a cap-and-trade system for carbon, with all the allowances sold at auction. In short, the system would put a ceiling on the amount of carbon released, and companies would bid on the right to emit carbon into the atmosphere.

奥巴马所提出的方案，是二氧化碳的“定额排放与交易系统”，所有的配额都以拍卖的形式出售。简言之，这个系统，对二氧化碳的排放量，设置了一个上限，那些获得配额排放权的公司，可以向大气中排放二氧化碳。

Such a system is tantamount to a carbon tax. The auction price of an emission right is effectively a tax on carbon. The revenue raised by the auction gives the government the resources to cut other taxes that distort behavior, like income or payroll taxes.

这个系统等价于二氧化碳税。排放权的拍卖价格，等同于对二氧化碳进行征税的效果。由拍卖所获得的收入，使政府获得了资源，可以来削减像收入税或工资税这种扭曲人们行为的其他税收。

So far, so good. The problem occurred as this sensible idea made the trip from the campaign trail through the legislative process. Rather than auctioning the carbon allowances, the bill that recently passed the House would give most of them away to powerful special interests.

故事到这里，还是不错的。当这样的一个合情合理的观念，从竞选轨道，进入到立法过程时，问题就出现了。国会最近通过的这个法案，并没有对二氧化碳配额进行拍卖，大部分内容都屈从于有权有势的特殊利益团体。

The numbers involved are not trivial. From Congressional Budget Office estimates, one can calculate that if all the allowances were auctioned, the government could raise $989 billion in proceeds over 10 years. But in the bill as written, the auction proceeds are only $276 billion.

这里所涉及的数字，不能等闲视之。从国会预算办公室的估计可以算出，如果进行了配额拍卖，那么，政府在10年中，可以获得9890亿美元的收入。但是，现在的书面法案中，拍卖收入仅为2760亿美元。

Mr. Obama understood these risks. When asked about a carbon tax in an interview in July 2007, he said: “I believe that, depending on how it is designed, a carbon tax accomplishes much of the same thing that a cap-and-trade program accomplishes. The danger in a cap-and-trade system is that the permits to emit greenhouse gases are given away for free as opposed to priced at auction. One of the mistakes the Europeans made in setting up a cap-and-trade system was to give too many of those permits away.”

奥巴马是知道这些风险的。在2007年7月的一次讨论二氧化碳税的访谈中，他说道：“我认为，二氧化碳税，如果设计得不错，那么，它可以实现定额排放和交易系统所实现的大部分工作。定额排放和交易系统的危险在于：温室气体的排放许可证是无偿给予的，这是截然不同于拍卖定价的地方。欧洲在设计定额排放和交易系统的时候，所犯的一个错误，就是无偿排放许可证给得太多了。”

Congress is now in the process of sending President Obama a bill that makes exactly this mistake.

国会现在报送给奥巴马总统的这个法案，所犯的错误，与欧洲是一模一样的。

How much does it matter? For the purpose of efficiently allocating the carbon rights, it doesn’t. Even if these rights are handed out on political rather than economic grounds, the “trade” part of “cap and trade” will take care of the rest. Those companies with the most need to emit carbon will buy carbon allowances on newly formed exchanges. Those without such pressing needs will sell whatever allowances they are given and enjoy the profits that resulted from Congress’s largess.

事关重大，那么，重大到何种程度呢？就有效分配二氧化碳权的目标而言，它是不行的。即使这些权利是按照政治基础进行分配，而不是按照经济基础来分配，“定额与交易”的“交易”部分，也要管剩余的部分。那些最需要二氧化碳排放的企业，就会按照新形成的交易方式来购买二氧化碳配额。那些没有如此紧迫需求的企业，就会出售它们所获得的配额，从而享受国会这份大礼所带来的利润。

The problem arises in how the climate policy interacts with the overall tax system. As the president pointed out, a cap-and-trade system is like a carbon tax. The price of carbon allowances will eventually be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for carbon-intensive products. But if most of those allowances are handed out rather than auctioned, the government won’t have the resources to cut other taxes and offset that price increase. The result is an increase in the effective tax rates facing most Americans, leading to lower real take-home wages, reduced work incentives and depressed economic activity.

