经济学人双语精读：经济学家经历了一个糟糕的2023年

2024年4月21日 文摘

A dismal year for the dismal science
郁闷科学的郁闷一年

Economists had a dreadful 2023
经济学家经历了一个糟糕的2023年

Mistaken recession calls were just part of it
对衰退的错误预测只是糟心事之一

  • dismal science  这个表达最早出现于1849年，由苏格兰哲学家、历史学家托马斯·卡莱尔（Thomas Carlyle）将其用来代指“政治经济学（political economics）”（参见：小词详解 | dismal）
  • recession 经济衰退、经济萎缩；【正式用语】退后、撤回

Spare a thought for economists. Last Christmas they were an unusually pessimistic lot: the growth they expected in America over the next calendar year was the fourth-lowest in 55 years of fourth-quarter surveys. Many expected recession; The Economist added to the prognostications of doom and gloom. This year economists must swap figgy pudding for humble pie, because America has probably grown by an above-trend 3%—about the same as in boomy 2005. Adding to the impression of befuddlement, most analysts were caught out on December 13th by a doveish turn by the Federal Reserve, which sent them scrambling to rewrite their outlooks for the new year.
体谅下经济学家的处境吧。2022年圣诞节时，这个群体异常悲观：他们对2023年美国增长的预计是55年来第四季度调查中的第四低。许多人预期会出现衰退；本刊也奉上了一些惨淡预测。到了2023年的圣诞节，经济学家们只能把圣诞布丁换成一盘尴尬的苦果，因为2023年美国的增长可能达到了3%，高于长期平均水平，大约与2005年的繁荣时期相当。再加上大多数分析师在12月13日被美联储的鸽派转向打了个措手不及，纷纷匆忙地改写自己对新一年的展望，更让人觉得这群人已经茫然无措。

It is not just forecasters who have had a bad year. Economists who deal in sober empirical work have also had their conclusions challenged. Consider research on inequality. Perhaps the most famous economic studies of the past 20 years have been those by Thomas Piketty and his co-authors, who have found a rising gap between rich and poor. But in November a paper finding that after taxes and transfers American incomes are barely less equal than in the 1960s was accepted for publication by one of the discipline’s top journals. Now Mr Piketty’s faction is on the defensive, accusing its critics of “inequality denial”.
不仅仅是做预测的人经历了糟糕的一年。从事严谨实证工作的经济学家们的结论也受到了挑战。看看关于不平等的研究。过去20年里最著名的经济学研究或许是由托马斯·皮凯蒂及其合著者所做的研究，他们发现富人与穷人之间的差距在扩大。但去年11月，一篇论文发现，经过税收和转移支付之后，美国的收入差距几乎与1960年代相当，该论文被一家顶级经济学期刊接受待发表。现在皮凯蒂一派摆出防御姿态，指责其批评者“否认不平等”。

  • sober 形容人或其言行等“严肃的、持重的”以及“冷静的、清醒的、不言过其实的”（参见：小词详解 | sober）
  • empirical 以实验（或经验）为依据的、经验主义的（参见：小词详解 | empirical）
  • faction （大团体中的）派系、派别、小集团（参见：小词详解 | faction）

Economists have long agreed that America would be richer if it allowed more homes to be built around popular cities. There is lots of evidence to that effect. But the best-known estimate of the costs of restricting construction has been called into question. Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley, found that easing building rules in New York, San Francisco and San Jose would have boosted American GDP in 2009 by 3.7%. Now Brian Greaney of the University of Washington claims that after correcting for mistakes the true estimated effect is just 0.02%. If builders disagreed as wildly about roof measurements, the house would collapse.
经济学家长期以来一致认为，如果美国允许在热门城市的周围建造更多住房，美国会更加富裕。有很多证据支持这一点。但关于限制建筑的代价的最知名估计受到了质疑。芝加哥大学的谢长泰和加州大学伯克利分校的恩里科·莫雷蒂（Enrico Moretti）曾认为，放宽纽约、旧金山和圣何塞的建筑限制将会使2009年的美国GDP增长3.7%。现在，华盛顿大学的布赖恩·格里尼（Brian Greaney）声称，在纠正错误后，真实的影响估计仅为0.02%。如果建筑商们在屋顶测量上有这么大的分歧，那房子就得塌了。