【2013考研必备】经济学人2012 赏析合集.doc

Chinas banks中国银行业Storing up trouble问题不断加深Healthy profits are misleading正常利润带有误导性attach:/45488.mp3May 5th 2012 | HONG KONG | from the print editionBANKS in China appear to be in rude health. The seven biggest mainland banks have just posted a 16% year-on-year increase in pre-tax profits between them for the first quarter. The level of non-performing loans (NPLs) remains low, at just about 1%. But trouble is being stored up for the future.中国银行业看起来状态过旺。第一季度，大陆地区7家最大的银行就税前利润取得了与上一年同期相比16%的增幅。不良贷款率仍走低，约1%左右。但是，未来中国银行业的桎梏正越来越深。There are two big worries: bad local-government debt and souring property loans. The infrastructure binge of the past few years saw a boom in local-government financing vehicles (LGFVs), off-balance-sheet entities used to get around prohibitions on borrowing. Regulators say these entities bank debts were worth $1.4 trillion at the end of September. Private estimates range much higher, and suggest that 20-30% may be non-performing.主要担忧有两个：地方政府债务坏账和不良住房贷款。在过去的数年间，基础建设的泛滥导致了地方政府融资平台和用以躲避借贷禁令的资产负债表外实体的迅速发展。监管者们称，截至九月底，该类实体银行债务达1万4千亿美元。私人机构称，实际的债务更高，并表明其中的20%到30%都是坏账。The government is trying to defuse the bomb. One experiment is the issuance of local bonds to replace these loans. Officials also published guidance in March pushing banks to roll loans over, in the hope that growth will solve the problem. Another wheeze is shoving these loans onto the books of “policy banks” like China Development Bank (CDB), whose balance-sheets are now suffering (see chart). Half a trillion yuan, around $80 billion, in LGFV debt was rolled over last year from commercial banks to the CDB alone.政府当局正试图拆掉这个“炸弹”。一项（拆弹）测试便是，发行地方债券用以取代该类贷款。3月份官员们也发布了银行指导条例，用以推动银行延缓贷款时间，寄希望于经济的增长来解决问题。另一项喘息之计在于，将这笔贷款从商业银行账簿转移至如国家开发银行等政策性银行账簿，国家发展银行的资产负债表正处在水深火热当中（见图）。去年，地方政府融资平台债务中5000亿人民币（约800亿美圆）由各商业银行单独地转存国家发展银行。The other headache is property, which is undergoing a government-forced cooling. Because real estate touches many parts of the economy, some worry that NPLs in this sector may be harder to isolate than local-government debt. Michael Werner of Sanford C. Bernstein, an investment bank, is relaxed, pointing to official figures claiming that 75% of property loans are collateralised, compared with only 38% of loans to manufacturers and 24% of those to utilities. Fine, but that reassures only if the collateral is good. It may not be.另一个令人头疼的是房地产问题，（火热的）房地产市场目前正遭遇着政府部门强制性的冷却。因为房地产市场触动着中国国家经济体的许多方面，某些人士担忧房地产（土地）行业的不良贷款有可能比地方政府债务更难处理。来自投资银行Sanford C. Bernstein的迈克尔-维尔纳先生指出，依据官方数据显示，相比仅38%的制造业贷款和24%的公共事业贷款，75%的房地产贷款持有抵押担保。这很好，但是让人担心的是这些担保是否实质有效。它有可能不靠谱。Charlene Chu of Fitch, a ratings agency, thinks official statistics have to be treated with care in any case. Several factors are masking the true level of NPLs, she reckons. One is the practice of rolling over bad debt; another is the ability of distressed borrowers to turn to a vibrant shadow-banking sector for loans when in trouble. Banks are also shifting lots of activities off their balance-sheets. By moving deposits from normal accounts to “wealth-management accounts”, for example, banks can reduce the ostensible deposit base against which they must hold reserves, but must also pay much higher interest rates.惠誉评级公司（Fitch）的Charlene Chu认为，官方数据无论如何都必须小心对待。Charlene Chu估测，不良贷款的水平受到一些因素的遮掩。因素之一是坏账转移的操作；另一个因素是困难户的借款能力,处在困境当中的借款者（机构）求助于活跃的“影子银行业”。各银行亦调整转移了他们资产负债表上的许多业务至表外。例如，通过将存款从一般账户移至理财账户，在银行必须持有存款准备金的情况下，银行能够削减账面存款基数，但必须同时支付更高额利息。The Chinese banking system is already among the most thinly capitalised in emerging markets (the ratio of equity to assets is 6%). Ms Chu calculates that if a tenth of the banking systems outstanding credit turns sour over the next two years, all profits and 39% of the systems equity will be wiped out. If NPLs are unreliable indicators, liquidity measures may be a better signal of brewing trouble. Pointing to a rise in market-based interest rates and slowing loan growth, she argues that a crunch has already started. The banks figures do not immediately show it but the hangover from Chinas post-crisis credit boom may be under way.在新兴市场当中，中国银行体系已处于资本化最薄弱的行列（股权资产比为6%）。Chu女士预测称，在未来的两年内，倘若银行体系中十分之一的未偿信贷令人失望，所有的利润和39%的银行体系股权将化为泡影。假如不良贷款是不可信指标，流动性措施可能是酝酿祸端的更好指示灯。她指出，针对市场利率的上升以及贷款的缓慢增长，形势已经开始摇摇欲坠。银行业数据不能及时的显示该形势，但是中国后信贷危机的残余影响可能正在酝酿发展。from the print edition | Finance and economics2012年1月3日的共和党艾奥瓦州党团会议正式拉开美国总统大选帷幕。11月16日，美国全国选民将投票选出下一届美国总统。12月17日，选举人团选出总统。