Taxis and limousines are to some extent protected from competition because they need licenses to operate; they are also regulated for customer safety.	由于要申请牌照运营，出租车和豪华轿车行业在一定程度上受到竞争保护； 同时也基于乘客的安全进行了规范。


But then Uber invades their market with a differentiated product, subject largely to its own regulations for vehicles and drivers.	但随后Uber用一个不一样的产品入侵了它们的市场，并在很大程度上用自己制定的规则来管理车辆和司机。


In the process, it threatens to lower the value of licenses just as surely as any official decision to issue new licenses would.	在这个过程中，它对牌照贬值的威胁就跟任何政府发放新牌照的决定一样真切有效。


No wonder the taxi drivers of Paris and other French cities – hitherto protected from competition – have protested so vehemently (and, on occasion, violently).	难怪巴黎和其他法国城市的出租车司机——迄今处于竞争保护之下——会如此激烈（有时还相当暴力）地抗议。


An intriguing question is how far the financial sector will embrace the sharing economy.	还有一个有趣的问题则是金融业将在何种程度上拥抱共享经济。


Peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding already represent new ways of matching borrowers with investors.	P2P贷款和集资已经展现出连接投资人和借款人的新途径。


Clearly, issues relating to liability and insurance will have to be addressed in all sharing-economy models, especially financial ones; but these are hardly insurmountable obstacles.	显然所有共享经济模式——尤其是金融类的——都必须解决有关责任和保险的问题； 但这些都不是难以逾越的障碍。


The truth is that the Internet-led process of exploiting under-utilized resources – be they physical and financial capital or human capital and talent – is both unstoppable and accelerating.	实际上互联网主导的开发低利用率资源的过程——无论是实物和金融资本，或人力资本和人才——已经不可阻挡且不断加速推进。


The long-term benefits consist not just in efficiency and productivity gains (large enough to show up in macro data), but also in much-needed new jobs requiring a broad range of skills.	以此产生的长期收益包括不仅是效率和生产率的提升（大到足以体现在宏观数据上），还在急需的具备广泛技能的新就业机会上。


Indeed, those who fear the job-destroying and job-shifting power of automation should look upon the sharing economy and breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.	可见那些担忧生产自动化将消灭和转移就业的人可以将目光转向分享经济，并松一口气了。


It might help to inform them that the estimated cost of emerging global infectious threats is $60 billion per year; if investments are made upfront, the total costs could be much smaller.	让它们知道全球新出现传染病威胁的成本估计高达每年600亿美元、前端投资原本可以让这一总���本大大减少或许有所助益。


Inflation Comes to China	中国迎来了通货膨胀


SHANGHAI – Macroeconomic conditions in any country are like running water.	上海-宏观经济条件在许多国家就像是流动的水。


How large and fast is the flow?	它的流量有多大、多快？


Where does it originate and where does it go?	它从哪里来又到哪里去？


The “main stream” of China’s economy is the vast flow of inward investment.	中国经济的“主流”是国内投资的巨大洪流。


China’s economy is prone to rapid growth, with buoyant investment demand sustaining powerful short-term inflationary pressures.	中国经济一直保持快速增长，同时巨大的投资需求在短期内造成了巨大的通货膨胀压力。


As a result, credit controls on investment projects and a close watch on the money supply have been used to promote macroeconomic stability since China began its market reforms.	其结果是，自从开始市场改革以来中国一直对投资项目的信贷严加控制并且密切关注货币供应情况以促进宏观经济的稳定。


But in 2003, following five years of deflation, China’s economy entered a new phase.	但是在2003年，随着五年通货紧缩的结束，中国经济步入了一个新的阶段。


Overcapacity vanished, constraints on consumption were lifted, and a dramatic increase in household demand followed.	生产能力的过剩消失了，对消费的限制被取消了，同时对住房的需要出现了急剧上升。


Since then, heavy industries – steel, automobiles, machinery, building materials, energy, and raw materials – have experienced an unprecedented investment boom, reflecting demand for urban construction, housing, transport, infrastructure, and equipment renewal.	从那时起，重工业，包括钢铁、汽车、机械、建材、能源和原材料，经历了前所未有的投资热潮，反映了对于城市建设、住房、交通、基础设施和设备更新的巨大需求。


Not surprisingly, the economy began to overheat.	于是毫不奇怪地，经济开始走向过热。


Productivity and profitability in manufacturing and heavy industries picked up, boosting China’s national savings dramatically.	制造业和重工业生产能力和盈利能力的提升使中国的国家储蓄大幅增长。


Indeed, the huge increase in China’s trade surplus in recent years is a consequence not of the renminbi’s exchange rate, as many believe, but of the domestic savings’ increase.	事实上，中国最近几年贸易顺差的大幅上升并不像许多人所认为的那样是人民币汇率所造成的，而是源于国内储蓄的增长。


Yet, from 2005 to early 2007, macroeconomic policy was focused on reining in the surplus.	然而，从2005年到2007年初，宏观经济政策所关注的一直是控制贸易顺差的规模。


Most importantly, the renminbi was allowed to appreciate, and the export tax rebate was virtually eliminated.	最重要的是，人民币被允许升值，并且出口退税实质上已经被取消了。


In early 2007, because inflation was not really visible, the government did not regard it as a major problem.	在2007年初，因为通货膨胀还没有真正显现出来，政府并没有把它看成是一个主要问题。


But when price increases accelerated in the second half of the year, the authorities began to worry.	但是当价格在该年的第二季度加速上涨，当局开始感到担心了。


The central bank (PBOC) initially attributed it to excess liquidity, and so began to use monetary policy tools, raising interest rates five times since late 2007.	中央银行（中国人民银行）一开始把这归咎于流动性过剩，于是开始动用货币政策工具，从2007年下半年起它连续五次提高了利率。


As a result, the interest rate for 12-month fixed deposits has reached 3.9%.	结果，12个月定期储蓄的利率达到了3. 9%。


Moreover, the PBOC has issued Central Bank Notes six times, reinforcing its anti-inflationary effort.	此外，中国人民银行还六次发行了中央银行票据，以进一步抑制通货膨胀。


Nevertheless, by the end of October, M2 money supply had increased by 18.4% – growing by 1.3% faster year on year, and exceeding the 16% target.	然而，到10月底，M2货币供应上涨了18. 4%，同比增长了1.


By the start of 2008, it was clear that controlling inflation and cooling an overheating economy had become the government’s main economic target.	3%，并且远远超过了预期增长16%的目标。 到了2008年初，很显然控制通货膨胀和给过热的经济降温已经成为了政府的首要经济目标。


Indeed, the government’s key economic committee, the Central Work Committee, has concluded that after years of “high growth and low inflation,” China is on a route to “high growth with high inflation.”	事实上，政府的主要经济工作委员会中央经济工作委员会已经得出结论在经过数年的“高增长和低通胀”后，中国正在走向“高通胀下的高增长”。


This invariably means that fiscal and monetary stability will become a priority while controlling the trade surplus has become a lower one.	这显然意味着保持财政和货币的稳定性将成为经济工作的首要任务，而控制贸易顺差则降到了较为次要的地位。


The problem is that, until now, the major cause of inflation has been rapidly rising manufacturing costs, and there is no sign of a slowdown in energy and raw material prices.	问题在于直到目前为止引起通货膨胀的主要原因一直是制造成本的快速上涨，并且能源和原材料的价格没有任何下滑的迹象。


Moreover, a new labor law and income policies will further increase workforce costs.	此外，新的劳动法和收入政策将会进一步提高用工成本。


And, due to rising consumer prices, the nominal interest rate will continue to rise.	而由于消费品价格的上升，名义利率也将持续上升。


As a result, with investment demand remaining robust, inflation could spread.	这些将造成投资需求继续保持旺盛，而通货膨胀将会进一步蔓延。


In the face of growing inflation, output is set to suffer.	面对越来越严重的通货膨胀，工业产量可能会受到影响。


In order to curb investment demand, tighter credit rationing and monetary policy are inevitable in 2008, while investment projects and land use will be subject to more rigorous control.	为了控制投资需求，2008年肯定会实施更紧的信贷评级和货币政策，而投资项目和土地使用也将受到更有力的控制。


Likewise, increasing pressure from growing labor costs will force enterprises to lower their profit expectations and cut costs, negatively affecting output growth and employment in the short run.	同时，用工成本增长所带来的更大的压力将迫使企业降低它们对利润的预期并且削减成本，从而在短期内影响产量的增长和劳动力的雇用。


It will be difficult to ease these inflationary pressures this year.	要在今年缓解通货膨胀的压力是很困难的。


International commodity prices will continue to rise, increases in domestic labor costs and prices of non-tradable goods cannot easily be stemmed, the international economic situation will encourage further capital inflows, and asset inflation will persist.	国际商品价格将会持续上升，国内劳动力成本和非贸易品价格的上涨不是那么容易被消化的，而国际经济形势将会促使资本更大规模的流动，从而使资产价格将会持续上涨。


All these factors will push inflation above the 2007 level.	所有这些因素都将会使今年通货膨胀的水平超过2007年的水平。


With export performance also set to slow, owing to the economic downturn in the United States, employment and growth could be weakened further, which implies mounting pressure on China’s government – and thus on the fiscal deficit, creating another source of inflationary pressure.	随着美国经济的下滑必然导致出口放缓，用工和产量增长将被进一步走弱，这将使中国政府承受越来越大的压力，从而也增加了财政赤字的压力。 财政赤字是造成通货膨胀压力的另一个根源。


And, once an inflationary trend emerges and economic growth slows, the steady- as-you go pattern to China’s decade-long boom will be over.	而一旦出现了通货膨胀的趋势以及经济增长放缓，不管你们怎样我都保持稳定的中国十年繁荣的态势将会结束。


Inflation is Now the Lesser Evil	通货膨胀现在是次要危害


CAMBRIDGE – It is time for the world’s major central banks to acknowledge that a sudden burst of moderate inflation would be extremely helpful in unwinding today’s epic debt morass.	剑桥－现在，是全球主要的中央银行承认突然爆发的温和通胀对缓解当今大规模的债务问题非常有益的时候了。


Yes, inflation is an unfair way of effectively writing down all non-indexed debts in the economy.	是的，通货膨胀是有效降低一个经济体中所有非指数化债务的不公平的方法。


Price inflation forces creditors to accept repayment in debased currency.	价格上涨迫使债权人接受以减色货币进行的还款。


Yes, in principle, there should be a way to fix the ills of the financial system without resort to inflation.	是的，原则上，应该有一个不需要借助通货膨胀来修正金融体系弊病的途径。


Unfortunately, the closer one examines the alternatives, including capital injections for banks and direct help for home mortgage holders, the clearer it becomes that inflation would be a help, not a hindrance.	不幸的是，人们越仔细地审视其他的选择——包括对银行注资和对住房抵押贷款持有人的直接帮助，通货膨胀对现在的债务问题有所帮助而不是妨碍其解决就变得越清楚了。


Modern finance has succeeded in creating a default dynamic of such stupefying complexity that it defies standard approaches to debt workouts.	现代金融学已经成功创造了一个令人震惊的复杂的内涵机制，以至于它漠视了解决债务问题的标准途径。


Securitization, structured finance, and other innovations have so interwoven the financial system’s various players that it is essentially impossible to restructure one financial institution at a time.	证券化，结构性融资，以及其他的创新已经使金融系统中的各种参与者交织起来，导致根本不可能一次就能重组一个金融机构。


System-wide solutions are needed.	重组金融机构需要从整个金融体系角度来考虑解决方法。


Moderate inflation in the short run – say, 6% for two years – would not clear the books.	短期内的温和通胀——例如，两年内6%的通货膨胀——不会解决所有的债务问题。


But it would significantly ameliorate the problems, making other steps less costly and more effective.	但是，它会使问题得到极大地改善，降低其他解决措施的成本并使这些措施更为有效。


True, once the inflation genie is let out of the bottle, it could take several years to put it back in.	确实，一旦将通货膨胀的魔鬼从瓶子里释放出来，就要花几年的时间将它再放回去。


No one wants to relive the anti-inflation fights of the 1980’s and 1990’s.	没有人想重新体验20世纪80年代和90年代的反通货膨胀斗争。


But right now, the global economy is teetering on the precipice of disaster.	但是，现在全球经济在灾难的悬崖边摇摇欲坠。


We already have a full-blown global recession.	现在的衰退已经是一个完全的全球衰退。


Unless governments get ahead of the problem, we risk a severe worldwide downturn unlike anything we have seen since the 1930’s.	除非政府战胜债务问题，否则，我们有经历与自20世纪30年代以来我们见过的任何危机都不同的严重全球经济下滑的风险。


The necessary policy actions involve aggressive macroeconomic stimulus.	解决危机必要的政策行动涉及积极的宏观经济刺激政策。


Fiscal policy should ideally focus on tax cuts and infrastructure spending.	最理想的财政政策应该是集中在减税和基础设施建设开支上。


Central banks are already cutting interest rates left and right.	各国中央银行已经在视情况降低利率了。


Policy interest rates around the world are likely to head toward zero; the United States and Japan are already there.	全世界的政策利率可能会向零靠近； 美国和日本的利率已经为零了。


The United Kingdom and the euro zone will eventually decide to go most of the way.	英国和欧元区国家将最终决定向该利率水平进发。


Steps must also be taken to recapitalize and re-regulate the financial system.	  各国也必须采取措施调整金融系统的资本结构和重新对其进行监管。


Huge risks will remain as long as the financial system remains on government respirators, as is effectively the case in the US, UK, the euro zone, and many other countries today. 	只要金融系统继续依靠政府注资，就仍然存在巨大的风险，正如美国，英国，欧元区以及现在的许多其他的国家的情形那样。


Most of the world’s largest banks are essentially insolvent, and depend on continuing government aid and loans to keep them afloat.	世界上大多数大银行实质上已经破产了，它们依靠持续的政府救助和贷款来继续运转下去。


Many banks have already acknowledged their open-ended losses in residential mortgages.	许多银行已经承认了它们在住宅抵押上的巨额亏损。


As the recession deepens, however, bank balance sheets will be hammered further by a wave of defaults in commercial real estate, credit cards, private equity, and hedge funds.	但是，在衰退加深的时候，银行资产负债表会遭到商业地产、信用卡、私募股权和对冲基金违约潮的进一步冲击。


As governments try to avoid outright nationalization of banks, they will find themselves being forced to carry out second and third recapitalizations.	当政府在努力避免对银行进行彻底的国有化的时候，它���会发现自己被迫对银行进行第二次和第三次资本结构调整。


