But such infrastructure investment would go far beyond what would ever have been undertaken had the economy been left to regain high employment through the workings of adaptive or innovative activity.	但这种基础设施投资将远远超出将经济留待通过适应性和创新活动的运作来实现高就业的水平。


Indeed, such investment is costly beyond the expense because it preempts the adaptation and innovation that would have brought higher employment and faster growth.	事实上，这样投资的高昂之处不仅仅是因为其支出规模，而是因为它挤占了将带来更高就业和更快增长的适应和创新的生存空间。


Moreover, as long as Western innovation remains narrowly confined, a demand-side commitment to a large, sustained flow of infrastructure investment – and, likewise, a supply-side commitment to a similar flow of private investment – must bring ever-diminishing returns, until, ineluctably, the economy reaches its near-stationary state.	此外如果西方的创新仍然受到局限的话，一个旨在实施庞大持续的基础设施投资的需求侧承诺——同样，一个旨在创造类似的私人投资的供给侧承诺——所产生的回报只会不断递减，直到经济不可避免地达到近乎静止状态。


Supplying more of the same old goods never “creates its own demand,” as Keynes thought.	提供更多一模一样的老货品从来没有“创造对其自身的需求”，正如凯恩斯所认为的那样。


But supplying new goods can.	但提供新的商品可以。


It is the impediments to adaptation and innovation – not fiscal austerity – causing our stagnation.	导致停滞的是对适应性手段和创新的打压——而非财政紧缩政策 。


And only renewed dynamism – not more fiscal irresponsibility – offers any hope of a durable way out.	而且只创造新的动力——而非更多的财政冒险行为——才有望提供一个持久的解决方案。


Innovation Is Not Enough	创新是不够的


CAMBRIDGE – We seem to be living in an accelerated age of revolutionary technological breakthroughs.	坎布里奇—我们似乎生活在一个革命性技术突破越来越快的时代。


Barely a day passes without the announcement of some major new development in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, digitization, or automation.	几乎每一天都有人工智能、生物技术、数字化或自动化方面的重大新进展宣布。


Yet those who are supposed to know where it is all taking us can’t make up their minds.	但理应知道这会将我们引向何方的那些人无法做出定论。


At one end of the spectrum are the techno-optimists, who believe we are on the cusp of a new era in which the world’s living standards will rise more rapidly than ever.	一端是技术乐观派，他们相信站在一个新时代的浪尖上，世界生活水平将比以往更快的速度提高。


At the other end are the techno-pessimists, who see disappointing productivity statistics and argue that the new technologies’ economy-wide benefits will remain limited.	另一端是技术悲观派，他们看到的是令人失望的生产率统计数字，并认为新技术的整体经济收益仍将保持有限。


Then there are those – the techno-worriers? – who agree with the optimists about the scale and scope of innovation but fret about the adverse implications for employment or equity.	还有一些人——技术恐惧派？ ——同意乐观派关于创新规模和范畴的观点，但对就业或平等性所承受的负面影响感到烦恼。


What distinguishes these perspectives from one another is not so much disagreement about the rate of technological innovation.	区别这几类人的并非对于技术创新速度的认识的分歧。


After all, who can seriously doubt that innovation is progressing rapidly?	毕竟，又有谁能质疑创新的快速进步？


The debate is about whether these innovations will remain bottled up in a few tech-intensive sectors that employ the highest-skilled professionals and account for a relatively small share of GDP, or spread to the bulk of the economy.	争论在于这些创新将继续局限于少数雇用技能最高的专业人士、只占GDP相对较小份额的技术密集型产业，还是将扩张到经济大部。


The consequences of any innovation for productivity, employment, and equity ultimately depend on how quickly it diffuses through labor and product markets.	任何创新，它所带来的生产率、就业和平等性结果最终取决于它如何在劳动力和产品市场中扩散。


Technological diffusion can be constrained on both the demand and supply sides of the economy.	技术扩散受到经济需求端和供给端的约束。


Take the demand side first.	先来看需求端。


In rich economies, consumers spend the bulk of their income on services such as health, education, transportation, housing, and retail goods.	在发达经济体，消费者把大部分收入花在医疗、教育、交通、住房和零售商品等服务上。


Technological innovation has had comparatively little impact to date in many of these sectors.	到目前为止，技术创新对许多这些产业影响相对较小。


Consider some of the figures provided by the McKinsey Global Institute’s recent report Digital America.	以麦肯锡全球研究所（McKinsey Global Institute）的最新报告《数字美国》（Digital America）所提供的数字为例。


The two sectors in the United States that have experienced the most rapid productivity growth since 2005 are the ICT (information and communications technology) and media industries, with a combined GDP share of less than 10%.	2005年以来，美国生产率提高最快的两个产业是ICT（信息和通讯技术）和传媒，两者加起来占GDP之比不到10%。


By contrast, government services and health care, which together produce more than a quarter of GDP, have had virtually no productivity growth.	相反，政府服务和医疗产生了GDP的四分之一以上，生产率几乎没有增长。


Techno-optimists, such as the McKinsey authors, look at such numbers as an opportunity: There remain vast productivity gains to be had from the adoption of new technologies in the lagging sectors.	麦肯锡作者属于技术乐观派，他们将这些数字视为机会：在落后产业还存在通过采取新技术大幅提高生产率的机会。


The pessimists, on the other hand, think that such gaps may be a structural, lasting feature of today’s economies.	另一方面，悲观派认为这些差距可能是结构性的，是当今经济的持久特征。


For example, the economic historian Robert Gordon argues that today’s innovations pale in contrast to past technological revolutions in terms of their likely economy-wide impact.	比如，经济史家罗伯特·戈登（Robert Gordon）指出，从可能的整体经济影响而言，今天的创新相较于过去的技术革命显得黯淡无光。


Electricity, the automobile, airplane, air conditioning, and household appliances altered the way that ordinary people live in fundamental ways.	电力、汽车、飞机、空调和家用电器从根本上改变了普罗大众的生活方式。


They made inroads in every sector of the economy.	它们在经济的所有部门取得全面突破。


Perhaps the digital revolution, impressive as it has been, will not reach as far.	数字革命固然令人印象深刻，但影响可能无法如此深入。


On the supply side, the key question is whether the innovating sector has access to the capital and skills it needs to expand rapidly and continuously.	在供给端，关键问题是创新产业是否能获得它所需要的资本和技能实现持续快速的扩张。


In advanced countries, neither constraint typically binds much.	在发达国家，这两个约束通常力量都十分有限。


But when the technology requires high skills – technological change is “skill-biased,” in economists’ terminology – its adoption and diffusion will tend to widen the gap between the earnings of low- and high-skill workers.	但当技术需要高超的技能时——用经济学家的术语讲，技术变革是“技术偏向”的——它的采用和扩散往往会扩大低技能和高技能工人之间的收入差距。


Economic growth will be accompanied by rising inequality, as it was in the 1990s.	经济增长将伴随不平等性的恶化，一如20世纪90年代。


The supply-side problem faced by developing countries is more debilitating.	发展中国家所面临的供给端问题更加严峻。


The labor force is predominantly low-skilled.	劳动力大多为低技能。


Historically, this has not been a handicap for late industrializers, so long as manufacturing consisted of labor-intensive assembly operations such as garments and automobiles.	从历史看，这对于落后工业化国家来说不是障碍，只要制造业由劳动密集型组装业务（如服装和汽车）构成。


Peasants could be transformed into factory workers virtually overnight, implying significant productivity gains for the economy.	农民可以不费吹灰之力地转变为工厂工人，给经济带来巨大的生产率提升。


Manufacturing was traditionally a rapid escalator to higher income levels.	传统上，制造业是迅速提高收入水平的不二法门。


But once manufacturing operations become robotized and require high skills, the supply-side constraints begin to bite.	但如果制造业务被机器人化，并需要高超的技能时，供给端约束就会开始起作用。


Effectively, developing countries lose their comparative advantage vis-à-vis the rich countries.	事实上，发展中国家失去了它们对发达国家的比较优���。


We see the consequences in the “premature deindustrialization” of the developing world today.	如今，我们看到了发展中世界“过早去工业化”的后果。


In a world of premature deindustrialization, achieving economy-wide productivity growth becomes that much harder for low-income countries.	在过早去工业化的世界，实现全经济生产率增长对于低收入国家来说变得困难了许多。


It is not clear whether there are effective substitutes for industrialization.	尚不清楚是否存在工业化的有效替代品。


The economist Tyler Cowen has suggested that developing countries may benefit from the trickle-down of innovation from the advanced economies: they can consume a stream of new products at cheap prices.	经济学家泰勒·科文（Tyler Cowen）认为发展中国家可以从创新由发达经济体向下渗透的过程中获益：它们可以以低廉的价格消费各种新产品。


This is a model of what Cowen calls “cellphones instead of automobile factories.”	科文将这一模式称为“手机代替汽车厂”。


But the question remains: What will these countries produce and export – besides primary products – to be able to afford the imported cellphones?	但问题仍然存在：这些国家要生产和出口什么——除初级商品以外——才能买得起进口手机？


In Latin America, economy-wide productivity has stagnated despite significant innovation in the best-managed firms and vanguard sectors.	在拉丁美洲，尽管管理优秀的企业和先锋产业涌现出重大创新，但整体经济生产率依然停滞不前。


The apparent paradox is resolved by noting that rapid productivity growth in the pockets of innovation has been undone by workers moving from the more productive to the less productive parts of the economy – a phenomenon that my co-authors and I have called “growth-reducing structural change.”	这一显而易见的悖论的解释是创新产业生产率的迅速提高被工人从经济中生产率较高的部分转移到较低的部分——我的合作者和我称之为“遏制增长的结构变化”——所抵消。


This perverse outcome becomes possible when there is severe technological dualism in the economy and the more productive activities do not expand rapidly enough.	当经济中存在严重的技术二元性、高生产率活动扩张速度不够时就可能产生这一不幸的结果。


Disturbingly, there is evidence that growth-reducing structural change has been happening recently in the United States as well.	令人不安的是，有证据表明美国最近也在发生遏制增长的结构变化。


Ultimately, it is the economy-wide productivity consequences of technological innovation, not innovation per se, that lifts living standards.	说到底，是技术创新的整体经济生产率效应，而不是创新本身，提高了生活水平。


Innovation can co-exist side-by-side with low productivity (conversely, productivity growth is sometimes possible in the absence of innovation, when resources move to the more productive sectors).	创新可以与低生产率并行不悖（反之，生产率增长也可能在没有创新的情况下实现，只要资源流入生产率更高的产业）。


Techno-pessimists recognize this; the optimists might not be wrong, but to make their case, they need to focus on how the effects of technology play out in the economy as a whole.	技术悲观派认识到这一点； 乐观派可能并不错，但要令人信服，他们需要聚焦于技术如何影响整体经济。


Our Collective Brain	我们的集体大脑


CAMBRIDGE – Imagine a game of survival that pits a troop of capuchin monkeys against you and your work colleagues.	坎布里奇——想象一下你和同事们与一群卷尾猴一起玩一场生存游戏。


Both teams would be parachuted into a remote African forest, without any equipment: no matches, knives, shoes, fish hooks, clothes, antibiotics, pots, ropes, or weapons.	两支队伍将被空降到遥远的非洲丛林中，不允许携带任何装备：没有火柴、刀具、鞋、鱼钩、衣服、抗生素、盆、绳索或武器。


After one year, the team with the most surviving members would be declared the victor.	一年后，生存成员最多的那支队伍将被宣布获胜。


Which team would you bet on?	你会赌哪支队伍？


You might assume that the humans, given our superior intelligence, are the team to beat.	你可能会认为鉴于人类智力超群，我们将会是胜出的那支。


But do you or your colleagues know how to make bows and arrows, nets, water containers, and shelters?	但你和你的同事是否知道如何制作弓箭、渔网、盛水的容器和庇护所？


Do you know which plants are toxic?	你们是否知道哪些植物有毒？


Can you start a fire without matches?	你们会不会不用火柴点火？


Can you make fish hooks or natural glues?	你们能否制作鱼钩和天然胶水？


Do you know how to protect yourself from big cats and snakes at night?	你们是否知道如何在夜晚躲避大型猫科动物和蛇？


The answer to most, if not all, of these questions is probably “no,” meaning that your team would likely lose to a bunch of monkeys – probably pretty badly.	对多数问题（如果不是所有问题）的答案很可能是“不知道”，也就是说你的队伍很可能会输给一群猴子——而且可能输得心服口服。


This raises an obvious question.	一个显而易见的问题应运而生。


If we cannot survive as hunter-gatherers in Africa, the continent where our species evolved, how did humans achieve such immense success relative to other animals and spread to nearly all of the earth’s major ecosystems?	如果我们不能在我们这个物种曾经进化的非洲大陆作为狩猎和采集者生存下去，那么人类相对于其他动物究竟如何取得如此巨大的成功并扩展到地球几乎所有的主要生态系统？


Here’s a key piece of the answer: We are a cultural species.	这里是答案的关键：我们是一个文化物种。


Our unique psychological capacities allow us to learn from one another over generations, facilitating a cumulative cultural evolutionary process that produces increasingly complex and sophisticated technologies, languages, bodies of knowledge, conceptual toolkits, and adaptive heuristics.	我们独特的心理能力让我们能世世代代相互学习，从而形成世代累积的文化演进过程，并创造出越来越复杂而精密的技术、语言、知识体系、概念工具和适应性启发。


The power of this process arises not from raw individual intelligence, but from the reinterpretation of the serendipitous insights and mistakes that our intelligence produces.	上述进程的力量并不来源于原始的个人智力，而是来源于对人类智力所产生的偶发的见解和失误的重新解读。


This means that the rate of innovation will depend, at least in part, on the size and interconnectedness of the pool of minds contributing to the cultural evolutionary process.	这意味着创新的速度将取决于（至少部分如此）促进文化演进过程的人类思想的数量多寡和联系程度。


All other things being equal, larger and more socially interconnected groups will produce a greater number of fancier tools, technologies, and techniques, even if their individual members are less inventive than those comprising a smaller, more isolated group.	即使个体成员比规模更小的封闭团体创造力稍弱，但在其他所有条件对等的情况下，规模更大、联系也更紧密的团体能创造出的优秀工具和技术数量更多。


This finding is supported by both tightly controlled laboratory experiments and historical case studies.	严格控制的实验室试验和历史案例研究均支持这一成果。


About 10,000 years ago, for example, rising oceans transformed Tasmania from an Australian peninsula into an island.	举例来讲，大约1万年前，海平面上升将塔斯马尼亚从澳大利亚半岛的一部分变成了一个孤岛。