气候政策与税收的整体体系之间的相互作用，也存在问题。正如奥巴马总统所指出的，定额排放与交易系统，与二氧化碳税是相似的。二氧化碳配额的价格，最终都将在消费者消费“二氧化碳相关的产品”时以更高的价格，转嫁给消费者。但是，如果那些配额的大部分是以“配给”而非“拍卖”的形式，给予企业，那么，政府也就不能获得收入，来削减其他税收了，也就不能抵偿价格增长。其结果就是：美国人的有效税率将会上升，实际装进口袋的工资就会降低，工作激励也会降低，从而压抑经济活动。

The hard question is whether, on net, such a policy is good or bad. Here you can find policy wonks on both sides. To those who view climate change as an impending catastrophe and the distorting effects of the tax system as a mere annoyance, an imperfect bill is better than none at all. To those not fully convinced of the enormity of global warming but deeply worried about the adverse effects of high current and prospective tax rates, the bill is a step in the wrong direction.

最困难的问题在于：正负抵消之后，这个法案是好还是坏？你会发现存在两种观点的政治家。一类政治家，他们觉得气候变化是一个迫在眉睫的大灾难，而税收体系的扭曲效应只是不痛不痒的小麻烦，那么，一个不完美的法案，总是聊胜于无的。对于那些并不全信“全球变暖罪恶”、但却深深担心当前及以后高税率的负面效应的政治家们来说，这个法案是迈向错误方向的一步。

What everyone should agree on is that the legislation making its way through Congress is a missed opportunity. President Obama knows what a good climate bill would look like. But despite his immense popularity and personal charisma, he appears unable to persuade Congress to go along.

每一个人都应该认识到的，就是：国会所进行的立法，是一个错失的良机。奥巴马总统知道一个好的气候法案究竟是什么样子。但是，虽然他受到了广泛的民众欢迎，虽然他有着个人魅力，但是，他似乎还不能说服国会按照“好法案”的样子去做。

As for me, I hope the president refuses to sign a bill that fails to auction most of the allowances. Some might say a veto would make the best the enemy of the good. But sometimes good is not good enough.

就我个人而言，我希望奥巴马拒绝签署那个“不能对大部分配额进行拍卖”的法案。也许有人会说否决这个方案，就是使至善者成为善之敌，好高骛远反而成就有限。但是，有时，行善者的善行还不够。

注释：

1.《纽约时报》August 8, 2009

2.对此文章的回应,出现了克鲁格曼的博客上.concern trolls(以貌似支持的态度进入对方阵营，却试图改变对方总体目标的一种论坛现象。见wiki）

Concern trolls

试图诱使政府放弃决策的两个经济学家

克鲁格曼

A brief thought, linking two people: Robert Samuelson and Greg Mankiw.

一个简单的想法,将两个人联系在一起:Robert Samuelson和Greg Mankiw.

Both enjoy lecturing us on the need to take strong action — Samuelson demanding that we do something about rising health care spending, Mankiw that we join the “Pigou club” by taxing oil consumption.

这二位都喜欢教导我们，说我们需要采取更强劲的行动——Samuelson说“我们要采取行动来提高健康保障支出”，Mankiw说“我们要加入庇古社，要对燃油消费进行征税”。

But both can reliably be counted on to reject any actual proposal along these lines that either (a) has any chance whatsoever of becoming legislation or (b) is proposed by Democrats.

但是，可以确定的是，他们二位都一定会在有任何一丝立法机会以及由民主党提出的任何方案上，持坚定的反对态度。

Just saying.