Even the extravagant bailout of financial giant Citigroup, in which the US government has poured in $45 billion of capital and backstopped losses on over $300 billion in bad loans, may ultimately prove inadequate.  When one looks across the landscape of remaining problems, including the multi-trillion-dollar credit default swap market, it is clear that the hole in the financial system is too big to be filled entirely by taxpayer dollars. 	 即使是对金融业巨头花旗银行的巨额救助——美国政府已经向花旗银行注资450亿美元，并对其超过3000亿的不良贷款损失提供支持——可能最终证实都是不够的。 当人们环视现有问题——包括数万亿美元的信贷违约互换市场——的全貌的时候，很明显，人们就会发现金融系统的窟窿太大了，纳税人的钱不能把它彻底填平。


Certainly, a key part of the solution is to allow more banks to fail, ensuring that depositors are paid off in full, but not necessarily debt holders.	当然，解决债务问题重要的一部分是让更多的银行破产，确保存款人得到全额清偿，但是债权人就不一定是如此了。


But this route is going to be costly and painful.	但是这种方法将会成本高昂而且令人痛苦。


That brings us back to the inflation option.	这就把我们带回了通货膨胀这一选择。


In addition to tempering debt problems, a short burst of moderate inflation would reduce the real (inflation-adjusted) value of residential real estate, making it easier for that market to stabilize.	除了缓解债务问题之外，短期内发生温和通胀能降低住房的真实（调整通胀后）价值，使房地产市场更容易稳定下来。


Absent significant inflation, nominal house prices probably need to fall another 15% in the US, and more in Spain, the UK, and many other countries.	如果没有发生重大的通货膨胀，美国的名义房价可能还要再下跌15％，对西班牙、英国和很多其他国家来说，要下跌得更多。


If inflation rises, nominal house prices don’t need to fall as much.	如果通货膨胀上升，名义房价就不需要跌那么多了。


Of course, given the ongoing recession, it may not be so easy for central banks to achieve any inflation at all right now.	当然，鉴于衰退的持续，中央银行立刻取得通货膨胀的效果不是很容易 。


Indeed, it seems like avoiding sustained deflation , or falling prices, is all they can manage.	实际上，似乎避免持续的通货紧缩或者价格下跌，是这些中央银行能够做到的。


Fortunately, creating inflation is not rocket science.	幸运的是，制造通货膨胀不是火箭科学。


All central banks need to do is to keep printing money to buy up government debt.	中央银行要做的事情就是不停的印刷钞票以全部买进政府债务。


The main risk is that inflation could overshoot, landing at 20 or 30% instead of 5-6%.	这样做主要的风险是通货膨胀可能失去控制，在到达20％或30％而不是5-6％时着陆。


Indeed, fear of overshooting paralyzed the Bank of Japan for a decade.	事实上，担心通货膨胀失去控制使日本央行在10年内无所作为。


But this problem is easily negotiated.	但是这个问题是可以很容易解决的。


With good communication policy, inflation expectations can be contained, and inflation can be brought down as quickly as necessary.	通过良好的沟通政策，可以遏制对通货膨胀的预期，而且通货膨胀也可以在必要的时候尽快降下来。


It will take every tool in the box to fix today’s once-in-a-century financial crisis.	要解决今天的百年一遇的金融危机，需要采取任何可能的手段。


Fear of inflation, when viewed in the context of a possible global depression, is like worrying about getting the measles when one is in danger of getting the plague.	在全球可能发生萧条的情况下，担心通货膨胀，就是好像是一个人在有患瘟疫的危险下，却在担心患麻疹一样。


Inflation or Deflation?	是通货膨胀，还是通货紧缩?


CAMBRIDGE – The investors that I talk to these days are not sure whether to worry more about future inflation in the United States or about future deflation.	发自剑桥——这几天来和我聊天的投资者都非常困惑，弄不清是应该担心美国未来的通货膨胀，还是要准备好迎接通货紧缩。


The good news is that the answer – for at least the next few years – is that investors should worry about “neither.”	而好消息则是——至少在未来几年内——两种状况都不需要担心。


America’s high rate of unemployment and the low rates of capacity utilization imply that there is little upward pressure on wages and prices in the US. And the recent rise in the value of the dollar relative to the euro and the British pound helps by reducing import costs.	美国当前较高的失业率以及较低的产能利用率都意味着工资和价格的上升压力不大，而最近美元相对于欧元和英镑的升值则有助于降低进口成本。


Those who emphasize the risk of inflation often point to America’s enormous budget deficit.	那些强调通胀风险的人经常会用美国庞大的预算赤字作口实。


The Congressional Budget Office projects that the country’s fiscal deficit will average 5% of GDP for the rest of the decade, driving government debt to 90% of GDP, from less than 60% of GDP in 2009.	而国会预算办公室则预计美国的财政赤字将在未来十年平均维持在GDP的5%左右，并因此导致政府债务占GDP的比例从2009年度的低于60%上升到90%。


While those large fiscal deficits will be a major problem for the US economy if nothing is done to bring them down, they need not be inflationary.	假如我们不采取削减措施的话，这笔巨额财政赤字将成为影响美国经济的重大问题，但即便如此，它却不会成为通货膨胀的诱因。


Sustained budget deficits crowd out private investment, push up long-term real interest rates, and increase the burden on future taxpayers.	长期持续的预算赤字抑制了私人投资，推高长期实际利率，还增加了未来纳税人身上的负担。


But they do not cause inflation unless they lead to excess demand for goods and labor.	但除非引发对商品和劳动力的过度需求，否则这几点是不会引发通胀的。


The last time the US faced large budget deficits, in the early 1980’s, inflation declined sharply because of a tight monetary policy.	上次美国面对巨额预算赤字的时候还是1980年代早期，那时通胀情况在紧缩货币政策的影响下大幅下降。


Europe and Japan now have both large fiscal deficits and low inflation.	而欧洲和日本目前面临的也是这种巨额财政赤字和低通胀并存的情况。


The inflation pessimists worry that the government will actually choose a policy of faster price growth to reduce the real value of the government debt.	通胀悲观者还忧虑政府将实施一个引导价格更快增长的政策，借以减少政府负债的实际价值。


But such a strategy can work only in countries where the duration of the government’s debt is long and the interest rate on that debt is fixed.	但这种政策只能在那些政府债务期限较长，且债券利率固定的国家起作用。


That is because an increase in the inflation rate causes interest rates on new debt to rise by an equal amount. The resulting higher interest payments add to the national debt, offsetting the erosion of the real value of the existing debt caused by the higher inflation.	这是因为通胀率会导致新债务的利率同步增长，相应带来的更重利息支付负担又增加了国家负债，抵消了由更高通胀所导致的现有债务实际价值下降。


In the current situation, the US cannot reduce the real value of its government debt significantly by indulging in a bout of inflation, because the average maturity on existing debt is very short – only about four years.	在当前的情况下，美国无法借助一轮通胀来大幅削减自身政府债务的实际价值，因为现有债务的平均到期日非常短——只有大概4年。


And the projected fiscal deficits imply that the additional debt that will be issued during the next decade will be as large as the total stock of debt today.	而未来的财政赤字预期则意味着未来10年内增发的债务规模将相当于现有全部债务的总和。


So raising inflation is no cure for the government’s current debt or future deficits.	因此制造通胀不会是政府当前债务或未来赤字的解决方案。


Those who worry about deflation note that the US consumer price index has not increased at all in the past three months. Why won’t that continue and feed on itself – as it has in Japan – as consumers delay spending in anticipation of even lower prices in the future?	那些担心通缩的人则注意到美国消费者物价指数在过去三个月内都没有上升，而随着消费者推迟消费来等待更低的价格，情况会像日本那样陷入一种恶性循环当中。


And doesn’t Japan’s persistent deflation since the early 1990’s also show that, once it begins, deflation cannot be reversed by a policy of easy money or fiscal deficits?	此外日本自1990年代以来的持续通货紧缩不是业已证明，通货紧缩不会因为货币扩张政策或者财政赤字而得到逆转吗？


But the recent weakness in US prices is very different from the situation that prevails in Japan.	但最近美国物价指数的疲软与从前日本的情况是截然不同的。


Zero inflation for the past three months has been a one-time event driven by the fall in energy prices.	过去三个月的零通胀是由能源价格下降所推动的偶然性事件。


The other broad components of the consumer price index have increased in recent months, and the consumer price index is up about two percentage points over the past 12 months.	其实另外一些构成消费者物价指数的成分价格在最近几个月都出现了上升，而指数在过去12个月内已经合共上升了大概2%。


Moreover, surveys of consumer expectations show that US households expect prices to rise at more than 2% in both the coming year and the more distant future.	此外针对消费者预期的调查显示，美国家庭预计商品价格会在来年以及未来上升大概2%。


That expected inflation rate is consistent with the difference in interest rates between ordinary US government bonds and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities.	这个预期通胀率是与普通美国政府债券与通货膨胀保值债券两者之间的利息差相吻合的。


With such expectations, consumers have no reason to put off purchases.	在这样的预期之下，消费者没理由会停止采购。


A second reason for relatively low inflation in recent years has been a temporary fall in the cost of production.	而造成近年以来相对低通胀的原因还有生产成本的短期降低。


As firms shed workers during the economic downturn, output fell more slowly. The resulting rise in output per worker, together with slow wage growth, reduced unit labor costs.	由于公司在经济不景气时期削减人手，因此产量更加缓慢地下降，并引发工人人均生产量上升，加上缓慢的工资增长，最终导致了单位劳动成本的下降。


That process is now coming to an end as employment rises.	而这个逻辑过程目前正随着就业增加而面临终结。


So the good news is that the possibility of significant inflation or deflation during the next few years is low on the list of economic risks faced by the US economy and by financial investors.	因此就有个好消息，那就是美国经济和金融投资者在未来几年内都不大可能迎来大规模的通货膨胀或者通货紧缩。


But, while inflation is very likely to remain low for the next few years, I am puzzled that bond prices show that investors apparently expect inflation to remain low for ten years and beyond, and that they also do not require higher interest rates as compensation for the risk that the fiscal deficit will cause real interest rates to rise in the future.	但是，虽然通货膨胀极可能在在未来几年内维持较低的水平，但令我感到困惑的，是当前的债券价格显示投资者显然希望这种状况能维持10年甚至更长的时间，而另外使我感到奇怪的一点，则是面对财政赤字可能导致实际利率上升的风险，他们也不需要用更高的利率来进行补偿。


The Deflation Bogeyman	通缩恶魔


CAMBRIDGE – The world's major central banks are currently obsessed with the goal of raising their national inflation rates to their common target of about 2% per year.	美国剑桥—世界主要央行纷纷计划将国民通货膨胀率提高到正常标准——每年2%上。 在美国是如此——过去12个月年通货膨胀率为-0.


This is true for the United States, where the annual inflation rate was -0.1% over the past 12 months; for the United Kingdom, where the most recent data show 0.3% price growth; and for the eurozone, where consumer prices fell 0.6%.	1%； 在英国是如此——最新数据显示物价涨幅为0.


But is this a real problem?	3%； 在欧元区也是如此——消费者物价下降0.


The sharp decline in energy prices is the primary reason for the recent drop in the inflation rate.	能源价格的暴跌是最近通胀下降的主因。


In the US, the core inflation rate (which strips out changes in volatile energy and food prices) was 1.6% over the last 12 months.	在美国，核心通货膨胀率（剔除高波动的能源和食品价格）在过去12个月中为1.


Moreover, the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank understand that even if energy prices do not rise in the coming year, a stable price level for oil and other forms of energy will cause the inflation rate to rise.	6%。 此外，美联储、英格兰银行和欧洲央行明白，即使能源价格在未来一年中不上涨，石油和其他形式的能源价格的稳定也会让通胀率有所回升。


In the US, the inflation rate has also been depressed by the rise in the value of the dollar relative to the euro and other currencies, which has caused import prices to decline.	在美国，美元相对欧元和其他货币升值也是抑制通胀率的一个原因，因为这压低了进口价格。


This, too, is a “level effect," implying that the inflation rate will rise once the dollar's exchange rate stops appreciating.	这也是一个“水平效应”，意味着只要美元汇率停止升值，通胀率就会上来。


But, despite this understanding, the major central banks continue to maintain extremely low interest rates as a way to increase demand and, with it, the rate of inflation.	但是，尽管有这样的理解，主要央行仍然保持极端低利率，以此增加需求和通胀率。


They are doing this by promising to keep short-term rates low; maintaining large portfolios of private and government bonds; and, in Europe and Japan, continuing to engage in large-scale asset purchases.	它们的做法是承诺保持短期利率低位、维持巨大的私人和政府债券组合，在欧洲和日本，央行还继续实施大规模资产购买操作。


The central bankers justify their concern about low inflation by arguing that a negative demand shock could shift their economies into a period of prolonged deflation, in which the overall price level declines year after year.	央行对它们担心低通胀的解释是消极需求冲击可能让经济陷入长期通缩，即总体物价逐年下降。


That would have two adverse effects on aggregate demand and employment.	这将给总需求和就业带来两大不利影响。


First, the falling price level would raise the real value of the debts that households and firms owe, making them poorer and reducing their willingness to spend.	首先，下降的价格水平增加了家庭和企业所欠债务的真实价值，导致它们更穷，也减弱它们的支出意愿。


Second, negative inflation means that real interest rates rise, because central banks cannot lower the nominal interest rate below zero.	其次，负通胀意味着真实利率升高，因为央行无法将名义利率降至零以下。


Higher real interest rates, in turn, depress business investment and residential construction.	更高的真实利率反过来抑制企业投资和住宅建设。


In theory, by depressing aggregate demand, the combination of increased real debt and higher real interest rates could lead to further price declines, leading to even larger negative inflation rates.	理论上，真实债务增加和真实利率升高的合力通过抑制总需求导致价格的进一步下跌，带来更严重的负通胀率。


As a result, the real interest rate would rise further, pushing the economy deeper into a downward spiral of falling prices and declining demand.	结果，真实利率将进一步上升，将经济推入更深的物价和需求的下降螺旋。


Fortunately, we have relatively little experience with deflation to test the downward-spiral theory.	幸运的是，相对而言我们没什么通缩经验检验这一下降螺旋理论。


The most widely cited example of a deflationary economy is Japan.	被引用最多的通缩经济的例子是日本。