On the mainland, technological progress continued unimpeded.	在大陆上，技术进步的发展没有受到影响。


But in Tasmania, groups of hunter-gatherers began to lose – or failed to develop – a wide range of useful technologies: bone tools, fitted cold-weather clothing, boomerangs, spear-throwers, and durable boats.	但在塔斯马尼亚，那里的狩猎和采集群体开始失去——或未能发明——一系列有用的技术：包括骨质工具、御寒衣物、飞镖、投矛器以及耐用船只。


When the Dutch arrived in the seventeenth century, Tasmanians had the simplest technology ever encountered by European explorers.	当17世纪荷兰人抵达时，塔斯马尼亚人的技术是欧洲探险者所见过最简单的。


To understand humans’ social nature, it is crucial to understand how culture has driven our genetic evolution in ways that shape not only our physiology and anatomy, but also our social psychology, motivations, inclinations, and perceptions.	要想了解人类的社会属性，关键是要了解文化是以何种方式驱动不仅影响我们的生理和解剖形态、而且影响社会心理、动机、倾向和看法的基因演化。


From this long process, in which surviving and thriving meant acquiring and adhering to the local social rules, we emerged as potent social learners.	从这种生存发展意味着了解并遵守当地社会规则的漫长的过程中，我们逐渐成为强有力的社会学习者。


The foundation of our ability to form cooperative communities, organizations, and societies arises not from innate cooperative tendencies, but from the specifics of the social norms that we learn, internalize, and enforce on others.	我们组成合作社、组织和社会的能力基础并非来源于先天的合作倾向，而是来源于我们学习、内化并要求他人执行的具体的社会规则。


While our innate motivations do play a role, they are harnessed, extended, and suppressed by social norms, which form the institutional skeleton that allows our innate inclinations to operate.	尽管我们的先天动机确实在起作用，但让它们受到利用、拓展和压制的社会标准构成了令我们的先天倾向发挥作用的制度框架。


This novel view of human nature and society generates some important insights.	这种对人性和社会的新看法提供了某些重要线索。


First, as a cultural species, humans acquire ideas, beliefs, values, and social norms from others in their communities, using cues of prestige, success, sex, dialect, and ethnicity.	首先，作为一个文化物种，人类利用信誉、成功、性、方言和种族等线索从群体中其他人那里获取思想、信仰、价值观和社会规范。


We pay particular attention – especially under conditions of uncertainty, time pressure, and stress – to domains involving food, danger, and norm violations.	我们尤其关注涉及食物、危险和破坏规则的领域（特别是在缺乏确定性、时间紧迫和承受压力的条件下）。


Changing people’s behavior begins with an understanding of our cultural nature, not our rationality.	我们要从理解文化属性、而非理性开始改变人们的行为习惯。


Second, we gradually internalize the social norms that we acquire through a culture-driven process of self-domestication.	其次，我们对经由文化驱动取得的自我驯化进程的社会标准逐步进行内化。


(We acquire our standards for judging and punishing others through the same process.)	（我们评判和惩罚他人的标准也是通过同样的进程取得。


These internalized norms become the motivations that guide our actions.	）这些内在的规范成为动机对我们的行为起指导作用。


This means that people’s preferences, desires, and motivations are not fixed, and thus that well-designed programs or policies can change what is automatic, intuitive, and obvious.	这意味着人们的偏好、欲望和动机并非一成不变，因此精心设计的计划或政策可以改变自然而然的直觉和显著的偏好。


Third, the most potent social norms harness aspects of our evolved psychology.	第三，最有效的社会规则利用人类进化心理的方方面面。


Social norms for fairness toward foreigners, for example, are much harder to sustain and diffuse than those that demand that mothers care for their children.	比方说，对外国人公平的社会标准的形成和扩散相比要求母亲对子女公平要困难很多。


Fourth, our ability to innovate depends on the size of our collective brain, which depends on the ability of social norms to encourage people to generate, share, and recombine novel ideas and practices.	第四，我们的创新能力取决于集体大脑的容量，而这又取决于社会规范能在多大程度上鼓励人们创造、共享和重组全新思想和行动。


Fifth, there is a fundamental link between institutions and psychology.	第五，制度和心理之间有着本质的联系。


Because different societies have different norms, institutions, languages, and technologies, they also have different ways of reasoning, mental heuristics, motivations, and emotional reactions.	因为不同社会有着不同的标准、制度、语言和技术，因此也有不同的推理、精神启发、动机和情绪反应方法。


The imposition of imported institutions often creates psychological and social mismatches that tend to lead to poor outcomes.	强制推行外来制度往往会造成心理和社会层面的不匹配，从而往往会带来不良后果。


Finally, humans lack a certain degree of rationality, making us terrible at designing effective institutions and organizations – at least for now.	最后，人类缺乏某种程度的理性，这使我们并不擅长（至少现在如此）设计有效的制度和机构。


I am hopeful that as we obtain deeper insights into human nature and cultural evolution, this can be improved.	我希望随着我们更深入了解人性和文化演变，这样的情况是可以改善的。


Until then, we should take a page from cultural evolution’s playbook and design systems that use variation and selection to make institutions compete.	但在那一天到来之前，我们应当遵守文化演进的规则并设计利用变化和选择实现制度竞争的系统。


That way, we can dump the losers and keep the winners.	这样一来，我们就可以淘汰那些失败的制度并保留赢家。


By examining the rich interaction and co-evolution of psychology, culture, biology, history, and genetics, we have the possibility to gain important insights into human psychology.	通过研究心理、文化、生物、历史和遗传学领域的相互影响和共同进化，我们有可能取得人类心理学领域的重要突破。


This scientific road has rarely been traveled.	这样的科学道路很少有人走过。


It promises an exciting journey into unexplored intellectual territory, as we seek to understand the peculiarity of our species.	它能够开启进入未知知识领域的令人兴奋的旅程，让我们试图了解我们这个物种所具有的特色。


In Praise of Euroskepticism	为欧洲统一怀疑论唱赞歌


BRUSSELS -- The EU has no coherent strategy on many issues.	布鲁塞尔——欧盟在许多问题上都缺乏统一的战略。 它在俄罗斯的问题上只有粗略的经济政策；


It has only sketchy economic policies toward Russia; ambitions, but no game plan, to become a player in the Middle East; and, despite its original leadership on the Kyoto Protocol, no successor program on climate change.	有在中东问题扮演重要角色的雄心，但是却缺乏周密计划的行动方案； 还有，尽管在《东京议定书》占据原始的领导地位，但是在气候变化上却没有进一步的计划。


And the biggest question of all – how to engage with China, India, and other giants of the future – has received virtually no attention from EU-level policymakers.	还有在最重大的问题上，即如何应对中国、印度以及未来出现的其他大国的问题，欧盟层面的政策制定者对此还根本没有引起重视。


These issues require attention now, and an integral part of the EU’s search for new global strategies should be to invite, rather than avoid, criticism of its activities.	这些问题现在就应该引起我们的重视，并且欧盟对新的全球战略的研究的一个必不可少的部分就是应该邀请，而不是阻止，对其活动的批评者参与进来。


If the EU is to lift its gaze from its navel to the horizon, it must reconcile the very different views that exist across Europe of its place in the world and its own best interests.	如果欧盟想把它的眼光从以自己为中心提到以整个世界为中心的话，那它就必须调和存在于整个欧洲的对于欧洲在世界上的地位以及它自身的最佳利益的各种不同的观点。


That means engaging with those shades of political opinion that the European Commission and the European Parliament consider “Euroskeptical.”	这意味着把那些被欧盟委员会和欧洲议会认为是“对欧洲统一持怀疑论”的政治观点也邀请进来进行讨论。


The counter-pressure, of course, is that EU officialdom feels unloved and unappreciated.	对此反对的压力当然来自那些欧盟的官员认为没有得到爱护和尊重。


There is an almost embattled culture among many senior officials, who fear that fanning the flames of dissent among Europe’s voters could one day knock European unity off course.	在许多高级官员中间存在一种几乎陷入困境的文化，他们担心在欧洲的选民中间煽动对欧盟持反对意见的火焰到头来会破坏欧洲的团结。


Euroskepticism represents everything the Eurocrats dislike.	欧洲统一怀疑论代表了欧盟官员所憎恨的一切观点。


They worry that politicians and journalists who oppose their strategies for closer political and economic union could yet tip the balance of public opinion against the EU.	他们担心反对他们关于更紧密的政治和经济联盟政策的政治家和记者会使对欧盟持反对意见的公众占据上风。


Euroskeptic politicians elected to the European Parliament are often treated with the disdain that true believers reserve for the infidel.	被选举进欧洲议会的欧洲统一怀疑论政治家常常会遭到真正的信仰者对怀疑论者所怀有的那种蔑视。


Yet it is ludicrous to think that Euroskeptics represent a silent majority that could rise up and destroy the EU. Popular support for the European project has barely faltered over the last 25 years, and has even begun to strengthen of late.	然而认为欧洲统一怀疑论者代表了会站起来破坏欧盟的沉默的大多数是一种很愚蠢的想法。 在过去25年间公众对欧洲计划的支持从来没有动摇过，甚至最近开始变得更加强烈。


At the beginning of the 1980’s, when Europe was faltering and the media catchword was “Eurosclerosis,” 50% of people polled for the Eurobarometer surveys viewed membership as positive for their country. About 19% said its effects were negative, and the rest didn’t know.	在二十世纪八十年代初，当欧洲处于动荡之中并且媒体上的流行语是“欧洲僵化症”时，在接受欧洲晴雨表调查的人群中，50%的人认为他们的国家成为成员国带来了积极影响，大约19%的人认为产生了负面影响，其余的人不置可否。


Today, overall support for the EU stands at 57%, and the share of people unhappy with it has dropped to 15%.	今天，对欧盟的总体支持率达到57%，而表示不满的人的比例降到了15%。


There are now no EU countries where Euroskeptics are in the majority, and the widespread impression that citizens in Western and Eastern Europe alike are turning their backs on the EU is wrong. The reality is that even though voters may find the EU remote, most appreciate the need for Europe to unite in a world where China, India, and other fast-developing countries are set to challenge it.	现在没有哪个国家中欧洲统一怀疑论者是占据多数的，而普遍存在的关于西欧和东欧的公民越来越多地对欧盟持反对态度的印象是错误的。 事实是尽管选民也许发现欧盟很遥远，大多数人赞同欧洲需要联合起来应对当今世界上中国、印度和其他快速发展的国家所带来的挑战。


Reassured by this groundswell of support, the Eurocrats should be fostering a much more pluralistic approach to EU policymaking and debate.	有了这种公众的支持，欧盟的官员应该以更多元化的态度应对欧盟的政策制定和争论。


The Commission should be organizing public debates that give equal prominence to dissenting views.	欧盟委员会组织的公开辩论应该对持反对态度的观点给予同等的重视。


Eurocrats must learn that Euroskepticism is fundamentally healthy, because it invites closer examination of the policy options open to Europe, and thus increases the involvement of ordinary people in the EU’s policymaking process.	欧盟的官员必须明白欧洲统一怀疑论本质上是有益的，因为它可以使针对整个欧洲的政策选择接受更仔细的检查，从而增加了普通民众在欧盟政策制定进程中的参与。


And greater involvement quickly leads to better understanding of the issues at stake, and the reasons why some policies have been adopted that challenge or even override the sovereign powers of individual countries.	而更广泛的参与将很快导向对重大问题更好的理解，同时也使公众能够更好地理解为什么某些会削弱甚至无视单个国家的主权的政策会获得通过。


For half a century, Europe’s integrationists have sought unquestioning acceptance of their efforts.	半个世纪以来，欧洲的一体化者一直寻求对他们努力的无条件接受。


That demand must be abandoned.	这种想法应该被放弃。


It will probably take several generations before a workable EU-wide political system emerges, but the first step is for the EU to encourage people to have their say, however uncomfortable that may be.	也许我们需要花数代人的时间才能构建一个切实可行的欧盟范围的政治体系，但是首先第一步是欧盟应该鼓励民众发表他们的观点，不管那可能会多么让人不舒服。


Why Europe?	为什么是欧洲？


PRINCETON – What is the point of Europe?	普林斯顿—欧洲的要害在哪里？


The threat of an explosive disintegration of the eurozone – and with it of the European Union – is receding.	欧元区（以及随之而来的欧盟）分崩离析的威胁正在远去。


But the confused outcome of Italy’s recent parliamentary election, with an upper house dominated by a party that campaigned on an anti-EU platform and a pro-European majority in the Chamber of Deputies, has revived the fundamental debate about the purpose of European integration.	但意大利最近的议会选举结果未明，上议院多数派反对欧盟，而下议院多数派支持欧盟，这重燃了关于欧洲一体化的目的这一根本问题的争论。


Europeans find it hard to find a positive way of describing the exercise in which they have been engaged for the past six decades.	欧洲人难以找到积极的方式描述过去六十年来他们所从事的事业。


One common interpretation is that integration makes people better off.	一个共同的看法是一体化让人民生活得更好。


Unity is supposed to be a foundation of prosperity.	统一被认为是繁荣的基础。


The Common Market was defended at the outset in terms of the gains that would follow from increased trade.	从一开始，支持统一市场的论据便是增加贸易能够带来好处。


The case for capital-market integration, and then for a single currency, was similar.	资本市场一体化及随后的单一货币也是如此。


All of this recalls some powerful arguments that were made in the nineteenth century about national integration and unification.	所有这些让人们想起了19世纪关于民族一体化和统一的强有力的观点。


In particular, the two countries whose problems drove much of the need for twentieth-century European integration – Germany and Italy – were culturally and politically highly diverse.	特别是，德国和意大利的问题是20世纪欧洲一体化需要的重要原因，这两个国家在文化上和政治上都十分多元化。


In both countries, early-nineteenth-century romantic nationalism gave way to a sober obsession with economic forces after the failed revolutions of 1848.	1848年革命失败后，这两个国家19世纪初的浪漫民族主义让位给了对经济实力的清醒的沉迷。


The influential German journalist Ludwig von Rochau, who coined the term Realpolitik, described the new German mood on the eve of Otto von Bismarck’s last war of unification.	著名德国记者罗豪（Ludwig von Rochau）创造了“现实政治”（Realpolitik）一词，用来描述俾斯麦最后的统一战争前夕的德国民情。


German unity was not a question of the heart’s desire; it was “a mundane business transaction, in which no one should lose, but everyone should grab as much as they could for themselves.”	德国统一不是心中愿望的问题； 而是“一个普通的商业交易，没人会在其中损失，但所有人都会为他人尽量争取。


Italians shared the same belief after the disillusion of 1848.	意大利在1848年幻想破灭后也拥抱了同样的观点。


