Trump’s legislative victory implies the return of the infamous twin deficits that followed George W. Bush’s tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, and Ronald Reagan’s cuts of 1981-1983.	特朗普的立法胜利意味着美国将回归2001年和2003年小布什减税，以及1981—1983年里根减税之后所发生的可耻的双赤字。


There are different ways to measure the balance of payments, each appropriate for different purposes.	衡量收支平衡的方法有很多，出于不同目的可以用不同的口径。


The narrowest – and probably the least informative – measure includes only merchandise trade.	最狭义——可能也最无信息价值——的口径只包括商品贸易。


Yet Trump likes to focus on bilateral merchandise balances, rather than a broader and more useful indicator, such as the overall balance of goods and services.	但特朗普喜欢关注双边商品贸易收支余额，而不是更广义也更有用的指标，如商品和服务总收支余额。


The current-account balance is broader still, including such other transactions as net investment earnings from abroad, expatriates’ remittances, and foreign aid.	经常项目余额的含义更加广泛，包括海外净投资收益、海外国民的侨汇、对外援助等交易。


It is useful, because it shows whether the United States is spending beyond its means and therefore going into debt to the rest of the world.	它很有用，因为它说明了美国是否入不敷出，因此欠下世界其他国家的债务。


And, whichever approach an economist takes, the result is clear: Trump’s tax cuts will have a negative effect on the current-account balance.	此外，不管经济学家采取哪种口径，结果是明确的：特朗普的减税将给经常项目余额带来负面影响。


Start with the simple Keynesian model.	从简单的凯恩斯模型开始。


A tax cut boosts income and spending.	减税刺激收入和支出。


True, Trump’s tax cut focuses heavily on corporate taxes, rather than personal income taxes.	诚然，特朗普的减税注重的主要是公司税而非个人所得税。


But, as Republicans like to point out, corporations are people, too, in the sense that people own and run them.	但正如共和党惯于指出的，公司也是人民，因为是人民拥有和经营着公司。


Most of the corporate windfall that Trump’s tax cut will deliver will be passed through to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buy-backs, and given to managers as higher pay.	特朗普减税给公司带来的意外之财大部分将通过分红和股票回购的方式回馈给股东，以及通过更高的薪酬的形式授予经理人。


The recipients will spend some of that additional income on foreign goods, boosting imports and worsening the trade balance.	受益者将把一部分增加的收入用于外国商品，刺激进口，恶化贸易平衡。


The simple Keynesian model is less relevant when the economy is at full employment, as the US now is, and output is constrained by capacity.	这一简单的凯恩斯模型在经济处于充分就业（美国现在就处于这一状态）、产出受制于产能时不太重要。


But, under such circumstances, the result is also problematic: the increase in spending afforded by tax cuts goes entirely, rather than only partly, into the current-account deficit.	但在这样的环境中，结果仍然有问题：减税所带来的支出增加全部，而非部分，转变为经常项目赤字。


Moreover, when output is constrained, the increased demand tends to lead to inflation.	此外，当产出受到约束时，增加的需求常常导致通胀。


Higher prices for US products will reinforce domestic consumers’ incentive to buy foreign products, while reducing external demand for US exports.	美国产品价格的上涨将强化国内消费这购买外国产品的激励，同时降低美国出口品的外部需求。


The result, again, will be a larger trade deficit.	结果也是贸易赤字增加。


What about the burst of investment and eventual rise in productivity that is supposed to result from the Republican tax reform?	那么被认为可以通过共和党税收改革中实现的投资爆发和生产率的最终上扬呢？


In the short run, higher investment is another form of spending: yet again, imports rise, and the trade deficit widens.	在短期，提高投资也是一种支出：不过也会增加进口进而扩大贸易赤字。


This effect is likely to be compounded by the expectation that a lower corporate tax rate will attract foreign investment, resulting in a net capital inflow.	这一效应或许会因为公司税率降低会吸引外国投资、引起净资本流入的预期而加剧。


According to the so-called intertemporal approach, a policy change that people believe augurs higher productivity in the future causes a current-account deficit today.	据所谓的跨期视角，如果人们相信政策变化能提高未来生产率，将导致今天的经常项目赤字增加。


And, in fact, the model that White House economists use to claim that the corporate tax cut will raise wages assumes a large capital inflow and current account deficit.	而事实上，白宫经济学家用来论证降低公司税能提高工资的模型正是假定了大规模的资本流入和经常项目赤字。


The net capital inflow will be even larger if the US Federal Reserve continues to respond to increases in demand by raising interest rates.	如果美联储继续用升息来应对需求增加的话，净资本流入会变得更大。


This policy would probably also drive up the value of the US dollar, which would undermine the international price competitiveness of US exports and worsen the trade balance further.	该政策还有可能推高美元价值，从而损害美国出口品的国际价格竞争力，进一步恶化贸易平衡。


So, whichever approach one takes, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Republican tax cut will widen the trade and current-account deficits, achieving the opposite of what Trump has promised.	因此，不管你采取什么视角，都很难摆脱这样的结论：共和党减税将扩大贸易和经常项目赤字，与特朗普的承诺南辕北辙。


But that doesn’t mean that Trump skeptics can just sit back and wait for him to be proven wrong, because it is possible that, in the first year, the reported trade deficit will narrow, even as the true trade deficit widens.	但这并不意味着质疑特朗普的人可以高枕无忧地坐等他的错误坐实，因为有可能在第一年里，报告贸易赤字将有所收窄，尽管真实贸易赤字有所扩大。


It all comes down to “transfer pricing” – the prices multinational corporations use to put a value on cross-border trade in inputs among their subsidiaries.	所有这些都可以归结为“转移定价”——跨供公司用来给分公司之间的投入品跨国贸易赋予价值的价格。


Consider an American pharmaceutical company that establishes a plant in Ireland.	考虑一家在爱尔兰设厂的美国制药公司。


The Irish affiliate imports some inputs (most notably, the intellectual property represented by the drug patent), assembles the product in Ireland, and exports it back to the US.	爱尔兰工厂进口一些投入品（最主要是药品专利的知识产权），在爱尔兰组装产品，然后出口回美国。


In terms of value-added, the patent makes the biggest contribution.	从增值角度，专利是最大的部分。


But, because the corporate tax rate is lower in Ireland than in the US, the company has an incentive to assign a low value to the patent, thereby maximizing the profits in Ireland and minimizing them in the US, where the patent was developed.	但爱尔兰的公司税率要低于美国，因此公司有动机给专利赋予较低的价值，从而让爱尔兰的利润最大化，而让专利开发地美国的利润最小化。


This sort of profit-shifting – or, put another way, “creative accounting” – is widespread, and has long made the US trade balance appear worse than it really is (while making US primary income look better than it really is).	这种利润转移——或者换句话说，“创造性会计”——非常广泛，也让美国贸易余额看上去一直远比实际情况更加恶劣（也让美国营业收入看起来比实际情况更好）。


George Saravelos and his colleagues at Deutsche Bank argue that eliminating the measurement error that arises from inaccurate transfer pricing could give a one-time boost to the reported trade balance – particularly in the form of reported service exports – as large as $250 billion.	乔治·萨拉维洛斯（George Saravelos）和他的德意志银行（Deutsche Bank）同事们指出，剔除源自不准确转移定价的测量误差，报告贸易余额可以一次性提高高达2,500亿美元——主要是报告服务出口。


The trade deficit would ostensibly be halved.	从表面上看，贸易赤字将会缩水一半。


But there is a difference between the reported trade balance and the true one; whatever narrowing of the trade deficit arises from the adjustment of transfer prices would be illusory.	但报告贸易余额和真正的贸易余额之间是有区别的； 转移定价调整所产生的贸易赤字减小一概都是幻觉。


Moreover, the current-account balance, reported or true, would not improve at all, because the apparent improvement in service exports would be offset by an apparent worsening of profits earned abroad.	此外，经常项目余额——不管是报告余额还是实际余额——都不会改善，因为表面上的服务出口改善会被表面上的海外利润恶化所抵消。


On the contrary, that balance would deteriorate, for all the reasons stated above.	相反，由于前文所述的原因，余额会出现恶化。


No matter how you look at it, the Republican tax cut, by widening the budget deficit, will fuel growth in the US current-account deficit.	不管你如何看待，共和党减税都将扩大预算赤字，从而刺激美国经常项目赤字增加。


It’s the early 1980s all over again.	这是20世纪80年代的翻版。


But it’s not morning in America.	但这不是美国之晨。


Supply-Side Amnesia	供给侧失忆症


BERKELEY – In the spring of 1980, Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein taught (alongside Olivier Blanchard) one of the best macroeconomics classes I ever took.	伯克利—1980年春，哈佛大学经济学家马丁·费尔德斯坦（Martin Feldstein）和奥利佛·布兰查德（Olivier Blanchard）一起讲授了我上过的最优秀的宏观经济学课程之一。


Two and a half years later, Feldstein joined US President Ronald Reagan’s cabinet, where he chaired the Council of Economic Advisers until July 1984.	两年半后，费尔德斯坦加入了美国总统里根的内阁，担任经济顾问委员会主席直至1984年7月。


While in the White House, Feldstein waged a persuasive but lonely bureaucratic campaign against the Reagan administration’s 1981 income-tax cuts, arguing that they had been too big, and would prove economically painful if not corrected.	在白宫任职期间，费尔德斯坦发动了一场很有说服力但却孤家寡人的反对里根政府1981年所得税减税方案的官僚运动。 费尔德斯坦认为，里根的减税规模太大，如果不加纠正，将会危害到经济。


Feldstein’s position was not popular among other Reaganites.	费尔德斯坦的立场没有受到其他里根派人士的欢迎。


Rather than heed his warnings, Reagan’s chief of staff, James Baker, convinced others in the administration to stay the course, so that they would not have to admit that the president’s signature tax-cutting initiative had been a mistake.	里根的幕僚长詹姆斯·贝克尔（James Baker）没有理会他的警告，而是说服政府的其他成员继续推进原计划，这样，他们就不需要承认里根的标志性减税计划是一个错误。


Baker and his cohort won the political debate.	贝克尔和他的同伙们赢得了政治争论。


The Reagan tax cuts remained in place, and created a federal budget deficit that would not be tamed until President Bill Clinton started to bring spending and revenues back into line in 1993.	里根减税照旧执行，结果造成了巨大的联邦赤字，直到1993年克林顿总统让支出和收入重新协调起来，才填补了这个巨坑。


Clinton accomplished this feat despite unanimous objections from every Republican in the US Congress.	克林顿是在国会共和党一致反对的情况下实现这一成就的。


The Reagan-era deficits helped the US economy recover from the 1981-82 recession.	里根时代的赤字帮助美国经济从1981—82年的衰退中复苏。


But after 1984, growth slowed, because resources that should have been allocated for investment were instead spent on consumption, particularly among higher-income earners.	但1984年之后，增长开始放缓，因为原本应该用于投资的资源，被用在了消费上，特别是高收入群体。


Ultimately, the Reagan tax cuts hammered manufacturing in the Midwest, creating what is now known as the “Rust Belt.”	最终，里根减税重创了中西部制造业，造就了今天的著名的“锈带”。


As it happened, this is precisely what Feldstein had warned about.	是的，这正是费尔德斯坦所警告的内容。


He had argued that prevailing economic conditions implied that wider budget deficits would result in higher interest rates and a stronger dollar, making it harder for US manufacturers to compete with imports.	他指出，普遍的经济条件表明，扩大预算赤字将导致更高的利率和更强势的美元，从而增加美国制造商与进口商品竞争的难度。


I believe that if Feldstein’s warning had been heeded in 1982-84, America would be stronger and happier today.	我认为，如果费尔德斯坦的警告能够在1982—1984年间被采纳，今天的美国会更强大、更幸福。


I was thus dismayed at his recent expression of optimism that under today’s Republican-led Congress, “a tax reform serving to increase capital formation and growth will be enacted,” while arguing that “any resulting increase in the budget deficit will be only temporary.”	因此，他最近乐观地表示，在如今共和党领导的国会治下，“有利于增加资本形成和增长的税收改革将得到执行”，并指出“任何由此导致的预算赤字的增加，都只是暂时的”，我对此感到非常诧异。


I would respond to Feldstein with three questions.	我想用三个问题回应费尔德斯坦。


First, when in recent memory has a Republican-sponsored tax cut not created a deficit?	首先，在最近的历史中，共和党支持的减税何时不曾造成赤字？


Second, when have those deficits been “temporary,” apart from the occasions when later Democratic administrations reduced them by reversing the underlying tax cuts (as Clinton did after Reagan, and Barack Obama did after George W. Bush)?	其次，这些赤字，除了有几次随后的民主党政府通过取消其背后的减税政策（如里根之后的克林顿、小布什之后的奥巴马），何时是“暂时的”？


And, finally, when have investments stemming from Republican tax cuts ever raised more in national savings than has been depleted by the ensuing budget deficits?	最后，源自共和党减税的投资，何时带来了比持续的预算赤字所消耗的更多的国民储蓄？


The answer to all three questions is simple: never.	这三个问题的答案都是：从来没有过。


A pro-growth, revenue-neutral tax-reform package might be possible in the United States if it were designed by a bipartisan group of centrists, which is what happened with the Tax Reform Act of 1986.	促增长的税收收入中性的税改计划在美国也许是可能的，如果它由一个两党中间派组成的团队制定的话。 1986年税收改革法案就是如此。


Such a bill today would need to promise lower tax rates for those who are heavily taxed, and only limited tax increases for those who are lightly taxed.	今天，这样一个法案必须承诺为税负沉重者减税，而对税负轻松者只能有限增税。


And any changes made would need to translate into relatively large growth benefits.	而任何变化，都需要转化为相对较大的增长收益。


Unfortunately, the tax-reform effort currently underway in the US is not backed by a group of bipartisan centrists, but by right-wing Republicans who believe that taxes are an affront to billionaires’ liberties.	不幸的是，美国目前正在制定的税改方案背后不是跨党派中间派团队，而是右翼共和党，他们认为税收是对亿万富翁的自由的侵犯。


Rather than starting from the center and making appeals to both sides, congressional Republicans are starting from the right and feinting toward the center.	国会共和党不是从中间道路出发，提出对双方都有吸引力的方案，而是从右翼出发，假装向中间靠拢。


At the end of the day, cutting taxes for the wealthy is their top priority, regardless of whether such cuts lead to more domestic investment.	到头来，给富人减税才是他们的最重要的重点，全然不顾如此减税是否会带来更多的国内投资。


Feldstein’s language in describing the current Republican tax-reform effort is telling.	费尔德斯坦描述当前共和党税改方案的话很有说明性。