But Japan has experienced a low rate of inflation and some sustained short periods of deflation without ever producing a downward price spiral.	但日本经历了低通胀率，有时会出现短期通缩，但从未形成下降的价格螺旋。


Japan's inflation rate fell from nearly 8% in 1980 to zero in 1987.	日本通胀率从1980年的近8%下降到1987年的零。


It then stayed above zero until 1995, after which it remained low but above zero until 1999, and then varied between zero and -1.7% until 2012.	然后维持在零以上水平直至1995年，然后在零以上低位徘徊至1999年，然后在零和-1. 7%之间波动直到2012年。


Moreover, low inflation and periods of deflation did not prevent real incomes from rising in Japan.	此外，低通胀和通缩时期并没有阻止日本真实收入的上升。


From 1999 to 2013, real per capita GDP rose at an annual rate of about 1% (which reflected a more modest rise of real GDP and an actual decline in population).	从1999年到2013年，真实人均GDP增长年率为1%左右（这反映出更平庸的真实ＧＤＰ增长和实际下降的人口）。


Why, then, are so many central bankers so worried about low inflation rates?	那么，为何如此多的央行如此担忧低通胀率呢？


One possible explanation is that they are concerned about the loss of credibility implied by setting an inflation target of 2% and then failing to come close to it year after year.	一个可能的解释是它们担心因为将通胀目标设定为２％但年复一年无法接近这一目标而损失信誉。


Another possibility is that the world's major central banks are actually more concerned about real growth and employment, and are using low inflation rates as an excuse to maintain exceptionally generous monetary conditions.	另一个可能性是世界主要央行实际上更担心真实增长和就业，它们用低通胀率作为借口维持极其有利的货币条件。


And yet a third explanation is that central bankers want to keep interest rates low in order to reduce the budget cost of large government debts.	还有第三个解释：央行想维持低利率是为了降低巨额政府债务的预算成本。


None of this might matter were it not for the fact that extremely low interest rates have fueled increased risk-taking by borrowers and yield-hungry lenders.	要不是考虑到一个事实——极低利率助长了借款人和渴望高收益的贷款人的冒险行为——所有这些都不重要。


The result has been a massive mispricing of financial assets.	已经造成的结果是金融资产的大量错误定价。


And that has created a growing risk of serious adverse effects on the real economy when monetary policy normalizes and asset prices correct.	而这造成了日益增加的风险，当货币政策正常化、资产价格得到纠正时，实体经济可能遭到严重的副作用影响。


The Information Revolution Gets Political	信息革命的政治化


NEW DELHI – The second anniversary of the “Arab Spring” in Egypt was marked by riots in Tahrir Square that made many observers fear that their optimistic projections in 2011 had been dashed.	新德里—在埃及“阿拉伯之春”迎来二周年的日子里，解放广场再次暴动。 这让众多观察者担心他们在2011年的乐观预测被轻易地打破了。


Part of the problem is that expectations had been distorted by a metaphor that described events in short-run terms.	问题的一部分在于预期被一个描述短期事件的隐喻扭曲了。


If, instead of “Arab Spring,” we had spoken of “Arab revolutions,” we might have had more realistic expectations.	如果我们不是用“阿拉伯之春”，而是用“阿拉伯革命”，那么我们或许会形成更现实的预期。


Revolutions unfold over decades, not seasons or years.	革命往往是几十年的事件，而不是几个季度或几年的事件。


Consider the French Revolution, which began in 1789.	就拿1789年爆发的法国大革命来说吧。


Who would have predicted that within a decade, an obscure Corsican soldier would lead French armies to the banks of the Nile, or that the Napoleonic Wars would disrupt Europe until 1815?	谁会预测在不到十年的时间里，一位名不见经传的科西嘉士兵会率领法军来到尼罗河沿岸，或是拿破仑战争会横扫欧洲，直到1815年才结束？


If we think of the Arab revolutions, there are many surprises yet to come.	想想阿拉伯革命，还有很多惊奇没有发生。


So far, most Arab monarchies have had enough legitimacy, money, and force to survive the waves of popular revolt that have brought down secular republican autocrats like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, but we are only two years into the revolutionary process.	目前，大部分阿拉伯君主国家都有充分的正统性、金钱和力量抵抗群众革命，被赶下台的都是世俗共和国的独裁者，如埃及的穆巴拉克和利比亚的卡扎菲。 但我们进入革命模式才不过两年。


Beneath the Arab political revolutions lies a deeper and longer process of radical change that is sometimes called the information revolution.	在阿拉伯政治革命之下是程度更深、为时更长的彻底变革，有时这种变革被称为信息革命。


We cannot yet fully grasp its implications, but it is fundamentally transforming the nature of power in the twenty-first century, in which all states exist in an environment that even the most powerful authorities cannot control as they did in the past.	我们无法完全掌握其影响，但它正在从根本上改变21世纪的实力性质。 在21世纪中，即使实力最强大的当局也无法拥有和过去一样的掌控力，这是所有国家共同面临的环境。


Governments have always worried about the flow and control of information, and our age is hardly the first to be strongly affected by dramatic changes in information technology.	政府向来担心信息的流动和控制，我们所处的时代也绝不是第一个受信息技术变迁剧烈影响的时代。


Gutenberg’s printing press was important to the origins of the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing wars in Europe.	古腾堡的印刷术是宗教改革和随后的欧洲战争的重要原因。


Today, however, a much larger part of the population, both within and among countries, has access to the power that comes from information.	但是，如今，不管是身处一国还是在各国之间，能够获得来自信息的力量的人口比重比以前要大得多。


The current global revolution is based on rapid technological advances that have dramatically decreased the cost of creating, finding, and transmitting information.	当前的全球革命的基础是快速的技术进步，它们极大地降低了创造、寻找和传播信息的成本。


Computing power doubled roughly every 18 months for 30 years, and, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it cost one-thousandth of what it did in the early 1970’s.	30年来，计算能力每隔18个月就能翻一番，21��纪初，计算成本只有20世界70年代的千分之一。


If the price of automobiles had fallen as quickly as the price of semiconductors, a car today would cost $5.	如果汽车的价格减半的速度和半导体一样快，那么如今花5美元就能买辆车。


As recently as the 1980’s, phone calls over copper wire could carry only one page of information per second; today, a thin strand of optical fiber can transmit 90,000 volumes in a second.	近至20世纪80年代，有线电话一秒钟只能传递一张纸的信息； 如今，一根小小的光纤可以在一秒钟传递90 000卷书。


In 1980, a gigabyte of data storage occupied a room; now, 200 gigabytes of storage fits in your shirt pocket.	1980年，1GB数据要一间屋子才放得下，如今，200GB的存储空间不过衬衫口袋大小。


Even more crucial has been the enormous drop in the cost of transmitting information, which reduces barriers to entry.	更重要的是传递信息的成本的大幅减小，这降低了进入壁垒。


As computing power has become cheaper and computers have shrunk to the size of smart phones and other portable devices, the decentralizing effects have been dramatic.	随着计算能力变得更便宜，而计算机体积也缩小到智能手机和其他便携设备大小，分散效应变得极其显著。


Power over information is much more widely distributed today than even a few decades ago.	即使与几十年前相比，信息力的分布也大大地扩展了。


As a result, world politics is no longer the sole province of governments.	结果，世界政坛不再只有政府的声音。


Individuals and private organizations – including WikiLeaks, multinational corporations, NGOs, terrorists, or spontaneous social movements – have been empowered to play a direct role.	个人和私人组织——包括维基解密（WikiLeaks）、跨国公司、非政府组织、恐怖主义者和自发形成的社会运动——都获得了获得直接发挥作用的力量。


The spread of information means that informal networks are undercutting the monopoly of traditional bureaucracy, with all governments less able to control their agendas.	信息的传播意味着地下网络正在削弱传统官僚主义的垄断，任何政府都不再像过去那样能够轻易地控制其日程。


Political leaders enjoy fewer degrees of freedom before they must respond to events, and must then communicate not only with other governments, but with civil society as well.	政治领导人在必须就某事件作出反应之前的自由度越来越低了，而事件发生后，政治领导人不但要和其他政府沟通，也要和公民社会沟通。


But it would be a mistake to “over-learn” the lessons that the Arab revolutions have taught about information, technology, and power.	但“过度吸取”阿拉伯革命关于信息、技术和实力的教训是错误的。


While the information revolution could, in principle, reduce large states’ power and increase that of small states and non-state actors, politics and power are more complex than such technological determinism implies.	尽管从原则上说，信息革命能够遏制大国实力，增加小国和非国家行动者的实力，但政治和权力比技术所能决定的程度更复杂。


In the middle of the twentieth century, people feared that computers and new means of communications would create the kind of central governmental control dramatized in George Orwell’s 1984.	20世纪中叶，人们担心电脑和新沟通途径会造成如乔治·奥威尔在《1984》中所描述的那种中央政府控制。


And, indeed, authoritarian governments in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere have used the new technologies to try to control information.	事实上，中国、沙特和其他地方的专制政府便用新技术来控制信息。


Ironically for cyber-utopians, the electronic trails created by social networks like Twitter and Facebook sometimes make the job of the secret police easier.	对网络空想家来说，讽刺之处在于Twitter和Facebook等社交网络所形成的电子痕迹有时会让秘密警察的工作更加方便。


After its initial embarrassment by Twitter in 2009, the Iranian government was able to suppress the country’s “green” movement in 2010.	2009年在Twitter上吃亏后，2010年伊朗政府已有能力镇压该国的“绿色”运动。


Similarly, while the “great firewall of China” is far from perfect, the government has managed thus far to cope, even as the Internet has burgeoned in the country.	类似地，尽管“中国长城”远远称不上完美，但到目前为止中国政府仍然游刃有余，尽管该国的互联网出现了蓬勃发展。


In other words, some aspects of the information revolution help the small, but some help the already large and powerful.	换句话说，信息革命的一些方面有助于弱小者，但也有一些方面有助于强大者。


Size still matters.	规模依然重要。


While a hacker and a government can both create information and exploit the Internet, it matters for many purposes that large governments can deploy tens of thousands of trained people and have access to vast computing power to crack codes or intrude into other organizations.	尽管黑客和政府都可以制造信息、利用互联网，但对于很多问题，政府可以部署成千上万训练有素之人并获得强大的计算能力清除侵入组织的代码和黑客。


Likewise, while it is now cheap to disseminate existing information, the collection and production of new information often requires major investment, and, in many competitive situations, new information matters most.	类似地，尽管如今散布已有信息成本低廉，但搜集和制造新信息通常要求投入重金，在许多竞争性情形中，新技术起着最关键的作用。


Intelligence collection is a good example, and the elaborate Stuxnet worm that disabled Iranian nuclear centrifuges seems to have been a government creation.	情报搜集就是很好的例子，精心编写的Stuxnet蠕虫病毒能让伊朗核离心机陷入瘫痪，而这似乎便是政府的杰作。


Governments and large states still have more resources than information-empowered private actors, but the stage on which they play is more crowded.	与用信息武装起来的私人行动者相比，政府和大国仍掌握着更多的资源，但它们行动的舞台也变得更加拥挤了。


How will the ensuing drama unfold?	下一幕好戏将如何展开？


Who will win, and who will lose?	谁会赢，谁会输？


It will take decades, not a single season, to answer such questions.	要回答这个问题，一个季度是肯定不行的，需要几十年才行。


As events in Egypt and elsewhere have shown, we are only just beginning to comprehend the effects of the information revolution on power in this century.	正如埃及和其他地区的事件所表明的，对于本世纪信息革命对实力的影响，我们的理解才刚刚开始。


The Truth about Medical Consent	关于医疗同意的事实


LONDON – Is it acceptable for doctors to withhold information from their patients?	伦敦—医生对患者隐瞒信息，这样做可以接受吗？


Some claim that it is not only acceptable; it is desirable.	一些人认为这不但可以接受，而且应该这样。


Hope, they argue, is critical to aid recovery, and a bleak diagnosis should not be allowed to kill it.	他们说，希望是康复的关键，不能让令人绝望的诊断扼杀希望。


In his influential 1803 text Medical Ethics, the English physician Thomas Percival described the doctor’s role as “the minister of hope and comfort to the sick,” noting that at times they should conceal alarming information from their patients.	在1803年的名著《医学伦理学》（Medical Ethics）中，英国医生托马斯·帕茨瓦尔（Thomas Percival）将医生的角色描述为“希望使者，患者福音”，指出有时他们应该隐瞒警示信息不让患者知道。


A patient’s life, Percival wrote, can be shortened not only by a doctor’s acts, but also by his words and manner.	患者的生命，帕茨瓦尔写道，不但可能因为医生的行动而缩短，也可能因为他的言辞和方式而缩短。


The Canadian physician William Osler (whose patients included Walt Whitman) was another fervent believer in the healing power of hope.	加拿大医生威廉·奥斯勒（William Osler，诗人惠特曼的医生）也对希望的治疗效果深信不疑。


Indeed, his “unfailing but occasionally unwarranted optimism,” a biographer noted, was one of his most outstanding characteristics.	事实上，一位传记作者写道，他的“可靠但有时并无保证的乐观”是他最杰出的特色。


In a 1958 textbook on medical ethics and law, another eminent doctor stated that it is “often clinically wise and in the patient’s interest to withhold certain matters.”	在1958年的医学伦理和法律教材上，另一位名医写道，“隐瞒一些情况在临床上常常能收获奇效并且符合患者的利益。 ”


A few years ago, I interviewed a family doctor on the same subject.	几年前，我就这个话题访问过一位家庭医生。


He described his first “house call” in the 1960s, when he and a senior colleague visited a jovial protestant minister who had no idea that he only had weeks to live, owing to aggressive colon cancer.	他描述了20世纪60年代他的第一次“出诊”。 当时，他和一位资深同事来到一位生性乐观的新教牧师家中，这位牧师不知道，由于结肠癌恶化，他只有几个星期的性命了。


The senior doctor suggested giving the patient large doses of painkillers, which they would tell the patient were antibiotics to treat an “infection.”	这位资深医生建议给患者开大剂量止痛药，并告诉患者这是治疗“传染病”的抗生素。


The junior doctor, uncomfortable with this deceit, asked the minister’s wife for permission to tell the truth, and after much hesitation, she agreed.	我们这位资浅医生对这种期满手段很不快，要求牧师的妻子允许他们告诉患者真相。 几经犹豫之后，妻子同意了这一要求。


When the minister heard the news, he fell into a state of such despair that he refused all painkillers.	牧师听到病情后陷入了彻底的绝望，拒绝使用镇痛药。