Patriotism could generate business opportunities.	爱国主义可以创造商业机会。


The great Florentine liberal statesman, Bettino Ricasoli, concluded that Tuscany was simply financially unviable on its own.	伟大的佛罗伦萨自由派政治家里卡索利（Bettino Ricasoli）认为托斯卡纳大区根本无法在财政上自立根生。


This sort of economic nationalism in Germany and Italy briefly produced coalitions of interests that supported the drive to national unification under Bismarck and Cavour.	德国和意大利的这一经济民族主义粗略地创造了利益联盟，支持了俾斯麦和加富尔（Cavour）治下的民族统一。


But the credibility of the national project seemed to crumble when growth faltered, leading to the emergence of movements that championed the aggressive, confrontational, and violent assertion of cultural identity.	但民族工程的信誉随政府的孱弱而崩溃，导致了鼓吹侵略、对抗和暴力的文化身份论运动的出现。


Mario Monti is the twenty-first-century descendant of those nineteenth-century patriots who argued for the economic necessity of national unity.	蒙蒂是19世纪爱国者在21世纪的翻版，他们认为经济是民族统一的必要条件。


Now it is European unity that is needed for economic reasons.	如今，欧洲统一需要经济理由。


This vision of Europe is not idealistic; it is simply concerned with how Europeanization can benefit Italians.	这样的欧洲不是理想主义的； 其出发点完全是欧洲化能如何让意大利人获益。


And, like its nineteenth-century precursor, it is vulnerable to severe backlashes, especially when it appears to bring only pain and suffering.	与19世纪先辈相同，这很容易产生巨大的反弹力，特别是结果只是痛苦和苦难的时候。


Indeed, when today’s Europeans peer into the future, they see only prolonged recession and austerity.	事实上，今天的欧洲人放眼未来看到的只有没完没了的衰退和紧缩。


Europe means nothing but sacrifice: northern Europeans paying for southern Europe’s woes through large transfers, or southern Europeans repaying onerous – and maybe impossible – levels of debt.	欧洲除了牺牲没有其他含义：北欧通过大规模转移支付为南欧的乱象买单； 或南欧偿还巨额债务（这或许是不可能的）。


A variant of the economic argument for European unity is the claim that enhanced integration makes it easier to finance debt, because interest rates are lower.	欧洲统一的另一个经济理由是加强一体化能让债务融资更容易，因为利率更低了。


A reduction in borrowing costs constituted a powerful motive in the 1990’s for southern European governments to join the monetary union.	借贷成本的减少是20世纪90年代南欧政府加入货币联盟的强力动机。


But the costs of moving into a non-defaulting environment are high.	但进入无违约环境的代价是昂贵的。


Here, another historical parallel is helpful.	在这方面可以参考另一个历史案例。


France in the ancien régime repeatedly imposed semi-default on its creditors by reducing interest rates and extending maturities.	旧制度的法国经常通过降低利率和延长期限玩弄准违约的把戏。


In the 1780’s, a new consensus against such measures emerged.	18世纪80年代形成了针对这一伎俩的共识。


But the impossibility of raising revenue then triggered the French Revolution, with the revolutionaries demanding confiscatory taxes and impositions on the wealthy elite.	但无法提高收入导致了随后的法国大革命，革命者要求对富有精英强征没收税。


The alternative to thinking about European integration simply as a way of generating wealth and prosperity frequently analogizes it to a marriage.	另一个关于欧洲一体化的思想是仅仅把它当作创造财富和繁荣的方式。 这一思想常常用婚姻来打比方。


In the late 1980’s, for example, then-European Commission President Jacques Delors, raising the prospect of a two-speed Europe, suggested that one or two countries might need a “different kind of marriage contract.”	比如，20世纪80年代末，时任欧盟委员会主席德洛尔提出了两速欧洲的观点，指出有一两个国家或许需要“不同类型的婚约”。


The marriage analogy was used initially to signal that the European relationship was an exclusive one.	婚姻比方最初用来表明欧洲关系是一种排他关系。


Europeans had a unique relationship with which no one – especially the United States – should interfere.	欧洲人之间的关系是独特的，容不得外人——特别是美国人——干预。


As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then France’s finance minister, put it in 1997, “People who are married do not want others in the bedroom.”	时任法国财政部长斯特劳斯-卡恩在1997年指出，“结了婚的人不容他人上床。 ”


But marriage can be a fraught institution (as Strauss-Kahn may know better than most).	但婚姻绝不是一劳永逸的安排（斯特劳斯-卡恩对此又最深刻的认识）。


The British economic journalist Martin Wolf thinks of Europe as a marriage kept together only by the high cost of divorce.	英国财经记者马丁·沃尔夫（Martin Wolf）认为，欧洲是一场仅仅因离婚代价太高而勉强维持的婚姻。


Others see it as a sham marriage.	在其他人看来，这场婚姻已经名存实亡。


Traditional marriage vows entail a commitment that binds the partners through changing circumstances: for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health.	传统的结婚誓言包括无论贫穷还是富裕、疾病还是健康都要生死相守的承诺。


Even if the marriage does not make the partners better off, they still need to stick with it.	即便婚姻没有让双方活得更好，夫妻俩也要坚持下去。


So neighbors who have a quarrelsome or violent past are not always well advised to reconcile by marrying.	因此，劝有着斗争和暴力史的邻居通过婚姻和解永远是精妙的建议。


The problem was that the Europeans did not understand what marriage really meant and why they should want to get married.	问题在于欧洲人并不理解婚姻的真正含义，也不明白为什么他们应该渴望结婚。


Enthralled by promises of material well-being and security, they had exaggerated expectations of romantic wedded bliss.	他们被物质好处和安全承诺迷惑了，对浪漫的婚礼之吻形成了过大的期望。


The unhappy marriage analogy for Europe’s current malaise, while depressing, is helpful.	将欧洲当前的乱象比作不幸福的婚姻尽管令人沮丧，却也有些好处。


At least it tells Europeans that they are not stuck together only for material reasons.	至少这告诉欧洲人他们不应该只为了物质理由而坚守在一起。


But, until that lesson is really learned, Europe must brace itself for more setbacks and backlashes, which means that it must still answer the fundamental question: Why stick it out together, especially at a time when more and more Europeans are choosing not to get married at all?	但是，在欧洲真正接受这一教训之前，它还得勉力撑过更多的退步和倒退，这意味着它仍然必须回答一个根本性的问题：为什么要在一起，尤其是在越来越多的欧洲人选择不结婚的时候？


Insecuritization	对资产证券化进行监管


BRUSSELS – There is no shortage of analyses of what went wrong in the world’s capital markets over the past 18 months.	布鲁塞尔－人们对过去18个月全球资本市场出现的问题做了非常多的分析。


What is clear is that a complex set of relationships, interactions, events, and omissions on the part of many different actors, rather than any single factor, was to blame.	现在已经弄清楚了的是，是一系列复杂的关系、相互影响、事件以及众多不同市场参与者的疏忽，而不是某个单一因素，应该对经济危机负责。


I am convinced, for example, that over the years there has been too much “regulatory capture” by the supply side of the financial services market, with its well-organized and powerful lobbies.	例如，我深信，多年来在金融服务市场的供给方面，金融机构通过其组织良好且强有力的游说工作，对政府部门有许多“监管俘虏”（regulatory capture）。


By contrast, there has been too little engagement on the demand side.	与此相对的是，金融服务市场的需求方面却没有多少保证。


That is an imbalance of which legislators must be much more conscious.	对这种不均衡，立法者必须有更清醒的认识。


A second problem for regulators, supervisors, and, indeed, credit rating agencies was scarce resources.	监管者，事实上对信用评级机构来说也是如此，面临的第二个问题是资源的不足。


When investment banking markets were booming – and the private sector easily recruited up top talent – regulators and supervisors found it difficult to get the budgets to keep up with innovation and police the markets.	当投资银行市场快速发展——而且私营部门很容易招到顶级人才的时候——监管者发现预算资金很难跟上市场上创新的速度，并且也很难对市场进行监管。


In the future, governments will have to commit the necessary resources to ensure more robust oversight of risk management in financial institutions.	将来，政府将不得不投入必要的人力和物力，以确保对金融机构的风险管理进行更加有效的监管。


Capital markets must be subject to much more detailed and frequent hands-on supervisory inspections.	资本市场必须接受更细致而频繁的实际监督检查。


In Europe, crisis management mechanisms must be put in place to manage their deeply integrated nature, as 80% of Europe’s banking assets held in cross-border banking groups.	在欧洲，因为80%的银行资产是由跨国银行集团所持有的，所以危机管理机制必须到位，以应对本质上高度融合的资本市场。


A third problem – particular relevant to banks, risk managers, and traders – has been misaligned incentives.	第三个问题——与银行、风险管理人以及交易者尤其相关——是金融机构不恰当的激励。


Incentive structures have been overwhelmingly aligned to short-term performance.	金融机构的激励机制千篇一律的和短期表现联系在一起。


In firms where this was most pronounced, there has been almost total destruction of shareholder value.	那些最强调这样的激励的公司，其股东利益几乎损失殆尽。


As a consequence, a wholly unacceptable long-term burden has been imposed on taxpayers.	这样的结果就是给纳税人造成了完全令人难以接受的长期负担。


Privatizing banks’ profits and socializing their losses is not acceptable in democratic societies.	银行的利润归私人所有，它们的损失却由全社会来承担，这在民主社会是不可接受的。


The structure and timing of performance pay in banks must be more closely aligned to long-term shareholder interests and financial stability.	银行绩效工资的支付结构和支付时间，必须和股东的长期利益以及金融稳定更紧密的联系起来。


Incentives for brokers and credit rating agencies have been even more perverse.	对经纪人和信用评级机构进行的激励，问题更大。


In the United States, brokers were selling mortgages without checking whether the borrower had the means to repay.	在美国，经纪人在没有调查借款人是否有能力偿还借款的情况下，就将抵押贷款销售出去了。


They had no stake beyond the immediate “sale.”	在“销售”了之后，经纪人就和它们没有任何厉害关系了。


Financed via Special Purpose Entities, mortgages were parceled up in debt packages and securitized entities in which neither originators nor sponsors retained any material long-term stake but paid credit rating agencies to award a nice little ribbon marked AAA.	抵押贷款通过特殊目的实体（Special Purpose Entities）融资，被打包包进债务包和证券化实体，它们的发起人和主办人除了付钱给信用评级机构以使其授予标着AAA的漂亮丝带之外，和它们没有实质性的长期厉害关系。


When the packages were unwrapped, most of their contents turned out to consist of pools of toxic assets for which there was no proper due diligence, no evidence of capacity to repay, and little cushion to cope with a market downturn.	当这些抵押贷款的面纱被揭开时，它们大部分都是不良资产的事实就会显现出来，这些资产没有尽职调查，没有贷款人有偿还能力的证据，以及几乎没有应对市场低迷的缓冲措施。


That’s why I have proposed much tougher measures in the revised Capital Requirements Directive amendments now being considered by the European Parliament.	这就是我提议现在欧洲议会正在考虑的、修订后的资本充足指令修正案采取更强硬措施的原因。


This will require thorough independent due diligence on securitizations, proper cash-flow sensitivity analysis, and less reliance on credit rating agencies paid by issuers.	这些措施将要求对资产证券化进行完全独立的尽职调查，进行适当的现金流灵敏度分析以及减少对由发行机构支付报酬的信用评级机构的信赖。


Originators or managers of these securitizations will be required to retain a meaningful stake in each tranche of the issue.	这些资产证券化的发起人或管理人将会被要求和这个问题的每个部分都保持实质性的厉害关系。


I was pilloried for this proposal when I initially put it forward.	在我最初提出这个建议的时候，遭到了别人的嘲笑。


I am therefore glad to see that a G-30 advisory group has now supported this principle, and that it is gaining increased traction in the US.	因此，现在我很高兴看到有一个G-30咨询团体支持这一原则，并且它在美国也得到了越来越多的关注。


But some banking industry lobbyists have sought amendments in the European Parliament that would totally neuter the proposal’s effectiveness.	但是，有些银行业说客已经在欧洲议会寻求会使这个建议完全无效的修正案。


Even more irresponsible are attempts to undermine a requirement for adequate due diligence on securitization positions prior to investing – with some amendments containing wording that would make it virtually impossible for supervisors to monitor compliance.	更不负责任的是，有人试图阻挠在投资前对证券化头寸进行充分尽职调查的要求——并且有些修正案还包含使监管者几乎不可能对银行是否合规进行监督的语句。


Mortgage assets and leveraged loans created in huckster shops, carved up and buried in “CDO squareds” (securitizations wrapped in other securitizations), and characterized by progressively more obscure, more contingent, and more complex orders of priority for allocating cash flows have no place in capital markets.	起源于违规经营的公司，流传到并隐藏于“双层担保债务权证”（CDO squareds，即由其他证券化资产担保的证券化资产）之中，并以日益模糊、附加更多条件和更复杂的现金流分配优先顺序为特征的抵押贷款资产和杠杆贷款，在资本市场上不受我们欢迎。


The opaqueness, wholly unnecessary complexity, and near impossibility of undertaking independent due diligence on these structures’ underlying risk have undermined trust in the securitization market.	不透明，完全不必要的复杂，以及对这些组合的潜在风险进行独立的尽职调查的几乎不可能，已经破坏了证券化市场的可信度。


Financial institutions – and their trade bodies – are doing themselves no favors by vigorously opposing meaningful reform.	金融机构——以及它们的交易机构——强烈反对进行有意义的改革，对它们自己并没有好处。


Is it any wonder that the valuation of securitized investments has become so challenging, that mark-to-market valuation on securitized assets has become meaningless, depressed, or both, and that the securitization market itself has seized up?	进行证券化投资评估变得如此具有挑战性，证券化资产的市值估价变得毫无意义，有时候还令人沮丧或者两者兼而有之，以及证券化市场自身的失灵，我们对造成这些现象的原因还有什么疑问吗？


Rather than restoring the trust and confidence in capital markets needed for recovery, those European Union members and banking federations that submitted “wrecking amendments” to the due diligence and securitization proposals are reinforcing the suspicion that is now embedded within them.	那些对尽职调查和证券化提案提出“破坏性修正案”的欧盟成员国和银行联合会，不是在恢复经济复苏所需的对资本市场的信任和信心，而是在加强现在包含其中的令人怀疑的地方。


If successful, they will impair the revival of a transparent, responsible, and vibrant securitization market – a market that, if properly managed, can contribute meaningfully to sustainable, long-term economic growth.	如果这些成员国和银行联合会成功了，他们就会破坏一个透明、负责任且充满活力的证券化市场的复苏——这个市场如果管理适当，能够对可持续的长期经济增长作出有意义的贡献。