我也就是说说而已。

编辑手记：

* 在注释里补充了克鲁格曼的一个评论.(8月13日）

Saturday, August 08, 2009

楠塔基特的经济衰退

Liying Zhu[译]

I am vacationing now with my family on Nantucket, the 17th year we've been coming out to this beautiful island. The economy here reflects what is going on in the rest of the nation:

我正和我的家人在楠塔基特度假，这是我们第十七年来这个美丽的岛屿。这里的经济反映了整个国家其余地方的情况。

New construction averaged over 200 houses per year until the slowdown started in 2006, providing a high level of income and steady year-round employment in the construction trades.... In 2007 the annual rate was slower than in recent years, at 127. The construction slowdown continued in 2008, with just 64 new homes, the lowest number since building permits were first required in 1972. Thus far in 2009 the rate is less than half that of last year, with 12 permits issued through June.

在2006年经济开始减缓前，新建筑以平均每年200幢新房的速度增长，为建筑业提供了高水平的收入和稳定的全年就业…2007年新房子的年增长率就前面几年放缓，为127。2008年，建筑继续放缓，仅为64幢新房，这是自1972年需要建筑许可证后的最低水平。迄今为止，2009年的比率不到去年同期的一半，六月只发放了12个许可证。

编辑手记:

* 按Eugene评论,对其中的一句误译进行了修改.(8月12日)

                                                              Career Advice

                                                                 职业建议

                                                                  Kucha[译]

I agree with Hal:

我同意Hal

“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.”

Google的首席经济学家Hal Varian说：“我一直在强调，未来十年最吃香的工作就是统计师。而且我不是在跟你开玩笑！”

                                                             What I've been up to

                                                                    吾往为何

                                                                Billie Jean[译]

I went to a great Jason Mraz concert last night. (Great, that is, except for the loud, drunken couple with seats directly behind us--talk about negative externalities!) If you don't know who Jason Mraz is, click here.

 昨日夕，吾往听Jason Mraz之乐音，（其乐甚妙，呜呼，唯坐乎吾后之夫妇酩酊聒噪者——其竟论负外部性也！)。若汝尚不知Jason Mraz为何人者，即击于此。

But the real surprise of the night was an excellent warm-up act, K'Naan.

 然则，昨夕K'Naan之预演，实令吾惊喜之。

Obama's Plan Isn't the Answer¹

Martin Feldstein²[著]

曼昆[推荐]

qianlaoda[译]

For the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, the Obama health plan is bad news. It means higher taxes, less health care and no protection if they lose their current insurance because of unemployment or early retirement.

对于那些已有了健康保险的美国人来说，奥巴马的健康保险计划对其中的85%的人就是一个不好的消息。它意味着税负提高了；健康保障减少了；而且，如果因为失业或早退而失去了当前的保险，那么，他们就失去了保护了。

President Obama's primary goal is to extend formal health insurance to those low-income individuals who are currently uninsured despite the nearly $300-billion-a-year Medicaid program. Doing so the Obama way would cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. There surely must be better and less costly ways to improve the health and health care of that low-income group.

尽管已经有了一个一年近3000亿美元的“医疗救助”（Medicaid）的项目，但是，奥巴马总统的主要目标，却是将“正式健康保险”推及那些目前没有保险的低收入者。这个方案，在未来十年中，将要耗费一万亿美元。其实，要提高低收入群体的健康和健康保障，还有很多方法比这个更好，也比这个更便宜。

Although the president claims he can finance the enormous increase in costs by raising taxes only on high-income individuals, tax experts know that this won't work. Experience shows that raising the top income-tax rate from 35 percent today to more than 45 percent -- the effect of adding the proposed health surcharge to the increase resulting from letting the Bush tax cuts expire for high-income taxpayers -- would change the behavior of high-income individuals in ways that would shrink their taxable incomes and therefore produce less revenue. The result would be larger deficits and higher taxes on the middle class. Because of the unprecedented deficits forecast for the next decade, this is definitely not a time to start a major new spending program.