He was sure he would end up in hell.	他认为自己一定会堕入地狱。


More than 40 years later, that doctor told me: “To this day, I can see his face.	40多年后的今天，这位医生告诉我：“时至今日，我仍能想起他的面容。


It was the biggest mistake of my medical career.”	这是我整个行医生涯中所犯下的最大的错误。 ”


Nowadays, this kind of medical paternalism is no longer the rule in many countries.	如今，这类医疗家长作风（medical paternalism）在许多国家已不再是通行做法。


To avoid exposing themselves to claims of negligence or even, in rare cases, criminal assault, doctors must disclose an ever increasing amount of information, however bleak, about treatment risks, benefits, and alternatives, enabling the patient to give “informed consent.”	为了避免深陷玩忽职守指控——甚至偶尔出现的刑事攻击——医生必须披露越来越多关于治疗风险、收益和替代疗法的信息，不管它们多么令人绝望，从而让患者能够给出“知情同意”。


Maintaining a patient’s hope while fulfilling the obligation of disclosure is one of the most difficult tasks doctors face.	维持患者的希望，同时又满足披露义务，这是医生所面临的最困难的任务。


It requires a deep knowledge of the human heart; a single word, a gesture, or a look can lift or wreck a patient’s spirits.	这需要对人类心理有深刻的理解； 一个词语，一个动作，甚至一个目光都能提振或打击患者的神经。


Many doctors struggle to obtain proper consent.	许多医生为获得适当的同意而心力交瘁。


One problem is that doctors receive little formal training in obtaining consent, with medical schools teaching only the basics.	一个问题是医生很少接受过正式的获得同意的训练，医学院只教授基本知识。


As a result, many doctors are unaware of the subtleties of what constitutes valid consent in the eyes of the law and their professional body – a task made more difficult by the evolving rules on consent.	结果，许多医生不了解法律和专业机构眼中的有效同意的微妙含义——而随着同意的规则的演变，这一任务变得更加困难了。


Another problem is that many doctors consider obtaining consent to be a tedious obligation, with senior doctors sometimes delegating the task to less experienced colleagues.	另一个问题是许多医生认为获得同意是一项繁琐的任务，资深医生有时会把这个任务下放给经验较浅的同事。


Moreover, doctors often obtain consent hastily, in a way that sounds almost rehearsed, as if unaware that the patient is receiving the information for the first time.	此外，医生常常急于获得同意，他们的方式听起来几乎像是在排练，完全不顾患者是第一次听到这些信息。


This haughty attitude is reflected in the jargon of “consenting a patient” – as though it were something done to a patient, like drawing blood or administering an injection: “Dr. Smith, please go consent Mr. Jones.”	这一傲慢态度反映在“让患者同意”这一术语中——好像这是对患者做的事，和抽血和注射一样：“史密斯医生，请让琼斯先生同意。 ”


Instead, consent should be viewed as a patient’s cherished possession, which he or she may choose to relinquish, if presented with a sufficiently compelling case.	相反，同意应该被视为患者的一项宝贵权利，患者可以放弃这项权利，如果他遇到足够确定的情况的话。


Consent should not be snatched away, like a train ticket held out for the conductor.	同意不应该被剥夺，就像火车票被检票员拿走一样。


The problem is compounded when consent is obtained just hours before a major operation, and months after the last consultation with the surgeon.	当同意在大手术前几小时、上一次手术会诊后几个月获得时，问题就更严重了。


This can lead patients to consent to procedures that they do not understand – or want.	这回导致患者同意他不理解——或不想要——的程序。


A colleague shared the story of a patient who told the porter pushing her on a trolley to the operating theater that she had been looking forward to the operation.	一位同事对我讲过一个故事。 一位患者要护工把用担架车把她推到她等着进入的手术室。


Once she was “cured,” she said, she could start a family.	她说，被“治愈”后她就可以了。


She was just a few feet away from a hysterectomy.	她马上就要接受的是子宫切除术。


The porter immediately called the medical team, and the operation was postponed.	护工马上通知了医疗团队，她的手术被叫停。


Either the patient was not given the information, or she did not fully understand it.	要么患者没有被告知信息，要么她没有充分理解她获得的信息。


As patients, future patients, or relatives, we all have an interest in raising the standards of consent.	作为患者、未来患者或患者亲属，我们都能从提高同意标准中获益。


Of course, some may prefer the paternalism of old.	当然，一些人也许更喜欢旧式家长作风。


But we should be able to make that choice, letting doctors know if we would prefer to be well informed or minimally informed.	但我们应该能够做出选择，让医生知道我们更愿意充分知情还是最小知情。


Likewise, if we want more information, we should ask more questions.	类似地，如果我们想获得更多信息，我们应该提更多问题。


We can ask for additional details about the procedure and other options.	我们可以要求关于整个程序的更多细节和其他选择。


We can ask for the doctor’s own complication rates.	我们可以要求获得医生本人的并发症发生率。


If we are dissatisfied with an answer, we can seek a second opinion.	如果我们对答案不满意，可以寻求第二选择。


We can ask the doctor what she would do in our position, or what advice she would give if the patient was her own child or parent.	我们可以问医生站在我们的立场他会怎么选，或者当患者是他本人的孩子或父母时她会给出什么建议。


And, if we still are not sure, we can request more time to consider our options.	而如果我们仍不确定，我们可以要求更多时间考虑我们的选择。


Obtaining consent is a vital but often overlooked skill for doctors.	获得同意的技能很重要，但常常被医生忽视。


Understanding why so many doctors struggle with it is the first step toward raising the standards of consent.	理解为何如此多的医生为此烦恼是提高同意标准的第一步。


New Battlegrounds in Development Finance	发展金融的新战场


PRETORIA – The popularity of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to support infrastructure development in emerging countries is growing worldwide.	比勒陀利亚—新兴国家公私合作支持基础设施开发的风潮正在走向世界。


The G-20 backs PPPs to boost global growth and create jobs.	二十国集团支持公私合作提振全球增长和就业创造。


The BRICS economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) see them as a way to build essential infrastructure quickly and cheaply.	金砖经济体（巴西、俄罗斯、印度、中国和南非）将公私���作视为迅速廉价地建设关键基础设施的方法。


The United Nations hopes that infrastructure PPPs will provide the means to realize its post-2015 global development agenda.	联合国希望基础设施公私合作能成为实现其2015年后全球发展日程的途径。


PPPs’ new appeal may redefine not just development economics, but also the overall relationship between rich and poor countries – though not necessarily for the better.	公私合作的新诉求不仅可能重写发展经济学，还可能重塑整个富国与穷国的关系——尽管未必朝积极的方向发展。


The PPP bandwagon has three essential components: an explosion in infrastructure finance (backed by pension and other large funds); the creation of “pipelines” of lucrative mega-PPP projects to exploit countries’ raw materials; and the dismantling of environmental and social safeguards.	公私合作风潮有三个关键组成部分：基础设施金融大爆发（背后是退休基金和其他大资金）、为有吸引力的大型公私合营工程创造“渠道”利用各国原材料； 以及对环境和社会保护措施的破坏。


Each must be carefully monitored as the use of PPPs expands.	在公私合作的扩张过程中，每一项都必须仔细监控。


The World Bank is already seeking to double its lending within a decade by expanding infrastructure projects.	世界银行计划在十年内通过扩大基础设施工程让其贷款规模增加一倍。


Its new Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) will mobilize global pension and sovereign wealth funds to invest in infrastructure as a specific asset class.	其新成立的全球基础设施便利（Global Infrastructure Facility，GIF）将动员全球退休基金和主权财富基金投资作为具体资产类别的基础设施。


The emerging world has also been active.	新型世界一直相当积极。


The BRICS recently announced plans for a New Development Bank (NDB) for infrastructure and sustainable development.	金砖国家最近宣布了成立新开发银行为基础设施和可持续发展服务的计划。


Its first Regional Center for Africa will be based in South Africa.	其首个非洲地区中心将坐落于南非。


China will launch a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.	中国将成立新的亚洲基础设施投资银行（Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank）。


Both banks aim to offer alternatives to the US-led World Bank and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank, respectively.	这两家银行的目标是分别提供代替美国所领导的世界银行和日本所领导的亚洲开发银行的办法。


Indeed, these new development-finance institutions are seen as a reaction against the Bretton Woods institutions, whose pursuit of neoliberal austerity policies and failure to reform their governance structures to share power with emerging economies, has been blamed for strangling public spending, de-industrialization, and the dismantling of national development banks.	事实上，这些新发展融资机构被视为针对布雷顿森林机构的反应，后者追求新自由主义紧缩政策，而不去改革治理结构从而与新兴经济体分享权力，被指责对公共支出从中作梗，导致了去工业化，还让国家开发银行分崩离析。


Many emerging countries also resent the World Bank’s environmental and social safeguards, which they see as compromising their national sovereignty.	许多新兴国家还抱怨世界银行的环境和社会保护措施，它们将此视为拿国家主权去妥协。


In response to this criticism, the Bank is revising its safeguards and enforcement mechanisms.	面临这一批评，世界银行修订了其保护和执行机制。


But weaker oversight by the World Bank would leave loan recipients to monitor and enforce environmental and social standards themselves – regardless of their resources or political will to do so –thus jeopardizing efforts to defend the rights of indigenous peoples, resettle displaced people, mitigate environmental damage, or protect forests and biodiversity.	但世界银行监督削弱意味着借款国必须自己监控和执行环境和社会保护措施——不管它们是否有这样做的资源或政治意愿——从而制约了捍卫土著民族权利、安置移民、减轻环境破坏和保护森林和生物多样性的努力。


The weakening of World Bank safeguards might also trigger a “race to the bottom,” pitting private or state investors, new financing institutions, and a deregulated World Bank against one another, while provoking a popular backlash.	世界银行保护措施的削弱还可能触发“无底线竞争”，私人或国家投资者、新融资机构和去监管化的世界银行相互拆台，并引发群众反对。


That is why it is important to have citizens’ groups that can step in to ensure that investments operate fairly.	正因如此，让有能力的公民团体介入确保投资公正进行至关重要。


Though civil-society groups have long monitored the “supply side” – the project financing – they often ignore the “demand side” – namely, the value and impacts of the projects being implemented.	尽管公民社会团体一直都在监督“供给端”——项目融资——但他们常常忽略“需求端”——即实施中项目的价值和影响。


This is especially the case for infrastructure investments in energy, water, transport, and information and communications technology (ICT).	能源、水、交通和信息和通信技术方面的基础设施投资尤其如此。


The Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa, for example, has planned $360 billion worth of “bankable mega-projects” in these sectors by 2040.	比如，非洲基础设施开发计划（The Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa，PIDA）在这些领域规划了价值3,600亿美元的“银行可接受巨型工程”，计划于2040年完成。


PIDA gives priority to energy (especially hydropower) projects to support mining operations and oil and gas pipelines, while sidelining renewable energy technologies, such as solar, wind, and geothermal.	PIDA优先支持开采作业和油气管道但不利于可再生能源技术（如太阳能、风能和地热能）的能源（特别是水电）项目。


Similar concerns surround the project “pipelines” of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America and the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund in Asia.	相同的担忧也存在于南美地区基础设施融合计划（Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America）和亚洲的东盟基础设施基金（ASEAN Infrastructure Fund）等工程上。


Though some PPP projects offer high returns, they also demand hefty additional guarantees from the host government to offset private-sector risk.	尽管一些公私合作项目带来了高回报，但它们也要求东道国政府保证遏制私人部门风险。


In this way, fundamental tensions are created both in the way these deals are put together and in the overall conduct of North-South and South-South integration.	如此，这些交易的汇总方式以及南北和南南融合的总体安排均造成了根本性的紧张。


For example, powerful groups and transnational corporations (such as the World Economic Forum, General Electric, and Rio Tinto) are gaining influence within the G-20, the G-7, and the BRICS, whose members compete among themselves for access to resources and markets.	比如，强大的组织和跨国公司（如世界经济论坛、通用电气和力拓）在二十国集团、七国集团和金砖国家内部都有巨大的影响力，这些集团的成员国彼此之间争夺着资源和市场。


That competition now features new Infrastructure Project Preparation Facilities (IPPFs) to accelerate and replicate large PPPs with a disturbing reliance on big dams and fossil-fuel infrastructure, such as Nigeria’s gas-supply pipeline to the European Union – a top priority of PIDA that implies slow progress toward a low-carbon future.	这一竞争促使基础设施准备便利（Infrastructure Project Preparation Facilities，IPPF）加快并复制公私合作，在此过程中，它们依赖具有破坏性的大坝和化石燃料基础设施，如尼日利亚通往欧盟的输气管道——这一PIDA的最优先项目之一意味着通往低碳未来的进步将放缓脚步。


Indeed, the struggle for sustainability, especially in Africa, is becoming a new battleground, featuring deployments by the BRICS, the G-20, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Mercosur, and other international groupings and local vested interests.	事实上，可持续性斗争（特别是在非洲）正在成为新的战场，决定着金砖国家、二十国集团、亚太经济合作组织（APEC）、南方共同市场和其他国际集团和地方既得利益的布局。


To understand how this plays out requires a rigorous new development paradigm.	要了解它如何展开，就需要严格的新发展范式。


That is a difficult challenge, because civil society organizations with the greatest interest in learning how to cope with the new pressures tend to specialize in specific development areas, such as the Millennium Development Goals, or sectoral issues, rather than having a broader view of how development finance institutions and their big shareholders operate.	这是一项艰难的挑战，因为最有动力学习如何应对新压力的公民社会组织总是专注于具体的发展领域（如千年发展计划（the Millennium Development Goals））或部门性问题，而不会把眼界放宽到发展金融机构及其大股东会如何经营上。


A revived World Social Forum might take on the task, by reverting to its original intention of being a counterweight to the WEF.	复兴的世界社会论坛（World Social Forum）或许可以承担这一任务——如果它回归制衡世界经济论坛的初衷的话。


In Africa, pan-African bodies charged with coordinated oversight and agenda-setting authority should be judged by whether mega-PPPs in infrastructure reinforce a colonial-style extraction and consumption economy, or create a healthy and sustainable economy for generations to come.	在非洲，评判受合作监督和日程设置当局约束的泛非洲机构应该依据巨型基础设施公私合作是加剧了殖民地式榨取和消费经济还是为子孙后代建立了健康的可持续经济作为标准。