“The House Republican plan would cut the top tax rate back to 30% or lower,” he writes, before listing a few “mights”: the bill “might…eliminate the estate tax”; and it “might eliminate tax deductions for state and local taxes, and tax some of the fringe benefits that are currently excluded from taxable income.”	“国会共和党的计划将降低最高税率，回到30%或更低的水平，”他写道，然后列举了一些“可能”：该法案“可能……取消不动产税”； 它“可能取消州和地方税的抵扣，对目前不属应税所得的某些额外福利征税”。


Further down, he claims that the bill “would reduce [the corporate-tax] rate to 25% or less,” which, he asserts, is “likely to boost domestic corporate investment.”	接下来，他宣称该法案“将把[公司税]率下降到25%或更低，”这，他主张，“或能提振国内公司投资”。


But whether the Republican plan “would” do something depends largely on those “mights.”	但共和党的计划是否“会”做成一些事情在很大程度上取决于这些“可能”。


The bill might yield a net benefit for all or most Americans, or it might be a handout to the super-wealthy.	该法案可能给全体或大部分美国人带来净收益，也可能为超级富豪锦上添花。


Given that the effort is being led by hard-right Republicans who care more about cutting taxes than holding down deficits, my bet is on the latter outcome – the one Feldstein warned about in the early 1980s.	考虑到这个方案系由更关心减税而不是降低赤字的强硬右翼共和党所领导，我赌最后的结果是后者——也就是费尔德斯坦在20世纪80年代初所警告的。


Another Look at Tax Reform and Economic Growth	税收改革和经济增长的另一种视角


STANFORD – In late November, a group of economists, including me, published an open letter to US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin in the Wall Street Journal, in which we offered an evaluation of the positive growth effects of the Republican tax package that is now coming to a vote.	发自斯坦福——11月下旬，包括我在内的一批经济学家在《华尔街日报》上发表了一封致美国财政部长史蒂文·姆努钦（Steven Mnuchin）的公开信，对日前进入投票阶段的共和党税收方案的积极增长效应进行了评估。


Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman, raised several technical questions about our conclusions.	前财政部长拉里·萨默斯（Larry Summers）和经济顾问委员会前任主席贾森·弗尔曼（Jason Furman）曾就我们的结论提出了一些技术性问题。


We responded.	我们对此做出了回应。


Another signatory, Harvard University’s Robert Barro, then published a deeper elaboration of the tax plan’s growth effects here at Project Syndicate, to which Summers and Furman offered a response.	公开信的其中一个联署者，哈佛大学的罗伯特·巴罗（Robert Barro）教授随后在Project Syndicate平台上发表了对税收计划增长效应的更深入阐述，而萨默斯和弗尔曼也做出了回应。


Summers and Furman originally suggested that we should leave estimations of the tax plan’s growth effects to the career government revenue scorers. “Instead of being used to justify this tax bill,” they later wrote, “Barro’s insights could have helped to shape a much better tax bill.”	萨默斯和弗曼最初建议我们应该把税收计划的增长效应留给职业政府收入审计员去评估，后来也认为：“巴罗的见解可能有助于形成一个更好的税收法案”。


Rather than revisit the technical issues to which we already responded, I want to offer a few additional thoughts that might contribute to a broader perspective.	而与其重新审视我们已经回应的技术问题，我还想补充一些可能有助于提供更广泛视角的额外想法。


First, on the question of whether or not to pass this tax bill, Summers and Furman, like those of us they are criticizing, have enough experience in policymaking to know that the end product usually diverges from what economists would consider ideal.	首先，关于是否通过这项税收法案的问题，萨默斯和弗尔曼就跟被他们批评的我们一样在政策制定方面有足够的经验，都知道最终产物通常会偏离经济学家的理想模型。


Needless to say, plenty of policies enacted during President Barack Obama’s administration, in which they admirably served, fit that description, as do others from prior administrations.	毋庸讳言，奥巴马执政期间制定的许多政策——也是两位当年出色执行的那些——都符合这一论断，其他前任政府的政策也是如此。


I agree that the current tax bill could, in principle, have been better.	我同意现在的税收法案原则上可以做得更好。


For example, I would welcome making the equipment-expensing provision permanent, broadening the personal-income-tax base, or fully integrating corporate and personal taxes at lower income-tax rates. But such a bill would not pass Congress.	例如我希望将设备费用预提固定下来，扩大个人所得税基数，或以较低的所得税税率去充分整合企业税和个人所得税，但这样的法案是过不了国会的。


The question, then, is whether a viable final bill will be better than the status quo, not whether the final bill could have been better.	那么问题就是一个可行的最终法案会否比现行这个更好，而不是能否做得尽善尽美。


Second, Barro and I have clearly come to a different conclusion than Summers and Furman have about the bill, based on our own judgments about the links between corporate-tax reform and economic growth.	其次，巴罗和我显然在该法案上得出了一个与萨默斯和弗尔曼不同的结论，这是基于我们自身对公司税收改革与经济增长之间关系的判断。


While I certainly respect Summers and Furman’s right to their views, I am not about to cede my professional judgment to others, in or out of government.	我当然尊重两位的意见，但我不打算把我的专业判断权交给别人，不管他不是政府的人。


Third, there are legitimate differences of opinion on how much and how quickly the tax plan will affect investment decisions (particularly equipment investments), and thus long-run economic growth.	第三，关于税收计划究竟会对投资决策（尤其是设备投资）产生多大多快的影响以及由此引发的长期经济增长，是存在合理的观点差异的。


Summers’s own research results dramatically drive home that point.	萨默斯自己的研究成果就深刻地证明了这一点。


Using data from a variety of countries and time periods, some as short as five years, he and Brad DeLong of the University of California, Berkeley, (who also opposes the current tax bill) have made the strongest case I know that equipment investment can have a large impact on GDP growth.	他和加州大学伯克利分校教授布拉德福德·德隆（Bradford DeLong，也是当前税收法案的反对者），利用来自不同国家和时间段（有些不足5年）的数据，以我所知最强有力的案例证明了设备投资对GDP增长存在极大影响。


Moreover, the effect they estimate is much larger than in the conventional models used in most studies, including those relied on by government revenue scorers.	此外，他们预测的效果远远大于大多数研究中使用的传统模型，包括那些政府收入审计员所依赖的模型。


“The analysis suggests a strong and causal relationship between equipment investment and economic growth,” according to Summers and DeLong.	“分析表明设备投资与经济增长之间存在着强有力的因果关系，”萨默斯和德隆在论文中写道。


They concluded that, “an increase of three or four percentage points in the share of GDP devoted to equipment investment is associated with an increase in GDP per worker of one percent per year.”	他们的结论是，“GDP中的设备投资占比每上升3或4个百分点，就与劳动者人均GDP增每年1%的增长相关。


So, to achieve the 0.3% increase in annual GDP growth that is now being debated, equipment investment would need to rise by 1% of GDP per year, sizeable to be sure, but well within the range of historical experience.	”因此如此要实现眼下正在讨论的0. 3％GDP增长，设备投资相对GDP的比例每年就得增加1％，虽然规模相当庞大，但还是在历史经验的范围之内。


Summers and DeLong also calculate that the social returns from equipment investment are far larger than private returns.	萨默斯和德隆还计算出设备投资的社会回报远大于私人回报，并因此得出了“一个强有力的论据似乎存在以证明经济政策不会惩罚——而实际上是回报——那些设备投资者”。


Thus, they concluded that “a strong case seems to exist for making sure economic policy does not penalize, and in fact, rewards, investors in equipment”; and that “measures that reduce the tax burden on new equipment investment are likely to be especially potent in maximizing the equipment investment engendered per dollar of government revenue forgone.”	而且“减少新设备投资税收负担的措施可能在最大化政府收入损失的每一美元所引来的设备投资方面尤为有效”。 最后，他们指出，“那些具有反设备偏好的政策包含一些补贴较易杠杆化资产的税务规定.


Finally, they noted that, “policies with an anti-equipment bias include tax rules that subsidize assets that can easily be levered … [and] pieces of equipment are frequently more difficult to use as collateral for debt than are investments in structures.”	. （而且）设备通常比建筑物的投资更难用作债务抵押品。


Summers and DeLong attribute the large growth effects of equipment investment primarily to learning-by-doing effects, citing historical examples developed by, among others, my late Stanford University colleague Nathan Rosenberg.	两人将设备投资的巨大增长效应归因于“干中学”（learning-by-doing）效应，并引用了包括我已故的斯坦福大学同事纳森·罗森伯格（Nathan Rosenberg）等人提出的历史事例。


The potential outsize beneficial economic effects were developed in a classic paper by another late Stanford University colleague (and Summers’s uncle), Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow.	另一位已故斯坦福大学教授，诺贝尔奖获得者肯尼思·阿罗（Kenneth Arrow，也是萨默斯的叔叔）的一篇经典论文中也研究得出了潜在的超量有利经济效应。


If increased investment leads to new technologies or improvements via learning that generate further technological advances, it will have a disproportionally larger growth effect.	如果增加投资能带来新技术或者借助推动进一步技术进步的学习中来实现改进，那么增长的效果将会不成比例地放大。


I personally think there is something to be said for learning by doing.	我对“干中学”概念有一点自己的看法。


Consider hydraulic fracturing, the marginal cost of which has been halved in just the past decade, owing to experiments with new technologies and techniques.	以水力压裂法石油开采为例，得益于新科学技术的实验，在过去十年中已经实现了边际成本减半。


And my own research (with Stanford University’s Lawrence J. Lau) on growth in G7 countries suggests that the realized rate of technical progress rises with more capital.	我自己与斯坦福大学的刘遵义教授对G7集团国家增长的研究表明，技术进步的实现率会随着资本的增加而上升。


A fourth point is that while Summers and DeLong’s academic work suggests that equipment investment should be subsidized, and structures taxed more heavily, Summers and Furman want expensing to be extended to structures – which are more likely to be debt-financed – as well as a smaller reduction in the corporate-tax rate.	第四，虽然萨默斯和德隆的学术研究表明，设备投资应该得到补贴，也应对建筑加重课税，但是萨默斯和弗尔曼希望将支出扩大到更有可能被用以债务融资的建筑，同时减少公司税率下调幅度。


It is Summers’ prerogative to offer proposals that depart from his earlier work.	萨默斯当然有权违背那些源自其早期研究成果的建议。


I, too, revise my positions in accordance with changes in the economy and subsequent research – and much has changed since Summers and DeLong presented their research.	我也可以根据经济变化和后续研究来修正我的立场——自从萨默斯和德隆发表其研究之后，情况已经发生了很大变化。


Global competition for investment, including lower corporate-tax rates among US competitors, seems to have strengthened the case for lowering the US statutory rate, which, at 39% (including state taxes), is the highest in the OECD, more than 50% above the average.	全球投资竞争（包括美国竞争对手制定的较低企业税率）似乎加强了降低美国法定税率——现为39％，包括州税，经合组织中最高，比平均水平高出50%——的论据。


The effective rate, which accounts for credits and deductions, is also high, but less anomalous.	计入了返还和抵扣之后的实际有效税率也很高，只是没那么反常。


In an analysis of recent academic research, Oxford University’s Michael Devereux finds that while marginal effective tax rates affect the level of business investment, the average effective rate has a much larger effect on where, internationally, investments are made.	在对近期学术研究的分析中，牛津大学的迈克尔·德弗洛（Michael Devereux）发现，虽然边际有效税率会影响商业投资水平，但平均有效税率对国际投资走向的影响要大得多。


If he is right, then expensing and a higher tax rate – implying a low marginal and high average rate – would not be the best way to increase investment in the United States.	如果他是正确的，那么支出和更高的税率——意味着低边际和高平均税率——并不是增加美国国内投资的最佳方式。


My own role aside, I believe that the current reform may well have deviated further from the ideal had we not offered our analysis and advice.	如果排除一切个人因素，我认为如果不提供我们的分析和建议，目前的改革可能会进一步偏离理想状态。


The same was true when I and others were advising President Ronald Reagan and congressional leaders on the major tax reforms of 1981 and 1986.	当我和其他人向里根总统和国会领导人建议1981和1986年的重大税制改革时就是如此。


Many factors other than economists’ textbook policy proposals affect the final product.	除了经济学家的教科书式政策建议之外还有许多因素会影响到最终产物。


Finally, I would emphasize the related point that the actual tax provisions people and businesses will be required to use have yet to be written, and will be determined partly by technical interpretations and regulations in the coming months.	最后我想强调一下，符合民众和企业实际使用需要的税收规定的相关要点还没有制定出来，并在一定程度上会由未来几个月中出台的技术解释和规定来确定。


In the case of the 1986 reform, I was still getting calls from Committee staff weeks after it had passed, asking me what exactly I thought was meant by this or that provision.	在1986年改革时，我甚至在议案通过几个星期后仍然会接到委员会人员的电话，询问我如何理解这条或那条规定。


No one should expect this time to be different.	这回肯定也是一样。


Reagan’s Tax Reforms Revisited	重温里根的税收改革


WASHINGTON, DC – Congressional Republicans must, President Donald Trump has commanded, pass their sweeping US tax bill by Christmas.	华盛顿—特朗普总统下令，国会共和党必须在圣诞节前通过彻底改变美国税制的法案。


Otherwise, they will have no major accomplishment to show for an entire year during which they have controlled the legislative and executive branches of government.	否则，共和党就会在控制了政府立法和行政两大机关的情况下，整整一年无法取得一项重要成就。


Having apparently failed in their seven-year campaign to deprive millions of Americans of health insurance, they dare not fail in their Scrooge-like campaign to transfer billions of dollars from the middle class to the ultra-rich.	他们用七年时间运作剥夺数百万美国人民的医保，结果遭到了彻底的失败，因此，对于他们的吝啬鬼式的将数十亿美元从中产阶级转移到巨富阶层手中的计划，不容有任何闪失。


In an effort to rally support for the tax bill, Trump recently sought to invoke Ronald Reagan’s tax initiatives of the 1980s.	为了提高对其税收法案的支持，特朗普最近试图援引20世纪80年代的里根税收改革。


And he has a point, though not the one he intended. Recalling what transpired under Reagan might shed some light on the Republicans’ murky current proposals.	回忆一下里根执政期间究竟发生了什么有助于认清共和党的含义模糊的最新方案。


There were actually two huge tax bills during the Reagan years – the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986 – and they differed in almost every respect.	在里根执政时期，实际上有两个重要税收法案——1981年经济复苏税法案和1986年税收改革法案——它们之间几乎没有一个地方是相同的。