虽然总统声称，他可以通过只向高收入者增税，来为这个巨额增加的成本进行融资，但是，税收专家却知道这个方法行不通。经验说明：将高收入者的税率从今天的35%提高到45%以上（这个效应，就是对高收入者的“新增可税部分”进行多征，它源于取消布什总统对高收入者的减税），这将改变高收入者的行为方式，将使他们的可税收入缩水，因而减少财政收入。这也将导致更大的赤字，导致对中产阶级的税收提高。未来十年将面临着前所未有的赤字预期，因此，现在绝不能开始新的大型支出项目。

A second key goal of the Obama health plan is to slow the growth of health-care spending. The president's budget calls explicitly for cutting Medicare to help pay for the expanded benefits for low-income individuals. But the administration's goal is bigger than that. It is to cut dramatically the amount of health care that we all consume.

奥巴马健康保险计划的第二个重要目标，就是降低健康保障费用的增速。总统的预算，明显就是要削减Medicare（医保），从而能够为低收入者所增加的福利买单。但是，政府的目标还不只是这样。它的目标是大幅削减所有的人能消费的健康保障数量。

A recent report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers claims that the government can cut the projected level of health spending by 15 percent over the next decade and by 30 percent over the next 20 years. Although the reduced spending would result from fewer services rather than lower payments to providers, we are told that this can be done without lowering the quality of care or diminishing our health. I don't believe it.

白宫CEA最新的一份报告说：政府要在未来十年中，将健康支付的目标水平降低15%，在未来20年降低30%。虽然费用的降低，将来源于提供更少的服务，而不是减少给医疗服务提供者的支付，但是，他们却说：可以不降低服务质量，或不损害人们的健康，来实现这个目标。我对此表示怀疑。

To support their claim that costs can be radically reduced without adverse effects, the health planners point to the fact that about half of all hospital costs are for patients in the last year of life. I don't find that persuasive. Do doctors really know which of their very ill patients will benefit from expensive care and which will die regardless of the care they receive? In a world of uncertainty, many of us will want to hope that care will help.

他们的说法是“成本巨幅削减且无负面效应”。这种说法要成立的话，那么，保健方案的计划者就是在说：“在过去的一年里，近半的医院费用，为病人费用。”我觉得这是没有说服力的。医生真的知道哪一个危重病号会从昂贵的治疗中得益吗？真的知道哪一个病号无论获得何种治疗也会死亡吗？在一个不确定性的世界里，我们许多人想的都是去使用医疗保障。

We are also often told that patients in Minnesota receive many fewer dollars of care per capita than patients in New York and California without adverse health effects. When I hear that, I wonder whether we should cut back on care, as these experts advocate, move to Minnesota, or wish we had the genetic stock of Minnesotans.

我们经常听说,明尼苏达州的病人,比纽约和加州的病人,得到的人均医保的钱，要少很多,而且,没有负面的健康效应。我听到这句话的时候，就想，我们是否应该像这些专家所建议的，降低医保，移居明尼苏达，或者，像他们说的，拥有明尼苏达祖先。

The administration's health planners believe that the new "cost effectiveness research" will allow officials to eliminate wasteful spending by defining the "appropriate" care that will be paid for by the government and by private insurance. Such a constrained, one-size-fits-all form of medicine may be necessary in some European health programs in which the government pays all the bills. But Americans have shown that we prefer to retain a diversity of options and the ability to choose among doctors, hospitals and standards of care.

政府的健康保障计划者相信：新的“成本有效性研究”可以通过对由政府和私人保险公司来支付的“适当”保健进行界定，从而使政府消除那些浪费性支出。这种全民统一规格的医疗方式，在一些全部由政府来买单的欧洲国家的健康项目中，可能是必要的。但是，美国人表示：我们倾向于保有选择多样性，保有对医生、医院和医疗标准的选择能力。

At a time when medical science offers the hope of major improvements in the treatment of a wide range of dread diseases, should Washington be limiting the available care and, in the process, discouraging medical researchers from developing new procedures and products? Although health care is much more expensive than it was 30 years ago, who today would settle for the health care of the 1970s?