New Equities for Infrastructure Investment	基础设施投资的新股权


SINGAPORE – Infrastructure projects can be among the most productive investments a society can make, with clear links to a country's economic growth.	新加坡—基础设施也许是社会投资中最有利于生产的，它与一国的经济增长密切相关。


For private investors, however, the situation is more complicated.	但是，对私人投资者来说，情况要更复杂一些。


Infrastructure projects can offer reliable – if lower-than-average – returns.	基础设施项目可以提供可靠的——尽管低于平均水平——回报。


But existing asset classes all too often fail to provide the structure needed for these projects to compete with traditional equity or debt.	但现有资产类别常常不能提供这些项目与传统股权或债务相竞争所需要的结构。


At the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Walter Kielholz, Chairman of Swiss Re, and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown advocated for the creation of a new asset class for infrastructure – as we have done previously, as well.	在1月份的世界经济论坛瑞士达沃斯年会上，瑞士再保险公司（Swiss Re）主席沃尔特·吉尔霍茨（Walter Kielholz）和前英国首相戈登·布朗（Gordon Brown）提出为基础设施设立一个新的资产类别——就像我们此前所做的那样。


So how, exactly, can the world harness the potential of private money for infrastructure?	那么，具体而言，世界该如何引导潜在私人资金进入基础设施呢？


The size of the pie is huge, and so are the opportunities for private investors.	蛋糕很大，私人投资者的机会也很大。


The pipeline for infrastructure projects in emerging markets is estimated to have surpassed $1 trillion – $150 billion of which is expected to be raised from private sources.	新兴市场基础设施项目规模估计高达1万亿美元以上——其中1,500亿美元预计将来自私人资源。


In mature markets, infrastructure investment is projected to reach $4 trillion by 2017.	在成熟市场，基础设施投资预计将在2017年达到4万亿美元。


Our analysis of investment deals over the past 18 months shows that public-private partnerships increasingly rely on capital markets to source funds, even as banks rein in lending in order to comply with the regulatory provisions set out by the Third Basel Accord.	我们对过去18个月中投资交易的分析表明，公私合作日益依赖资本市场为资金源，虽然银行在控制贷款以符合《巴塞尔协议》第三版（Third Basel Accord）的监管规定。


Liquidity remains limited in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the legacy of which includes a regulatory regime that is not conducive to long-term investment.	由于2008年金融危机，流动性仍然受限，其后果包括不利于长期投资的监管机制。


Though financing for public infrastructure has returned to 2008 levels, little of it is being funneled into new projects.	尽管公共基础设施融资已经回到2008年水平，但流向新项目的资金极少。


Most funds have targeted existing infrastructure – investments that are considered relatively safe, because they entail little or no construction risk and have demonstrated their potential to generate stable cash revenues.	大部分资金的目标是已有基础设施——这类投资被认为相对安全，因为无需或只需承担极小的建设风险并且已经证明了产生稳定现金收入的潜力。


In order to overcome the obstacles to investment, we propose the creation of an asset class that we call “buy-and-hold equity" (BHE).	为了克服投资障碍，我们建议设立我们称之为“买入-持有股份”（BHE）的资产类别。


This asset class would sit between traditional equity and debt, with investors able to hold it for 15 years or longer.	这一资产类别介于传统股权和债务之间，投资者可以持有15年或更长时期。


It would offer returns close to those yielded by equity investments, but with some of the risk offset by its long-term nature.	它将提供接近于股权投资的回报，并用长期性抵消部分风险。


Risk would be further mitigated through the participation of large, influential investors, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and possibly international financial institutions.	风险将通过有影响力的大型投资者的参与进一步降低，包括主权财富基金、养老基金，也许还包括国际金融机构。


Public contributions, likely backstopped by multilateral lenders, would provide projects with something close to sovereign risk profiles.	公共出资者（可能由多边贷款人兜底）将为基础设施项目提供类似于主权风险的风险概况。


Finally, the regulated nature of cash flows would allow for better pre-defined return structures than traditional private or public equity can offer.	最后，现金流受监管的性质将产生比传统私人或公共股权所能提供的更好的事先确定的回报结构。


The development of BHE would require a new private-sector investment platform, structured to provide bespoke returns for its different participants.	BHE的开发需要新型私人部门投资���台，其结构应该能够为不同的参与者提供预先确定的回报。


The private sector would bring in infrastructure investment expertise, while sovereign funds and international financial institutions would provide the bulk of the capital and stability.	私人部门将给基础设施投资带来专业性，而主权基金和国际金融机构可以提供大部分资本和稳定性。


Naturally, the platform would focus on projects with defined cash flows and contractual terms (which could include associated risk-mitigation strategies) guaranteed for 20-30 years.	自然地，这一平台将专注于获得20—30年担保期的现金流和合同条件（可以包括相应的风险遏制战略）确定的项目。


Not all infrastructure projects will be appropriate for this new asset class.	并非所有基础设施项目都适合作为这一新资产类别。


Those best suited will be physical assets that are irreplaceable or core to a country's economy.	最适合的基础设施项目要数无法取代的或对一国经济具有核心重要性的实体资产。


Assets with competitive advantages, protections against inflation, limited sensitivity to the economic cycle, and clear, long-term cash flows would also qualify.	具备竞争优势、提供通胀保护、对经济周期不敏感并且长期现金流明确的资产也适合。


Ideally, the investment platform would create a sustained project pipeline by establishing a private-sector-funded structure that does not solely rely on governments or international financial institutions to bring ventures to the market.	在理想情况下，这一投资平台将通过建立一个不仅仅依赖政府或国际金融机构承担市场风险的私人部门融资的结构来建立和维持项目。


The platform would act not only as an investment vehicle, but also as a project initiator, mining opportunities around the world and identifying and classifying them according to a systematic approach.	该平台不仅将作为投资载体，也将作为项目发起人，挖掘全球机会并以系统性方法进行识别和归类。


Both greenfield and brownfield developments would be considered.	新项目开发和旧项目改造开发都可以考虑。


The platform would provide its own capital, as well as any technical, operational, and managerial expertise required to classify projects according to risk, thereby enabling the creation of indices that investors could monitor and study.	该平台将提供其自身的资本，以及依风险归类项目所需要的任何技术、经营和管理专业知识，从而编制指数以供投资者跟踪和研究。


For projects judged to be secure, the platform could act as a catalyst for long-term investments typical of institutional investors and pension funds.	对于判定为安全的项目，该平台可以成为长期投资的催化剂（这一角色通常由机构投资者和养老基金担当）。


Designed properly, a new BHE asset class for private and public infrastructure could unleash the power of the market in the interest of the public good.	设计合理的私人和公共基础设施的新BHE资产类别能够释放市场力量满足公共利益。


Given fiscal and other constraints on governments' capacity, it is an asset well worth having.	考虑到政府要受到财政和其他各种约束，这是一种值得拥有的资产类别。


Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future	可持续未来的基础设施


WASHINGTON, DC – Infrastructure is a powerful driver of economic growth and inclusive development, capable of boosting aggregate demand today and laying the foundations for future growth.	华盛顿—基础设施是经济增长和包容性发展的强力推动力，它能够刺激当前总需求并为未来增长打下基础。


It is also a key element of the climate-change agenda.	它也是气候变化议程的关键要素。


Done badly, infrastructure is a major part of the problem; done right, it is a major part of the solution.	做得不好，基础设施是问题的主要部分； 做得好，它是解决方案的主要部分。


Over the next 15 years, more than $90 trillion in infrastructure investment will be needed worldwide.	未来十五年，全世界需要90万亿美元以上的基础设施投资。


That is more than twice the value of the entire stock of infrastructure today, and requires total annual investment to increase more than twofold, from $2.5-3 trillion to above $6 trillion.	这比当今基础设施存量的两倍还要多，并且需要年投资规模增加一倍以上，从2. 5—3万亿美元增加到6万多亿美元。


Around 75% of this investment will have to take place in the developing world, particularly middle-income countries, owing to their growth needs, rapid urbanization, and already-large infrastructure backlogs.	大约75%的投资将在发展中世界进行，特别是中等收入国家，因为那里的增长需求旺盛，城市化速度快，并且存在巨大的基础设施瓶颈。


Closing the infrastructure gap will undoubtedly be challenging.	填补基础设施缺口毫无疑问是一个挑战。


But it also represents a profound opportunity to create the underpinnings of a more sustainable future.	但它也是打好更加可持续的未来的基础的重要机会。


As it stands, more than 80% of the world’s primary energy supply and more than two-thirds of its electricity are derived from fossil fuels.	目前，80%以上的世界初级能源供给和超过三分之二的电力来自化石燃料。


Infrastructure alone accounts for around 60% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.	光是基础设施就产生了全球温室气体排放的60%左右。


If the world follows the same old approaches in building new infrastructure, it would lock in polluting, resource-intensive, and unsustainable pathways to growth.	如果世界沿着老路建设新基础设施，就会深陷高污染、资源密集、不可持续的增长路径。


But shifting to renewable energies and sustainable infrastructure can have the opposite impact, helping to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions while enhancing countries’ resilience to climate change.	但转向可再生能源和可持续基础设施将带来相反的影响，有助于遏制温室气体排放，同时增加各国对气候变化的抵御力。


If climate risks are factored into investment decisions, renewable energies, cleaner transport, efficient water systems, and smarter, more resilient cities will emerge as the best bets.	如果将气候风险纳入投资决策因素，则可再生能源、清洁交通、高效水系统和更智能、恢复力更强的城市将是最佳“赌注”。


Fortunately, the political will to take action to mitigate climate change has never been stronger.	幸运的是，采取行动遏制气候变化的政治意愿从未如此强烈。


At last December’s United Nations climate conference in Paris, world leaders reached a landmark agreement to work toward a more sustainable future, including by transforming the way infrastructure projects are developed, financed, and implemented.	在去年12月的联合国气候变化巴黎会议上，世界领导人达成了一个里程碑式的协议，共同致力于更加可持续的未来，手段包括改变基础设施项目的开发、融资和实施方式。


But agenda setting is just the first step.	但议程的确定只是第一步。


Delivering sustainable infrastructure at scale will require strong public policy leadership and responsive private-sector entrepreneurship.	实现成规模的可持续基础设施需要强大的公共政策领导力和积极响应的私人部门企业家精神。


Policymakers must clearly articulate overall strategies for sustainable infrastructure investment, and embed them in comprehensive frameworks for sustainable growth and development.	决策者必须明确阐述可持续基础设施的总体战略，并把它们纳入可持续增长和发展的全面框架。


Here, the G20 countries can lead the way.	在这方面，G20国家可以起到领导作用。


Only with such integrated strategies can policymakers offer the level of policy coherence needed not just to maximize the effectiveness of each policy, but also to instill confidence in the private sector to do its part.	唯有通过这些一体化战略，决策者才能拿出足够的政策凝聚力，实现每一项政策的效率最大化并为私人部门的参与树立信心。


What precisely should those strategies entail?	这些战略应该包括哪些详细内容？


While specific policy actions and priorities must be tailored to individual countries’ circumstances, the main elements of sustainable infrastructure agendas can broadly be captured under four “I”s: investment, incentives, institutions, and innovation.	具体政策行动和重点必须根据个体国家环境量身定制，但可持续基础设施日程的主要要素可以用四个“I”概括：投资（investment）、激励（incentives）、机构（institutions）和创新（innovation）。


For starters, policymakers will need to ensure a significant increase in total investment.	首先，决策者需要确保总投资规模大幅上升。


This requires a reversal of the broadly negative public-investment trend in the last couple of decades.	这需要扭转过去二十年来总体消极的公共投资趋势。


Governments must allocate significantly more funds to sustainable infrastructure.	政府必须大量增加配置给可持续基础设施的资金。


But, given severe fiscal constraints in many countries, public investment alone is not enough; the private sector will still have to meet more than half of the total need.	但是，许多国家存在严重的财政约束，光靠公共投资是不够的； 私人部门必须满足一半以上的总需求。


Efforts to reduce policy risks and costs of doing business can help spur the private sector to scale up investment considerably.	降低营商政策风险和成本的措施有助于刺激私人部门大幅提高投资规模。


To ensure that new investment is oriented toward sustainable infrastructure, policymakers must also adjust market incentives.	为了确保新投资进入可持续基础设施，决策者还必须调整市场激励。


The elimination of fossil-fuel subsidies and the implementation of carbon pricing are particularly important; with oil prices very low, now is the ideal time for countries to implement such reforms.	取消化石燃料补贴和实施碳定价尤其重要； 目前油价低企，是实施这些改革的理想时机。


Pricing reform will also be needed in other industries, including water.	其他行业，特别是水务业，也需要定价改革。


By getting prices right and reforming regulation to correct distorted incentives, governments can put markets to work in support of public-policy goals.	通过制定正确的价格和改革监管以纠正扭曲的激励，政府可以让市场支持公共政策目标。


But more investment alone is not enough.	但光靠增加投资是不够的。


Strong institutions are needed to ensure the feasibility, quality, and impact of that investment.	需要强大的机构确保投资的可行性、质量和影响。


Particularly important is the capacity to develop strong project pipelines and institutional frameworks for public-private partnerships.	尤其重要的是为公私合作发展强大的项目链和机构框架。


With around 70% of total investment in sustainable infrastructure occurring in urban areas, close attention must also be paid to the quality of municipal institutions, as well as cities’ fiscal capacities.	大约70%的可持续基础设施投资发生在城市地区，必须紧密关注市政机构的质量以及城市财政实力。


For developing economies, multilateral development banks will be a key partner in building capacity and catalyzing financing.	对发展中经济体来说，多边开发银行是构建能力、促进融资的关键伙伴。


Finally, there is the fourth “I”: innovation.	最后是第四个“I”：创新。


On one hand, technological innovation will be needed to provide increasingly efficient components of low-carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure.	一方面，我们需要技术创新提供日益高效的碳排放量低、环境恢复力强的基础设施要素。


That is why investment in research and development – especially in renewable-energy technologies – must also increase significantly.	因此，研发投资——特别是可再生能源技术投资——也必须大幅提高。


On the other hand, fiscal and financial innovation will be needed to capture the potential of new technologies.	另一方面，我们需要财政和金融创新来捕获新技术的潜力。


Specifically, the creative use of fiscal space will enable the mobilization of more financing for sustainable infrastructure.	具体而言，财政空间的创新使用能让我们动员更多的可持续基础设施融资。


And there will be more space as carbon taxes raise substantial revenue for governments (and improve the tax structure).	而随着碳税给政府带来大量收入（并改善税收结构），我们将获得更大的财政空间。