Inside Africa’s Consumer Revolution	剖析非洲消费者革命


JOHANNESBURG – Nowadays, Africa’s economic potential – and the business opportunities that go with it – is widely acknowledged.	发自约翰内斯堡——时至今日，非洲的经济潜力——以及伴生的商机——都得到了世界的认可。


Poverty and unemployment are still more widespread than in other emerging markets, but accelerating growth since 2000 has made Africa the world’s second-fastest-growing region (after emerging Asia and equal to the Middle East).	虽然该地的贫穷和失业状况依然比其他新兴市场更为严重，但自2000年以来不断加速的增长已使非洲成为世界发展第二快的区域（落后于亚洲，与中东并列）


With rapid economic growth have come more prosperous consumers – and vice versa: 45% of Africa’s total GDP growth in the 2000’s (before the financial crisis erupted in 2008) came from consumer-related sectors of the economy.	伴随迅速经济增长出现的则是更富裕的消费者，反之亦然：2000年代（2008年金融危机爆发之前）非洲GDP总增长的45%来自于经济中与消费者有关的部门。


It is expected that, by 2020, more than half of African households – almost 130 million – will have discretionary income to spend (or save), up from 85 million today.	预计到了2020年，超过一半的非洲家庭（差不多1. 3亿）将拥有可支配收入以供消费（或储蓄），而这个数字目前约为8500万。


Moreover, Africa has the world’s fastest-growing population – and the youngest, with more than half under 20 years old, compared to 28% in China.	此外，非洲拥有世界上增长最快——也最年轻——的人口，非洲20岁以下人口占总人口的比例超过一半，而中国在这方面的比例为28%。


The United Nations estimates that the continent will account for more than 40% of global population growth through 2030, with the working-age population expected to surpass that of China by 2040.	联合国预计从今日到2030年之间非洲的新增人口占全球总新增人口的比例将超过40%，而适龄劳动人口的数量将在2040年超过中国。


Given these trends, the continent’s consumer industries are expected to grow a further $410 billion by 2020 – more than half the total revenue increase that all businesses are expected to generate in Africa by the end of the decade.	考虑到上述这些趋势，这片大陆上的消费者行业规模预计将在2020年前再增长4100亿美元——占了整个10年内非洲所有行业所创造的总收入增长的一半以上。


But, for many companies entering Africa or seeking to expand there from a local base, the challenge now is to obtain a better understanding of the market and its consumers.	但对许多正在进入非洲或者试图在当地实现扩张的企业来说，如今的挑战在于能否更好地了解这个市场及其消费者。


In one of the first studies of its kind, the McKinsey Africa Consumer Insights Center surveyed 13,000 individuals from 15 cities in ten of the continent’s 54 countries in 2011 and 2012.	在2011和2012年间在非洲大陆54个国家中选出10个国家，再选出15个城市并对1. 3万名消费者进行了调查之后，麦肯锡非洲消费者观察中心发表了一份在该领域的首份研究报告。


The ten countries – Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, and Tunisia – accounted for 81% of Africa’s private consumption in 2011.	这10个国家——阿尔及利亚、安哥拉、埃及、加纳、肯尼亚、摩洛哥、尼日利亚、南非，苏丹和突尼斯——占据了2011年度非洲私人总消费额的81%。


But, throughout the continent, market opportunities for consumer-facing companies are concentrated more in cities than in particular countries.	但对那些面向消费者的企业来说，这片大陆上的市场机会主要集中在某些城市而非特定的国家。


Indeed, with 40% of its population living in cities, Africa is more urbanized than India (30%), and nearly as urbanized as China (45%).	事实上，非洲有40%的人口居住在城市，其城市化程度高于印度（30%），与中国（45%）相近。


By 2016, more than 500 million Africans will live in urban centers, and the number of cities with more than one million people is expected to reach 65, up from 52 in 2011 (on par with Europe and higher than India and North America).	到2016年将有5亿非洲人居住在中心城镇，100万或以上人口规模的城市预计将从2011年的52个增加到65个（与欧洲持平，比印度和北美更多）。


This development is critically important for consumer companies.	对消费企业来说这一发展是至关重要的。


Urban household spending in Africa is increasing twice as fast as rural spending, with urban per capita incomes, on average, 80% higher than those of countries as a whole.	非洲城镇家庭的支出增长速率是农村家庭的两倍，而城市人均收入要比全国整体水平高出80%。


Befitting the continent’s strong macro trends, the survey found a high degree of optimism among urban African consumers: 84% of respondents expect their households to be better off in two years.	与该大陆强劲的宏观趋势相一致的是，研究发现非洲城市消费者中存在着高度的乐观情绪：84%的受访者预计自己的家庭收入将在两年内变得更好。


Sub-Saharan Africans are the most optimistic – 97% of Ghanaians, for example, expect to be much better off in two years. (For North Africans, however, that figure drops to only 10-15%, which is unsurprising given the uncertainty generated by the region’s recent political turmoil.)	撒哈拉以南非洲的人最为乐观——97%的加纳人预计将在两年内过得更好（而该数字在北非人则暴跌到仅有10-15%，这无疑源自于该区域最近政治乱局所带来的不确定性）


Overall, consumers are increasing their spending across most retail categories.	总的来说，消费者们在大多数零售门类中都增加了支出。


Up to 30% of the more optimistic consumers in some countries say that they are shopping more frequently and purchasing new and more expensive products.	某些国家的较乐观消费者中有近30%报告说自己正更频繁地购物并购买更新颖昂贵的产品。


And half of all respondents claim to make daily sacrifices to save for major expenditures.	而一半的受访者都说自己会节省日常支出以进行大额消费。


This suggests that companies offering cheap, poor-quality, unbranded products are unlikely to succeed in the long term.	这说明那些提供廉价低质无品牌产品的企业在长期来说是不可能成功的。


For apparel consumers, for example, quality is second only to price when choosing a store, and second only to fashion when choosing a specific item.	例如对那些讲究的消费者来说，在选择一家商店时质量是紧随价格之后的考虑因素，而在选择特定的产品时质量也是紧随潮流之后的要点。


And, in both North and Sub-Saharan Africa, brand loyalty is strong, averaging 58%.	无论是在北非还是撒哈拉以南，品牌忠诚度都极强，平均达到58%。


But quality and brand must be delivered at the right price.	但质量和品牌也必须与一个合理的价钱相结合。


Even though Africans value brands and product quality, affordability remains crucial.	虽然非洲人重视品牌和产品质量，价格承受能力依然非常关键。


To succeed, companies should work to reach consumers’ price points through a combination of product reengineering (such as removing low-value-added features), smaller package sizes, and low-cost operating models.	企业想获得成功，就必须通过将产品业务流程再设计（例如去除低附加值的产品功能），更小的包装尺寸和低成本运营模式三者相结合来触及消费者的心理价位。


Moreover, timing is crucial when choosing where to play.	此外，选择在何处开展业务的时机也是非常重要。


Demand for consumer products typically follows an S-curve.	消费产品的需求一般都会呈现S型曲线。


As incomes rise, categories reach a takeoff point where demand accelerates by 3-5 times.	随着收入上升，当需求增速提升了3~5倍后产品品类开始增加。


At higher levels of income, markets become saturated and growth slows.	随着收入达到更高水平，市场变得饱和，增长也因此放缓。


Different products and categories enter the “hot zone” at different moments: those with low price points, such as snacks and beverages, typically take off relatively early; beauty products somewhat later; and luxury goods, such as branded fashion, later still.	不同的产品和品类会在不同时刻进入“热销期”：那些消费者心理价位较低的，例如小食和饮料，一般会较早启动； 而美容化妆产品会迟一点；


Not surprisingly, in most African markets, few categories have entered the slower-growth “chill-out” zone.	包括品牌服饰在内的奢侈品则更加迟缓。 不出所料，在大多数非洲市场，只有少数商品已经进入了“冷却期”


This is where understanding opportunities at a city level is vital.	这也是为何对城市商业机会的理解是至关重要的。


Country-level planning and resource allocation is still the rule for most businesses operating in Africa, resulting in inefficient allocation of human and capital resources.	国家层面的计划和资源分配依然是非洲地区大部分商业运作的准则，也因此导致了效率低下的人力和资本资源分配。


By creating detailed profiles of the most promising urban opportunities, companies could target their investments more effectively.	通过对最有前景的城市商机进行详细剖析，企业可以更有效地定点投放自身的投资。


Identifying growth hot spots is only the start.	而定义增长热点还只是开始。


Substantial differences among and within Africa’s countries imply the need for a much deeper and finer-grained understanding of consumer preferences and affordability profiles by product category.	非洲各国之间以及各国内部的本质性差异要求对消费者偏好以及对不同产品类别的承受能力取得更为深入细致的理解。


Likewise, many markets are still in early stages of development, and must be built through concerted consumer education and trial.	同样，许多市场依然处于发展初期，必须通过切实的消费者教育和测试才能构建起来。


Here, Africa’s youth merit special attention: the survey found that the 16-34 age group already accounts for 53% of income in urban centers.	在此非洲的年轻人应该受到特别关注：调查发现16-34岁年龄组的人已经占据了中心城镇人群收入的53%。


Young people’s consumption habits are quite different from their elders’.	年轻人的消费习惯与他们的长辈差异较大。


They are more than twice as likely to search for information online and to seek products and stores that reflect the “right image.”	他们上网查找信息并寻找体现“合适形象”的产品/商店的频率也比年长者要多两倍。


They are also more educated, with 40% of 16-24 year olds having completed high school, compared with only 27% of the 45-and-older group.	他们受教育程度也更高，16~24岁的年轻人中有40%的完成了高中学业，而在45岁以上年龄组的人中只有27%。


These characteristics point to a major change in African consumption habits as this cohort ages, its incomes increase, and its behaviors and decision criteria become the societal norm.	上述特质预示随着这一大批人年龄渐长，收入增加，其行为和决策标准成为社会规范，非洲人的消费习惯也将发生重大转变。


Many companies – particularly multinational firms accustomed to old and aging populations in the advanced countries – will have to adapt accordingly.	许多企业——尤其是习惯于和发达国家的高龄消费者打交道的那些——必须对此做出相应的调整。


Inside Iran’s Nuclear Reasoning	伊朗求核的潜台词


MELBOURNE – Is Iran really hell-bent on becoming a nuclear-armed state?	发自墨尔本——伊朗是否真的死心塌地要把自己变成一个核武国家？


Or will it settle for nuclear capability, able to make weapons but choosing not to?	还是仅仅满足于拥有核能力，点到为止，并不打算真正制造核武器？


Does the difference matter?	而两者之间的区别究竟重不重要？


Few international questions involve higher stakes than these.	没有几个国际问题会比上述问题更加利害攸关。


An immediate concern, if deep pessimism about Iran’s intentions prevails, is a preventive Israeli strike, leading to another major Middle East war – with catastrophic consequences for the global economy likely.	各位试想如果对伊朗意图的悲观情绪最终爆发的话，那将是一场由以色列发动的预防性袭击，并随之引发另一场中东大战——最终为世界经济带来一场毁灭性打击。


No one should underestimate the difficulty of assessing Iran’s real intentions.	没人能轻而易举地揣摩出伊朗真正意图——列强之间彼此都在勾心斗角，由他们处传来的各种混杂在一起的信号自然不可信；


Mixed signals from competing power centers don’t help; nor does the recurring contrast between Iranian officials’ usually-strident public pronouncements and often-moderate private discourse.	而伊朗官员往往说一套做一套，公开讲话咄咄逼人，私底下却温和无比，也不可信。


Pessimists and skeptics have plenty to point to in Iran’s long record of obstruction and brinkmanship in addressing legitimate international concerns about its nuclear programs.	有鉴于伊朗过往在面对国际社会对其核计划的正当关注时所表现出来的胡搅蛮缠和边缘政策，悲观论者能找到足够的理由支持自己的观点。


That said, too many policymakers and commentators have rushed to judgment, insisting that Iran is irrevocably determined to build nuclear weapons, or that it wants a break-out capability that is just as dangerous.	于是乎，太多的政策制定者和评论家都急于下结论，坚持伊朗就是一意孤行要搞核武器，或者追求一种极为危险的破坏能力。


In fact, there is good reason to believe that the situation is less alarming and more containable than this.	事实上，有足够的理由去相信情况并非如此危急，而且依然在控制范围以内。


While a negotiated settlement acceptable to both Iran and the rest of the international community would be a hugely difficult undertaking, it is achievable.	虽然在伊朗和国际社会间达成协议的过程必定艰难无比，但这样一个协议还是有希望达成的。


One does not need to look hard for Iran’s reasons for testing the limits of international tolerance: to redeem the humiliations of the Mosaddeq era and beyond; to demonstrate superior technological prowess to the region and the wider world; and to make clear to the Western powers – whose perceived double standards abandoned Iran to Saddam Hussein’s chemical warfare in the late 1980’s – that it would not compromise on its “right” to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.	为了向整个中东以及全世界展示自己不凡的科技实力； 还要向那些在两伊战争期间执行双重标准，纵容萨达姆使用化学武器的西方势力表明——自己不会放弃在核不扩散框架下提炼铀的“权利”。


By contrast, it has not been so easy for observers to see why Iran would stop short of building the nuclear weapons that it may soon have the capacity to produce.	相比之下，观察家们都困惑于伊朗为何会在就快制造出核武器之时却停止了所有进程。


But in my many off-the-record discussions with senior officials in Iran and elsewhere over the last few years, I have heard five such reasons stated with clarity and consistency, and they deserve to be taken seriously.	但在多年以来与许多伊朗高级官员的私下谈话中，我听到了5个清晰而一脉相承的理由，而这些理由都应该受到重视。


The first reason is concern that Israel will perceive the existence of one or two Iranian bombs as an existential threat, demanding a pre-emptive military attack – with or without US support, but in either case with resources that Iran knows it cannot match.	首先，以色列会将伊朗最先制造出来的一到两个原子弹视为实质性威胁，并发动一场先发制人的攻击，但无论以方有没有美国撑腰，伊朗都自知不是对方的对手。


Iranians think such an attack unlikely if they do not cross the red line of actual weaponization.	因此伊朗人认为只要不越过了真正拥有核武器这条红线，就能保住太平。


Second, it is well understood that there is zero tolerance in Russia and China for an Iranian bomb, and all the rope that that these powers have so far given Iran in the Security Council will run out if Iran weaponizes.	其二，伊朗人深知俄罗斯和中国都绝对不会允许其拥有核武器，一旦伊朗核武化，那么这两大强权也不会再在联合国安理会上维护伊朗。


The writing on this wall became even clearer after the most recent round of sanctions negotiations.	而这种迹象在最近几轮的制裁谈判中越发明显。