现在的世界，医学已经给人们带来了希望，可治愈的重症的数量，已经大范围地取得了巨大的提高。那么，华府还要限制人们所获得的治疗手段吗？而且，在这个过程中，还要限制医学研究人员去研发新的治疗手段和药品吗？虽然保健费用比三十年前要贵得很多，但是，今天，有谁还会满足于1970年代的治疗方法呢？

Obama has said that he would favor a British-style "single payer" system in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are salaried but that he recognizes that such a shift would be too disruptive to the health-care industry. The Obama plan to have a government insurance provider that can undercut the premiums charged by private insurers would undoubtedly speed the arrival of such a single-payer plan. It is hard to think of any other reason for the administration to want a government insurer when there is already a very competitive private insurance market that could be made more so by removing government restrictions on interstate competition.

奥巴马说，他喜欢英国那样的“单一支付者”体系，即：政府拥有医院，医生靠工资吃饭，但是，他也承认，这种转变，将破坏美国这样的医保产业。奥巴马计划建立一个“政府的保险提供者”，这就可以削减私人保险人所获得的保费，无疑，这也将使得这种单一支付者的计划更早地到来。现在，早已有了一个具有较高竞争程度的保险市场，我们可以去除政府的“州际竞争”限制，从而使竞争程度更进一步地提高；我想不出有什么理由让政府来制造一个政府保险人。

There is much that can be done to improve our health-care system, but the Obama plan is not the way to do it. One helpful change that could be made right away is fixing the COBRA system so that middle-income households that lose their insurance because of early retirement or a permanent layoff are not deterred by the cost of continuing their previous coverage.

要改进我们的医保体系，可以做很多事，但是，奥巴马的方案，却不是正确的方法。我们现在马上可以做的一个有用的事，就是修正COBRA体系，这样，那些因为早退或永久下岗从而失去了保险的中产阶级家庭，就不会因为需要成本来保住他们先前的保险而被挡在门外了。

Now that congressional leaders have made it clear that Obama will not see health legislation until at least the end of the year, the president should look beyond health policy and turn his attention to the problems that are impeding our economic recovery.

既然国会领袖们已经说明了：奥巴马方案，只能到今年的年底，才可以开始保健立法，那么，总统总该看到保健政策之外的东西，总该转过头来，看看那些阻止我们经济复苏的问题了。

注释：

1．华盛顿邮报，July 28, 2009。

2．Jeff Frankel对Martin Feldstein的一个观点进行过总结，克鲁格曼在博客中引用了（网易的克鲁格曼中文博客8月4日）：

译文

马丁·费尔德斯坦和其他人，预言：“2009年的财政刺激方案的减税部分，在扩张性的单位美元效果上，比该方案的支出部分，要小一些；这是因为大部分减掉的税，会变成储蓄，就像2008年的减税情形一样。（这个情形中的“单位美元效果”，可以定义为‘需求刺激与预算成本相除之后的商’。）从米尔顿·弗里德曼的永久收入假设，甚至从那个有用的很古老的凯恩斯需求乘数理论中，就可以知道这个结论。”

原文

Martin Feldstein and others predicted that the tax-cut component of the 2009 fiscal stimulus package would have substantially less expansionary bang-for-the-buck than the spending component of the package, because much of the tax cut would be saved, as had been the case with the 2008 tax cut. (“Bang for the buck” in this case could be defined as demand stimulus divided by budget cost.) We knew this from Milton Friedman’s permanent income hypothesis, or even from good old Keynesian multiplier theory.

Monday, August 03, 2009

                                     Health Reform: Simple or Not?

                                                    Liying Zhu[译]

Contrast the commentary of Paul Krugman and Keith Hennessey.

比较保罗·克鲁格曼和基思·亨尼西的评论。

To Paul, the administration's health plan is simple and straightforward. To Keith, it is a nonstarter.