Meanwhile, new financial instruments and the resourceful use of development capital can leverage more private finance and lower its cost.	与此同时，新金融工具和发展资本的灵活使用能够以更低的成本撬动更多的私人融资。


Promoting infrastructure as an asset class could help attract more savings toward infrastructure.	将基础设施作为一类资产进行推广有助于吸引储蓄流向基础设施。


As it stands, assets under management by banks and institutional investors worldwide amount to more than $120 trillion, of which infrastructure accounts for only about 5%.	目前，全世界银行和机构投资者所管理的资产规模超过120万亿美元，其中基础设施只占5%。


Today, both infrastructure investment and climate action are urgently needed.	如今，基础设施投资和气候行动都是当务之急。


With the right approach, we can achieve both goals simultaneously, building a more prosperous and sustainable future.	有了正确的方法，我们能同时实现这两个目标，构建更加繁荣和可持续的未来。


Inherited Malignancy	遗传性恶性肿瘤


HANNOVER , GERMANY – Breast cancer is among the most life-threatening of malignancies, affecting about one in ten women in the Western world.	德国汉诺威 —— 乳腺癌是致命性最强的恶性肿瘤之一，西方国家有十分之一的妇女都受到乳腺癌威胁。


Taking the family history of 100 healthy women, at least one affected first-degree relative can be found in up to 15 of them.	如果研究一下 100 名妇女的家族遗传史，每 15 人中就有 1 人的一级亲属曾有过罹患乳腺癌的经历。


Indeed, investigations have shown that the risk of developing breast cancer is roughly doubled in females with a family history of breast cancer.	事实上，调查显示曾有乳腺癌家族史的女性罹患乳腺癌的风险约为常人的两倍。


In 1994-1995, the human genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 were identified as major culprits.	1994 － 95 年间，人们研究发现 BRCA1 和 BRCA2 两种基因是乳腺癌的致病元凶。


Dozens of their mutations are associated with an increased risk of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Women who have an abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene run a lifetime risk of up to 85% of developing breast cancer, while the increased risk of developing ovarian cancer is about 55% for women with BRCA1 mutations and about 25% for women with BRCA2 mutations.	上述基因的数十种变异形态增加了罹患遗传性乳腺癌和卵巢癌的可能性。 BRCA1 或 BRCA2 异常的女性罹患乳腺癌的终生风险高达 85% ，且 BRCA1 变异的女性罹患卵巢癌的概率约为 55% ， BRCA2 变异的女性患病比率约为 25% 。


Most recently, huge studies analyzing effects of single nucleotide variations in genomic DNA, so-called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), on breast cancer risk of BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers have identified so-called modifier SNP that can decrease or increase the individual lifetime risk.	就在不久前，分析 BRCA1/BRCA2 变异基因携带者罹患乳腺癌风险的大规模 基因组 DNA 单核苷酸变异影响（即所谓的单核苷酸多态性，缩写为 SNP ）研究已经证实存在所谓的改性单核苷酸多态性，这种改性单核苷酸多态性可以减小或加大个人终生罹患乳腺癌的风险。


We have also learned that only 20-40% of the breast cancers that cluster in families come from BRCA1 or BRCA2 germline mutations – genetic alterations that are present from birth in every cell of the body and can be transmitted to the offspring.	我们还了解到只有 20-40% 的家族型乳腺癌起源于 BRCA1 或 BRCA2 生殖细胞突变 —— 这是一种与生俱来的人体细胞基因变异，而且可以遗传给后代。


Increased breast cancer risk is also known to be associated with several inherited syndromes, such as Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a condition that is further associated with childhood onset of multiple malignancies including soft tissue sarcomas, leukemias, and brain tumors.	已知患乳腺癌的风险增加也与若干遗传综合症状相关，比方说利弗劳梅尼综合症，利弗劳梅尼综合症患者有可能在儿童期爆发软组织瘤、白血病和脑瘤等多种恶性肿瘤性疾病。


In most cases of familial breast cancer, however, genetic predisposition remains elusive.	但在多数家族性乳腺癌病例中，我们仍然很难确定遗传易感因素所起的作用。


Indeed, no further genes have been found whose mutations are associated with high lifetime risks of developing breast cancer.	事实上，我们并未找到因发生突变造成罹患乳癌风险升高的相关基因。


Recently, new approaches to investigating genes involved in DNA repair, and huge studies of the effect of SNP on breast cancer risk, have identified two classes of breast cancer susceptibility factors.	近年来，对 DNA 修复基因新的研究方法以及对单核苷酸多态性影响乳腺癌风险的大规模研究已经明确指出了两类乳腺癌易感因素。


One class contains mutations in genes involved in DNA repair.	其中一类与参加 DNA 修复的基因发生突变有关。


Their frequency is rather rare and certain mutations can be found only in distinct populations, but this class of susceptibility factors is associated with a moderately increased breast cancer risk.	这种状况相当罕见，而且只有特殊人群才会发生某些类型的突变，但此类易感因素只会小幅提升罹患乳腺癌的风险。


Considering frequency and risk, this class of breast cancer susceptibility factors can be called “rare, intermediate-penetrance mutations”.	如果考虑到发生频率和风险程度，此类乳腺癌易感因素可以称之为“罕见的中等外显率突变”。


The other class involves what are known as “common, low-penetrance variants.”	另一类则涉及到我们所谓的“常见的低外显率突变。


Their biological consequences are mainly unknown, but statistical analyses have shown that they are associated with a significantly increased relative breast cancer risk which, in contrast to the first class, is rather small.	”人们并不清楚这类突变的主要生物后果，但统计分析已经表明它们会明显加大罹患乳癌的风险，这与第一类风险小幅提升的效果截然相反。


Several national networks and consortia have already developed models for estimating the breast cancer risk in women with a positive family history.	有几家全国性的网络和联盟已经研发出评估阳性家族史妇女罹患乳腺癌风险的模型。


We have criteria for genetic testing of both BRCA1 and BRCA2 and guidelines for risk-adapted surveillance programs – including, where appropriate, risk-reducing surgery.	我们已经确立了 BRCA1 和 BRCA2 的基因检验标准，也制定了风险调整监测计划的指导方针 —— 必要时也包括采用手术方法降低风险。


But nothing is known yet about the clinical utility of the recently identified susceptibility factors, whether they are class one or class two.	但无论是第一类还是第二类风险，人们仍然对不久前发现的易感因素的临床应用状况一无所知。


While these novel susceptibility factors have been shown to be significantly associated with an increased relative breast cancer risk, the statistical significance does not imply clinical utility for preventive management and therapy of breast cancer – at least not yet.	尽管有证据表明这些新发现的易感因素能大大增加罹患乳腺癌的概率，但统计数据却并不支持以此为由展开包括乳腺癌预防管理和治疗在内的临床应用，至少到目前为止尚不支持。


Today, no guidelines are available to make a reasoned clinical decision on the presence or absence of these novel susceptibility factors.	现阶段，就是否存在这些全新易感因素做出合理的临床决策尚没有任何可以遵循的指导原则。


In these circumstances, testing them would only provoke massive insecurity, leading to unnecessary interventions in carriers and a false sense of security in non-carriers, as well as in their relatives.	在这种情况下开展测试只会带来极大的不安全性，导致对携带者造成不必要的困扰并给非携带者及其亲属带来虚假的安全感。


Today, it is widely accepted that breast cancer, whether familial or sporadic, can be understood as a complex disease.	现阶段，人们普遍认同乳腺癌无论属于家族遗传还是偶发性质，都是一种非常复杂的疾病。


Thus, the genetically determined portion of an individual’s breast cancer risk is the result of several or even many genetic variants and mutations.	因此，由基因决定的乳腺癌风险份额是由几种甚至多种基因变异和突变综合作用产生的结果。


To take full advantage of the known genetic susceptibility factors, it will be necessary to understand their biological consequences.	为充分利用已知的基因易感因素，我们有必要了解它们的生物后果。


In addition, reliable risk prediction models are required to learn more about the combined effect of certain patterns of susceptibility factors on overall lifetime risk and response to therapy, including their role as objects of targeted therapies.	此外，必须建立可靠的风险预测模型，才能理解特定模式的易感因素对总体风险和治疗反应的综合效果，其中也包括它们作为靶向疗法对象时所起的作用。


Last, but not least, criteria have to be established to define when and to whom genetic testing should be offered.	最后也最重要的一点是，必须制定标准，明确应当提供基因测试的时间和对象。


Thus, “to test or not to test” is not the first question that needs to be answered.	因此，必须回答的首要问题并非“做不做测试”。


Initially, experts have to ask whether the result of a genetic test for susceptibility factors can help clinical decisions to be made on the basis of generally accepted guidelines.	一开始，专家必须确定易感因素的基因测试结果是否有助于依据公认原则做出临床决策。


If, at this time, the answer is no, counselees do not need to waste time and money dealing with the test.	如果在现阶段答案是否定的，那么咨询者就没有必要费钱费时地接受测试。


In contrast, if the answer is yes, the informed counselees themselves have to decide if they wish to be tested or not.	相反，如果答案是肯定的，那么充分了解情况的咨询者必须自己决定是否愿意进行测试。


Screening the genome for breast cancer susceptibility factors has led to the identification of novel genetic variants, and ongoing studies and further technical progress will certainly lead to additional significant findings.	筛选乳腺癌易感因素基因组的工作已经导致发现了新的变异基因，持续不断的研究和更深入的技术进步肯定会带来其他重要发现。


The challenge today is to extract the clinical relevance of these findings and translate them into daily health care.	解读这些发现的临床意义并将其应用于日常健康护理是今天所面临的挑战。


Managing this challenge is crucial if we are to realize the promise of individualized medicine, with intensified surveillance and therapy for high-risk patients and avoidance of unnecessary or even harmful interventions in those with a relatively low risk.	如果我们希望实现个体化治疗的前景，在为高危患者提供强化治疗和监控服务的同时，避免对低风险人群不必要甚至是有害的干涉，那么迎接这一挑战就是至关重要的。


In Marx’s Shadow Again	马克思的阴影又降临了


A century and a half ago, Karl Marx both gloomily and exuberantly predicted that the modern capitalism he saw evolving would prove incapable of producing an acceptable distribution of income.	一个半世纪以前，马克思既悲观又热情洋溢地预言他所看到的逐渐演化的现代资本主义将会证明无力形成可接受的收入分配机制。


Wealth would grow, Marx argued, but would benefit the few, not the many: the forest of upraised arms looking for work would grow thicker and thicker, while the arms themselves would grow thinner and thinner.	马克思指出，财富的增长只会使少部分人而不是大多数人受益：高举双臂寻找工作的人将会变得越来越多，而他们举起的手臂却会变得越来越瘦弱。


This injustice would provoke revolt and revolution, producing a new, better, fairer, more prosperous, and far more egalitarian system.	这种不公正会引发反抗和革命，从而形成一个新的、更好的、更公正的、更繁荣也更平均主义的制度。


Ever since, mainstream economists have earned their bread and butter patiently explaining why Marx was wrong.	自那以后，主流经济学家依靠耐心地解释为什么马克思的说法是错误的作为他们的谋生之道。


Yes, the initial disequilibrium shock of the industrial revolution was and is associated with rapidly rising inequality as opportunities are opened to aggressiveness and enterprise, and as the market prices commanded by key scarce skills rise sky-high.	是的，工业革命一开始不平衡的冲击过去是、现在也是与迅速上升的不平等相关联的，因为它向掠夺性和开拓精神敞开了机会的大门，而由重要的稀有技能所操控的市场价格也上升到了极高的水平。


But this was – or was supposed to be – transient.	但是这或者被认为是暂时性的。


A technologically stagnant agricultural society is bound to be an extremely unequal one: by force and fraud, the upper class push the peasants’ standards of living down to subsistence and take the surplus as the rent on the land they control.	技术上停滞的农耕社会注定是特别不平等的：上层阶级通过武力和欺诈把农民的生活水平压制到只能赖以维生的水平，而把盈余的部分以他们所控制的土地的租金形式夺走了。


The high rents paid to noble landlords increase their wealth and power by giving them the resources to keep the peasants down and widen the surplus – for, after all, they cannot make more land.	支付给贵族地主的高昂租金提升了他们的财富和权力，从而使他们有了压迫农民和扩大盈利的资源，因为，不管怎样，他们无法使土地的面积获得增长。


By contrast, mainstream economists argued, a technologically advancing industrial society was bound to be different.	主流经济学家辩解说，与之相比，技术上不断进步的工业社会肯定是不同的。


First, the key resources that command high prices and thus produce wealth are not fixed, like land, but are variable: the skills of craft workers and engineers, the energy and experience of entrepreneurs, and machines and buildings are all things that can be multiplied.	首先，控制高价格从而制造财富的主要资源并不是像土地那样是固定不变的，而不可变的：技术工人和工程师的技能、企业主的能量和经验以及机器和建筑都是可以增加的。


As a result, high prices for scarce resources lead not to zero- or negative-sum political games of transfer but to positive-sum economic games of training more craft workers and engineers, mentoring more entrepreneurs and managers, and investing in more machines and buildings.	因此，稀有资源的高价格带来的不是零或负和的政治转移游戏，而是培训更多的技术工人和工程师、指导更多的企业主和管理者以及投资更多的机器和建筑的正和经济游戏。


Second, democratic politics balances the market.	其次，民主政治平衡了市场。


Government educates and invests, increasing the supply and reducing the premium earned by skilled workers, and lowering the rate of return on physical capital.	政府进行教育和投资，提高供应并且减少技术工人所获得的奖金，降低物资资本的投资收益率。


It also provides social insurance by taxing the prosperous and redistributing benefits to the less fortunate.	它还通过向富人征税和将利润重新分配给财富较少的人群来提供社会保险。


Economist Simon Kuznets proposed the existence of a sharp rise in inequality upon industrialization, followed by a decline to social-democratic levels.	经济学家库兹涅茨提出工业化会带来的不平等的急剧上升，随之带来社会民主水平的下降。


But, over the past generation, confidence in the “Kuznets curve” has faded.	但是，在过去一代时间里，对“库兹涅茨曲线”的信赖消退了。


Social-democratic governments have been on the defensive against those who claim that redistributing wealth exacts too high a cost on economic growth, and unable to convince voters to fund yet another massive expansion of higher education.	社会民主政府不断面临着财富的重新分配严重阻碍了经济增长的指责，并且无法使选民们相信为高等教育的另一次大扩张注入资金是有必要的。