Third, following from this, there is a clear perception in Iran that acquiring an actual bomb would lead to impossibly stringent economic sanctions.	第三，基于上面一点，伊朗人预计自己一旦制造了核武的话就将遭到极为严厉的制裁。


Financial sanctions, direct and indirect, already are biting – including on  the Revolutionary Guard and its significant economic interests – but have been tolerable in the context of asserting Iran’s “right to enrich” under the NPT.	目前这些直接或间接的经济制裁已经令伊朗人日子不太好过——但在尊重核不扩散条约，维护自身铀浓缩权利的口号下还是可以忍受的。


Once in obvious breach of the NPT, universal participation in a much tougher sanctions regime is seen in Iran as inevitable.	但一旦公然违反了核不扩散条约，伊朗人普遍认为自己国家将不可避免地遭受严厉制裁。


Fourth, Iranians acknowledge that any regional hegemony bought with nuclear weapons is likely to be short-lived.	其四，伊朗人认识到任何拥有了核武器的区域强权都是短命的。


There is skepticism about the capacity of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Turkey to move quickly to build bombs of their own, and a belief that they would be under much international pressure, especially from the US, not to do so.	伊朗人对埃及，沙特和土耳其正加紧制造核武器的说法都表示怀疑，并相信一旦这些国家这样做的话就会受到极大的国际压力，尤其是来自美国方面。


But there is also a clear view that Arab-Persian, Sunni-Shia, or more straightforward regional power anxieties would make a nuclear-arms race inevitable.	与此同时，他们也清晰地认识到阿拉伯人和波斯人，伊斯兰逊尼派和什叶派之间的宿怨，以及地区各大势力之间对对手实力的担忧将令核武竞赛不可避免地发生。


Finally, there is a religious reason: weapons of mass destruction simply violate the precepts of Islam.	最后还有一个宗教原因：大规模杀伤性武器直接违反了伊斯兰戒律。


Few in the West are likely to find this line very compelling, but it has echoed strongly in every conversation that I have ever had with Iranian officials, senior or minor.	只有一小部分西方人会认为这个理由有说服力，但跟我谈话的大小伊朗官员都无一例外地强调了这一点。


And it is not without plausibility: Iran did not, after all, respond in kind when it was bombarded with chemical weapons by Iraq.	这听上去确实也有点合理：毕竟，当年伊朗在遭到伊拉克化学炸弹轰炸时也没有用同样的手段���击。


None of this suggests that Iranian intentions can be taken on trust.	上述理由都没有说明伊朗真有发展核武的意图。


There is too much history, and there are too many continuing grounds for suspicion, for that.	但人们往往太过着眼于过去的历史，也因此得出太多互相猜忌的理由。


Any agreement involving an end to sanctions and diplomatic isolation would need to be accompanied by intrusive monitoring, inspection, and verification arrangements, covering not only all sensitive stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, but also any suspected weapons design or engineering facilities.	任何关于结束制裁和外交孤立的协议都必须伴随着现场监视，监察和验证程序，涵盖核燃料循环的所有敏感阶段，以及所有可疑的武器设计和工程设施。


The international community requires real confidence that there would be enough lead time – 12 months or so – in which to respond to any evidence of real intent to move to weaponization.	国际社会需要得到真正的信心，相信自己会有足够的提前期（12个月左右）去对任何显示真正核武化意图的证据作出反应。


Frustrations will continue, like those over the last year as creative efforts by Security Council members – and more recently by Brazil and Turkey – to find interim confidence-building solutions were rebuffed, largely because the leaders of last year’s democratic movement refused to support a compromise-inclined President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.	挫折也将继续存在，去年安理会成员国的开创性举措——以及巴西和土耳其最近的尝试——都产生了一系列有助于建立互信的临时性方案，但都遭到伊朗方面的断然拒绝，这在很大程度上是因为去年民主运动的那些领袖不愿意支持倾向于妥协的内贾德总统。


But there is a solid foundation of rationality on which to build in keeping the door open for negotiations.	但我们也有足够坚实合理的理由来继续保持着谈判的可能性。


Iran is an extraordinarily complex country.	伊朗是一个极端复杂的国家。


But, just as we cannot afford to underestimate the forces of extremism that persist there, we also fail at our peril to comprehend the currents of restraint and good sense that run within the country, including at high policymaking levels.	但正如我们不能低估盘踞当地极端派的力量那样，我们也同样不能不去理解这个国家（包括其高层）内部涌动着的那股克制和善意的潮流。


America’s Healthy Path to Fiscal Health	美国迈向财政健康的健康之路


BERKELEY – Over the last five years, the growth of health-care spending in the United States has slowed dramatically – to the lowest rate in the past 50 years.	伯克利—过去五年来，美国医疗支出增长大幅放缓，已降至50年来的最低点。


The slowdown is not a surprise.	减速并不令人奇怪。


It is a predictable result of the recession and slow recovery that have left millions of Americans without health insurance and dampened household spending.	这是一个可以预见的结果，其原因是让数百万美国人失去健康保险、抑制家庭支出的衰退和缓慢复苏。


But the size of the slowdown is surprising, as is the fact that it started several years before the 2008 recession – and not only in the private insurance system, but also in Medicare and Medicaid, the two major government health programs.	但减速的规模令人奇怪，同样令人奇怪的是减速从2008年衰退之前几年就开始了——而且不仅局限于私人保险系统，也出现在两大政府卫生项目——医疗保险（Medicare）和医疗补助（Medicaid）上。


(Medicare provides health coverage for retirees, and Medicaid provides coverage for low-income Americans and their children and those with disabilities.)	（医疗保险为退休人员提供医疗保障，而医疗补助为低收入美国人及其子女以及残疾人提供医疗保障。 ）


What explains this slowdown in health-care spending?	医疗支出如此减速的原因何在？


How much of it is attributable to the weak economy, and how much is the result of changes in provider and consumer behavior?	可以在多大程度上归咎于萎靡的经济，在多大程度上是拜供应者和消费者行为变化所赐？


Two recent studies offer different answers, but both predict that at least some of the slowdown will persist even after the economy recovers.	两项最新研究提供了不同的答案，但均预测至少部分减速将在经济复苏后持续下去。


That would be good news for the US economy, which currently devotes nearly 18% of GDP to health care, by far the largest share among developed countries.	这对于美国经济来说是件好事，目前美国GDP的18%被用于医疗支出，为发达国家中最高。


It would also be good news for America’s fiscal position, because Medicare and Medicaid are the two largest contributors to the long-term federal budget deficit.	这对于美国财政状况来说也是件好事，因为医疗保险和医疗补助是长期联邦预算赤字的两个最大来源。


The growth of health-care spending declined or remained unchanged in real (inflation-adjusted) terms each year between 2002 and 2011, falling to 3-3.1% in 2009-2011, the lowest rates on record since reporting began in 1960.	2002—2011年间，医疗支出增长真实值（经通胀调整）均出现了下降或维持不变，2009—2011年间，增长率低至3—3. 1%，为1960年有记录以来的最低值。


Recent data indicate that after a slight acceleration in 2012, the growth of real health-care spending in 2013 has fallen back to its 2009-2011 average.	最新数据表明，在2012年略有加速之后，2013年真实医疗支出增长将退回2009—2011年平均水平。


As a result of the recession and lagging recovery, health-care spending has also slowed significantly since 2009 throughout the OECD.	由于衰退和复苏不力，自2009年以来，经合组织国家医疗支出纷纷大幅减速。


Indeed, for the first time on record, real health-care spending stalled on average in the OECD in 2010, as developed countries, reeling from budgetary constraints, clamped down on health programs.	事实上，随着保守预算约束折磨的发达国家压制医疗项目，2010年经合组织平均真实医疗支出出现了停滞，这是有记录以来的首次。


Growth in health-care spending was slower in every OECD country in that year, with the exception of Germany.	2010年，几乎所有经合组织国家医疗支出都出现了降速，只有德国是例外。


A new study by Drew Altman, a respected health-care expert and President of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, concludes that slower growth in real GDP, along with a lower inflation rate, accounts for more than three-quarters of the slowdown in health-care spending in the US after 2001.	著名医疗专家、凯泽家庭基金会（Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation）主席德鲁·奥特曼（Drew Altman）认为，真实GDP增长的放缓和通胀率下降一道，解释了2001年美国医疗支出放缓的四分之三。


The weak economy has caused people to postpone consumption of health-care services and has encouraged states and employers to restrain their spending on health.	疲软的经济导致人们暂停医疗服务消费，也使各州和雇主限制医疗支出。


But important cost-containing changes in the private health-care system, including more cost-sharing in private insurance plans and tighter controls in managed care, have also contributed to the slowdown.	但重要的私人医疗系统成本遏制变化，包括私人保险计划承担部分增加和收紧管理式保健（managed care）的控制，也是减速的原因。


Altman conjectures that, overall, the growth in health-care spending between 2008 and 2012 was about one percentage point lower than predicted by deteriorating macroeconomic conditions alone.	奥特曼推算，光是宏观经济环境恶化就使2008—2012年间医疗支出增长大约比预测速度低1个百分点。


If this reduction continues after the economy recovers – as seems likely, given the cost-containment incentives in the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) – the US stands to spend $2 trillion less on health care over the coming decade.	如果这一减少因素在经济复苏后持续——由于平价医疗法（Affordable Care Act，被广泛称为奥巴马医改（Obamacare））中的成本控制激励，这很有可能——美国将在未来十年中减少2万亿美元的医疗支出。


Based on the relationship between changes in real per capita health-care spending and changes in unemployment rates at the state level, the recent Economic Report of the President concludes that the recession and lackluster recovery account for less than 20% of the slowdown in health-care spending since 2007 – and for an even smaller share of the slowdown that began in 2002.	基于真实人均医保支出变化和稳定水平失业率之间的关系，最新一期的《总统经济报告》认为衰退和复苏无力只能解释不到两成的2007年以来医疗支出减速，对2002年开始的减速解释力就更低了。


And difficult macroeconomic conditions explain little (if any) of the slowdown in Medicare spending per enrollee since 2001.	而困难的宏观经济环境几乎与2001年以来医疗保险覆盖者人均支出减速无关。


That is not unexpected, because the largely retired Medicare population is less vulnerable to macroeconomic fluctuations than is the working-age population.	这并出人意料，因为医疗保险覆盖者——退休人员中的大部分比工作年龄人口更能抵御宏观经波动。


The Council of Economic Advisers, whose members write the president’s report, surmise that structural changes – including stronger incentives for efficiency by hospitals and providers, more cost-sharing in insurance policies, and the substitution of generic drugs for branded drugs – explain most of the deceleration in per capita spending growth.	经济顾问委员会——总统经济报告由其成员撰写——推测，结构性变化，包括医院和供应方效率激励的增强、保险合同分担部分的增加以及用非专利药物代替专利药物，解释了大部分人均支出增长的放缓。


They also suggest that payment reforms contributed to the slowdown in Medicare’s spending growth after 2001, and that early responses to new Medicare regulations in the Affordable Care Act may have caused a further decline after 2010.	他们还认为，支付改革是2001年后医疗保险支出增长减速的原因，而针对平价医疗法中的医疗保险监管的最初反应可能导致了2010年后的进一步减速。


The long-term effect on the federal budget implied by a sustained reduction in the growth of Medicare and Medicaid spending to the rates of the last several years would be profound.	医疗保险和医疗补助支出增长持续减速至过去几年的水平所隐含的长期联邦赤字效应将是深远的。


These programs currently claim 21% of the budget, with Medicare accounting for two-thirds of that amount.	目前，这些项目占预算的21%，其中医疗保险又占三分之二。


Even a small reduction in the growth of these programs would save billions of dollars.	即使这些项目略有减少，也能省下数十亿美元。


Based on the unexpected slowdown in spending growth during the last few years, the Congressional Budget Office recently cut its ten-year projections for these programs by 3.5%, reducing the ten-year deficit by $382 billion.	基于过去几年来支出增长的意外减速，国会预算办公室将这些项目的十年预测值降低了3. 5%，减少十年预算3820亿美元。


In 2011, Medicare spending accounted for 3.7% of GDP.	2011年，医疗保险支出占GDP的3. 7%。


Based on current policies, the government forecasts that Medicare spending per beneficiary will grow at an average annual rate of 4.3% and will rise to 6.7% of GDP over the next 75 years.	基于当前政策，政府预测，在未来75年中，医疗保险覆盖者人均支出平均年增长率为4. 3%，占GDP比重将升至6.


If, instead, Medicare spending per beneficiary grew by only 3.6% a year, the average rate of the last five years, Medicare’s share of GDP would remain unchanged.	但是，如果医疗保险覆盖者人均支出增长只有每年3. 6%——即过去五年的平均值——医疗保险占GDP的比重将维持不变。


This would narrow the fiscal gap, a widely used measure of long-term budgetary imbalance, by almost one-third.	这将让财政缺口——广泛使用的长期预算失衡指标——缩小近三分之一。


Trends in the US budget reflect an inconvenient truth: If the growth of spending on health-care programs cannot be slowed, stabilizing the federal debt at a sustainable level will require deep cuts in spending on other priorities and increases in taxes on the middle class.	美国预算趋势反映了一个令人不安的真相：如果医疗项目支出增长无法降下来，将联邦债务稳定在可持续水平就需要大幅削减其他优先项目的支出和向中产阶级增税。


The recent slowdown in the growth of health-care spending is a promising sign that America’s budgetary tradeoffs may turn out to be less difficult than expected.	医疗支出下降的当前趋势对美国是一个福音，其预算权衡可能没有预想中的困难。


Why Turkey is Thriving	土耳其为何一枝独秀


NEW YORK – A recent visit to Turkey reminded me of its enormous economic successes during the last decade.	纽约——最近对土耳其的访问让我想起了这个国家十年来取得的巨大经济成就。


The economy has grown rapidly, inequality is declining, and innovation is on the rise.	经济快速发展、不平等现象得到遏制，创新势头迅猛增长。


Turkey’s achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers its neighborhood.	如果考虑到不尽人意的周边环境，土耳其的成就恐怕就更加令人瞩目。


Its neighbors to the west, Cyprus and Greece, are at the epicenter of the eurozone crisis.	与该国西部接壤的塞浦路斯和希腊恰恰处在欧元区危机的震中。


To the southeast is war-torn Syria, which has already disgorged almost 400,000 refugees into Turkey.	东南方则是已有400，000难民涌入土耳其的战火纷飞的叙利亚。


To the east lie Iraq and Iran.	东部是伊拉克和伊朗。


And to the northeast lie Armenia and Georgia.	东北部是亚美尼亚和格鲁吉亚。


If there is a more complicated neighborhood in the world, it would be difficult to find it.	全世界都很难找到局势更复杂的周边区域了。