保罗认为，政府的医疗卫生计划是简单明了的，而基思则认为这是不可取的。

Why do these two smart commentators reach such opposite conclusions? The difference, I think, is that Paul is mainly concerned with universal coverage and is happy to put off concerns about the government budget constraint to another day. Keith is focused on how the reforms will be paid for and, in particular, with the administration's claims that a major goal of health reform is to put the government on a more sustainable fiscal path.

这两位聪明的评论家为什么会得出完全相反的结论呢？我认为，两者的观点之所以不同，是因为保罗关心的主要是广泛的覆盖范围，因而¹乐意推迟考虑政府预算约束的问题。而基思关注的重点是如何支付这项改革，尤其在政府声称，医疗卫生改革的一个主要目的是使政府走上可持续财政道路的情况下。

Update: Recent polling shows that the Krugman-Hennessey divide is representative of the nation more broadly and that more Americans are siding with Keith:

更新：最新的民调显示：将美国划分为克鲁格曼派和亨尼塞派，是代表了美国人的大部分倾向的；而且它还显示：更多的美国人支持亨尼塞的观点：

There is a huge partisan gap on perceptions of the U.S. health care system. Seven-out-of-10 Republicans rate it as good or excellent, but only one-of-four Democrats agree. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 53% rate the current system as good or excellent while just 18% say it’s poor.

对于健康保障体系，美国人的看法，有很大差异。十分之七的共和党人，和四分之一的民主党人，认为当前体系不错或极佳。在那些非主流党派人士中，53%的人认为极佳，只有18%的人认为极差。

Over the past few months, as the health care reform debate has raged, confidence in the current system has increased significantly among Republicans and unaffiliated voters. There has been little change among Democrats.

在过去几个月中，随着健康保障改革的讨论日益升温，在共和党人和非主流派中，对当前体系的信心，有明显的上升。民主党人几乎没有变化。

Just 28% say they are willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans can have health insurance. Sixty percent (60%) are opposed. Those figures are little changed since May.

只有28%的人说，他们愿意支付更高的税收，以使全部美国人都可以获得健康保险。60%的人持完全相反的态度。自五月以来，这些数据几乎没有变化。

Recent polling has shown that cost, not universal coverage, is the top concern about health care.

最新的民调表明：人们最关心的健康保障问题，是成本，而不是全民覆盖率。

注释：

1. 按Eugene的解释：““见吴莹词典p46, and 可表示结果。 其中有例句 He fell and cut his knee. = He fell, as a result, he cut his knee.同一个释义下还有一个例句： Do that once more and I'll skin you alive. = If you do that once more, then I'll skin you alive. 这个例句中的and 连接条件从句， 不应放在这里。 请注意。"

编辑手记：

* 根据曼昆英文版增加了“更新”的部分（qianlaoda，8月5日）

*  修改了其中的一个译文(8月5日）

Trust

 qianlaoda[译]

In a post on healthcare, Paul Krugman makes this observation:

保罗·克鲁格曼，在一篇讨论保健体系的博文中，有如下的议论¹：

You could rely on a health maintenance organization to make the hard choices and do the cost management, and to some extent we do. But HMOs have been highly limited in their ability to achieve cost-effectiveness because people don’t trust them — they’re profit-making institutions, and your treatment is their cost. [Emphasis in the original.]

你可以依赖某个保健组织，让它来帮你来做选择，让它来进行成本管理，在一定程度上，我们就是这样做的。但是，这些保健组织（health maintenance organization），在实现成本效率这个问题上，能力极其有限，因为人们不相信它们——这些组织都是牟利机构，你的治疗就是他们的成本。[强调句，原文如此。]

Paul's comment got me thinking. Perhaps a lot of the disagreement over healthcare reform, and maybe other policy issues as well, stems from the fundamental question of what kind of institutions a person trusts. Some people are naturally skeptical of profit-seeking firms; others are naturally skeptical of government. (There is, of course, the issue that an HMO can be run as a nonprofit organization. The one I use through Harvard is an example. But let's put that issue aside for another day.)