The 1981 legislation was not true tax reform, but a rushed and poorly coordinated frenzy of fiscally irresponsible cuts to both corporate and personal income taxes.	1981年的立法不是真正的税收改革，而只是匆忙推出、协调拙劣、财政上极不负责任的疯狂的公司和个人所得税减税政策。


The 1986 law was the well-thought-out result of an extended, deliberate, and bipartisan process, designed to be revenue-neutral, with low marginal income tax rates balanced by fewer deductions, particularly on the corporate side.	1986年的法案是经过漫长的深思熟虑和跨党派流程后形成的成熟结果，它被设计成税收收入中性，低边际税率用减少抵扣（特别是企业端）来平衡。


The 1986 reform was a model of how to carry out fiscal reform, whereas the 1981 process was a model to avoid.	1986年的改革为如何制定财政改革提供了榜样，而1981年的过程则是反面教材。


Yet it is the latter that the Republicans’ current tax “reform” most resembles.	但后者才是共和党的最新税收“改革”大量效仿的。


As in 1981, the current process has been rushed, with scant deliberation – the usual hearings have not been held – and not even a pretense of bipartisan cooperation.	和1981年一样，当前方案推出的非常匆忙，没有经过深思熟虑——常规的听证都没有进行过——甚至连跨党派合作的幌子都不要了。


Almost every day brings news of some radical change in the legislation proposed in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.	几乎每一天都有消息说众议院或参议院又提出了立法的一些重大改变。


The situation is so volatile that we may not know everything the bill contains – and which special interests won out – until after it is passed.	情况的波动性太大，以至于我们无法知道法案到底包含什么——以及哪些特殊利益集团会胜出——直到它被通过之后才会真相大白。


It goes without saying that thorough deliberation is essential to good legislation, not just to secure the political buy-in of others, but also to avoid drafting errors and limit unintended consequences.	毫无疑问，彻底的深思熟虑是好立法的必要条件，这不仅是为了确保在政治上被其他人所接受，也是为了避免起草错误、限制意料外的结果。


Moreover, fiscally responsible reforms involve hard choices, and tend to work only if they are drafted with a spirit of shared sacrifice: “I will give up my cherished benefit, if you give up yours.”	此外，在财政上负责的改革需要包括艰难的选择，常常只有在用共同牺牲的精神起草的情况下才会起作用：“我将放弃我所珍视的利益，只要你也放弃你的。 ”


Far from pursuing careful deliberation and smart compromise, US Republicans today are pretending that the cuts for which they are striving will carry no costs.	如今，美国共和党完全不去追求深思熟虑和明智的妥协，而是装作他们所力推的减税不会造成任何成本。


If they get their way, these self-professed fiscal conservatives will blow up the budget deficit, just as they did in 1981 under Reagan, and just as they did again in 2001 and 2003, thanks to the massive tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush.	如果他们得逞的话，这些自称的财政保守派将财政赤字爆棚，一如1981年里根执政时期那样，也一如他们在2001年和2003年所做的那样（拜小布什总统所实施的大规模减税所赐）。


To be sure, the current proposals do not get everything wrong.	平心而论，最新的方案也不是一无是处。


Reducing the US corporate income tax rate would be a good move, provided that the lost revenue were recouped through the elimination of business loopholes, such as the corporate interest deduction and the favored treatment of carried interest.	降低美国公司所得税率是好政策，如果损失的税收收入通过取缔业务漏洞（如公司利息抵税和附带收益的税收优惠）得到补偿的话。


But the legislation cuts the corporate tax rate too much and closes too few loopholes to achieve anything close to revenue neutrality.	但现在的立法将公司税率减得过多，取缔的漏洞又过少，根本不足以实现税收收入中性。


But Reagan’s 1986 reform prioritized working families over corporations, such as through the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit.	但1986年的里根改革将家庭放在了公司之前，比如，它扩大了劳动所得税收优惠。


The current proposed legislation does the opposite.	最新的立法提案完全背道而驰。


It aims to achieve its supposedly restrained goal of limiting revenue losses to $1.5 trillion over ten years by allowing households’ tax cuts to expire before the decade is over, while corporations enjoy their cuts indefinitely.	其旨在实现所谓的有限目标：通过在这个十年结束前取消家庭减税项，同时让公司永远享有它们的减税项，来将未来十年的税收收入损失限制在1. 5万亿美元以内。


Taxes on families earning less than $75,000 would rise, on average, relative to today.	平均而言，收入不到7,5000美元的家庭的税负将较今天的水平有所上升。


Of course, today’s Republicans do not admit that their plan isn’t revenue-neutral.	当然，今天的共和党不承认他们的计划不是税收收入中性的。


Like their counterparts in 1981, not to mention during the Bush era, they claim that the cuts will stimulate the economy so much that overall tax receipts will stay the same or even rise.	和他们1981年，更不用说布什执政期间的同志们一样，他们宣称减税将大大刺激经济，使总税收保持不变甚至升高。


Yet such claims have been rejected by virtually all mainstream economists, including the economic advisers of both Reagan and Bush.	但这样的结论被几乎所有主流经济学家所拒绝，包括里根和布什的经济顾问们。


Those administrations implemented their cuts anyway – and, as economists had warned, budget deficits increased sharply.	这两届政府无论如何都实施了减税——并且，正如经济学家的警告，预算赤字大幅上升。


The tax cuts that the Trump Republicans are attempting to pass today would be even more damaging.	特朗普共和党今天试图通过的减税伤害甚至更大。


There is good reason to fear much more serious long-term consequences of the rise in the budget deficit, owing to two key issues of timing – one cyclical and the other demographic.	有充分的理由担心，预算赤字的升高会带来更加严重的长期后果，这与两个关键的时机问题有关，一是周期，二是人口。


The 1981 tax cuts went into effect at the onset of the 1981-1982 recession, a time when some short-term fiscal stimulus came in handy.	1981年减税在1981—1982年衰退期开始时生效，因此，某些短期财政刺激能产生作用。


The opposite is true today.	今天的情况正好相反。


With a 4.1% unemployment rate, the US economy does not need more stimulus.	美国经济的失业率只有4. 1%，不需要更多的刺激。


In fact, the US Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates again in December, to prevent the economy from overheating.	事实上，美联储预计将在12月再次提高利率，以防经济过热。


Moreover, the baby boom generation is now retiring at a rate of about 10,000 people per day, meaning that Medicare and Social Security outlays – for health insurance and pensions, respectively – will increase rapidly.	此外，婴儿潮一代已经开始以每天10,000人左右的速度退休，这意味着医疗保险（Medicare）和社会安全支出——分别对应医保和退休金——将大幅增加。


Despite the slowdown in the growth of per capita health-care costs in recent years, the Medicare trust fund is projected to be depleted by 2029, and the Social Security trust fund by 2034.	尽管近几年来人均医疗成本增速放缓，但医疗保险信托基金预计将在2029年耗尽，而社会安全信托基金将在2034年耗尽。


Meanwhile, the national debt held by the US public stands at 76% of GDP, compared to just 25% when Reagan took office and 46% when George H.W. Bush left office 12 years later.	与此同时，美国公众所持有的国民债务已高达GDP的76%，而里根执政开始执政时为25%，12年后老布什卸任时为46%。


Total national debt, including bonds held by the Fed, stands at 104% of GDP today, compared to only 31% in 1980.	总国民债务（包括美联储所持有的债券在内）今天为GDP的104%，而1980年只有31%。


In short, this is the wrong time to be increasing the budget deficit and borrowing more – particularly with interest rates set to rise further.	简言之，现在不是增加预算赤字和加大借贷的正确时机——特别是在利率即将进一步提升的情况下。


The US has much experience with irresponsible tax cuts.	美国已经经历过多次不负责任的减税。


Yet its leaders seem not to have learned their lesson.	但其领导人似乎并没有汲取教训。


Should Republicans secure the legislative victory they desire, the entire country – with the exception, probably, of the wealthiest few – will lose.	如果共和党得到了他们想要的立法胜利，那么整个国家——也许最富有的一小撮人是例外——都会是输家。


Cutting US Corporate Tax Is Worth the Cost	降低美国企业税利大于弊


CAMBRIDGE – The United States Congress is close to enacting a major tax reform. The plan’s most important provision reduces the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% – from the highest among all OECD countries to one of the lowest – and allows US companies to repatriate the profits of their foreign subsidiaries without paying additional US taxes.	发自剑桥——美国国会即将通过一项重大税务改革，而这项改革中最重要的规定是要将企业所得税率从35％降至20％——从所有经合组织国家中的最高水平减至最低——并允许美国企业在无需额外向美国缴税的情况下将其国外子公司的利润回流本土。


Opponents of the legislation point to the resulting increase in the federal budget deficit, which will add $1.5 trillion to the government debt over the next ten years.	立法的反对者指出此举会导致联邦预算赤字增加，并在未来十年为政府增添1. 5万亿美元负债。


I dislike budget deficits, and I have long warned about their dangerous effects.	我可不喜欢财政赤字，也早就警告过它们的风险。


Nonetheless, I believe that the economic benefits resulting from the corporate tax changes will outweigh the adverse effects of the increased debt.	不过我相信公司税收变动所带来的经济效益将超越债务增加的不利影响。


The lower rate will attract capital to the US corporate sector.	较低的利率将把资金吸引到美国的企业部门。


American corporations will invest more in the US, because foreign countries will no longer offer lower tax rates, and will repatriate profits earned by their foreign subsidiaries rather than leaving them abroad.	美国公司也将加大在本土的投资，因为税率较国外更低，同时将让其外国子公司的利润回流而不是留在国外。


They will also bring back some of the previously earned foreign profits that have been left outside the US, estimated by the Treasury to be worth $2.5 trillion.	他们还将带回从前在美国以外留存的一些利润，据财政部统计总规模达2. 5万亿美元。


Foreign companies will expand their investments in the US – or even shift their operations there – to take advantage of the lower tax rate.	此外外国公司也将扩大在美国的投资 ——甚至将业务转移到美国——以利用较低的税率。


And within the US, capital will flow from agriculture and housing to higher productivity uses in the corporate sector.	而在美国，资本将从农业和房地产流向企业部门中生产力更高的地方。


Although it is difficult to estimate the total increase in capital in the corporate sector, I think it is reasonable to assume that over the next ten years it will reach at least $5 trillion.	虽然很难估算企业部门的资本增加总额，但我认为在未来十年内至少达到5万美元是个合理的数字。


The increased flow of capital to the corporate sector will raise productivity and real wages.	流入企业部门的资金增量将提升生产力和实际工资。


If that happens, it will raise annual real GDP in 2027 by about $500 billion, equivalent to 1.7% of total 2027 GDP, implying a gain of $4,000 per household in today’s dollars.	一旦成为现实，它将在2027年令美国的年实际GDP提高约5000亿美元，相当于该年GDP的1. 7％，意味着在当前的美元币值下每户家庭增收4000美元。


These favorable effects are directly relevant to balancing the primary adverse effects usually associated with a fiscal deficit: that government borrowing crowds out private capital formation; that higher interest payments generally require higher taxes or reductions in spending on defense and nondefense programs; that a budget deficit implies an unwanted increase in aggregate demand when the economy is at full employment; and that a higher debt ratio leaves less capacity for increased emergency government spending.	这些有利效应直接关系到如何平衡那些通常与财政赤字有关的主要不利影响：政府借贷挤压私人资本形成空间； 支付高利息通常需要提高税收或削减防务和非防务项目支出；


I believe that none of these problems will materialize during the coming decade.	但我相信在未来十年间这些问题都不会出现。


Let’s consider them in turn.	下面请让我们逐个分析：


Although the $1.5 trillion of government borrowing caused by the tax bill during the next decade could crowd out an equal amount of private borrowing, the capital stock will grow by an even larger amount.	尽管未来十年税收法案所引起的1. 5万亿美元政府借款可能挤压掉等量的私人借款，但资本存量的增长会更多。


The $1.5 trillion corporate tax cut will go directly to US companies, and the stock of corporate capital will grow further because of the inflow of funds from the rest of the world.	1. 5万亿美元的企业减税将直接进入美国企业，同时由于世界其他地区的资金流入，企业资本存量将进一步增长。


Even with increased government borrowing, the proposed tax reform can therefore still raise the corporate capital stock by some $5 trillion over the next decade.	即使政府借款增加，目前提议的税收改革也可以在未来十年将企业资本存量金额提高约5万亿美元。


Moreover, the $500 billion increase in total annual income by 2027 would increase tax revenue by $100-150 billion a year.	此外，至2027年合共增加的5000亿美元年收入将在每年带来1000~1500亿美元的额外税收。


That is enough to cover the $60 billion in interest payments on the $1.5 trillion of extra debt, with money left over to increase government spending or reduce personal taxes.	这足以支付1. 5万亿美元额外债务所带来的600亿美元利息支出，剩下的钱则用于增加政府支出或减少个人所得税。


Likewise, concern that an increase in the fiscal deficit would undesirably stimulate aggregate demand is misplaced.	同样，认为财政赤字增加会不合时宜地刺激总需求的看法这是错误的。


In fact, the stimulative effects of the fiscal deficit and increased corporate investment should be welcomed, for two reasons. First, they will offset the contractionary effects of the expected increase in the federal funds rate and the shrinking size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.	事实上，财政赤字的刺激作用和企业投资的增加应该是受欢迎的，原因有二：首先，它们将抵消联邦基金利率预期上涨和美联储资产负债表规模缩小所产生的紧缩效应。


And, second, after nine years of economic expansion, most experts expect the US to enter recession sometime in the next five years.	其次，经过九年的经济扩张，大部分专家预计美国会在未来五年内的某个时候进入衰退。


Similarly, concern about the ratio of government debt to GDP, which has doubled in the past decade and is now 77%, is exaggerated.	同理，针对过去十年来政府债务相对GDP的比例翻了一番（目前已达到77％）的忧虑被夸大了。


The Congressional Budget Office projects that even with no further legislation, the debt ratio will rise to 91.2% by 2027.	根据国会预算办公室的测算，就算不进行进一步立法，到2027年负债比率也将上升到91. 2％。


The direct effect of the $1.5 trillion deficit implied by the tax reform would be to raise that to 97%.	而税制改革所隐含的那1. 5万亿美元赤字的直接影响会将这个数字提高到97％。


A military emergency or an economic downturn would call for additional debt-financed spending or tax reductions.	军事紧急状态或经济下滑将要求额外的债务融资支出或税收减免。


But even a massive spending program like the $900 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 would add only an additional three percentage points to the debt ratio.	但即便是像2009年《美国复苏与再投资法案》这类总额达9000亿美元的大规模开支项目也只会使债务比率增加3个百分点。


It is hard to believe that a debt ratio of 97% would make that more difficult to achieve than a debt ratio of 92%.	因此也很难相信97％的负债比率跟92％的负债比率有多大区别。