Yet Turkey has made remarkable strides in the midst of regional upheavals.	但土耳其却在区域动荡中取得了引人瞩目的进步。


After a sharp downturn in 1999-2001, the economy grew by 5% per year on average from 2002 to 2012.	在经受住1999－2001年经济下滑冲击后，土耳其从2002到2012年保持了年均5%的经济增速。


It has remained at peace, despite regional wars.	虽然周边战火纷飞，土耳其国内局势一直保持稳定。


Its banks avoided the boom-bust cycle of the past decade, having learned from the banking collapse in 2000-2001.	该国银行从2000－2001年的银行倒闭潮中汲取教训，成功避开了过去十年的繁荣萧条周期。


Inequality has been falling.	不平等现象持续缓解。


And the government has won three consecutive general elections, each time with a greater share of the popular vote.	土耳其政府连续三次成功赢得大选，每次都获得了更为可观的民众投票份额。


There is nothing flashy about Turkey’s rise, which has been based on fundamentals, rather than bubbles or resource discoveries.	土耳其的崛起立足于基本面，而不是依靠资源发现的泡沫，这使得该国的崛起几乎没有华而不实的因素。


Indeed, Turkey lacks its neighbors’ oil and gas resources, but it compensates for this with the competitiveness of its industry and services.	事实上，土耳其并不拥有其邻国那样的石油和天然气资源，而是依靠工业及服务业的竞争力来弥补。


Tourism alone attracted more than 36 million visitors in 2012, making Turkey one of the world’s top destinations.	仅旅游一项2012年就吸引了超过3600万名游客，让土耳其跨入到世界最热门旅游目的地的范畴。


Even a short stay in Ankara allows one to see these underlying strengths.	土耳其的基本优势即使只在安卡拉做短暂逗留都可以感受到。


The airport, highways, and other infrastructure are first class, and a high-speed intercity rail network links Ankara with other parts of the country.	这里有一流的机场、高速路和其他设施，高速城际铁路网让安卡拉与国内其他城市四通八达。


Much of the advanced engineering is homegrown.	这些先进工程的绝大多数均由国内公司建造。


Turkish construction firms are internationally competitive and increasingly win bids throughout the Middle East and Africa.	土耳其的建筑公司具有国际竞争力，在从中东到非洲的广袤土地上频频中标。


Turkey’s universities are rising as well.	土耳其的大学也正在崛起之中。


Ankara has become a hub of higher education, attracting students from Africa and Asia.	安卡拉已成为高等教育集散地，吸引着来自非洲和亚洲的学生。


Many top programs are in English, ensuring that Turkey will attract an increasing number of international students.	很多顶尖课程都用英语教授，这保证了土耳其能吸引到越来越多的国际留学生。


And the country’s universities are increasingly spinning off high-tech companies in avionics, information technology, and advanced electronics, among other areas.	越来越多的航空电子、信息技术及尖端电子领域的高科技公司正在从土耳其大学中诞生。


To its credit, Turkey has begun to invest heavily in sustainable technologies.	值得称道的是，土耳其已开始对可持续发展技术进行大量的投资。


The country is rich in wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy, and will most likely become a global exporter of advanced green innovations.	该国拥有丰富的风力、地热及其他可再生能源，未来极有可能成为先进绿色创新技术的全球出口国。


Waste-treatment facilities are not typically tourist attractions, but Ankara’s novel integrated urban waste-management system has rightly attracted global attention.	废物处理设施并不是典型的旅游景点，但安卡拉新奇的综合城市废物处理系统仍然恰如其分地吸引了全球的关注。


Until a few years ago, the waste was dumped into a fetid, stinking, noxious landfill.	就在几年前，废物还被倒进散发着恶臭的有毒的垃圾填埋场。


Now, with cutting-edge technology, the landfill has been turned into a green zone.	现在，随着尖端技术的引入，曾经的垃圾填埋场已经变身成为绿化带。


The private waste-management company ITC receives thousands of tons of solid municipal waste each day.	私营废物处理公司ITC每天接收数千吨的固体城市废物。


The waste is separated into recyclable materials (plastics, metals) and organic waste.	废物被分为可回收材料（塑料、金属等）和有机废物两大类。


The organic waste is processed in a fermentation plant, producing compost and methane, which is used to produce electricity in a 25-megawatt power plant.	有机废物进入发酵厂处理产出堆肥和甲烷，再输送到一座25兆瓦的发电厂生产电力。


The electricity is returned to the city’s power grid, while the heat exhaust is piped to the facility’s greenhouses, which produce tomatoes, strawberries, and orchids.	电力重新回到城市电网，而排放的热量则经过管道输送到工厂大棚，种植番茄、草莓和兰花等作物。


Turkey’s diversified, innovative base of industry, construction, and services serves it well in a world in which market opportunities are shifting from the United States and Western Europe to Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.	土耳其多元化工业、建筑业和服务业的创新基础很好地适应了市场机遇从美国和西欧转向非洲、东欧、中东及亚洲各国的世界需求。


Turkey has been deft in seizing these new opportunities, with exports increasingly headed south and east to the emerging economies, rather than west to high-income markets.	土耳其敏锐地抓住了新的机遇，出口越来越多地流向东部和南部的新兴经济体，而不是西方高收入国家。


This trend will continue, as Africa and Asia become robust markets for Turkey’s construction firms, information technology, and green innovations.	随着亚非成为该国建筑、信息技术和绿色创新企业的强健市场，土耳其出口将会延续这样的势头。


So, how did Turkey do it?	那么，土耳其究竟如何取得了这样的成就？


Most important, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his economics team, led by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, have stuck to basics and looked to the long term.	最重要的是，总理雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安和由副总理阿里·巴巴詹领导的经济团队一直坚持从基础做起，并秉承长远的眼光。


Erdoğan came to power in 2003, after years of short-term instability and banking crises.	埃尔多安2003年上台时持续数年的短期动荡和银行危机刚刚过去。


The International Monetary Fund had been called in for an emergency rescue.	土耳其已经呼吁国际货币基金组织开展紧急援助。


Step by step, the Erdoğan-Babacan strategy was to rebuild the banking sector, get the budget under control, and invest heavily and consistently where it counts: infrastructure, education, health, and technology.	一步一步，埃尔多安－巴巴詹的策略是重建银行业、控制预算，并对基础设施、教育、卫生和技术等重要领域进行持续的大笔投入。


Smart diplomacy has also helped.	灵活的外交举措也很有帮助。


Turkey has remained a staunchly moderate voice in a region of extremes. It has kept an open door and balanced diplomacy (to the extent possible) with the major powers in its neighborhood.	身为极端区域中坚定的温和派，土耳其（尽一切可能）与相邻的主要国家保持开放平衡的外交政策。


This has helped Turkey not only to maintain its own internal balance, but also to win markets and keep friends without the heavy baggage and risks of divisive geopolitics.	这不仅有助于土耳其维持国内平衡，而且在摆脱四分五裂的地缘政治拖累和风险的情况下既赢得了市场也保住了朋友。


No doubt, Turkey’s ability to continue on a rapid growth trajectory remains uncertain.	土耳其能否继续其快速增长前景无疑尚不明确。


Any combination of crises – the eurozone, Syria, Iraq, Iran, or world oil prices – could create instability.	欧元区、叙利亚、伊拉克、伊朗或世界油价等任意危机组合都有可能造成动荡。


Another global financial crisis could disrupt short-term capital inflows.	再度爆发全球金融危机可能扰乱短期资本流入。


A dangerous neighborhood means inescapable risks, though Turkey has demonstrated a remarkable capacity during the last decade to surmount them.	危险的周边环境意味着无法逃避的风险，尽管十年来土耳其已经展现出非同凡响的风险克服能力。


Moreover, the challenge of raising educational quality and attainment, especially of girls and women, remains a priority.	此外，提高妇女及女童的教育普及度和教学质量仍然是必须优先完成的任务。


Fortunately, the government has clearly acknowledged the education challenge and is pursuing it through school reforms, increased investments, and the introduction of new information technologies in the classroom.	幸运的是，政府已经明确意识到教育挑战，并且正通过学校改革、追加投资和引入全新教学信息技术来积极应对。


Turkey’s successes have deep roots in governmental capacity and its people’s skills, reflecting decades of investment and centuries of history dating back to Ottoman times.	土耳其的成功反映出数十年投资和可以追溯到奥斯曼帝国时代的数百年历史，并深深扎根于政府及普通民众所拥有的技能。


Other countries cannot simply copy these achievements; but they can still learn the main lesson that is too often forgotten in a world of “stimulus,” bubbles, and short-term thinking.	其他国家无法简单地复制这些成就； 但他们仍然可以汲取这个“刺激”时代人们常常遗忘的主要教训——杜绝泡沫化和短期思维。


Long-term growth stems from prudent monetary and fiscal policies, the political will to regulate banks, and a combination of bold public and private investments in infrastructure, skills, and cutting-edge technologies.	长期增长来源于稳健的财政货币政策、规范银行的政治意愿以及基础设施、技能和尖端技术领域大胆的公私投资组合。


Instability from Rigidity	由僵化带来的不稳定


Everyone wants economic stability, and many are reluctant to abandon today what gave them stability yesterday.	所有人都希望经济保持稳定，而许多人在今天不愿意放弃昨天曾给他们带来稳定性的东西。


But trying to obtain stability from rigidity is illusory.	但是试图从僵化不变中获得稳定只能是异想天开。


The stability of the international financial system today depends on the willingness of countries with rigid exchange rates to allow greater flexibility.	今天国际金融系统的稳定需要那些汇率固定不变的国家愿意允许更大的灵活性。


In the aftermath of the international financial crisis of 1997-1998, many emerging markets found themselves – through currency depreciation, rapid productivity gains, or both – highly competitive.	在1997-1998年爆发的国际金融危机之后，许多新兴市场发现它们通过使货币贬值或生产力的快速增长或者两者并用就可以保持很强的竞争力。


Countries that ran significant current-account surpluses, built up large reserves, and fixed (or heavily managed) their exchange rates in order to support the first two objectives appeared to secure external stability.	这些国家获得巨额的国际收支经常项目顺差、建立起庞大的外汇储备并且将它们的汇率固定下来（或者高度控制）以实现前两个目标，似乎保持了很强的外部稳定性。


The irony is that the crisis of 1997-1998 was one in which a particular system of exchange-rate pegs failed when capital flowed out.	具有讽刺意味的是1997-1998年的金融危机正是汇率挂钩的特定体系在资金出现外流时爆发的。


Yet, in many ways, accumulating reserves worked better than anyone could have imagined – countries found that they could withstand considerable shocks and growth was impressive both domestically and globally.	然而，在许多情况下，持续增长的外汇储备比任何人所能够想象的都要有利，这些国家发现它们能够抵御国内外的巨大冲击并且保持了高速的增长。


So, within a few years, many countries concluded that their pegs could work fine if supported by large enough war chests of official reserves.	因此，在几年时间里，许多国家认为有着官方外汇储备这样份量很重的棋子的支持，它们的汇率挂钩机制就会运作得很好。


A new type of order emerged in the world’s exchange rate system.	于是在世界汇率体系中出现了一种新的秩序。


There were, of course, some less desirable spillover effects on others.	当然，它对其他国家产生了一些它们不太愿意看到的间接效应。


If a considerable fraction of the world economy wants to run a current-account surplus (by 2006, this included much of emerging Asia, most oil exporters, and Japan), an equal share of the world economy must run a deficit.	如果世界经济的很大一部分希望保持国际收支经常项目顺差（到2006年，这部分经济体包括亚洲新兴市场很大一部分、大多数石油输出国和日本），那么世界经济相等的一部分就必然要面临赤字。


In the period after 1998, the United States provided almost the entire required deficit.	1998年后，美国几乎贡献了全部所需要的赤字。


As long as US assets were attractive to residents of surplus countries (or there was an acceptable chain of investments from surplus countries that ended in the US), these accumulations of reserves were sustainable.	只要美国的资产对那些顺差国家的居民（或者来自顺差国家而最终落到美国的可接受的投资链）依然保持吸引力，这种外汇储备的不断增长就是可持续的。


The IMF worried a great deal about what would happen when this chain broke – and the eventual break was, of course, more a matter of arithmetic than economics.	国际货币基金组织非常担心这种链条断裂并且最终瓦解后将发生的情况，当然这更多地是一个算术上的问题而不是经济上的问题。


The US current-account deficit can persist above roughly 3% of GDP only if unrealistic assumptions are made about the share of US assets that the rest of the world is willing to hold.	美国的国际收支经常项目赤字能够保持在国民生产总值大约3%的水平，只要对世界其他国家愿意持有的美国资产的部分不现实的设想依然能够维系下去。


The policy plans announced by China, the euro area, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the US in the spring of 2007 – in the context of the IMF’s Multilateral Consultation on global imbalances – represent the international community’s response to the rising risks.	在国际货币基金组织对全球贸易不平衡进行的多边磋商的背景下，中国、欧元区、日本、沙特阿拉伯和美国在2007年春季宣布的政策计划表明了国际社会对越来越严重的危机的反应。


The US is to reduce its deficit, with the surplus countries proposing sensible steps to bring down their surpluses in ways that support global growth.	美国将削减它的赤字，而贸易顺差国家将采取明智的步骤逐步减少它们的贸易顺差以支撑全球经济的增长。


The sense of urgency in these discussions has increased in recent months, as the global situation has grown more complex.	这些讨论所呈现的紧迫性在最近几个月变得更加强烈了。


Specifically, problems in the US housing sector have, since summer, undermined confidence in securitized assets.	尤其是美国房地产市场自夏季以来所出现的问题严重削弱了人们对于证券化的资产的信心。


The net result has been to shift global portfolio preferences in ways that have affected some exchange rates significantly.	所产生的结果就是全球投资组合偏好的资产出现了转移，从而大大影响了多种汇率。


The dollar has depreciated in a way that helps global adjustment and fortunately does not disrupt the US government securities market; long-term rates are in fact down from July, so adjustment has been “orderly.”	美国的贬值在某种程度上帮助了全球经济的调整，并且幸运的是并没有使美国政府的证券市场发生动荡； 长期利率事实上从七月份起就下降了，因此调整是“有序的”。


Yet the pattern of exchange-rate movements in the rest of the world has been largely unrelated to existing current-account positions.	然后世界其他国家汇率变动的格局很大程度上与现有的国际收支经常项目的状况并没有关联。


In fact, currencies of surplus countries with heavily managed exchange rates have actually depreciated in real effective terms since the summer, creating inflationary pressure and frustrating global adjustment.	事实上，对汇率实施高度控制的贸易顺差国家的货币的实际有效值自夏季以来实际上是贬值了，这带来了通货膨胀的压力和全球经济令人沮丧的调整。