克鲁格曼的议论，惹我深思。可能，保健体系改革上的大量分歧（也许其它的政策问题也是如此），都源于“人们相信何种机构”这个基本问题。有些人天生地对牟利企业持怀疑态度；其他人则天生地怀疑政府。（当然，也有以一个非盈利组织来运行的保健组织的情形。我在哈佛使用的这个保健组织，就是一个例证。但是，让我们先把它放在一边，改天再来讨论。）

I tend to distrust power unchecked by competition. This makes me particularly suspicious of federal policies that take a strong role in directing private decisions. I am much more willing to have state and local governments exercise power in a variety of ways than for the federal government to undertake similar actions. I can more easily move to another state or town than to another nation. (I am not good with languages.)

我对于不受竞争约束的权力，具有不信任的倾向。这种倾向，使我对积极引导私人决策的联邦政策，持特别的怀疑态度。我更愿意让州政府和地方政府以多种方式来实施权力，而不愿意联邦政府采取相似的行动。让我移居到另一个州或另一个镇，会比让我移居海外，更容易一点。（我没有多国语言的天分。）

Most private organizations have some competitors, and this fact makes me more comfortable interacting with them. If Harvard is a bad employer, I can move to Princeton or Yale, and this knowledge keeps Harvard in line. To be sure, we need a government-run court system to enforce contracts, prevent fraud, and preserve honest competition. But it is fundamentally competition among private organizations that I trust.

大多数私人组织都有一些竞争对手，这使我在与它们打交道时，更觉宽慰一些。如果哈佛是一个不好的雇主，我就可以转到普林斯顿或耶鲁去，这种认识对哈佛形成了约束。确实，我们需要政府主持的法院体系，来实施合约、防范欺诈、维护诚实竞争。但是，本质上，正是私人组织之间的竞争，才是我信任的。

This philosophical inclination most likely influences my views of the healthcare debate. The more power a centralized government authority asserts, the more worried I am that the power will be misused either purposefully or, more likely, because of some well-intentioned but mistaken social theory. I prefer reforms that set up rules of the game but end up with power over key decisions as decentralized as possible.

我所具有的这种哲学倾向，很可能影响了我在医疗保障问题上的看法。一个集权政府所拥有的权力最大，我就越担心这种权力的误用（或者是有意误用，或者更可能地，是因为某种用意不错但根本错误的社会理论而造成误用）。我所偏好的改革是：它制定了游戏规则，但是，却以“在关键决策上尽可能地分权”而告终。

What puzzles me is that Paul seems so ready to trust solutions that give a large role to the federal government. (In the past, for instance, he has advocated a single payer for healthcare.) I understand that trust of centralized authority is common among liberals. But here is the part that puzzles me: Over the past eight years, Paul has tried to convince his readers that Republicans are stupid and venal. History suggests that Republicans will run the government about half the time. Does he really want to turn control of healthcare half the time over to a group that he considers stupid and venal?

使我困惑不解的是：克鲁格曼似乎更愿意采信“联邦政府发挥极大作用”这样的解决方案。（譬如，以前，他还提倡过“在医疗保障上只有一个支付人”的作法。）我也理解，在自由主义者之间，信任集权的想法还是很常见的。但是，让我觉得困惑不解的政治问题是：在过去八年间，克鲁格曼一直试图使他的读者相信“共和党人既愚蠢又唯利是图”。但是，历史表明：差不多有一半的时间，将由共和党人来主政。那么，他是不是真的愿意让医疗保障控制权的一半时间转交到那个“愚蠢又唯利是图”的团体的手上呢？

These thoughts, I appreciate, are broad generalizations. They don't immediately lead to a specific set of reform proposals. But I wanted to give Paul credit for a key insight: A central question in this and perhaps other debates is, Whom do you trust?