So, for all four of these reasons, I believe that the benefits of cutting the corporate tax rate more than offset the adverse effects normally attributed to budget deficits.	基于以上四点，我认为削减企业税率的好处远远抵消了通常归因于预算赤字的不利影响。


But, looking ahead, I believe that reducing the fiscal deficit should be a high priority after the 2018 congressional election.	但展望未来，我相信在2018年国会选举后削减财政赤字应该是重中之重。


A tax on carbon dioxide emissions or a slowdown of spending growth for federal entitlement programs can start to bring the debt ratio back down toward the 50% level that prevailed before the 2008-2009 downturn.	二氧化碳排放税或联邦津贴项目支出增长放缓可能使债务比率回落至2008~09年经济下滑前时常维持的50％水平。


But first it is important to enact the proposed tax reform.	但首要事项是确保提议的税制改革能顺利通过。


Déjà Voodoo	似曾相识的巫术


NEW YORK – Having failed to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), US President Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican congressional majority have now moved on to tax reform.	纽约—美国总统特朗普的政府和国会共和党多数“取消和取代”2010年平价医疗法（“奥巴马医保”）失败，现在，他们转向了税收改革。


Eight months after assuming office, the administration has been able to offer only an outline of what it has in mind.	上台八个月后，本届政府只是提出了一份设想大纲。


But what we know is enough to feel a deep sense of alarm.	但凭我们所知的内容已足以感到深深的担忧。


Tax policy should reflect a country’s values and address its problems.	税收政策应该体现一国的价值观、解决它所面临的问题。


And today, the United States – and much of the world – confronts four central problems: widening income inequality, growing job insecurity, climate change, and anemic productivity growth.	而如今，美国——以及世界大部——面临四个核心问题：经济不平等加剧、就业岗位不安全恶化、气候变化，以及生产率增长缓慢。


America faces, in addition, the need to rebuild its decaying infrastructure and strengthen its underperforming primary and secondary education system.	除此之外，美国要需要重建破败的基础设施，强化表现拙劣的小学和中学教育体系。


But what Trump and the Republicans are offering in response to these challenges is a tax plan that provides the overwhelming share of benefits not to the middle class – a large proportion of which may actually pay more taxes – but to America’s millionaires and billionaires.	但特朗普和共和党面对这些挑战所提出的应对之道是一份这样的税收计划：根据这一计划，绝大部分好处不是归于中产阶级——占美国人口很大的比例，可能实际上税负会有所增加——而是归于百万和亿万富翁。


If inequality was a problem before, enacting the Republicans’ proposed tax reform will make it much worse.	如果说不平等性在此前已经是一个问题的话，那么实施共和党所提出的税收改革将让它进一步恶化。


Corporations and businesses will be among the big beneficiaries, a bias justified on the grounds that this will stimulate the economy.	公司和企业将成为大受益方，对于它们所受到的偏袒，共和党论证说这能够刺激经济。


But Republicans, of all people, should understand that incentives matter: it would be far better to reduce taxes for those companies that invest in America and create jobs, and increase taxes for those that don’t.	但共和党——或者说所有人——应该明白激励很重要：为那些投资于美国并创造就业的公司减税，同时为不那么做的公司加税，效果会好得多。


After all, it is not as if America’s large corporations were starved for cash; they are sitting on a couple of trillion dollars.	毕竟，美国大公司并不是缺少现金； 相反，它们坐拥数万亿美元。


And the lack of investment is not because profits, either before or after tax, are too low; after-tax corporate profits as a share of GDP have almost tripled in the last 30 years.	而投资不足也不是因为利润——不管是税前还是税后； 税后公司利润占GDP之比在过去30年中几乎翻了两倍。


Indeed, with incremental investment largely financed by debt, and interest payments being tax-deductible, the corporate tax lowers the cost of capital and the returns to investment commensurately.	事实上，增量投资主要通过债务融资，而利息可以抵税，因此，公司税相应地降低了资本成本和投资回报。


Thus, neither theory nor evidence suggests that the Republicans’ proposed corporate tax giveaway will increase investment or employment.	因此，理论和实证都不支持共和党所提出的公司税下调能增加投资和就业。


The Republicans also dream of a territorial tax system, whereby American corporations are taxed only on the income they generate in the US.	共和党还想实施领地税制度，即美国公司只需要为它们在美国所产生的收益纳税。


But this would only reduce revenue and further encourage American companies to shift production to low-tax jurisdictions.	但这只能减少税收收入，进一步鼓励美国公司将生产转移到税率较低的司法辖区。


A race to the bottom on corporate taxation can be prevented only by imposing a minimum rate on any corporation that engages in business in the US.	公司税收的恶性竞争只有通过为所有与美国有业务往来的公司制定最低税率才能避免。


America’s states and municipalities are responsible for education and large parts of the country’s health and welfare system.	美国各州和市需要为教育和相当大部分的卫生和福利体系负责。


And state income taxes are the best way to introduce a modicum of progressivity at the subnational level: states without an income tax typically rely on regressive sales taxes, which impose a heavy burden on the poor and working people.	州所得税是在次国家层面引入些许累进制的最佳方法：没有所得税的州，通常要依靠累退的销售税，这给穷人和工作人口造成了沉重负担。


It is thus perhaps no surprise that the Trump administration, staffed by plutocrats who are indifferent to inequality, should want to eliminate the deductibility of state income taxes from federal taxation, encouraging states to shift toward sales taxes.	因此，充斥着对不平等性漠不关心的财阀的特朗普政府希望取消州所得税的联邦税抵扣资格，鼓励各州转向销售税也许并不值得惊奇。


Addressing the panoply of other problems confronting the US will require more federal revenues, not less.	要想解决美国所面临的其他各种问题，就必须增加而不是减少联邦税收收入。


Increases in standards of living, for example, are the result of technological innovation, which in turn depends on basic research.	比如，生活水平的提高来自技术创新，而技术创新反过来又依靠基础研究。


But federal government support of research as a percentage of GDP is now at a level comparable to what it was 60 years ago.	但联邦政府对研究的资金支持（以占GDP的百分比衡量）和60年前相当。


While Trump the candidate criticized the growth of US national debt, he now proposes tax cuts that would add trillions to the debt in just the next ten years – not the “only” $1.5 trillion that Republicans claim would be added, thanks to some growth miracle that leads to more tax revenues.	作为候选人的特朗普曾经批评过美国国民债务水平的增长，但如今，他的减税方案将在未来短短十年让国民债务增加数万亿每年——而不是共和党宣称的，拜能够增加税收收入的某种增长奇迹所赐，国民债务“仅”需要增加1.


Yet the key lesson of Ronald Reagan’s “voodoo” supply-side economics has not changed: tax cuts like these do not lead to faster growth, but only to lower revenues.	5万亿美元。 但里根的“巫术”（voodoo）供给侧经济学的关键教训仍然成立：此类减税不会带来更快的增长，只能带来更少的税收收入。


This is especially so now, when the unemployment rate is just over 4%.	现在尤其如此，因为失业率只是略高于4%。


Any significant increase to aggregate demand would be met by a corresponding increase in interest rates.	任何总需求的大幅提高都会面临利率的相应提高。


The “economic mix” of the economy would thus shift away from investment; and growth, already anemic, would slow.	因此，经济的“经济组合”（economic mix）间远离投资，而已然萎靡不振的增长将会放缓。


An alternative framework would increase revenues and boost growth.	如果换一条路，有可能能够增加税收收入、提振增长。


It would include real corporate-tax reform, eliminating the tricks that allow some of the world’s largest companies to pay miniscule taxes, in some cases far less than 5% of their profits, giving them an unfair advantage over small local businesses.	它包括真正的公司税改革，杜绝让某些世界数一数二的大公司只缴纳极小数量的税收的把戏，一些公司的利润缴税比例远远低于5%，这让它们获得了对本地小企业的不公平优势。


It would establish a minimum tax and eliminate the special treatment of capital gains and dividends, compelling the very rich to pay at least the same percentage of their income in taxes as other citizens.	它需要制定一个最低税收，取消资本利得和股利的特殊待遇，让巨富阶层至少缴纳和其他公民相同的所得税率。


And it would introduce a carbon tax, to help accelerate the transition to a green economy.	它还需要引入碳税，以帮助加快朝向绿色经济的转型。


Tax policy can also be used to shape the economy.	税收政策还可以用来影响经济。


In addition to offering benefits to those who invest, carry out research, and create jobs, higher taxes on land and real-estate speculation would redirect capital toward productivity-enhancing spending – the key to long-term improvement in living standards.	除了实现谁投资谁获益、推动研究和创造就业岗位，提高土地和不动产投机税还能引导资本流向提高生产率的支出项目——这是生活水平长期改善的关键。


An administration of plutocrats – most of whom gained their wealth from rent-seeking activities, rather than from productive entrepreneurship – could be expected to reward themselves.	一个由财阀组成的政府——大部分成员通过寻租活动，而不是生产性的企业家精神，攫取大量财富——必然会大肆奖励自己。


But the Republicans’ proposed tax reform is a bigger gift to corporations and the ultra-rich than most had anticipated.	但共和党所提出的税收改革对公司和巨富阶层之慷慨超出了大部分的预料。


It avoids necessary reforms and would leave the country with a mountain of debt; the consequences – low investment, stalled productivity growth, and yawning inequality – would take decades to undo.	它回避了必须的改革，将让美国背上如山的债务； 其结果——投资低迷、生产率增长停滞以及不平等性高企——需要几十年时间才能化解。


Trump assumed office promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington, DC.	特朗普带着要“清理华盛顿的沼泽”的承诺入主白宫。


Instead, the swamp has grown wider and deeper.	相反，如今这片沼泽变得更大更深了。


With the Republicans’ proposed tax reform, it threatens to engulf the US economy.	而共和党的税收方案有可能让整个美国经济都陷入这片沼泽。


The Plot Against America’s 99%	针对99%美国人的阴谋


NEW YORK – After multiple failed attempts to “repeal and replace” the 2010 Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), US President Donald Trump’s administration now hopes to achieve its first legislative victory with a massive tax giveaway that it has wrapped in the language of “tax reform.”	纽约—在经历了多次试图“取消并取代”2010年平价医疗法（奥巴马医保）未果后，美国总统特朗普政府现在寄希望于通过打着“税收改革”旗号的大规模税收减免实现其第一次立法胜利。


To that end, Republicans in the US Congress have just unveiled a bill that, if enacted, could vastly widen the deficit and increase the public debt by as much as $4 trillion over the next decade.	在这方面，国会共和党刚刚提出了一项法案，如果实施的话，将大幅扩大赤字，在未来十年增加高达4万亿美元的公共债务。


Worse still, the Republican plan is designed to funnel most of the benefits to the rich.	更糟糕的是，共和党的计划将让大部分收益归属富人。


It would lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, reduce the tax on capital gains (investment profits), eliminate the estate tax, and introduce other changes that benefit the wealthy.	公司税率将从35%下降到20%，资本利得（投资收益）税也将下调，不动产税将取消，还有其他有利于富人的变动。


Like the Republicans’ health-care proposals, their tax plan offers little to struggling middle- and working-class households.	和共和党的医疗提案一样，他们的税收计划对苦苦挣扎的中产和工作阶级家庭毫无助益。


Trump continues to govern as a pluto-populist – a plutocrat pretending to be a populist – who has not hesitated to betray the people he conned into voting for him.	特朗普继续着他的富豪民粹主义治国之道——即披着民粹主义外衣的财阀治国——他向来不惮于背叛收他蛊惑投票给他的人民。


Before releasing the current plan, congressional Republicans passed resolutions to reduce taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next decade.	在公布当前的计划之前，国会共和党通过了在未来十年减税1. 5万亿美元的提案。


But the actual tax cut will likely be much larger.	但实际减税幅度可能要大得多。


The proposal to lower the corporate tax rate to 20%, for example, implies a $2.5 trillion tax cut, once other tax cuts in the plan are considered.	比如，将公司税率降低至20%的提案就隐含2. 5万亿美元的减税，如果考虑到计划中的其他减税的话。


To keep the tax cuts below $1.5 trillion, one would have to keep the corporate rate at or above 28% and broaden the tax base.	要想让减税幅度保持在1. 5万亿美元以下，我们需要将公司税率保持在28%以上，并扩大税基。


To make up for this difference, the bill proposes a cap on the mortgage-interest deduction for homeowners, and on the deductibility of property tax, as well as eliminating other tax benefits for the middle class.	为了冲抵这一差额，法案要求制定屋主按揭利息抵扣上限和房产税抵扣上限，并取消其他中产阶级税收优惠。


It would eliminate or cap the income-tax deduction for state and local taxes – again, squeezing the middle class to cover tax cuts for the rich.	州和地税的所得税抵扣也将取消或设限——同样也是压榨中产阶级来弥补富人的减税。


The problem is that eliminating the state and local tax deduction would provide just $1.3 trillion in revenue over the next decade.	问题在于取消州和地税扣减只能在未来十年带来1. 3亿美元税收收入。


And because this change would hurt middle-income families, many Republicans in high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey, and California will oppose it.	而由于这一变化将伤及中等收入家庭，许多高税州，如纽约州、新泽西州和加利福尼亚州的共和党将反对它。


If congressional Republicans and the Trump administration end up keeping the state and local tax deduction, their tax cuts will add $3.8 trillion to the public debt over the next decade.	如果国会共和党和特朗普政府最终保留了州和地税扣减，那么他们的减税将在未来十年增加3. 8万亿美元公共债务。


Moreover, Republicans want their tax cuts to be permanent.	此外，共和党想让减税计划永久化。


Yet they are trying to enact their bill through the congressional budget reconciliation process, which requires any tax cuts that add to the deficit after ten years to be temporary.	但他们试图通过国会预算协商过程实现他们的法案，这就意味着，任何增加十年后赤字的减税方案都只能是临时的。


Even if the Republican plan really did keep the cuts at $1.5 trillion, it still would not comply with this rule.	即使共和党的计划真的将减税控制在1. 5万亿，也仍达不到这一规则的要求。


Trump and congressional Republicans argue that tax cuts will boost economic growth, and thus revenues.	特朗普和国会共和党指出，减税能提振经济增长，从而增加税收收入。


But standard dynamic scoring models show that increased growth would offset the cost by only one third, at most: the US would face $1 trillion, rather than $1.5 trillion, in lost revenues.	但标准的动态评分模型表明，增长的提高最多只能抵消三分之一成本：美国将面临1万亿而不是1. 5万亿美元的税收收入损失。