On the private supply side, higher returns have not called forth more investment in people.	在私人供应这一面，更高的投资收益并没有带来对人的更大投资。


America’s college-to-high-school wage premium may now be 100%, yet this generation of white, native-born American males may well wind up getting no more education than their immediate predecessors.	美国的大专院校毕业生现在可能能获得100%的工资，但是这一代白种、土生土长的美国男子的教育水平并不比他们的上一代高。


And increasing rewards for those at the increasingly sharp peak of the income distribution have not called forth enough enterprising market competition to erode that peak.	而给那些处于收入分配顶峰的那些人越来越高的报酬并没有带来足够的企业市场竞争以消蚀这种顶峰。


The consequence has been a loss of morale among those of us who trusted market forces and social-democratic governments to prove Marx wrong about income distribution in the long run – and a search for new and different tools of economic management.	其结果是造成了我们中间信赖市场力量和社会民主政府能够证明马克思关于长期的收入分配并且要去寻找新的和不同的经济管理工具是的说法错误的那些人士气的丢失。


Increasingly, pillars of the establishment are sounding like shrill critics.	现存的社会体制听上去越来越像是尖锐的批评。


Consider Martin Wolf, a columnist at The Financial Times .	让我们来听听《金融时报》的专栏作家沃尔夫的观点。


Wolf recently excoriated the world’s big banks as an industry with an extraordinary “talent for privatising gains and socialising losses... [and] get[ting]... self-righteously angry when public officials... fail to come at once to their rescue when they get into (well-deserved) trouble.... [T]he conflicts of interest created by large financial institutions are far harder to manage than in any other industry.”	他最近严厉批评世界上的大银行是一个“在把盈利归为私有而把损失社会化方面拥有特别才能的行业……[并且]当政府官员……在他们陷入（应得的）麻烦时没能及时拯救他们而自以为是地感到愤怒……由庞大的金融市场所制造的利益冲突比其他任何行业都更难控制。


Wolf then announced his “fear that the combination of the fragility of the financial system with the huge rewards it generates for insiders will destroy something even more important – the political legitimacy of the market economy itself...”	沃尔夫随后指出他“担心金融体系的脆弱性和它为业内人士所制造的高报酬融合在一起将破坏更为重要的事物，即市场经济本身的政治合法性……”


For Wolf, the solution is to require that such bankers receive their pay in installments over the decade after which they have done their work.	在沃尔夫看来，要解决这一问题需要这些银行家在完成他们的工作后在十年内分期获得他们的报酬。


That way, shareholders and investors could properly judge whether the advice given and the investments made were in fact sound in the long run rather than just reflecting the enthusiasm of the moment.	这样，利益共享者和投资者可以正确地判断他们提出的建议和进行的投资从长期看是否真的那么出色，而不仅仅是反映了一时的热情。


But Wolf’s solution is not enough, for the problem is not confined to high finance.	但是沃尔夫的解决方案并不足够，因为问题并不仅仅局限于复杂的财务上。


The problem is a broader failure of market competition to give rise to alternative providers and underbid the fortunes demanded for their work by our current generation of mercantile princes.	真正的问题在于市场竞争没能带来替代的提供者以及降低对我们目前的富商一代为他们的工作所要求获得的财富的出价。


Innocent Bystanders	无辜的旁观者们


SANTIAGO – Take a taxi in São Paulo nowadays and you will experience the maddening traffic and untidy streets of an emerging-country metropolis. But when the time comes to pay for the ride, you may feel like you are in Boston, Luxemburg, or Zurich: the value of the Brazilian real, like the currencies of many emerging-market countries, is high – and could go higher.	发自圣地亚哥——在巴西圣保罗市乘出租车是一种奇妙的经历：新兴国家大城市所特有的糟糕交通和脏乱街道尽收眼底，但车费却高得令人仿佛置身波士顿，卢森堡或苏黎世——须知如今巴西货币雷亚尔的币值跟其它新兴国家货币一样高昂，甚至还有望继续攀升。


Strong currencies make strong countries, a senior United States policymaker used to say.	对此一位资深美国政策官员曾声言：只有强势货币才能造就强势国家。


Many emerging-country exporters, struggling to retain customers in the wobbly US and European markets, feel otherwise.	但对那些在欧美市场挣扎求存的新兴国家出口商而言，这可是另一番滋味。


For decades, developing countries dreamed of a nirvana of sky-high commodity prices and rock-bottom international interest rates.	数十年以来，发展中国家都梦想能置身于一个极高商品价格和极低国际利率并存的世界。


But perhaps finance ministers in Lima, Bogota, Pretoria, or Jakarta should have been more careful about what they wished for.	但或许利马、波哥大，比勒陀利亚和雅加达的财政部长们可不会有如此狂野的理想。


The problem? An invasion of short-term capital flows fleeing the slow-growth, low-interest-rate advanced countries.	而他们恐惧的根源则是一大批由低增长低利率发达国家出逃，并掉头入侵各国的短期资金流。


Meeting in Calgary last month, the Inter-American Development Bank reported that $266 billion entered Latin America’s seven largest economies in 2010, compared to less than $50 billion a year, on average, between 2000 and 2005.	在上月卡尔加里会议上发布的一份美洲开发银行报告显示，2010年有2660亿美元资金流入拉美七个最大的经济体，而2000-2005年间的年平均值还只有500亿。


And while only 37% of inflows in 2006 were “hot money” that can leave at a moment’s notice, last year such inflows accounted for 69% of the total.	2006年时仅有37%的资金是一有风吹草动就会撤走的“热钱”，而去年这个比例则上升到了69%。


Emerging countries in Latin America, East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa are innocent bystanders in the tussle between the US and China over currencies and trade imbalances. And the bystanders are absorbing some of the hardest blows.	这说明了一个问题：拉美、东亚，东欧和非洲的新兴国家原本只是美中两国货币贸易争端的无辜旁观者，谁知却成了受伤最重的人。


For a decade now, the world economy has suffered from tremendous global imbalances: massive external surpluses in countries like China, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and the oil producers, matched by equally large external deficits in the US, the United Kingdom, Spain, and others.	最近这十年是世界经济贸易不平衡问题最严重的时期：中国、日本、德国，瑞士和各大石油出口国都坐拥巨额贸易顺差，而它们的对面则是美国，英国和西班牙这些逆差大国。


The imbalances were reduced temporarily as the global financial crisis caused private demand to drop in the US, the UK, and elsewhere.	虽然在全球金融危机的影响下英美等国的私人消费需求急跌，使这一不平衡状况得以短暂缓解。


But, starting in 2010, the imbalances returned, and, according to the International Monetary Fund’s recently released World Economic Outlook, they will not shrink between now and 2016.	但在2010年麻烦又卷土重来，国际货币基金组织最近发布的《世界经济展望》报告更指出这一状况直到2016年前都无法消除。


G-20 communiqués have repeatedly pledged to secure “adjustment” and “rebalancing” in the world economy, but those promises have come to nothing.	而一系列G20会议公报也不断重申要确保对世界经济进行“调整”和“再平衡”，但最后却都无法兑现。


Still-troubled financial systems and huge fiscal deficits are keeping the West’s deficit countries (especially the US) from expanding domestic demand.	依然问题重重的金融系统和大规模财政赤字导致以美国为首的西方逆差国家无力扩大国内需求；


And an unwillingness to trade away export-led growth is having the same effect on the East’s surplus countries (especially China).	另一方面中国为代表��东方顺差国家又不愿放弃以出口为导向的增长模式，也使其国内需求萎靡不振。


As a result, emerging countries, according to the IMF, have been pressed to carry “a disproportionate burden of demand rebalancing since the crisis.”	结果就如国际货币基金组织所言，新兴国家自危机发生以来就被迫承担了“一个（与自身经济占全球比重）不成比例的需求再平衡责任”。


Countries running surpluses accumulate massive stocks of foreign assets, and those resources have to be invested somewhere.	那些顺差国家积累了巨额外国资产，并将其投资到各处。


Before the crisis, a substantial amount of that money was invested in US, Spanish, or Irish real estate. Today, that market is dead and the money must go elsewhere.	在危机发生之前，其中一大笔资金都被投入到了美国，爱尔兰和西班牙等国的房地产市场。


Europe, gripped by a tremendous banking and debt crisis, is not an attractive destination, and loose monetary policy in the US has produced ultra-low bond yields there.	如今这几大市场死气沉沉，资金就必须另找出路——欧洲不是个好去处，因为银行和债务危机尚未消散；


As a result, many emerging countries, with their higher interest rates and promising growth prospects, have become irresistibly attractive to investors.	美国的宽松货币政策又使国债投资收益甚微。 于是许多高利率高增长前景的新兴国家就成为了投资者们无法抗拒的目的地。


After recent events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, Wall Street analysts are waxing somewhat less optimistically about political stability in emerging countries.	虽然在经历了突尼斯，埃及和利比亚等地的连场暴乱后，华尔街的分析员对新兴国家的政治稳定都不甚乐观。


And a flat 2011 performance in some Latin American and Asian equity markets – following tremendous runs in 2010 – has taken a bit of sheen off the emerging-market investment fad. But the money keeps coming.	加之2010年狂飙之后的2011年拉美和亚洲股票市场较为沉闷，也有助于抑制这股新兴市场投资潮流，但资金还是源源不断地流入这些国家。


This dollar invasion is making macroeconomic management in emerging countries even more challenging than usual.	这一美元入侵使得新兴国家的宏观经济管理比以往更有难度。


If high commodity prices are expected to persist, then some strengthening of currencies is both desirable and inevitable.	如果预期高商品价格将持续的话，那么货币的强势将是不可避免的，也是有利的。


But a thin line separates orderly adjustment to changed conditions from market over-reaction. And sensible people in many emerging-country capitals are wondering whether we have crossed that line.	但在有序调整市场状况和市场过度反应之间仅仅隔着一条细细的分界线，而各新兴国家的智囊们则不时会怀疑自己是否已经越线了。


Loss of export competitiveness as a result of excessively strong currencies is not the only problem.	由强势货币所导致的出口竞争力下降并不是唯一的问题。


Massive capital inflows caused real-estate and stock-market bubbles in the US and parts of Europe.	大规模的资金流已经在欧美某些地区引发了房地产和股票市场泡沫。


Today, some policymakers in Latin America, worried that the same thing could happen to their countries, are casting about for policy tools to prevent it.	如今拉美地区的一些政策制定者也有同样的忧虑，也为此制定了一系列政策工具来防止这一情况的发生。


As a result, the US Federal Reserve’s policy of so-called “quantitative easing” is going south, where it takes the form of foreign-exchange intervention.	于是乎，美联储的所谓“量化宽松”政策开始以政府干涉外汇汇率的形式向南美蔓延。


If rich-country central banks can buy long term bonds, then emerging-country central banks can buy dollar-denominated bonds.	如果发达国家的中央银行能够买长期债券，而那么新兴国家的中央银行也可以收购美元债券。


Even countries that practice inflation targeting and have otherwise vowed to let their exchange rates float – Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, for example – have done it, and in large quantities.	即便是那些采取控制通胀政策且誓言要令本国货币汇率上升的国家——巴西、哥伦比亚，秘鲁和智利——也都采取了相关措施，而且购买的金额都相当庞大。


Expect macroprudential policies to go south, too – and to be redefined in the process.	为此相应的宏观谨慎政策也将在南美推行——并在推行的过程中被重新定义和调整。


If buying dollars is not sufficient to stem the appreciation tide, regulators in emerging economies will erect an array of other barriers to keep money out.	如果吸纳美元还不足以遏制升值的趋势，那么新兴国家的监管者将竖立起其他一系列政策屏障以阻止外来资金涌入。


None of these policies is without costs.	这些政策也不是毫无代价的。


They are second-best local-policy responses to an ineffective mechanism for international adjustment (or non-adjustment).	它们都是对国际调整（或无调整）机制的次优本地政策回应。


A better system to rebalance the world economy is as necessary as it is unlikely.	而更佳的解决方案则是建立一个世界经济再平衡系统，无奈却难以实现。


All we can look forward to is the next G-20 communiqué.	因此我们唯一能指望的，就是下一次G20会议公报能得出一些成果。


Silicon Valley or Demand Mountain?	建设硅谷还是创造需求？


BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON – Everyone wants to know how to build the next Silicon Valley: an innovation hub that draws talent and capital, and that creates jobs, companies, and whole new industries.	华盛顿州贝尔维尤——人人都想知道怎样建成下一座硅谷：一个吸引人才和资金的创新中心，同时创造就业机会、公司和全新产业。


Developed-country governments scramble to subsidize technology that could be the Next Big Thing.	发达国家政府争相为可能成为下一个重大突破的技术提供补贴。


Emerging-market policymakers hope that incentives like tax breaks and free land will induce innovators to settle and prosper there.	新兴市场决策者则希望通过税收减免等奖励政策和免费土地吸引创新者落脚并取得成功。


But most of these well-meaning schemes are missing an essential ingredient: demand.	但绝大多数善意的计划缺乏需求这一必不可少的因素。


Demand for innovation in specific areas of technology has been the common force behind all high-tech hot spots, as well as the most important inventions.	特定技术领域的创新需求一直是所有高科技热点和重要发明背后不可或缺的推动因素。


Technological breakthroughs such as antibiotics and cars responded to a compelling need felt by a huge number of consumers.	来自海量消费者的迫切需求自然而然地推动了抗生素和汽车领域的技术突破。


Government projects such as the United States’ Apollo program – intended to put a man on the moon – drove demand for more basic technologies (which are simply inventions that no one has asked for yet).	基础技术（其实是还没有人要求发明的技术）需求受到以美国“阿波罗计划”为代表的政府项目的推动，该计划的目的是将人类送上月球。


Silicon Valley itself was built on demand.	硅谷本身也是建立在需求的基础之上。


The US Department of Defense put up tens of billions of dollars in contracts for microelectronics, a commitment that both paid down innovators’ risk and created an infrastructure that would support the growth of start-ups.	美国国防部为微电子合同出资数百亿美元，不仅补偿了创新企业蒙受的风险，而且建成了能支持初创企业成长的基础设施。


All demand is not created equal, though, and it is instructive to examine the differences.	并不是所有需求都具有同等效力，找到差异会对我们有所启发。


Consumer or market-driven demand – the kind most of us think of when we hear the word – is far less predictable, and therefore much riskier, than state-sponsored demand of the sort that landed a man on the moon.	听到“需求”这个词时多数人会想到由消费者或市场驱动的需求，这比将人类送上月球的由政府出资的需求更加难以预测，因此风险也大得多。