This has also shifted the burden of adjustment disproportionately onto countries with floating currencies, such as the euro and the Canadian and Australian dollar.	这也把调整的负担不成比例地压到了那些实施浮动汇率的国家身上，比如欧元、加元和澳元。


The lack of adjustment of surplus countries with inflexible exchange rate-regimes means that as the US deficit falls, a counterbalancing deficit develops elsewhere in the world – along with real effective exchange rate appreciation.	汇率机制不灵活的贸易顺差国家没有进行足够的调整意味着随着美国赤字的下降，世界其他国家的赤字就会相应地增长，同时实际有效汇率也会进一步提高。


Knowing what to do in this increasingly complex and volatile situation is the easy part: look at the Multilateral Consultation policy plans and “just do it.”	在这个越来越复杂和多边的环境下知道需要做什么其实很简单：只需看看多边磋商的政策计划然后“照着做”就是了。


As the US Treasury’s recent semiannual report to America’s Congress noted, for China these plans are to “rebalance its economy: boosting domestic demand and consumption-led growth; reforming its financial system; and achieving greater flexibility in its exchange-rate regime.	就像美国财政部最近向国会提交的半年度报告中所提出的，对于中国这些计划就是要“调整它的经济：促进内需和由消费带动的经济增长； 改革它的金融体系；


Indeed, rebalancing the pattern of growth is a central economic goal of China’s leadership.”	以及实施更加灵活的汇率机制。 事实上，调整经济增长模式正是中国领导层在经济上的中心目标。


But expanding demand and allowing real effective exchange rate appreciation in China will not be enough if other countries do not do their part.	但是如果其他不做出相应的动作，单单依靠中国扩大内需和允许实际有效汇率提高是不够的。 石油输出国必须进一步提高它们的财政支出；


Oil exporters must increase fiscal spending further; Japan and the Euro area must trigger higher growth through structural reforms; and the US must implement concrete measures to sustain higher savings.	日本和欧元地区必须通过结构改革刺激经济更快地增长； 而美国必须实施具体的措施以保持更高的储蓄。


This would help maintain confidence that the adjustment process will remain orderly and free of new global imbalances or protectionism.	这将可以帮助人们保持对调整过程依然是有序的信心，并且不会带来新的全球贸易不平衡和保护主义。


Implementing the policy commitments from the multilateral consultation is also needed to avoid a loss of confidence in the dollar.	同时还需要将多边磋商所规定的政策承诺付诸实施以避免对美元信心的丢失。


The risks to global growth will increase as long as adjustment remains uneven.	只要调整过程依然是不平稳的，那么全球经济增长所面临的风险将会越来越高。


The politics is not so simple, but we need cooperation between countries to reduce these risks, and we need it now.	政治并不是如此简单，但是我们需要各国加强合作以降低这些风险，我们现在就需要这样的合作。


David Cameron’s European Spaghetti Bowl	大卫·卡梅伦的欧洲意大利面碗


WASHINGTON, DC – British Prime Minister David Cameron’s “Europe” speech, delivered on January 23, was powerful, polished, contained a bold vision, and offered good arguments.	华盛顿—英国首相大卫·卡梅伦1月23日发表的“欧洲”演讲是一篇优美有力的雄文，给出了远大的愿景和充分的论据。


In particular, he got three things right.	特别是，他说准了三点。


But translating those arguments into institutional reality will be a nearly impossible challenge.	但将这些论据转变为制度现实仍是个几乎不可能的挑战。


First, Cameron is correct to emphasize the urgent need for a renewal of popular support for the European Union.	卡梅伦说准的第一点是强调了重振欧盟的公众支持的迫切需要。


The percentage of Europeans who believe that the EU is “a good thing” is dropping steadily.	认为欧盟是“好东西”的欧洲人比例正在稳步下降。


Democracies require real debate.	民主需要真正的争论。


Yet too many decisions about the future of Europe and the eurozone are made in highly technocratic settings, with most citizens not really understanding what is going on, let alone feeling that policymakers care.	但太多关于欧洲和欧元区未来的决定在极大程度上走的是技术官僚决定程序，大部分公民并不真正了解要发生什么，更不用说体会决策者所关心的东西了。


One can debate whether a referendum is the most appropriate vehicle for asking for their consent, but ask one must.	你可以争论公投是否是让他们亮出观点的最佳方式，但这是必须做的。


As Cameron put it: “There is a gap between the EU and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is – yes – felt particularly acutely in Britain.”	正如卡梅伦所指出的：“在欧盟和它的人民之间存在分歧。 近几年来，这一分歧急剧扩大，它代表了民主问责的缺失和民众的不满——是的，在英国这一问题特别尖锐。


Addressing the political challenge head on is much better than trying to evade the debate.	”纠正前方面临的政治挑战比试图弥合争论要好得多。


Second, Cameron was right to say that “the European Union that emerges from the eurozone crisis … will be transformed beyond recognition by the measures needed to save the eurozone.”	卡梅伦说准的第二点是他说“从欧元区危机中走来的欧盟……会因拯救欧元所需要的措施而发生超越认知的改变。


He did not disagree that the eurozone needs more integration, but correctly noted that the required degree of political integration is beyond the comfort zone of British citizens and of others in the EU.	”他并不否认欧元区需要更多的统一，但正确地指出，这所要求的政治一体化程度超过了英国和其他欧盟国家人民的舒适域。


Finally, Cameron argues that the EU is not an end in itself.	最后，卡梅伦指出，欧盟不会自我消亡。


Rather, it must deliver better economic performance for its citizens by emphasizing the challenge of competitiveness, particularly with respect to the new emerging countries.	相反，它必须通过强调竞争力挑战，特别是要尊重新新兴国家，给其人民带来更好的经济表现。


His speech stressed the economic weakness of many EU members (though some – such as Germany and the Nordic countries – are actually doing reasonably well in the global marketplace).	他的演讲强调了众多欧盟成员国的经济疲软状况（尽管��些成员国，如德国和北欧国家，在全球市场上做得相当好）。


As a conservative, Cameron lays the blame for economic weakness on the size of the state and a high degree of market regulation, though some Nordic countries with large government spending and strong financial and environmental regulations are in better shape than the UK, which has had less of both.	作为保守党，卡梅伦将经济疲软归咎于国家规模和高度的市场管制，尽管一些政府支出庞大、金融和环境管制严格的北欧政府比政府支出相对较小、金融和环境管制相对宽松的英国的情况更好。


But he is right that a debate on economic performance is needed, and that it will be crucial to reform Europe in a way that maximizes its prospects in global competition.	但他说准的地方在于需要就经济表现展开争论，且这是改革欧洲以实现在全球竞争中让繁荣最大化的关键。


It is normal for conservatives to argue for less government and to place greater trust in free markets, and for social democrats and greens to argue for public policies that deliver less income inequality, more public goods (such as a clean environment and public transport), and more regulation to help markets function with greater stability and distribute benefits more evenly.	保守党向来惯于鼓吹更小的政府、更信任自由市场，而社会民主党和绿党向来惯于鼓吹更少收入不平等、更多公共品（如清洁的环境和公共交通）的公共政策以及更多的监管以帮助市场运行更稳定、好处分配更公平。


The competitiveness debate should indeed be part of the debate about Europe’s renewal.	事实上，竞争力争论应该成为欧洲重生争论的一部分。


But Cameron’s vision for Europe’s institutional future is difficult to translate into workable specifics.	但卡梅伦关于欧洲制度未来的愿景很难转变为可行的细则。


He argues for a Europe “à la carte,” at least for those outside the eurozone.	他指出，欧洲应该“按单点菜”，至少在欧元区之外是如此。


He entertains the possibility that the UK and other EU countries that have opted out of the eurozone could each negotiate a specific and special “deal” with the EU, picking and choosing among its various dimensions those that suit them best and cost them the least.	他还调侃说，英国和其他选择身处欧元区之外的欧盟国家可以各自与欧盟商谈具体而特殊的“交易”，在欧盟的众多方面中点名和挑选最适合自己、成本最低的那些方面。


Thinking about the consequences that such a Europe would have on EU institutions, one must ask how the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of Ministers would function.	当你思考了这样的欧洲会给欧盟制度带来的后果之后，你一定会问欧盟委员会、欧洲议会和部长理事会将如何运转。


Would there be one set of sub-institutions for every country that has made a special deal with the Union – say, a Commission for the eurozone and Sweden, and another for the eurozone and the UK?	是否要给每个与欧盟达成特别协议的国家设立次级机构——比如既有针对欧元区和瑞典的委员会，也有针对前者和英国的委员会？


And would the European Parliament become fragmented in similar fashion?	此外，欧洲议会是否会以相同的方式变得支离破碎？


Would the European Council have a diverse set of memberships?	欧洲理事会会有一个分散的成员系统吗？


How many temporary or permanent opt-outs can there be?	会有多少临时性或永久性退出的决定？


How will Europe’s citizens, who already have enough trouble with the complexities of European governance, be able to comprehend such a “spaghetti bowl” structure?	欧洲人民——他们已经受够了欧洲治理的复杂性——如何能够理解这样一个“意大利面碗”结构？


And yet Cameron is right to believe that not all EU members will want or be able to be part of a more integrated eurozone.	但卡梅伦认为并非所有欧盟成员国都愿意或能够成为更统一的欧元区的一部分的观点是正确的。


There will have to be some flexibility if the EU is not to shrink, becoming a smaller eurozone.	如果欧盟不想规模缩水下去，退化为缩小版欧元区，增加一些弹性是必须的。


British membership is important to many in Europe.	作为成员国的英国对许多欧洲国家来说是至关重要的。


One way to overcome the dilemma might be to articulate an institutional future in which there would be essentially just two types of countries within the EU and the single market: those in the eurozone and those with national currencies.	克服这一困境的一个方法是明确制度性未来，明确将欧盟内部会存在两类国家和单一市场：欧元区成员国和使用国家货币国。


There would have to be two sets of EU institutions, one for the eurozone and another for non-eurozone countries, although they would overlap.	必须有两套欧盟机构，一套针对欧元区，一套针对非欧元区国家，尽管两者之间会有所重合。


This is already the case in some areas: consider the EU-wide Ecofin and the eurozone-only Eurogroup of Finance Ministers.	在某些领域，这样的情景已经发生了：比如泛欧盟的欧洲经济金融委员会和只针对欧元区的财政部长欧元集团。


Something similar could be created for the European Parliament, and so on.	欧洲议会和其他安排也可以如此操作。


It would be complex, but it could be made manageable; we should discuss how.	这会是个复杂的架构，但将是可管理的； 我们应该讨论怎样做。


A new European treaty would not allow cherry-picking, but would give each member state a chance to join, or commit to, either the politically more integrated eurozone or the less integrated second group.	新的欧洲条约不会让万事上选，但可以给每个成员国带来加入的机会或承诺加入在政治上更加一体化的欧元区，要么加入更少一体化的第二集团。


There would be clear rules and decision-making mechanisms for both sets of countries, subject to democratic votes by a two-tier European Parliament.	每组国家都将有明确的规则和决策机制，并将受两层次欧洲议会民主选票的约束。


Many details would have to be worked out.	许多细节仍待讨论。


But this may be a vision that gives Europe a chance to remain big and inclusive, while retaining the politically integrated core that the eurozone needs.	但这是能让欧洲保持大而包容的方案，同时还能保留欧元区所需要的统一核心。


Can China Adapt?	中国能否适应新形势？


SHANGHAI – China’s “Two Sessions” – the annual gatherings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held every March – have always drawn global attention.	上海——中国的“两会”（每年三月召开的一年一度的全国人民代表大会和中国人民政治协商会议）一直吸引着全球的目光。


But the meetings this year seemed particularly significant, owing not only to the country’s leadership transition, but also to its economic slowdown amid calls for deeper reform.	但今年的两会似乎尤为重要，这不仅因为国家领导人换届，也因为中国的经济增长放缓提出了深化改革的要求。


How, then, will China’s new leaders respond?	那么，中国的新任领导人该作何对策？


The problem is simple: No one can predict accurately how long the slowdown will last.	问题非常简单：没人能准确预测这轮经济放缓会持续多久。


The authorities, lacking confidence in their ability to restore pre-2009 rates of annual GDP growth, have lowered the official target to 7.5%.	当局对将年度GDP增长恢复到2009年前的水平缺乏信心，因此将官方目标调降至7. 5%。


Many economists are becoming even more pessimistic, pointing to Japan as evidence that, after three decades, China’s breakneck growth may be coming to an end.	许多经济学家甚至更为悲观，指出经过三十年的快速发展，中国经济的高速增长期可能像日本那样结束。


Japan’s economy, they point out, achieved more than 20 years of sustained rapid growth; but, in the 40 years since 1973, annual growth has exceeded 5% only a handful of times, and output has stagnated for the last two decades.	他们认为日本经济实现了超过20年的持续快速增长； 但在1973年后的40年中，日本年度经济增长超过5%的情况屈指可数，并且20年来产能一直处于停滞状态。


But today’s pessimists need to account for some fundamental differences between the two economies.	但今天的悲观主义者需要就两个经济体间最根本的差异做出解释。


For example, Japan was already a high-income country in 1973, with per capita income (in terms of purchasing power parity) at roughly 60% of the United States’ level.	比方说，日本1973年就已经进入高收入国家行列，其人均收入（按购买力平价计算）相当于美国60%的水平。


The “Four Asian Tigers” (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) experienced a slowdown in GDP growth at a similar relative income level.	“亚洲四小龙”（香港、新加坡、韩国和台湾）也在达到类似的相对收入水平后出现了GDP增长放缓的过程。


By contrast, China’s per capita income is only about 20% of the US level.	相比之下，中国的人均收入仍只相当于美国的20%。


In other words, we should not underestimate the Chinese economy’s potential to converge toward developed countries.	换句话讲，我们不应低估中国经济向发达国家靠拢的潜能。


The pessimists, however, doubt that China can maintain catch-up economic growth.	但悲观主义者质疑中国能否在经济发展上继续保持追赶势头。


They argue that the current growth model, if not the economic system more broadly, is driving the country into a “middle-income trap.”	他们认为即使广义的经济制度问题不大，现有的发展模式也会使中国陷入到“中等收入陷阱”之中。


Attributing problems to systemic causes is a typical habit of thought in China.	将问题归咎于体制原因是中国式思维的典型。


But can a system that has sustained 30 years of hyper-growth really be worse than those systems adopted in Japan and the Four Tigers?	但已经实现了30年高速增长的体制难道真的比不上日本和亚洲四小龙？


China’s economic system, which developed from the institutions of central planning, must have had some merits during this period.	高速发展期内，从中央计划体制演变而来的中国经济体制无疑有其过人之处。