So, how will the Republicans fudge these fiscal rules?	那么，共和党将如何回避这些财政规则？


For starters, like President George W. Bush’s administration, they will set the personal income tax cuts to expire after ten years.	首先，和小布什政府一样，他们会让个人所得税减税计划在十年后到期。


This will give them plenty of time to enjoy the political gains of tax cuts – starting with the midterm elections in 2018 – long before the bill comes due.	这给了他们足够的时间享受减税的政策收益——首先就是2018年中期选举——而法案的到期日还远着呢。


But corporate tax cuts are another matter, because making them temporary would defeat the purpose.	但降低公司税是另一件事，因为如果这也是临时性的话，就达不到目的。


Companies operate with a much longer time horizon than households, and are unlikely to boost investment in response to cuts that last only ten years.	公司的经营时界远远长于家庭，不太可能因为只持续十年的减税就增加投资。


To get around this problem, Trump and the Republicans might decide to bend or manipulate congressional rules.	要绕过这个问题，特朗普和共和党可能会决定改变或操纵国会规则。


Or they might rely on unorthodox and untested economic models to claim that their cuts actually are revenue-neutral, and will have a much larger impact on growth than what standard models project.	或者他们将依靠非正统或为经检验的经济模型来论证他们的减税真的是税收收入中性的，并能给增长带来比标准模型所预测的更大的影响。


Most mainstream economists would estimate that a tax cut of the size being proposed would increase US potential growth by 20 basis points, at most, taking the growth rate from around 2% to 2.2% over time.	大部分主流经济学家都会认为，目前提出的减税规模最多能提高美国潜在增长20个基点，使增长率从2%左右增加到2. 2%。


Yet Trump and his advisers have clung to the false claim that growth will increase to 3% or even 4%.	但特朗普及其顾问们坚持错误地宣称增长将提高到3%甚至4%。


If this far-fetched projection sounds like voodoo economics all over again, that’s because it is.	如果你觉得这一令人难以置信的经济学听上去怎么那么像是经济巫术（voodoo economics），那是因为它们本来就是。


Voodoo economics came into parlance in the 1980 presidential election, when George H. W. Bush criticized Ronald Reagan for claiming that his planned tax cuts would pay for themselves.	经济巫术出现在1980年总统竞选中，老布什批评里根关于他的减税计划能够收支相抵的说辞。


Bush was vindicated just a few years later, when the Reagan administration’s tax cuts blew a huge hole in US public finances.	老布什的批评在几年后就得到了证实，里根政府的减税给美国的公共财政挖了一个大坑。


And yet Republican administrations have persisted in pursuing unsustainable and undesirable tax cuts benefiting primarily the rich, leading to ever-larger deficits and trillions of dollars of additional public debt.	但共和党政府一直在追求不可持续、也不值得采取的减税，这些减税主要有利于富人，导致更大的赤字和数万亿美元的新增公共债务。


The Republicans’ eagerness to pass reckless tax cuts once in power gives the lie to their claims of fiscal rectitude.	共和党一掌权就急切地想要通过鲁莽的减税计划，这使得他们所谓的财政诚实成了彻头彻尾的谎言。


Making matters worse, America’s pluto-populist president is peddling a tax plan that will further increase economic inequality at a time when income and wealth gaps are already widening, owing to the effects of globalization, trade, migration, new labor-saving technologies, and market consolidation in many sectors.	更糟糕的是，美国的富豪民粹主义总统所兜售的减税计划将在收入和财富已经因为全球化、贸易、移民、新劳动力节约型技术和多行业市场整合而不断扩大的情况下，进一步增加经济不平等性。


Given that the rich tend to save more than middle- and working-class people, who must spend a larger proportion of their incomes on basic necessities, the Trump tax plan will do little for economic growth; it may even decrease it.	富人总是比中产和工作阶级储蓄得更多，后者必须将更大比例的收入花在基本需要上，因此，特朗普的税收计划对于经济增长来说几乎没有任何作用； 甚至有可能拖累经济增长。


And it will add far more to the US’s excessively high public-debt burden.	并且它将大大加重美国已经过于称重的公共债务负担。


It is fake reform, brought to us by an alt-fact administration and a party that has lost its economic bearings.	这是一个另类事实（alt-fact）政府和一个已经丧失了经济担当的政党带给我们的假改革。


Rescuing Europe’s Illiberal Democracies	挽救欧洲的非自由民主


BRUSSELS – After 1989, the West, buoyed by political theorist Francis Fukuyama’s seductive notion of the “end of History,” entered an era of self-satisfied complacency in which it seemed that liberal democracy and capitalism could be taken for granted.	布鲁塞尔——1989年后，被政治理论家弗朗西斯·福山“历史终结”的诱导性理论所鼓舞的西方人似乎步入了一个自我满足的时代，在这样一个时代里，自由民主和资本主义似乎全部是理所当然的。


Three decades later, History is back with a vengeance.	30年后，历史带着报复归来。


A populist nationalist is now president of the United States.	一位崇尚民粹思想的民族主义者现在正在担任美国总统。


The United Kingdom is withdrawing from the European Union.	而英国则正在退出欧盟。


And self-proclaimed illiberal democrats are in power in Hungary and Poland.	自我标榜的非自由民主人士已经在匈牙利和波兰执政。


It turns out that, at the “end” of history, the enemies of open, democratic societies never actually surrendered.	事实证明，在历史的“终点”，开放民主社会的敌人从未真正放下武器。


They were just pushed into the shadows.	他们不过是被挤到了阴暗的角落中。


There are a number of sociological reasons why illiberalism is resurgent today.	今天非自由主义的复苏有诸多社会学原因。


Across the West, once-universal public spheres have been weakened and divided, and once-public social concerns have been “privatized.”	在整个西方世界，曾经统一的公共领域遭到削弱和分裂，而曾经共有的社会关注则已经遭到了“私有化”的侵蚀。


But the main reason for the West’s illiberal turn concerns emotions.	但西方转向非自由思想的主要原因是情绪。


For those who are unsettled by the widespread change of the past few decades, national identities have become increasingly appealing as a way to offset often-unpredictable globalization.	对那些因为过去数十年的全面变化而深感不安的人来说，民族身份已经变成一种对抗往往不可预测的全球化趋势的越来越有吸引力的方式。


Populist rhetoric poses a direct challenge to the EU and its tradition of procedural and rules-based governance.	民粹主义言论直接挑战欧盟及其基于程序和规则的执政传统。


Indeed, it strikes at the very core of the European project.	事实上，它沉重打击了欧洲计划的核心精神。


There is no European counterpart to Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again.”	欧洲找不到哪个人像特朗普那样承诺“让美国再次伟大。


Given Europe’s twentieth-century history, such parochial sloganeering has been all but banished from the continent’s politics.	”鉴于20世纪欧洲的历史，这块大陆上的政界人士已经几乎抛弃了如此狭隘的口号。


Indeed, it is not well suited to the European timbre.	事实上，这样的口号并不适合欧洲。


Yet the fact remains that Europeans are fighting for their very soul.	但事实依然是欧洲人在为自身的灵魂而战。


To resist the populist backlash, we Europeans should be proclaiming the EU’s virtues more loudly, without descending to the populists’ level.	为抵制民粹主义反弹，我们欧洲民众应当在拒绝自降身份等同于民粹主义分子的同时，更加大声地宣扬欧盟的美德。


Conjuring up some kind of EU-level nationalism to compete with state-level nationalism would be akin to taking medicine that is worse than the disease.	为与国家级别的民族主义相抗衡而制造出某种欧盟级别的民族主义就好比服用的药物比疾病本身更加糟糕。


A better approach would focus on defending the rule of law against populist encroachments.	捍卫法治不受民粹主义侵犯才是更好的方法。


The rule of law is the EU’s most valuable currency and a fundamental part of its DNA.	法治是欧盟最有价值的硬通货，也是欧盟DNA的基础。


It provides the foundation for the philosophy of multinational democracy that animates the EU’s institutions.	它为激发欧盟制度的多民族民主理念奠定了基础。


While populists regard the rule of law as malleable or negotiable, Europe’s democrats understand that it is the essential bond holding our civilization together.	民粹主义者认为法治可以调整或协商，但欧洲的民主人士却明白法制起到了将欧洲文明联系在一起的关键作用。


As Europe attempts to reverse the slide toward illiberalism, we must recognize that not all illiberal trajectories are the same.	随着欧洲试图扭转朝向非自由主义的滑坡，我们必须认识到，非自由主义的轨迹其实各不相同。


It seems counterproductive to put Hungary and Poland into one basket, and thereby drive them even further into an “alliance of the scorned” fueled more by convenience than real common interests.	将匈牙利和波兰放到一个篮子里似乎起不到积极效果，这样会迫使他们进一步建立起只图一时之便而非受真正受到共同利益驱动的“被嘲笑者联盟”。


The European project is about integration, not isolation.	统一而非孤立才是欧洲计划的核心。


We should be careful about punishing countries simply because they happen to be led by irresponsible leaders at any given moment.	无论何时何地，我们应当在因为碰巧被不负责任的领袖所领导而惩罚一个国家时更加小心谨慎。


In fact, European integration must be about people, not political elites.	事实上，欧洲一体化的核心必须是民众，而非政治精英。


Regardless of their governments’ stance, the majority of people in Poland and Hungary want to remain in the EU and participate actively in its continent-wide community.	无论政府持何种立场，波兰和匈牙利的大多数人都希望留在欧盟并积极参与欧洲大陆这个大集体的活动。


The EU is an expression of their values, and a mechanism by which they can realize their dreams.	欧盟是其价值观的表达，也是他们实现梦想的机制。


That means EU leaders have a responsibility, but also an opportunity, to turn back the illiberal tide.	这意味着欧盟领导人负有责任，同时也有机会扭转非自由主义浪潮。


If we are to draw in the countries with illiberal regimes, we could foster the active support of civil society, while using precise and calibrated instruments to put pressure on the governments in question.	如果想要吸引那些非自由政权国家，我们可以促进民间社团的积极支持，同时利用精准的工具和手段对相关政府施压。


Blunt instruments will only make matters worse.	采取生硬的手段只会让问题进一步恶化。


For example, cutting off EU structural funds for regional development or other forms of assistance would punish the Polish and Hungarian people instead of their leaders, pushing them further away from the EU, and into the arms of their illiberal governments.	例如，切断欧盟区域发展结构性资金或其他形式的援助将惩罚波兰和匈牙利人民而非他们的领袖，这样做会迫使他们进一步远离欧盟，从而进入非自由政府的怀抱。


The challenge facing the EU today is to figure out how to reengage with its backsliding member states without punishing voters for their leaders’ misdeeds.	我们今天所面临的挑战是如何重新吸引倒退的成员国，同时又避免让选民因为领导人的胡作非为而受到惩罚。


It will not be easy.	这项任务绝非轻而易举。


But if the EU is to implement needed institutional reforms, we need all the member countries to be fully engaged in seeking common solutions that make Europe more competitive, equitable, and socially robust.	但如果欧盟要实施必要的体制改革，我们就需要所有成员国能够全面参与，寻求能让欧洲更具竞争力、更公平、社会更活跃的共同的解决办法。


For those of us who believe in Europe, good-faith engagement is the only acceptable option.	对于我们这些相信欧洲的人来说，善意的参与是唯一可以接受的选项。


The R&D Road to Development	发展的研发之路


COPENHAGEN – When famine strikes, governments and international donors step in with life-saving aid.	哥本哈根—爆发饥荒时，政府和国际捐赠者会带着救命的援助进行干预。


And rich countries give more than $130 billion each year not only to feed the starving, but also to build crucial infrastructure and reduce gaps in access to education, health care, and clean water and sanitation worldwide.	富裕国家每年都要拿出1,300亿美元，不仅用于喂饱饥民，也用于建设重要基础设施和缩小教育、医疗和清洁水和卫生设施普及度的差距。


All of this is vitally important.	所有这些都是至关重要的。


But one of the most powerful investments the development community could make is not in today’s problems, but in research that will address tomorrow’s challenges.	但发展界能做的最强大的投资之一不是针对今天的问题，而是针对能够解决明天的挑战的研究。


A dollar spent on research and development has been shown consistently to deliver some of the highest social benefits of any form of policy intervention.	投入到研究和开发中的每一美元，所能产生的社会收益一直是所有政策干预手段中最高的。


More spending on R&D would avoid many of the typical concerns expressed in donor countries about “funding corruption.”	加大研发投入力度能避免许多出资国对“资金腐败”的典型担忧。


And there are large gaps in the knowledge base that research could close.	并且研究可以填补巨大的知识基础差距。


This requires charting new territory beyond popular research topics like alternative energy and vaccines.	这需要将研究主题扩大到可替代能源和疫苗等流行主题之外。


Consider hunger.	比如饥饿。


There is no question that donors must continue to provide a safety net for fragile countries.	毫无疑问，出资国必须为脆弱的国家不断提供安全网。


But we need a longer-term view, one that looks beyond today’s crisis or tomorrow’s headlines.	但我们需要一个长期视角，着眼于今天的危机或明天的新闻标题之外。


Research conducted for the Copenhagen Consensus, the think tank I direct, shows that investing less than $88 billion in agricultural R&D worldwide from now to 2050 would increase yields everywhere by an additional 0.4 percentage points annually.	我所主持的智库机构哥本哈根共识（Copenhagen Consensus）中心的研究表明，从现在起到2050年，全世界只要投入不到880亿美元的农业研发资金，就能让所有地区的收成每年提高0.