Companies that depend solely on their products’ commercial appeal are limited in the kinds of innovations that they can safely introduce, because if one of their products fails in the marketplace, they may not survive to build another one.	完全依靠产品商业号召力的企业能够放心引入的创新非常有限，因为如果某种产品在市场上遭遇失败，他们可能活不到下一个创新诞生的时刻。


This is especially true of start-ups and small companies – the very players that everyone hopes will show up in the next-wave of Silicon Valleys.	初创公司和小公司尤其如此，而它们恰恰是所有人都希望出现在硅谷下一波创新浪潮中的角色。


Fortunately, by sponsoring long-term, targeted initiatives, governments can stimulate more predictable demand.	幸运的是，政府可以通过赞助有针对性的长期计划刺激更容易预测的需求。


The Apollo program gave innovators clearly defined goals and a roadmap for getting there: first put animals in orbit, then put people there, then send probes to the moon, then send people there.	阿波罗计划为创新者明确制定了目标和实现步骤：先将动物送入轨道，之后是人，之后是向月球发射探测器，最后将人送上月球。


Equally important, the government offered rewards for interim progress, not just ultimate success.	政府同样奖励中期进展，而不仅仅是最终的成功，这一点同样重要。


Putting a monkey in space may not have been the most exciting achievement, but the government was paying for it, so it happened.	将猴子送入太空或许算不上最激动人心的成就，但政府同样为此付款，于是就实现了这一目标。


A smart government creates guaranteed demand not only for the solution itself, but for the steps along the way.	明智的政府不仅为最后成果，同样为实现成果的步骤创造确定性的需求。


Coupling intermediate technical milestones with guaranteed incentives enables companies to focus on problems that might take ten years or more to solve.	为中级技术里程碑提供确定的奖励让企业关注可能需要十年或更长时间才能解决的问题。


It also motivates innovators from a variety of industries to take on complex problems that must be addressed by more than one kind of invention.	它同样激励来自各行各业的创新者研究需要一种以上发明才能解决的复杂问题。


The US Defense Department’s microelectronics initiative required not only new materials and circuits, but also new methods of fabrication.	美国国防部的微电子计划不仅需要新材料和新电路，还需要新的制造方法。


Because of the reward structure, these efforts could be coordinated, rather than pursued in isolation.	奖励结构将研究工作融合成统一的整体，而不仅仅是孤立的追求。


Unlike market-driven demand, which too often results in a winner-takes-all dynamic, state-sponsored demand creates an environment in which multiple solutions to technical problems can proliferate and coexist.	与往往造成赢家通吃局面的市场主导需求不同，政府资助需求营造出技术问题多重解决方案并存及共同发展的环境。


The pioneers of microelectronics tried many strategies to supplant vacuum tubes, and they delivered a host of semiconductors and chip designs: germanium, silicon, aluminum, gallium arsenide, PNP, NPN, CMOS, and so on.	微电子技术的先驱尝试了众多策略来取代真空管，拿出了各式各样的半导体和芯片设计：包括锗、硅、铝、砷化镓、PNP、NPN和CMOS等等。


Some of these research efforts were never implemented, but many found their way into specialized devices.	其中有些研究工作从未实际进行，但很多都在专用设备领域发挥了作用。


The diversity of options allowed widespread adoption, paving the way for the digital revolution.	选择的多样性促进了广泛的应用，从而为数字化革命铺平了道路。


As with the microelectronics program, government incentives don’t have to line the road all the way to commercial success.	像微电子计划一样，政府激励不必一直陪伴企业取得商业上的成功。


At some point, companies will be ready to sell products, and market demand can take over.	企业在某一时点会准备好出售产品，于是市场需求就可以接管剩下的旅程。


The US Department of Defense was the only customer for integrated circuits in 1962, but by the end of the decade consumers were buying transistor radios and pocket calculators in droves.	1962年美国国防部还是集成电路的唯一客户，但到20���纪60年代末消费者已经对购买晶体管收音机和袖珍计算器趋之若鹜。


Likewise, state-sponsored demand should not take the form of subsidies to specific technologies or companies; the government has no business gambling taxpayer money on particular ventures.	同样，政府资助需求不应采取为特定技术或公司发放补贴的形式，政府没有权利拿纳税人的钱对特定企业赌博。


Assuming that risk is the job of venture capitalists and others in finance, not public officials.	我们假定风险是风险资本家和其他金融界人士、而不是公职人员的工作。


But there is little risk in offering a contract for a job well done: there is no payout if the problem remains unsolved.	但为出色的工作提供合同却几乎没有风险：如果问题仍无法解决就没有报酬。


And those payouts are modest compared to the research and development efforts they stimulate.	而且这些报酬相比于由此刺激的研发努力可谓微不足道。


A program offering rewards of $1-5 billion in contracts or deployment commitments can generate many times that value in private-sector R&D. Innovators and their investors are willing to bet big on these opportunities, because they know that the eventual reward in revenue from a global customer base will far exceed the initial investment.	金额为10-50亿美元的合同奖励或部署计划在私人研发领域创造的价值能达到合同金额的很多倍。 创新者和投资者都愿意为上述机会进行豪赌，因为他们知道来自全球客户群体的最终奖励将远远超过初期投资。


That makes state-sponsored demand a very efficient mechanism for generating innovation.	政府出资需求因此成为促进创新诞生的有效机制。


Because of the multiplier effect, small governments and states, and even large cities, can successfully sponsor the kind of demand that fosters a world-class innovation epicenter.	由于乘数效应，小型政府和国家、甚至就连大型城市都可以成功赞助培育世界级创新中心的需求。


Certain Scandinavian countries, Chinese provinces, and the city-state of Singapore, for example, are ideally positioned to try this approach.	比方说某些斯堪纳维亚国家、中国的某些省份和城市国家新加坡都有着探索这种方法的理想环境。


Some years ago, I calculated how many units of product need to be sold to launch a technology.	几年前我计算过需要出售多少件产品才能够启动一项技术。


The number is actually quite modest: If you can move between 100,000 and one million units of a disruptive product, you can establish the technology standards for that category and in time become the global leader of a new industry.	这个数字其实非常微不足道：如果能够销售100，000到1，000，000件颠覆性产品就能创建该类别的技术标准，并最终成为新兴行业的全球领袖。


Government sponsorship ensures that a certain number of people will adopt your product.	政府赞助确保有一定数量的人会使用你的产品。


At the start, it need not be that many.	开始阶段其实并不需要很多。


The economic planners and policymakers who are chasing Silicon Valley’s taillights are learning that they cannot always replicate the entrepreneurial culture and finance mechanisms that flourish there now.	跟在硅谷屁股后面的经济规划者和决策者正渐渐明白他们并不总能复制那里正在蓬勃发展的创业文化和融资机制。


But they have forgotten how it all started: guaranteed demand, which stimulates the most ambitious kind of innovation.	但他们似乎忘了这一切如何开始：那就是刺激最雄心勃勃创新的保障性需求。


The lesson is a simple one: Don’t try to build another Silicon Valley.	其实经验再简单不过：不要试图建设另一座硅谷。


Instead, build a Demand Mountain, and the innovators will come.	相反要着力创造需求，这样自然而然就能吸引创新者。


Supply Side, Demand Side, or Innovation Side?	供给侧，需求侧，还是创新侧？


NEW YORK – It has become impossible to deny the so-called secular stagnation gripping the world’s most developed economies: Wealth is piling up, but real wages are barely rising and labor force participation has been on a downward trend.	发自纽约——无法否认，世界上大多数发达经济体都陷入了所谓长期性停滞的泥潭之中无法自拔：财富不断累积，实际工资却没怎么提升，劳动参与率一直呈下降趋势。


Worse yet, policymakers have no plausible idea about what can be done about it.	更糟糕的是，政策制定者对此也拿不出什么好的解决方案。


Behind this stagnation is the slowdown in productivity growth since 1970.	这种停滞的背后因素是自1970年以来生产率增长放缓。


The wellspring of such productivity gains – indigenous innovation – has been badly clogged since the late 1960s (mostly in established industries) and was even more so by 2005.	生产率增长的源泉——自主创新——自上世纪60年代末被严重遏制（主要是在一些发展成熟的行业），而且这种状况自2005年以来还进一步恶化。


Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher viewed the stagnation that was gripping economies by the 1970s from the supply side.	罗纳德·里根和撒切尔夫人选择从供给侧来看待1970年代的经济停滞。


They pushed through tax cuts on profits and wages to boost investment and growth, with debatable results.	他们通过减少企业和个人的利润/所得税来促进投资和增长，所产生的效果也颇有争议。


But today, with tax rates much lower, cuts of that size would result in huge increases in fiscal deficits.	而在当今的低税率条件下，这种规模的削减将导致财政赤字大幅增加。


And with debt levels already high and large deficits ahead, such supply-side measures would be reckless.	而由于债务水平已经极高且面临着巨额赤字，这种供给侧措施的后果可以很严重。


So now the best and brightest view things from the demand side, using the theory built by John Maynard Keynes in 1936.	因此当下这批治国精英们都选择从需求侧来看待问题，并运用由约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯于1936年创立的理论。


When “aggregate demand” – the level of real expenditure on final domestic goods that households, businesses, the government, and overseas buyers are willing to make – falls short of output at full employment, output is limited to the demand. And innovation won’t happen.	当“总需求”——家庭，企业，政府，和海外买家愿意对一国国内终端产品所付出的实际支出水平——在充分就业的情况下低于生产总产量，生产就受限于需求，因此也不会催生创新。


But the demand-siders’ conception of the economy is strange.	但需求侧鼓吹者对经济的理解有点让人费解。


For them, private investment demand is autonomous, governed by forces that Keynes dubbed “animal spirits.”	在他们看来，私人投资需求是自发的，由凯恩斯所谓的“动物精神（animal spirits）”所支配。


Consumer demand is essentially autonomous, too, because the so-called induced part is yoked to autonomous investment through the “propensity to consume.”	消费者的需求在本质上也是自发的，因为这个所谓被诱导的部分会通过“消费倾向”与自发的投资联系起来。


Thus, government measures are the sole way to boost employment and growth when autonomous demand falls short and jobs are lost.	因此当自发性需求不足和就业机会流失之时，政府能做的唯一一件事就是提振就业和增长。


This conception grasps neither growth nor recovery.	这种观念既不能控制增长，也无法控制复苏。


In healthy economies, a contractionary demand shock sets off two types of responses fueling recovery.	在一个健康的经济体中，一个紧缩性的需求冲击会催生两种类型的反应来推动复苏。


Adaptations to emerging opportunities are one such response.	其中一个反应是适应新出现的机会。


When firms hit by reduced demand contract operations, the space they give up becomes available for use by entrepreneurs with better ways of running the business – or with better businesses.	当企业遭遇合同订单减少时，他们所放弃的市场空间就可以被那些可以用更佳方式来运行这些业务的企业家——或者更好的企业——所利用。


Some of the employees they let go will start firms (and hire employees) of their own.	被裁员的员工也会创立新的企业（并雇用员工）。


With every recession, many shops on Main Street disappear; and, over time, new shops – generally more successful – appear.	每一个衰退期都会令很多店铺关门结业； 但随着时间的推移，新的店铺——通常拥有更成功的经营模式——会纷纷涌现。


The other response is indigenous innovation – new ideas springing from the brows of various businesspeople.	另一个反应是自主创新——商界人士脑中涌现出来的新点子。


When firms hit by reduced demand stop hiring for a time, some people who would have joined established firms use their situation to dream up new products or methods and organize startups to develop them.	当企业遭遇需求减少并在一段时期内停止雇用员工，有些原本会服务于老牌企业的人利用自身的资源来构思新的产品或经营手段，并建立初创公司来将其付诸实施。


The growing number of aspiring innovators toiling in home garages may self-produce some of their capital goods.	越来越多的满怀激情在自家车库中奋斗的创新者可以自行生产一些资本品。


More important, the accumulation of new startups will gradually generate rising investment demand – induced demand! – and growth, too.	更重要的是，新企业的不断涌现会逐渐推动越来越多的投资需求——诱导性需求！ ——和增长。


Some may doubt this. Can new products and methods fare well in the market if demand is deficient?	有些人可能会怀疑这一点：需求已然不足，谁敢保证新产品和新手段就能在市场上通行？


As an innovator said to me amid the financial crisis, his objective was to take over a market – it mattered little that the targeted market was only 90% of its former size.	不过有位创新者对我说：在金融危机时期他的目标是接管市场——至于市场的规模是否只有从前的90％，这不太重要。


Can capital be raised where incomes are depressed?	那么在收入低迷的情况下是否能筹集到资本呢？


Small firms and startups must always struggle for credit, and the Great Recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis made it harder for them.	信贷从来都是小企业和初创企业的难题，2008年金融危机爆发后经济衰退让它们更加艰难。


Yet the recession did not prevent droves of such firms from finding financing in Silicon Valley, London, and Berlin. No wonder Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom are more or less recovered.	但经济衰退并未能阻止此类公司纷纷在硅谷，伦敦和柏林寻找融资，也无怪乎德国，美国和英国经济都或多或少地出现了复苏。


In the US, total factor productivity growth set records in the 1930s, when the economy fell into and then grew out of the Great Depression.	在美国经济陷入了大萧条又��其摆脱了之后，1930年代的全要素生产率增长随之创下了新记录。


Recovery has fallen woefully short in two kinds of economies.	但有两种经济体的复苏会落在后面。


France and Italy are lacking young people who want to be new entrepreneurs or innovators, and those few who do are impeded by entrenched corporations and other vested interests.	法国和意大利缺乏想要成为新企业家或创新者的年轻人，仅有的少数人也受到根深蒂固的大企业和其他既得利益者的阻挠。


Greece has no lack of would-be entrepreneurs and innovators, but it lacks a system of angel and venture capital.	希腊不乏潜在企业家和创新者，但它缺乏天使和风险资本制度。


Some Greeks have formed startups, though not in Greece.	一些希腊人确实创立了创业公司，但公司所在地都不在希腊。


The demand-siders say that innovation only makes recovery harder, because it enables firms to meet existing demand with fewer employees.	需求侧鼓吹者认为创新只会令复苏更加艰难，因为它使企业能够以更少的员工来满足现有需求。


Thus, they call for annual public-sector investment up to the level needed for full employment.	因此他们呼吁公共部门的年度投资额应该达到实现充分就业所需的水平。