GRE阅读练习： 宏观经济学探究失业自然比率

>>GRE考试模拟：GRE阅读练习： 宏观经济学探究失业自然比率

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Central bankers' holy grail

央行银行家的圣杯

Policymakers have spent half a century in search of the natural rate of unemployment.

决策者为寻找失业的自然比率花了半个世纪。

Why does unemployment exist?

失业为什么存在?

If there is a central question in macroeconomics, this is it.

如果说宏观经济学有一个中心问题，这个问题就是。

There are few bigger wastes than the loss to idleness of hours, days and years by people who would rather be working.

很少有比宁愿工作的人几个小时、几天乃至经年累月年地无所事事的损失更大的浪费了。

Unemployment can ruin lives, sink budgets and topple governments.

失业能够毁灭人生，埋葬预算、掀翻政府。

Yet policymakers do not wage all-out war on joblessness.

然而，决策者并不对失业全面开战。

Most, like the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, target what is known as unemployment's “natural” rate, at which inflation is stable.

它们大都是像美国央行——美联储那样，把目标锁定在所谓的失业的“自然”比率(unemployment's “natural” rate)，即通胀在其上是稳定的那个比率上面。

The importance of this concept is hard to overstate.

这一概念的重要性怎么强调都不为过。

The Fed's argument for its recent interest-rate rises, for example, hinges on stopping unemployment from falling too far beneath the natural rate.

例如，美联储支持其近期加息的论据就是围绕着阻止失业率降到自然比率之下太远的地方而展开的。

Yet the natural rate is in many respects an article of faith, always sought but never seen.

然而，这种自然比率在很多方面就像是一种信念，总是被苦苦寻求，却从未被一睹其真面目。

Where does it come from?

它来自何方?

There are several reasons why unemployment cannot simply be eradicated fully.

有多个为什么失业不能被简单地一笔勾销的原因。

It takes time for people to move from one job to another: this is said to cause “frictional” unemployment.

人们变换工作需要时间：据称，这引发“摩擦性”失业(frictional unemployment)。

If people cannot find jobs because they have outdated skills—think hand weavers after the invention of the loom—they might become “structurally” unemployed.

如果人们是因为具有过时的技能而不能找到工作——想想织布机发明之后的手工织布工——他们可能变得“结构性地”失业(structurally unemployed).

But it is the trade-off between unemployment and inflation that most preoccupies central bankers.

但是，最让央行银行家劳心费神的是失业和通胀之间的那种取舍。

John Maynard Keynes, the GREat British economist, took a first step towards the natural-rate hypothesis when he focused minds on “involuntary” unemployment.

伟大的英国经济学家凯恩斯在关注“非自愿性”失业(involuntary unemployment)时，迈出了通往自然比率假设的第 一步。

In his book “The General Theory”, published in 1936 in the aftermath of the Depression, Keynes noted that many people could not find jobs at the going wage, even if they had comparable skills to those in work.

在他的那本在大萧条之后的1936年出版的《通论》一书中，凯恩斯指出，许多人哪怕是拥有与在职之人不相上下的技能，也不可能以现有的工资找到工作。

Classical economics blamed artificially high wages, perhaps caused by trade unions.

古典经济学将其归咎于人为的高工资，这种高工资可能是由工会造成的。

But Keynes pointed to lacklustre economy-wide spending.

但是，凯恩斯直指死气沉沉的整个经济体的开支。

Even if wages fell, he reasoned, workers would have less to spend, making the demand deficiency worse.

他分析道，尽管工资降了，但是，工人可以花钱的地方也会减少，令需求不足更加严重。

The answer, he thought, was for governments to manage aggregate demand in order to keep employment “full”.

他认为，对政府来说，答案是管理总需求，以保持就业是“完全的”(full)。

Keynes was not the father of all that is now thought of as “Keynesian”.

凯恩斯不是现在被认为是“凯恩斯学派”的全部内容之父。

Inflation, for instance, barely entered his analysis of unemployment.

例如，通胀几乎没有进入他的失业分析。

But by the late 1960s Keynesianism had become associated with the idea that when managing aggregate demand, policymakers are not just choosing a rate of unemployment.

但是，到上世纪60年代，凯恩斯主义已经与决策者在管理总需求时不单单是在选择一种失业率的思想变得密不可分了。

They are simultaneously choosing how fast prices rise.

他们同时还在选择物价涨得有多快。

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