The bumper crops and lower food prices that result from this would save 79 million people from hunger.	4个百分点。 由此带来的庄稼丰收和粮食价格的下降将让7,900万人免于挨饿。


The benefits, added up, would be worth $3 trillion.	总收益将达到3万亿美元。


Every dollar spent on research would generate a return of $34.	每一美元研究支出能够产生34美元回报。


There are other areas where major donors could make a huge difference.	还有其他一些领域，主要出资国能够带来巨大的不同。


The Copenhagen Consensus has studied the best R&D opportunities, and the results have just been published by the British Policy Exchange think tank.	哥本哈根共识中心研究了最佳研发机会，结果刚刚由英国智库政策交流中心（Policy Exchange）发布。


The results are relevant not only for the United Kingdom, which since 1995 has spent just 0.9% of its aid on R&D, but for every donor country as well.	这些结果不仅对英国意义重大（自1995年以来，英国的援助支出中只有0. 9%被用于研发），对所有出资国都有借鉴意义。


We worked with 32 top global academics and subject experts to identify nearly 100 research ideas that would fast-track the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and 40 projects for which a first-order estimate of potential benefits and costs could be calculated.	我们与32位全球学者和相关专家一起选出了近100个可以加快实现联合国可持续发展目标的研究主题，以及40个可以对潜在收益和成本进行一阶估算（first-order estimate）的项目。


Of these, we believe that ten deserve to be at the forefront of the development agenda.	对于这些主题和项目，我们相信有十个应该被列为发展日程的重点内容。


One idea is research into cleaner cooking stoves.	一个主题是研究更加清洁的炉灶。


Indoor air pollution caused by cooking and heating is one of the world’s biggest environmental killers: household air pollution killed 2.9 million people in 2015, and the annual costs from the health effects are estimated at approximately $333 billion.	烹饪和取暖导致的室内空气污染是全世界最大的环境杀手之一：2015年，有290万人死于家庭空气污染，而其健康应先管所造成的成本高达每年3,300亿美元左右。


Spending just $25 million annually to create stoves that better fit household cooking habits, and identifying how to maximize community-wide adoption of cleaner cooking solutions, would likely improve uptake of clean stoves by 10-20%, suggesting that approximately 60,000 to 120,000 lives could be saved every year.	只需要每年花2,500万美元用于建造更适合家庭烹饪习惯的炉灶，并找出如何让清洁烹饪方案的社会接受程度最大化，就能让清洁炉灶使用率增加10—20%，每年拯救大约60,000—120,000人的生命。


The benefits would be worth 250-500 times the cost.	其收益是成本的250—500倍。


Intimate partner violence is another issue that requires significant R&D development spending.	亲密伴侣暴力是另一个需要大量投入研发支出的问题。


More than 300 million women per year are victims, with the annual social cost reaching a staggering $4.4 trillion.	每年都有3亿妇女沦为亲密关系暴力的受害者，每年因此造成的社会成本高达4. 4万亿美元。


There is a need for a particular focus on working with African countries, where the prevalence of violence is highest and governments have the fewest resources to address the problem.	必须特别注重与非洲国家的合作。 非洲国家的暴力最为普遍，政府可以用来解决问题的资源也最为短缺。


Research costs are estimated at approximately $100 million per year – a substantial sum, but one justified by the complexity and sheer size of the challenge.	据估计，研究成本大约在每年1亿美元——这是个相当大的数字，但考虑到挑战和复杂性和巨大的规模，并没有不合理之处。


There is emerging evidence that teenage education programs might be effective in reducing the burden of intimate partner violence, and this and other approaches need to be tested in different contexts.	越来越多的证据表明，青春期教育计划或能有效降低亲密伴侣暴力问题，该方法和其他方法需要在不同的环境中接受考验。


Our researchers estimate that doing so could yield $45-450 of benefits for every dollar spent.	我们的研究者估计，这方面投入得每一美元能产生45—450美元收益。


A third idea is to research more affordable asthma treatments.	第三个主题是研究更加平价的哮喘治疗方法。


Asthma is largely under control in developed countries, but inhalers remain expensive and generally unaffordable for the poor.	哮喘在发达国家已经基本得到了控制，但对穷人来说，吸入器仍然十分昂贵，总体而言难以承担。


A relatively small outlay of $10 million could generate breakthroughs that would help millions, possibly yielding benefits of as much as $600 for every dollar invested.	相对小规模的投入——1,000万美元就能取得能够帮助数百万人的突破，每一美元投入有望产生多达600美元收益。


For HIV, the focus has been on pre-exposure prophylaxis and on developing a vaccine.	在艾滋病问题上，关注点一直在暴露前预防和疫苗开发上。


But one under-explored area is the development of cheaper home monitoring and drug delivery for people living with the virus.	但一个有欠探索的领域是开发更廉价面向病毒携带者的居家监测和药物递送服务。


This would reduce the need for regular medical visits and for repeat prescriptions, enabling better self-management and higher therapy-adherence rates.	这能够减少定期复诊和重复开药的需要，提高自我管理能力和坚持治疗的比例。


Spending just about $10 million each year would generate benefits worth more than 20 times the costs.	只要每年投入大约1,000万美元，就能产生20多倍于成本的收益。


Likewise, spending as little as $10 million per year on research into developing a long-acting, reversible contraceptive could transform millions of lives, by providing enhanced control over childbearing, while empowering women, boosting labor-market participation, and improving health.	类似地，每年只要投入1,000万美元用于开发长效可逆避孕药，就能数百万人因为控制生育的能力得到加强而过上不同的生活，同时也能为妇女赋权，提高劳动力市场参与率，并改善健康状况。


In economic terms, the benefits could be worth well over $3 billion annually.	从经济角度，其收益每年远超30亿美元。


The other top-ten ideas from our researchers are: expanding the potential for irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa; developing a marketable “polypill” for hypertension and cardiovascular disease; researching ways to introduce successful tobacco taxes in developing countries; conducting action research – a particular approach and type of research that involves a high level of engagement between researchers and practitioners; and improving the ability of customs offices to identify illicit transactions.	我们的研究者所列出的前十大主题还有：扩大撒哈拉以南非洲的灌溉的潜力、开发高血压和心血管疾病的畅销“多效药”、研究在发展中国家引入成功的烟草税的方法、进行行为研究——需要研究者和参与者高水平互动的特殊的研究方法和类型、改善海关鉴别非法交易的能力，等等。


Past research by the Copenhagen Consensus, at both the global and national level, has conclusively shown that R&D can be an extraordinarily good investment for aid donors.	哥本哈根共识中心过去的研究，不管是全球性研究还是国家层面的研究，都证实研发是对援助国而言非常有益的投资。


The case for prioritizing such investments is no less compelling.	将这些投资列为工作重点也是一项紧迫的要求。


Reviving India’s Economy	重振印度经济


NEW YORK – Not long ago, India was a poster child for political stability and economic growth among emerging economies.	发自纽约——不久之前，印度还是新兴经济体中政治稳定和经济增长的楷模。


Though the country had a long way to go to eradicate poverty and extreme inequality, when it came to steady GDP growth, it was among the world’s strongest and most consistent performers.	虽然该国在消除贫困和极度不平等方面还有很长的路要走，但在持续GDP增长方面却是世界上最强劲且表现最为平稳的国家之一。


Not anymore.	如今这一状况却不再出现了。


In the second quarter of 2017, India’s growth rate fell to 5.7%.	在2017年第二季度印度的增长率下降至5. 7％。


It is now tied with Pakistan – behind China, Malaysia, and the Philippines – on the list of major economies for which The Economist provides basic economic data.	在由《经济学人》杂志提供基本经济数据的主要经济体排名中，印度目前与巴基斯坦不相上下——位列中国，马来西亚和菲律宾之后。


Neighboring Bangladesh, which is not on that list, is now growing at over 7% per annum (and Bangladesh’s per capita income now exceeds Pakistan’s).	而不在这个名单上的邻国孟加拉国目前年增长率超过7％（其人均收入也已经超过了巴基斯坦）。


Given the Indian economy’s massive size and extensive global linkages, its growth slowdown is a source of serious concern not just domestically, but around the world.	鉴于印度经济规模庞大且全球联系广泛，经济增长放缓不仅是其国内问题，更在全世界范围内引发了严重关切。


But it is not too late for India to reverse the trend. The key will be carefully crafted policies that address both short- and long-term challenges.	但印度如果想要扭转这一趋势还为时未晚，关键在于要精心制定一系列政策以应对众多短期和长期性挑战。


In the short term, policymakers must address declining demand for Indian products, both among domestic consumers and in export markets.	在短期内，政策制定者必须解决印度商品在国内和出口市场的需求下滑问题。


All signs point to falling consumer and business spending in India.	所有迹象都指向印度的消费和商业支出下降，事实上，印度的工业生产指数在7月份仅增长了1. 2％，去年同期为4.


In fact, India’s index of industrial production grew by a meager 1.2% in July, compared to 4.5% a year earlier.	5％； 耐用消费品产量下了降1.


Output of consumer durables fell by 1.3%; a year earlier, it grew by 0.2%.	3％，而在一年前则实现了0. 2％的增长。


Meanwhile, annual export growth has fallen in recent years to just 3%, compared to 17.8% in 2003-2008, India’s rapid-growth phase.	与此同时，近年来的出口年均增长率下降到仅仅3％，而在2003~08年印度快速增长的时期则为17.


This is partly a result of a stronger rupee, which has raised the price of Indian goods in foreign markets.	8％。 这部分归因于卢比汇率走强导致印度产品的国外市场价上涨。


And, indeed, imports have risen sharply as well, as the rupee’s appreciation lowers the relative price of foreign goods: in the first half of this year, nominal merchandise imports grew by 28%.	实际上进口额也出现了大幅上涨，因为卢比的升值压低了外国货物的相对价格：今年上半年，名义商品进口额就增长了28％。


But there is another potential driver of the sharp rise in imports: people may be over-invoicing, in order to shift money abroad.	但进口急剧上升的另一个潜在推动力就是：人们可能会通过高开发票金额的方式以便将资金转移到国外。


This could indicate that big traders expect a correction in the rupee’s exchange rate, at which point they plan to sell the dollars that they are now accumulating for a larger sum of rupees.	这可能表明大交易商预期卢比的汇率即将出现修正，他们现在正在积聚美元以便到时抛出换回更多的卢比。


This possibility should worry the Indian authorities – and spur them into action.	印度当局应当对这一举措感到忧虑——并尽快采取行动。


To boost domestic demand in the short term, India needs Keynesian interventionist policies.	为了在短期内推动国内需求，印度需要凯恩斯主义式的干预政策。


To mitigate the rupee’s appreciation, thereby boosting external demand, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) – one of India’s most respected institutions, populated by qualified professionals – must be given greater policy space and autonomy.	为了缓和卢比的升值从而增加外部需求，印度储备银行（印度最受尊敬的机构之一，由一批合格的专业人士组建）必须得到更大的政策空间和自主权。


My advice would be for the RBI to lower interest rates further, thereby aligning India’s monetary policy more closely with that of the world’s other major economies.	我会建议印储行进一步降低利率，从而使印度的货币政策与世界其他主要经济体实现更紧密的联动。


While the current tendency toward very low interest rates is not ideal from a global perspective, the fact is that as long as India remains an outlier, it will encourage the so-called carry trade, which artificially drives up the rupee’s value.	虽然从全球角度来看当前不断压低利率的趋势并不理想，但事实上如果印度仍然特立独行，就会鼓励所谓的套利交易并人为推高卢比的币值。


The bigger challenge facing India will be to nurture and sustain rapid growth in the long run.	印度面临的更大挑战则是如何培育和保持长期性的快速增长。


To figure out how to achieve that, it is worth considering the efforts of another major emerging economy: China.	要弄清楚如何实现这一点，就得参考另一个主要新兴经济体——中国——所做出的努力。


As part of its industrial policy, China’s government has identified specific economic sectors to boost.	作为其产业政策的一部分，中国政府会划定某些特定的经济部门并予以鼓励。


India can adopt a similar approach, with health and education being two particularly promising sectors.	印度可以采取类似的做法，而卫生和教育则是其中两个特别有前景的部门。


Despite its success, India’s medical tourism industry still has plenty of untapped potential – not least because health-care costs are rising around the world.	尽管印度的医疗旅游业已经取得了成功，但仍然拥有无上限的未来发展潜力——尤其是在全球卫生保健费用上涨的背景下。


The income earned from such tourism could help the country to shore up its own health system, ensuring that all Indians – including the poor and especially children, among whom malnourishment remains rampant – have access to quality health care.	这种旅游所赚取的收入可以帮助该国建立自己的卫生体系，确保所有印度人——包括贫困人口，特别是营养不良的儿童——都能获得优质的医疗保健服务。


Likewise, India can become a hub for higher education.	同样，印度也可以成为高等教育的中心。


For the government, the imperative is to create more regulatory space and provide a facilitating ethos for the private sector.	对于政府来说，必须创造更多的监管空间并为私营部门提供便利的办学环境。


An education boom would bring huge returns for the entire Indian economy.	教育产业的繁荣也会为整个印度经济带来巨大的回报。


The final piece of India’s long-term growth puzzle is investment more broadly.	印度实现长期增长的最后一个组成部分是更广泛的投资。


The experience of East Asian countries, not to mention economic theory, shows that capital investment is among the most effective drivers of sustained economic growth.	东亚国家的经验（更不不用搬出那些经济理论）表明资本投资是持续经济增长的最有效动力之一。


Even in India, the sharp uptick in growth from 2003 occurred alongside a surge in overall investment.	即使在印度，2003年的增长大提速也是伴随着总体投资额的激增。


Yet India’s investment-to-GDP ratio is now slipping, from over 35% in the last eight years to below 30% today.	然而印度的投资与GDP的比率正在下滑，从过去八年的35％以上降至当前不到30％。


This can be explained partly by an increase in risk aversion among banks, which are concerned about non-performing assets.	对此的一部分解释是银行的风险厌恶程度有所增加，开始着手处理不良资产。


Falling business confidence may also be a factor.	商业信心的下滑也可能是一个因素。


If India implements policies that boost short-term growth, while laying the groundwork for long-term performance, confidence should rise naturally.	如果印度实施促进短期增长的政策，同时为长期发展奠定基础，商业信心也会自然上升。


Once investment picks up, India will be able to recapture its past rapid growth – and sustain it in the coming years.	一旦投资回升，印度将能够重拾过去的快速增长——并在未来几年持续下去。


That outcome would benefit not just India, but the entire global economy.	这一成果不仅有利于印度，也将有利于整个全球经济。


In Search of Convergence	寻求趋同


CAMBRIDGE – One puzzle of the world economy is that for 200 years, the world’s rich countries grew faster than poorer countries, a process aptly described by Lant Pritchett as “Divergence, Big Time.”	美国剑桥—一个关于世界经济的谜题是，200年来，世界上的富国增长比穷国更快，兰特·普莱切特（Lant Pritchett）恰如其分地称之为《分化，大时代》（Divergence, Big Time）。


When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, per capita income in the world’s richest country – probably the Netherlands – was about four times that of the poorest countries.	1776年亚当·斯密协作《国富论》时，世界最富裕国家——大概是荷兰吧——人均收入约为最贫穷国家的四倍。


Two centuries later, the Netherlands was 40 times richer than China, 24 times richer than India, and ten times richer than Thailand.	两个世纪后，荷兰比中国富40倍，比印度富24倍，比泰国富十倍。


But, over the past three decades, the trend reversed.	但是，在过去三十年里，这一趋势被逆转了。


Now, the Netherlands is only 11 times richer than India and barely four times richer than China and Thailand.	如今，荷兰只比印度富11倍，比中国和泰国勉强富4倍。


Spotting this reversal, the Nobel laureate economist Michael Spence has argued that the world is poised for The Next Convergence.	观察道这一趋势逆转的诺贝尔奖获得者迈克尔·斯宾塞（ Michael Spence）指出，世界将走向《下一次大趋同》（The Next Convergence）。


Yet some countries are still diverging.	但一些国家仍走在分化的道路上。 1980年，荷兰分别比尼加拉瓜、科特迪瓦和肯尼亚富5.