But the development and ultimate structure of economic institutions are closely related to a country’s income level or stage of economic development.	但经济体制的发展及其最终结构与一个国家的收入水平或经济发展阶段密切相关。


If some aspects of the current system cannot be adapted to support further economic development, they could end up hindering it.	如果现有体制的某些方面无法支撑经济进一步发展，就有可能反过来产生阻碍作用。


What really matters for economic growth is not whether a system is the “best,” but whether it can be adjusted to serve a new phase of economic development.	经济增长并不一定需要“最好”的体制，而要看体制能否调整适应新的经济发展需求。


From this perspective, it is vital to ensure that an economic system is open to institutional reform.	从这个角度讲，关键是要确保经济体制能够许可全面的制度改革。


No economic system, however “optimal,” can sustain long-term growth once it is no longer reformable.	如果拒绝改革，没有哪种“最优”经济体制可以保证经济长期发展。


After its extraordinary post-1945 economic miracle, Japan fell into a pattern of ultra-slow growth because it lacked the flexibility to adapt its institutions for a new phase of economic development, characterized by heightened global competition.	创造了后1945年的经济奇迹后，日本因其体制不够灵活、无法适应以全球竞争加剧为特点的经济发展新阶段而进入到超慢增长阶段。


By contrast, South Korea has maintained its growth momentum since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990’s.	相比之下，20世纪90年代亚洲金融危机后，韩国经济增长势头就一直非常强劲。


Western economists often criticize its economic system, but the key point is that its institutions are flexible and open to change, which implies a high degree of economic resilience.	西方经济学家经常批评韩国经济体制，但关键问题在于这种体制非常灵活，也就是说具有很强的经济弹性。


Why is one system amenable to reform, while another is not?	为什么一种体制能够改革而另一种则不能？


In recent years, research has indicated that vested interests and powerful lobbies distort economic policies and cause governments to miss good opportunities.	近年来的研究结果表明，既得利益和强大的游说势力会扭曲经济政策，致使政府错过千载难逢的发展机会。


A system receptive to reform requires the government to have greater power or wealth than any interest group, thus enabling it to pursue long-term policy goals and ensure the success of reform.	改革体制需要政府权力和财力压倒一切利益集团，才能坚持长期的目标政策，并确保改革取得成功。


For example, Yao Yang of Peking University has argued that the Chinese government is able to decide the right policies at critical points, because it is not unduly swayed by any interest group.	比方说，北京大学的姚洋认为中国政府能够在关键时刻做出正确决策，因为任何利益集团都不会过分左右政府的行动。


It is this neutrality, he says, that explains the success of China’s economic transition and its three decades of rapid economic growth.	他说正是这种中立能力能够解释中国经济三十年的快速增长和经济转轨成功。


But what about now?	但现在怎么样？


China is entering a new phase of development, and institutional reform in key areas – particularly the public sector, income distribution, land ownership, the household registration system, and the financial sector – has become imperative.	中国正在进入新的发展阶段，公共部门、收入分配、土地所有制、户籍制度和金融部门等关键领域的制度改革已经成为当务之急。


Obviously, reform is more difficult today than it was when China began its economic transition.	显然，今天的改革比中国刚开始经济转型时难度更大。


State-owned enterprises, for example, currently account for 40% of total corporate assets, but only 2% of all firms, which implies significant policy influence.	比方说只占公司总数2%的国有企业目前却拥有企业总资产的40%，国企的政策影响力也因此十分巨大。


But China seems unlikely to go the way of, say, Russia.	但中国似乎不太可能走俄国走过的道路。


On the contrary, the accumulation of wealth in the Chinese government’s hands should enhance its ability to press ahead with reform.	恰恰相反，中国政府手中累积的财富可以令其改革能力大幅增强。


Institutional flexibility has been the key to China’s economic transition and rapid growth over the last three decades, and it is vitally important that the Chinese government remains neutral and avoids being captured by interest groups.	体制灵活性三十年来一直是中国经济转轨和快速成长的关键，重要的是中国政府继续保持中立、不受利益集团的胁迫。


In short, the authorities must ensure that the system remains open to change in the long run.	简言之，政府必须确保体制从长远看能够保持开放。


Successful implementation of another round of far-reaching reform depends on it.	只有这样才能最终落实新一轮意义深远的改革。


Emerging Economies’ Misinsurance Problem	新兴经济体的保障错位


LONDON – Over the last decade, America’s expansionary monetary policy and China’s rapid growth have been the two key drivers of global financial flows.	来自伦敦–在过去的十年中，美国的扩张性的货币政策以及中国的快速增长已成为全球金融流动的两个关键驱动。


Now, both dynamics are being reversed, generating new risks for the global economy – particularly for emerging countries.	如今这两个驱动力遭到逆转，并因此产生了新的全球经济风险——尤其针对新兴国家来说。


Whether they can cope with these changes will depend on whether they have taken out enough insurance against the right risks.	而这些国家能否可以应付这些变化将取决于能否针对相应的风险采取足够的保障措施。


Following the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990’s, emerging economies began to accumulate massive foreign-exchange reserves to protect themselves against the risks of external over-indebtedness.	在经历了20世纪90年代末的亚洲金融危机之后，新兴经济体开始积累大量外汇储备来保护自己抵御对外过度负债的风险。


In fact, they amassed far more than they needed – $6.5 trillion, at last count – effectively becoming over-insured against external balance-of-payments shocks.	事实上，在最近一次统计中，它们取得了远远超过自身所需要的6. 5万亿美元——在对抗外部平衡收支冲击方面来说，这显然是保障过度了。


But they remained underinsured against domestic credit risks – the leading threat to emerging economies today.	但他们针对国内信用风险方面的保障却有所不足——这也是当前对新兴经济体的主要威胁。


After the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, interest rates plummeted, fueling private-sector credit booms in many of the largest emerging markets, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Turkey.	2008全球金融危机爆发后，利率大幅下降，刺激许多大规模新兴市场私营部门产生信贷繁荣，其中就包括巴西、印度、印尼和土耳其。


Although these booms were initially financed by domestic capital, they soon became dependent on foreign capital, which flowed into their economies as advanced-country central banks pumped huge amounts of liquidity into financial markets.	虽然这些信贷繁荣最初是由国内资本催生的，但这些国家很快就开始依赖外因发达国家央行向金融市场大量注入流动性而产生的国外资本。


Now, just as the US Federal Reserve contemplates an exit from its unconventional monetary policies, emerging economies’ current-account positions are weakening, making their reliance on capital inflows increasingly apparent – and increasingly dangerous.	如今随着美联储计划退出非常规货币政策，新兴经济体的经常帐户状况遭到了削弱，导致其对资本流入的依赖越来越明显——同时也越来越危险。


Ironically, today’s pain stems from one of the great successes that emerging economies have achieved: the reduction of foreign-currency funding in favor of local-currency debt.	具有讽刺意味的是，今天的痛苦源自于新兴经济体过去取得的一个伟大成就：为支持本币债务而减少的外汇债务。


As emerging-market central banks leaned against heavy capital inflows in order to mitigate exchange-rate appreciation, their currencies became less volatile.	随着新兴市场央行依靠大量资本流入来缓解汇率升值压力，于是这些国家的本币变得相对坚挺。


The resulting perception that currency risk was declining bolstered capital inflows further.	由此产生的结果是，汇率风险下降又进一步促进了资本流入。


This virtuous feedback loop has now turned vicious, with capital inflows amounting to only a fraction of outflows.	由于资本流入只占了流出的一小部分，这种良性反馈循环如今已经走向了负面。


Given this, the likely upshot of monetary tightening in the advanced economies will be a long depreciation of emerging-market currencies and, in turn, a significant interest-rate hike – a trend that puts emerging economies at risk for the kinds of credit crises that have bedeviled developed economies over the last six years.	在这个情况下，发达经济体的货币紧缩政策很可能产生的结果就是新兴市场货币的长期贬值，以及相应的利率攀升——这一趋势使得新兴经济面临着跟过去6年一直困扰着发达国家的信贷危机类似的风险。


The higher interest rates rise to stabilize emerging markets’ currencies, the more severe their crises will be.	新兴市场为稳定本币而将利率升的越高，它们的风险就越严重。


Ultimately, even if emerging economies manage to diversify their funding away from foreign currencies, they will remain hostages to US monetary-policy cycles.	最终，即便新兴经济体能够将自身融资与外国货币剥离开来，它们依然会遭到美国货币政策的裹胁。


Had emerging economies resisted the temptation of excessive private-sector credit growth, raising interest rates in order to stabilize currencies would not pose a severe threat to economic performance.	但如果新兴经济体能抵抗住过度私人部门信贷增长的诱惑，那么为稳定本币而提高利率的做法就不会对经济造成太大威胁。


But, unsurprisingly, they did not; rather, they succumbed to the notion that unprecedentedly high rates of GDP growth were the new normal.	但不出意外，他们没能做到这一点； 相反，它们都认为前所未有的高GDP增长是一种新的常态，并因此走向绝路。


Nowhere was this more apparent than in China, where double-digit annual output gains long obscured the flaws in a state-led, credit-fueled growth model that favors state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and selected industries, like the real-estate sector, to the detriment of private savers.	在这方面没有哪里比中国体现得更明显，每年两位数的增长长期以来掩盖了政府牵头-信贷刺激增长模式的缺陷，在这一模式下只有国有企业和房地产这类特定行业受益，但却牺牲了私人储蓄者的利益


Since 2008, banking-sector credit growth in China has been among the fastest in the world, far outpacing GDP growth, and China’s total debt has risen from 130% of GDP to 220% of GDP.	自2008年以来，中国的银行部门信贷增长在全世界范围内位居前列，远远超过GDP增速，该国债务总额与GDP的比值也从130%上升到220%。


As of this year, ¥1 of GDP growth is consistent with more than ¥3.5 of credit growth.	以今年为例，在1元钱的GDP增长的同时却出现了3. 5元钱的信贷增长。


China’s financial sector is now increasingly feeling the strain of this rapid credit growth, which has led to overcapacity in favored sectors and mounting debt problems for local governments, SOEs, and banks.	中国的金融部门正在逐渐感觉到这一快速信贷增长所带来的压力，这一方面导致特定受益的行业产能过剩，另一方面也为地方政府，国企和银���带来了堆积如山的负债。


Meanwhile, China’s shadow-banking system has expanded at an unprecedented rate.	与此同时，中国的影子银行系统规模也在以前所未有的速度扩大。


But here, too, mounting risks have been largely ignored, owing partly to the collateralization of real property, which is believed to retain its value permanently, and partly to the system of implicit government guarantees that backs loans to local governments and SOEs.	但这一领域也不例外，不断增大的风险在很大程度上都遭到了忽略，原因有二：一是有房产作抵押，而房产又被认为是不会贬值的； 二是隐性的政府担保体系可以为当地政府和国企的贷款作保。


At the very least, the combination of higher interest rates in the shadow-banking sector and weaker nominal GDP growth undermines borrowers’ debt-repayment capacity.	首先，影子银行部门的更高利率与更低名义GDP增长相结合削弱了贷款者的偿还能力。


In a worst-case scenario, falling property prices or diminishing faith in implicit government guarantees would compound the risks generated by the shadow-banking system, severely undermining China’s financial stability.	在最坏的情况下，地产价格的下跌或者对隐性政府担保的不信任会和影子银行系统所产生的风险大大增加，严重威胁中国的金融稳定。


In that sense, although China, with its $3.5 trillion stock of foreign-exchange reserves, may seem to exemplify emerging economies’ tendency to be over-insured against external risks, it actually faces the same credit risks as its counterparts.	在这个意义上，即使中国手里的3. 5万亿美元外汇储备可能成为过度保障外部风险的典型范例，但它依然会遭遇别国那样的信贷风险。


The difference is that China has implemented structural – and thus longer-lasting – credit-based policies, while other emerging economies have been drawn into a cyclical lending binge.	其区别在于中国推行了结构性——因此也会延续长时期——的以信贷为基础的政策，而其他新兴经济体则陷入了一场周期性的贷款狂热。


Indeed, China’s slowness to implement an alternative to the investment-led, debt-financed growth model that has prevailed for the last two decades means that its domestic credit risks are the most significant threat to the global economy today.	事实上，中国决心找到一种能替代过去20年行之有效投资驱动-贷款资助增长模式的方案，但其在实施这一方案上所表现的动作迟缓意味着该国国内的信贷风险才是当今全球经济的最大威胁。


While China may have the financial resources to cover its debt overhang, it risks being left with a low-to-middle-income economy, high debt levels, and nominal growth rates roughly two-thirds lower than the 17% average annual rate achieved in 2004-2011.	虽然中国或许拥有足够的金融资源去偿付其过度负债，但它的风险则在于沦为一个中低收入经济体，高负债水平，而名义增长率则比2004~2011年的17%左右低2/3。


This is bad news for other emerging economies, which have depended heavily on China’s growth for their own.	对于其他新兴经济体来说这不是个好消息，因为它们自身的增长也高度依赖中国的繁荣。


Unless emerging-market governments take advantage of the limited space provided by their foreign-exchange reserves and floating currencies to enact vital structural reforms, the onus of adjustment will fall on interest rates, compounding the effects of slowing growth and the risks associated with bad debt.	除非新兴市场政府能利用自身外汇储备和浮动货币所带来的有限空间来实施关键的结构性改革，否则调整的重担将落在利率之上，并与结合增长放缓的效应以及与不良债务相关的风险糅合在一起。


Whether this becomes a systemic issue affecting the entire global economy will hinge on China.	而这是否会成为影响整个全球经济的一个系统性问题，将取决于中国。


Insuring the Worst	为最严重的灾害投保


In the nearly six months since Hurricane Katrina destroyed half of New Orleans, many storm victims’ expectations of help have been dashed, creating a legacy of bitterness.	在卡特里娜飓风毁掉半个新奥尔良的半年后，很多飓风受害者的求助希望彻底破灭，从而引发了颇为痛苦的遗留问题。


That legacy may be all the more painful when we consider that many homeowners suffered unnecessarily devastating losses because of their lack of insurance or their underinsurance, often owing to the belief that they could not afford the right coverage.	而想到很多屋主遭受到不必要损失，或者是由于未上保险或者由于自认为无力承担全部保费而选择不足额保险所致，我们便更加痛心疾首。


Future catastrophes – storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, forest fires, agricultural or other environmental crises, disease epidemics, or terrorist attacks – are likely to result in the same kinds of problems.	未来的各种灾难――暴风、地震、海啸、火山喷发、森林大火、农业或者其他环境危机、疫病，或者恐怖袭击――都会引发类似的问题。