我知道，这些想法是非常一般化了。这些想法还不能马上产生一套具体的改革建议。但是，我想让克鲁格曼有一个更重要的洞识，那就是：在这个论题上（也许在其他的论题也是如此），其核心的问题就是“你信任谁？”

注释：

1．保罗·克鲁格曼强调了医疗保障不是一个“市场”。原文及译文，见今天的克鲁格曼中文博客的文章。

编辑手记：

* 修改了译文中的一个误译:your treatment 句。（8月3日）

Saturday, August 01, 2009

                                        Obesity and Healthcare Costs

                                                                   Liying Zhu[译]

Wall Street Journal a few days ago:

The prevalence of obesity rose 37% between 1998 and 2006....Obese people spent 42% more than people of normal weight on medical costs in 2006.

几天前的华尔街日报刊登了两个事实：

1998年和2006年间，肥胖的普及率增长了37%...2006年，肥胖人群的医疗费用比正常体重的人要多42%。

This is consistent with what I said in a column on healthcare fallacies in the NY Times a couple years ago:

这与我几年前在纽约时报一个关于医疗保健悖论的专栏中所说的是相一致的：

Americans are also more likely to be obese, leading to heart disease and other medical problems. Among Americans, 31 percent of men and 33 percent of women have a body mass index of at least 30, a definition of obesity, versus 17 percent of men and 19 percent of women in Canada. Japan, which has the longest life expectancy among major nations, has obesity rates of about 3 percent.

美国人也更容易肥胖，从而导致心脏病和其他健康问题。在所有美国人中，31%男性和33%女性的体重指数¹至少为30，这一指标正是肥胖的概念，相对而言，加拿大的肥胖率为男性17%，女性19%。在平均寿命列主要国家之首的日本，肥胖率仅为3%。

The causes of American obesity are not fully understood, but they involve lifestyle choices we make every day, as well as our system of food delivery. Research by the Harvard economists David Cutler, Ed Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro concludes that America’s growing obesity problem is largely attributable to our economy’s ability to supply high-calorie foods cheaply. Lower prices increase food consumption, sometimes beyond the point of optimal health.

美国人肥胖的原因尚未完全清楚，但这涉及到我们每天选择的生活方式，以及系统的食物输送。哈佛经济学家David Cutler, Ed Glaeser 和 Jesse Shapiro的研究所得出的结论是，美国越来越严重的肥胖问题很大程度是由于我们的经济有能力低价提供高热量食物。较低的价格提高食物消费量，有时甚至超出最佳健康状况所需的量

FYI, here, from OECD data presented in the O'Neill study, are the percentages of the male population with a body-mass index of 30 or more (female obesity rates are similar):

Japan 2.8

France 9.8

Germany 14.4

Canada 17.0

U.K. 22.7

U.S. 31.1

仅供参考，这些数据来自出现在O'Neill研究中的经合组织的资料，是男性人口体重指数在30及以上的百分比（女性肥胖率类似）：

日本 2.8

法国 9.8

德国 14.4

加拿大 17.0

英国 22.7

美国 31.1

The bottom line: Differences in healthcare costs and health outcomes, either over time or across countries, depend on a lot more than the national system of health insurance.

结论是：医疗费用和健康状况上的差别， 无论是就一个国家在不同时点上纵比而言（over time）， 还是就不同国家在同一时点上横比而言(across countries)， 其决定的因素， 除了国家的健保系统好坏， 还包括甚多别的东西²。

注释

1.身高体重指数（又称身体质量指数，英文为Body Mass Index，简称BMI）是一个计算值，主要用于统计用途。当我们需要比较及分析一个人的体重对于不同高度的人所带来的健康影响时，BMI值是一个中立而可靠的指标。(Eugene, 8月4日)

2.原译为“要旨：无论是一段时间内还是在不同国家中，医疗费用和健康状况的不同不只是取决于国家健康保险体系。”现按Eugene的校译修改。（qianlaoda, 8月4日）

编辑手记：

* 修改了最后一句，并补充了BMI的解释。（8月4日）