While the Netherlands was 5.8, 7.7, and 15 times richer than Nicaragua, Côte D’Ivoire, and Kenya, respectively, in 1980, by 2012 it was 10.5, 21.1, and 24.4 times richer.	7倍和15倍，而在2012年，分别比上述三国富10. 5倍、21.


What could explain generalized divergence in one period and selective convergence in another?	在某个时期出现一般化的分化，在另一个时期又出现部分化的趋同，原因何在？


After all, shouldn’t laggards grow faster than leaders if all they have to do is imitate others, even leapfrogging now-obsolete technologies? Why didn’t they grow faster for so long, and why are they doing so now?	毕竟，落后者所做的只是模仿其他人，即便面临超越陈腐技术的难题，也应该比领先者增长更快才对。


Why are some countries now converging, while others continue to diverge?	为何一些国家如今正在趋同，而一些国家在继续分化？


There are potentially many answers to these questions.	这些问题有很多答案。


But I would like to outline a possible explanation that, if true, has important implications for development strategies today.	但我想列出一个可能的解释，如果这一解释正确，将对目前的发展战略产生重要影响。


The economic expansion of the last two centuries has been based on an explosion of knowledge about what can be made, and how.	过去两个世纪的经济扩张基础在于关于可以做什么以及怎样做的知识爆炸。


An apt metaphor is a game of Scrabble: Goods and services are made by stringing together productive capabilities – inputs, technologies, and tasks – just as words are made by putting letters together.	一个恰当的比喻是拼字游戏：商品和服务是通过串联各种产能制造出来的——投入品、技术和任务等——正如词汇是将字母组合在一起产生的。


Countries that have a greater variety of capabilities can make more diverse and complex goods, just as a Scrabble player who has more letters can generate more and longer words.	产能多样化的国家可以生产更多样和复杂的商品，正如拥有更多字母的拼字游戏参与者可以造出更多更长的词汇。


If a country lacks a letter, it cannot make the words that use it.	如果一国缺少字母，它就无法用其造出单词。


Moreover, the more letters a country has, the greater the number of uses it could find for any additional letter it acquired.	此外，一国所拥有的字母越多，一旦它获得新字母，这个新字母的用途也就越多。


This leads to a “quiescence trap,” which lies at the heart of the Great Divergence.	这就导致了一个“沉默陷阱”（quiescence trap），亦即大分化（Great Divergence）的核心原因。


Countries with few “letters” lack incentives to accumulate more letters, because they cannot do much with any additional one: you would not want a TV remote control if you didn’t have a TV, and you would not want a TV broadcasting company if your potential customers lacked electricity.	“字母”较少的国家没有动力积累更多字幕，因为新增字母派不上多大用场：没有电视机，你就不会想要电视遥控器，而如果你的潜在客户用不上电，你也不会想要电视广播公司。


This trap becomes deeper the longer the alphabet and the longer the words.	字母表和词汇越长，这一陷阱就越深。


The last two centuries have seen an explosion in technologies – letters – and in the complexity of goods and services that can be made with them.	过去两个世纪是技术——即字母——大爆发的世纪，商品和服务的复杂性也随之急剧增加。


So the techies get techier, and the laggards fall further behind.	因此，拥有技术的日益精进，而落后者日益落后。


Why, then, are some poorer countries now converging?	那么，为何有一些穷国如今开始趋同？


Is the technological alphabet getting shorter?	是技术字母表变短了吗？


Are products getting simpler?	是产品便简单了？


Obviously not.	显然不是。


What is happening is that globalization has split up value chains, allowing trade to move from words to syllables.	事实是全球化分解了价值链，让贸易从词汇变为音节。


Now, countries can get into business with fewer letters and add letters more parsimoniously.	如今，各国可以凭借更少的字母参与拼字游戏，并且更加小心地新增字母。


It used to be that if you wanted to export a shirt, you had to be able to design it to the taste of people you didn’t really know, procure the appropriate materials, manufacture it, distribute it through an effective logistical network, brand it, market it, and sell it.	曾几何时，如果你想出口衬衫，你必须能够设计出符合你其实不认识的人的口味的衬衫，取得合适的材料，做出衬衫，通过高效物流网络送货，还要树品牌、做市场、实现销售。


Unless you performed all of these functions well, you would go out of business.	除非你在所有环节上都做得十分出色，否则你就会破产。


Globalization allows these different functions to be carried out in different places, thereby allowing countries to participate earlier, when they still have few locally available capabilities, which can then be expanded over time.	全球化让这些环节得以在不同地方实现，从而让各国在本地产能不高时就提早参与，并随着时间的推移扩张产能。


A recent example is Albania.	一个最近的例子是阿尔巴尼亚。


Known as the North Korea of Europe until the early 1990s, when Albania abandoned its quixotic quest for autarky, it started cutting and sowing garments and shoes for Italian manufacturers, gradually evolving its own fully integrated companies.	20世纪90年代前，阿尔巴尼亚被称为欧洲的朝鲜，后来阿尔巴尼亚放弃了对自给自足的狂热追求，开始为意大利制造商缝衣裁鞋，并逐步有了自己的 完全整合的公司。


Other countries that started in garments – for example, South Korea, Mexico, and China – ended up reusing the accumulated letters (industrial and logistical capabilities) while adding others to move into the production of electronics, cars, and medical equipment.	其他从制衣业起步的国家——如韩国、墨西哥和中国——也最终开始重新利用所积累的字母（工业和物流产能），与新增字母一起用于电子产品、汽车和医疗设备生产。


Consider this a stylized version of the sale of IBM’s Thinkpad to China’s Lenovo.	IBM将其Thinkpad卖给中国的联想公司就是绝佳的例子。


Once upon a time, IBM asked a Chinese manufacturer to assemble its Thinkpad – using the components that it would supply and following a set of instructions – and send the final product back to IBM.	从前，IBM要求一家中国制造商组装Thinkpad——使用它所提供的元件并按照现成说明——并把最终产品返回IBM。


A couple of years later, the Chinese company suggested that it take responsibility for procuring the parts.	几年后，中国厂商提出可以负责生产元件。


Later, it offered to handle international distribution of the final product.	随后又提出负责最终产品的国际销售。


Then it offered to take on redesigning the computer itself.	再接下来又提出自己来对Thinkpad进行重新设计。


Soon enough, it was no longer clear what IBM was contributing to the arrangement.	不久，IBM在整个安排中的作用已经微乎其微。


Learning to master new technologies and tasks lies at the heart of the growth process.	学习驾驭新技术和任务是增长过程的关键。


If, while learning, you face competition from those with experience, you will never live long enough to acquire the experience yourself.	如果在学习过程中，你面临来自经验丰富者的竞争，你就不可能活到自己掌握经验的那一天。


This has been the basic argument behind import-substitution strategies, which use trade barriers as their main policy instrument.	这就是进口替代战略背后的基本观点，这种战略使用贸易壁垒作为主要政策工具。


The problem with trade protection is that restricting foreign competition also means preventing access to inputs and knowhow.	贸易保护的问题在于限制外国竞争同时也意味着断绝了输入和技术。


Participating in global value chains is an alternative way to learn by doing that is potentially more powerful than closing markets to foreign competition.	参与全球价值链是另一种方法，这一“干中学”（learn by doing）方法从本质上远远强于对外国竞争封闭市场。


It enables a parsimonious accumulation of productive capabilities by reducing the number of capabilities that need to be in place in order to get into business.	它可以降低起步所需的产能要求，从而让你开始产能的吝啬积累。


This strategy requires a highly open trade policy, because it requires sending goods across borders many times.	这一战略需要高度开放的贸易政策，因为它需要多次跨境转移商品。


But this does not imply laissez-faire; on the contrary, it requires activist policies in many areas, such as education and training, infrastructure, R&D, business promotion, and the development of links to the global economy.	但这并不意味着自由放任； 相反，它需要多个领域的积极政策，如教育和培训、基础设施、研发、促商以及发展与全球经济的联系。


Some dismiss this strategy, arguing that countries end up merely assembling other people’s stuff.	一些人对这一战略嗤之以鼻，认为这样做最终智能跟在别人后面亦步亦趋。


But, as the famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said: “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”	但是，正如著名天文学家卡尔·萨根（Carl Sagan） 所言，“如果你想凭空做出苹果派，首先你得发明宇宙。 ”


Another Nobel Surprise for Economics	又一个诺贝尔经济学奖惊喜


NEW HAVEN – The winner of this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago, is a controversial choice.	发自纽黑文——今年诺贝尔经济学奖得主芝加哥大学理查德·泰勒（Richard Thaler）是一个有争议的人选。


Thaler is known for his lifelong pursuit of behavioral economics (and its subfield, behavioral finance), which is the study of economics (and finance) from a psychological perspective.	泰勒以其对行为经济学（及其子领域行为金融学）——也就是从心理学的角度来研究经济学（和金融）——的毕生研究而闻名。


For some in the profession, the idea that psychological research should even be part of economics has generated hostility for years.	但对于一些经济学领域的人来说，这种将心理学研究纳入到经济学研究（哪怕只是其中一部分）的观念就足以对他产生多年的敌意了。


Not from me. I find it wonderful that the Nobel Foundation chose Thaler.	不过我觉的没什么，也感觉诺贝尔文学奖的选择是很棒的。


The economics Nobel has already been awarded to a number of people who can be classified as behavioral economists, including George Akerlof, Robert Fogel, Daniel Kahneman, Elinor Ostrom, and me.	诺贝尔经济学早就授予过给一些可被归类为行为经济学家的人，包括乔治·阿卡洛夫（George Akerlof），罗伯特·福格尔（Robert Fogel），丹尼尔·卡尼曼（Daniel Kahneman），埃里诺·奥斯特伦（Elinor Ostrom）和我本人。


With the addition of Thaler, we now account for approximately 6% of all Nobel economics prizes ever awarded.	随着泰勒的加入，我们这群人如今已经占了所有诺贝尔经济奖得主的6％左右了。


But many in economics and finance still believe that the best way to describe human behavior is to eschew psychology and instead model human behavior as mathematical optimization by separate and relentlessly selfish individuals, subject to budget constraints.	但许多经济和金融专业人士仍然认为，描述人类行为的最好方式是避开心理学，将人类定义为由独立、无情感且受到各类预算限制的自私个体，并将其行为总结成数学优化模型，这要。


Of course, not all economists, or even a majority, are wedded to this view, as evidenced by the fact that both Thaler and I have been elected president, in successive years, of the American Economic Association, the main professional body for economists in the United States.	当然，鉴于泰勒和我已经连续几年被选为美国经济学会（美国经济学者的主要专业组织）主席，可见并不是所有（或是大多数）经济学家都持有这样的观点。


But many of our colleagues unquestionably are.	但我们的许多同僚无疑却属于这一阵营。


I first met Thaler in 1982, when he was a professor at Cornell University.	我第一次见到泰勒是在1982年他担任康奈尔大学教授时。


I was visiting Cornell briefly, and he and I took a long walk across the campus together, discovering along the way that we had similar ideas and research goals.	我正在这所大学作短期访问，他和我一起在校园里边走边聊了好久，发现我们都有着类似的想法和研究目标。


For 25 years, starting in 1991, he and I co-organized a series of academic conferences on behavioral economics, under the auspices of the US National Bureau of Economic Research.	从1991年至今的25年间，他和我在智库机构美国国家经济研究局的主持下共同举办了一系列有关行为经济学的学术会议。


Over all those years, however, there has been antagonism – and even what appeared to be real animus – toward our research agenda.	然而在那些年里，就有人对我们的研究议程存在对抗情绪——甚至似乎是真正的仇恨。


Thaler once told me that Merton Miller, who won the economics Nobel in 1990 (he died in 2000), would not even make eye contact when passing him in the hallway at the University of Chicago.	泰勒曾告诉我说1990年赢得诺贝尔经济学奖的米尔顿·米勒（Merton Miller，于2000年去世）跟他在芝加哥大学的走廊上碰面时甚至连看都不愿看他一眼。


Miller explained his reasoning (if not his behavior) in a widely cited 1986 article called “Behavioral Rationality in Finance.”	米勒在他1986年发表并被广泛引用的《金融中的行为理性》论文中解释了他的道理（或是上述行为）。


Miller conceded that sometimes people are victims of psychology, but he insisted that stories about such mistakes are “almost totally irrelevant” to finance.	米勒承认有时人们是心理现象的受害者，但他坚持认为这些犯错故事跟金融“几乎完全无关”。


The concluding sentence of his review is widely quoted by his admirers: “That we abstract from all these stories in building our models is not because the stories are uninteresting but because they may be too interesting and thereby distract us from the pervasive market forces that should be our principal concern.”	他在文章结尾的被他的崇拜者所广泛引用：“我们之所以在构建我们的模型的过程中排除掉所有这些故事，并非因为这些故事是无趣的，而是它们可能太过有趣，以至于让人无法把注意力集中在本应成为主要关注点的更具普遍性的市场力量上。 ”


Stephen A. Ross of MIT, another finance theorist who was a likely future Nobel laureate until he died unexpectedly in March, argued along similar lines.	另一位本可能在未来夺得诺贝尔奖的金融理论家，麻省理工学院前教授史蒂芬·A·罗斯（Stephen A. Ross，今年3月份意外逝世）也有着类似的说法。


In his 2005 book Neoclassical Finance, he, too, eschewed psychology, preferring to build a “methodology of finance as the implication of the absence of arbitrage.”	在他2005年出版的著作《新古典经济学》中，他同样绕开了心理学而更倾向于建立一种“不受套利意识影响的金融方法论”。


In other words, we can learn a lot about people’s behavior just from the observation that there are no ten-dollar bills lying around on public sidewalks.	换句话说，我们可以在不存在有10美元钞票躺在人行道上的情况下研究很多人类行为。


However psychologically bent some people are, one can bet that they will pick up the money as soon as they spot it.	但是有些人的行为会在心理的影响下有所扭曲，我敢打赌一旦他们看见地上的钱就会立刻捡起来。


Both Miller and Ross made wonderful contributions to financial theory.	米勒和罗斯都对金融理论做出了巨大的贡献。


But their results are not the only descriptions of economic and financial forces that should interest us, and Thaler has been a major contributor to a behavioral research program that has demonstrated this.	但是他们的研究结论不应是对我们所感兴趣的经济和金融力量的唯一描述，而一直以来泰勒都是一项已经证明这一观点的行为研究计划的主要贡献者。


For example, in 1981, Thaler and Santa Clara University’s Hersh Shefrin advanced an “economic theory of self-control” that describes economic phenomena in terms of people’s inability to control their impulses.	例如，1981年，泰勒和圣塔克拉拉大学的赫斯·谢弗林（Hersh Shefrin）提出了一套“关于自制力的经济理论”去描述人们无法控制自身冲动的经济现象。


Sure, people have no trouble motivating themselves to pick up a ten-dollar bill that they might find on a sidewalk. There is no self-control issue there.	当然人们没什么理由不让自己捡起人行道上的10美元钞票，这里不存在自制力的问题。


But they will have trouble resisting the impulse to spend it.	但是他们往往难以抵制花钱的冲动。


As a result, most people save too little for their retirement years.	结果大多数人都会发现自己的退休金不够用了。


Economists need to know about such mistakes that people repeatedly make.	经济学家需要去研究这些人们反复会犯的错误。


During a long subsequent career, involving work with UCLA’s Shlomo Benartzi and others, Thaler has proposed mechanisms that will, as he and Harvard Law School’s Cass Sunstein put it in their book Nudge, change the “choice architecture” of these decisions.	在随后的职业生涯中，通过与加州大学洛杉矶分校的什洛莫·贝纳提兹（Shlomo Benartzi）等人合作，泰勒提出了一些机制——就像他和哈佛法学院的卡斯·桑斯坦（Cass Sunstein）在两人合著的《轻推：改善关于健康，财富和幸福感的决定》一书所指出的一样——来改变了这些决定的“选择架构”。


The same people, with the same self-control problems, could be enabled to make better decisions.	让一个具有相同自我控制问题的人可以做出更好的决定。


Improving people’s saving behavior is not a small or insignificant matter.	改善民众的储蓄行为可不是一件微不足道的事请。


To some extent, it is a matter of life or death, and, more pervasively, it determines whether we achieve fulfillment and satisfaction in life.	在某种程度上，这是一个生死攸关的问题，在更普遍意义上，它决定了我们是否能实现生活中的成就与满足。


Thaler has shown in his research how to focus economic inquiry more decisively on real and important problems.	泰勒在他的研究中表明了该如何更加果断地将经济调查集中在真正重要的问题上。


His research program has been both compassionate and grounded, and he has established a research trajectory for young scholars and social engineers that marks the beginning of a real and enduring scientific revolution.	他的研究方案既富同情心又接地气，还为青年学者和社会工程师建立了研究轨迹，标志着一场科学革命的真正而持久的开端。


I couldn’t be more pleased for him – or for the profession.	对于他这个人——或者是这个专业——我是再喜欢不过了。


Speaking to the Far Right	与极右翼对话


NEW YORK – Something many right-wing populists have in common is a peculiar form of self-pity: the feeling of being victimized by the liberal media, academics, intellectuals, “experts” – in short, by the so-called elites.	纽约——许多右翼民粹主义者的共同点是某种独特形式的自怨自艾：他们感觉受到自由媒体、学者、知识分子和“专家”的迫害——简言之，所谓精英阶层是他们的迫害者。


The liberal elites, the populists proclaim, rule the world and dominate ordinary patriotic people with an air of lofty disdain.	民粹主义者声称自由主义精英统治着世界，并以一种屈尊俯就的态度主宰着普通的爱国民众。


This is in many ways an old-fashioned view.	这在许多方面都是一种老掉牙的观点。


Liberals, or leftists, do not dominate politics any more.	自由分子，或者说是左翼分子，已经不再是政治的主宰者。


And the influence that great left-of-center newspapers, like The New York Times, once had has long been eclipsed by radio talk-show hosts, rightwing cable TV stations, tabloid newspapers (largely owned by Rupert Murdoch in the English-speaking world), and social media.	像纽约时报这样伟大的中左翼报纸其影响早已被广播脱口秀主持人、右翼有线电视台、写满花边新闻的小报（在英语世界主要由鲁伯特·默多克所拥有）以及社交媒体所侵蚀了。


Influence, however, is not the same thing as prestige.	但影响和声望不是一回事。


The great newspapers, like the great universities, still enjoy a higher status than the more popular press, and the same goes for higher learning.	伟大的报纸就像伟大的大学一样，仍然享有比流行媒体更加崇高的地位，高等院校也是如此。


TheSun or Bild lack the esteem of the Financial Times or the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and evangelical colleges in rural parts of the US cannot compete in terms of cachet with Harvard or Yale.	太阳报或图片报没有金融时报或法兰克福汇报那样的崇高地位，而美国农村地区的福音大学也无法与哈佛或耶鲁比赛声望。


Social status arouses more envy and resentment in our populist age than money or fame do.	在我们这个民粹主义时代，社会地位比金钱或名气更能引发怨恨和嫉妒。


President Donald Trump, for example, is a very wealthy man, who was more famous than any of his rivals for the US presidency, including Hillary Clinton.	例如，唐纳德·特朗普总统非常富有，而且名气比任何与他竞选美国总统的对手，包括希拉里·克林顿，都要大。


And yet he seems to be in an almost permanent rage against people who have greater intellectual or social prestige than he does.	而他却似乎永远对那些知识层次或社会威望比他更高的人有着发泄不完的愤怒。


The fact that he shares this resentment with millions of people who are much less privileged goes a long way toward explaining his political success.	成百上千万并未享有如此特权的人与他拥有同样的不满或许可以在很大程度上解释他的政治成功。


Until recently, figures on the extreme right had no prestige at all.	直到不久前，极右翼人物根本没有任何声望。


Driven to the margins of most societies by collective memories of Nazi and fascist horrors, such men (there were hardly any women) had the grubby air of middle-aged patrons of backstreet porno cinemas.	这种人（其中很少有女性）在绝大多数社会都被对纳粹和法西斯恐怖的集体记忆压制在边缘地带，拥有穷街陋巷色情影院中年顾客肮脏猥琐的气场。


Stephen Bannon, still a highly influential figure in Trump’s world, seems a bit like that – a crank in a dirty raincoat.	史蒂夫·班农仍然是特朗普世界里非常有影响的人物，他身上似乎就略带一点这样的气质——一个穿着肮脏雨衣的暴躁易怒的狂热者。


But much has changed.	但许多情况都发生了变化。


Younger members of the far right, especially in Europe, are often sharply dressed in tailor-made suits, recalling the fascist dandies of pre-war France and Italy.	年轻的极右翼分子，特别是在欧洲，往往身着定制西装，令人不禁回想起法国和意大利的法西斯花花公子。


They don’t shout at large mobs, but are slick performers in radio and TV studios, and are savvy users of social media.	他们不会面对大群民众拼命叫喊，但却是电台和电视台演播室熟练的表演者，同时他们精通社交媒体的运用。


Some of them even have a sense of humor.	有些人甚至具有一定的幽默感。


These new-model rightists are almost what Germans call salonfähig, respectable enough to move in high circles.	这些新型右翼分子几乎完全符合德国人所谓名流的特征，能够得到足够的尊敬，完全可以在高层活动。


Overt racism is muted; their bigotry is disguised under a lot of smart patter.	他们不再公开散布种族主义言论； 他们的偏见往往有着聪明的伪装。


They crave prestige.	他们极其渴望获得威望。


I had occasion to encounter a typical ideologue of this type recently at an academic conference organized by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College in the United States.	最近我有幸在美国巴德学院汉娜·阿伦特中心组织的一次学术会议上亲眼见到了一位这种意识形态的典型代表。


The conference was about populism, and the ideologue was named Marc Jongen, a politician from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party with a doctorate in philosophy.	会议讨论的主题是民粹主义，而这位野心家名叫马克·琼根，他是一位拥有哲学博士学位的极右翼德意志民主党（AfD）政治家。


The son of a Dutch father and an Italian mother, born in Italy’s German-speaking South Tyrol, Jongen spoke near-perfect English.	琼根有一位荷兰籍的父亲和一位意大利籍的母亲，讲着几乎无懈可击的英语，出生在意大利讲德语的南蒂罗尔州。


Self-pity lay close to the surface.	很容易看出他身上自怨自艾的情绪。


Jongen described Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to give shelter in Germany to large numbers of refugees from Middle Eastern wars as “an act of violence” toward the German people.	琼根用针对德国民众的“暴力行为”来形容德国总理安格拉·默克尔为来自中东的大批难民提供庇护的决策。


He called immigrants and refugees criminals and rapists (even though crime rates among refugees in Germany are far lower than among “natives”).	他称移民和难民为罪犯和强奸分子（即使德国难民的犯罪率其实远低于德国“土著”）。


Islam was robbing the German Volk of its true identity.	伊斯兰教夺走了德意志民族的真实身份。


Men like Jongen were always being called Nazis.	像琼根这样的人被称为纳粹分子。


And so on.	还有更多。


I had been asked to furnish some counterarguments.	有人要求我对此进行反驳。


I did not call Jongen a Nazi.	我没有将琼根称为纳粹。


But I did my best to point out why I thought his claims were both wrong and dangerous.	但我尽其所能指出我为什么认为他的说法是错误和危险的。


We shook hands at the end.	我们最后握了手。


And that, as far as I was concerned, was that.	在我看来，握手只是礼节性的。


Then a minor academic storm broke out.	之后爆发了一次小规模学术风暴。


More than 50 distinguished US academics signed a letter protesting the Hannah Arendt Center’s decision to invite Jongen to speak.	50多位美国著名学者联名签署了一封抗议信 ，抗议汉娜·阿伦特中心邀请琼根发言的决策。


The point was not that he didn’t have the right to express his opinions, but that Bard College should not have lent its prestige to make the speaker look respectable.	关键不是说他没有发表意见的权利，而是巴德学院不应让这位演讲者借助他们的声望而看起来是值得尊敬的。


Inviting him to speak made his views seem legitimate.	邀请他来发言让他的观点似乎合理合法。


This strikes me as wrongheaded for several reasons.	在我看来有几个理由证明这种说法的错误。


First of all, if one is going to organize a conference on right-wing populism, it is surely useful to hear what a right-wing populist actually has to say.	首先，如果要组织关于右翼民粹主义的会议，听听右翼民粹主义势力究竟要说什么肯定是有好处的。


Listening to professors denouncing ideas without actually hearing what they are would not be very instructive.	没有真正听过右翼分子的发言而只听教授们慷慨激昂的谴责并没有什么实际作用。


Nor is it obvious that a spokesman for a major opposition party in a democratic state should be considered out of bounds as a speaker on a college campus.	此外一个民主国家的主要反对党发言人显然应当具备在大学校园中演讲的资格。


Left-wing revolutionaries were once a staple of campus life, and efforts to ban them would rightly have been resisted.	左翼革命者曾经是校园生活的主要组成部分，抵制取缔他们的努力本来就顺理成章。


The protest against inviting Jongen was not only intellectually incoherent; it was also tactically stupid, because it confirms the belief of the far right that liberals are the enemies of free speech, and that right-wing populists are victims of liberal intolerance.	而且在技术上也是愚蠢的； 因为它证实了极右翼分子的看法，即自由派人士是言论自由的敌人，而右翼民粹份子是自由派偏见的牺牲者。


I like to think that Jongen left the Bard conference politely discredited.	我个人认为琼根在巴德学院被侮辱后礼貌的离开了。


Because of the protest, he was able to snatch victory from defeat.	因为这次抗议，他看似失败但却实际获胜了。


The Rentiers Are Here	食利者在此


GENEVA – Since the 2008 financial crisis, policymakers and international institutions have regularly expressed concerns about widening income inequality and its unwelcome political consequences.	发自日内瓦——自2008年金融危机以来，政策制定者和国际机构经常会对收入不均状况的扩大及其不利的政治后果感到忧虑。


More often than not, they attribute the problem to “exogenous” factors such as global trade and new technologies.	同时他们又往往将这一问题归咎于全球贸易和新技术等“外生”因素。


While policymakers have intensified their focus on trade and new technologies, they have missed an even more potent driver of inequality: the endemic rent-seeking that stems from market concentration, heightened corporate power, and regulatory capture.	但在政策制定者将目光过度集中于对贸易和新技术上时，却错失了一个导致收入不均的更强力驱动因素：发源于市场高度集中，大企业实力壮大以及规制俘虏现象（regulatory capture）的地方性寻租行为。


Rent, broadly defined, is income derived solely from the ownership and control of an asset, rather than from innovative, entrepreneurial deployments of economic resources.	广义上说，租金作为一种收入形式，完全来源于对资产的所有权和控制权，而不是对经济资源的创新和创业型部署。


When the British economist John Maynard Keynes anticipated the “euthanasia of the rentier” in his 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he was referring to a financial class that served no purpose other than to exploit scarce capital for its own benefit.	当英国经济学家约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）在他1936年出版的《就业，利益和货币通论》一书中预测“食利者的消亡”时，他指的是一个除了为自身利益尽可能搜刮资本之外什么都不干的金融阶级。


But over the last three decades, financial rentiers have taken their revenge.	但在过去三十年间，金融食利者卷土重来。


Through private credit creation and financial alchemy, they have amassed huge gains that are wildly disproportionate to the social return of their activities.	他们通过私人信贷创造和金融炼金术积累了巨大的收益，但这种收益又是与这类活动所产生的社会效益极不相称的。


Moreover, in our age of hyper-globalization, large non-financial corporations have also emerged as a rentier class.	此外，在我们这个超全球化时代，大型非金融企业也成为了一个食利阶级。


Owing to their substantial market power and lobbying prowess, they now regularly engage in the kind of rent-seeking activities that were once the exclusive preserve of the financial industry.	这些企业依仗其雄厚的市场实力和游说实力，经常性地参与那些原本是金融行业自留地的食利活动中。


As a result, large non-financial firms have become a pervasive source of rising income inequality.	因此这些大型非金融企业已经成为了收入不均恶化现象的普遍性来源。


Non-financial corporations have entered the rent-seeking game through a number of channels.	非金融企业通过多种渠道进入食利游戏。


They have systematically abused intellectual-property laws to achieve market domination, rather than to protect genuine innovations.	它们不去保护真正的创新，而是系统性地滥用知识产权法来实现市场统治。


They have looted public-sector resources through large-scale privatization schemes, and by securing public subsidies that rarely require them to deliver benefits to taxpayers.	它们通过大规模私有化计划去掠夺公共部门资源，同时又将很少要求向纳税人返还福利的公共补贴抓在手里。


And they have engaged in far-reaching market manipulation, by turning themselves into debt collectors, using share buy-backs to boost executive remuneration, and so forth.	它们已经实现了深层次的市场操纵，把自己变成了收债者，还利用股份回购来提升高管的报酬，以上种种，不一而足。