2013年1月6日，参众两院宣布获胜者。2013年1月20日，新总统就职典礼。Game on大战开始The campaign looks likely to sharpen Americas divisions.总统竞选似乎深化了美国人的分歧。AMERICAS primary elections are not yet formally over, but with the exit of Rick Santorum it is at last plain that Mitt Romney will be the Republicans nominee. After the bruising primaries, Mr Romney starts from behind. Barack Obama leads in the head-to-head polls. But there are still seven months to election day, and Mr Romney has a fair chance of victory in November. Less than half of Americas voters approve of the way Mr Obama is doing his job. Six out of ten think the country is on the wrong track. The recovery is still weak and 12.7m Americans are unemployed. America added only 120,000 jobs in March, below expectations and fewer than in previous months.美国初选尚未正式结束，但随着里克桑托利姆的退出，结果尘埃落定，米特罗姆尼最终将成为共和党的提名人。在竞争激烈的初选后，罗姆尼后来居上，奥巴马则在两党共同举行的民意调查中领先。但距离选举日还有7个月，罗姆尼仍然有在11月公平竞争，和对手一较高下的机会。美国选民中，只有不到一半的人认可奥巴马总统的工作。他们中10个人就有6个认为美国正处于一条“错误的轨道”上。经济恢复依旧疲弱，1270万美国人失业。3月份美国新增120,000个就业岗位，这一数字低于预期，同时也比前几个月的少。This fight is going to be nastier than the one in 2008. By instinct Mr Romney is a moderate, but the primaries tugged him sharply right, forcing him to boast that he was severely conservative by embracing policies, including deep cuts in social spending, that even the famous flip-flopper will now find it difficult to drop. After the primaries, candidates pivot towards the centre. But Mr Romney knows that to turn out a conservative base that does not love him he must mobilise their hatred of Mr Obama. In the meantime Mr Obama appears to believe that he cannot afford to present himself once more as a healer who will soar above party divisions. He is running a more partisan campaign this time round. An already polarised America therefore faces a deeply polarising election.本次大选战况将比2008年的大选更加难分难解。罗姆尼本质上是走稳健路线的，但是初选把他推到了极右阵营，迫使他支持一些政策来宣称自己是“极端保守”的，这些政策包括大幅削减社会支出。然而即使是那些名气大的墙头草政客们也发现，削减社会开支难度很大。初选之后，候选人们的重心已经移到了中心。但是罗姆尼知道，要想在不欢迎自己的保守派阵营中取得一席之地，他必须激起这些人对奥巴马总统的敌视。奥巴马总统似乎认为自己不能再以党派分歧调停人的形象出现了。本次竞选，他把更多心思花在自己的阵营上。这样一来，社会极化严重的美国要面临一场同样极化严重的大选。The second time, its harder再次参选，难度更大In 2008 Mr Obama promised audacity, hope and change we can believe in. His appeal sprang from who he was: a fresh young senator offering a new direction after the clapped-out administration of George Bush and a safer pair of hands than the 72-year-old John McCain. But incumbents cannot run on promise alone. This time he will be judged less on who he is and more on what he has done.2008年奥巴马承诺带给美国“胆量，希望”和“可以信任的变革”。他的吸引力源于他本身的特点：他是一名年轻的新参议员，可以在腐朽不堪的布什政府后为美国提供一个新的方向，同时他又比已经72岁的约翰麦凯恩更加让人放心。但是当权者不能只做承诺。这一次民众关心他本身的特点更少一些，关心他的执政成果更多一些。Considering the circumstances, he has not done badly. He can justly claim to have prevented a great recession from turning into a great depression. He rescued Detroits carmakers and finished the job of stabilising the banks. Mr Romney says he made a bad situation worse, but if Mr Obama had not used billions of borrowed dollars to stimulate the sagging economy, even more Americans would be out of work today. By battering al-Qaeda and killing Osama bin Laden, he has disproved the notion that Democrats are soft on national security.考虑到美国当时的大环境，他做的已经不坏了。他可以理直气壮地说自己已经阻止美国经济从不景气滑向大萧条.他拯救了底特律的汽车制造商，同时也完成了稳定银行的工作。罗姆尼说奥巴马让情况变得更糟，但要不是奥巴马总统向一蹶不振的美国经济投入数十亿借来的钱，美国现在会有更多的人失业。重创基地组织，杀死本拉登之后，他已经粉碎了外界认为民主党在国家安全上软弱无力的观点。Still, it could have been worse has never been an inspiring re-election slogan. The recovery is still so tepid that Mr Obama cannot risk running on his record alone. He has therefore to cast the election as a choice, not a referendum on his performance. That requires him to make the choice as stark as possible. For months he has portrayed the Republicans as ruthless asset-strippers who care nothing about the middle class so long as they can promote the interests of the super-rich. How lucky for Mr Obama that the super-rich Mr Romney made his fortune in the cut-throat business of private equity.然而，“要是没有我情况会更坏”可不是个振奋人心的竞选口号.经济复苏依旧不冷不热，奥巴马不能只靠之前执政成果来竞选，这样很冒险。因此他得表现出这是个让人做出抉择的大选，而不是因为他的执政成果人们才投他的票。这就要求他把自己和罗姆尼这两个民众的选择的特征展现的一目了然。最近几个月他把共和党人描述成一群只要能维护大富豪利益，就会去野蛮掠夺财产，不顾中产阶级死活的人。罗姆尼可是个在残酷的私募基金行业中赚了大钱的富豪，这对奥巴马总统来说是多么幸运的一件事。This is the electoral logic behind the speech last week in which Mr Obama claimed that the Republicans had embraced a form of thinly veiled social Darwinism that would deprive needy children of healthy food, slash cancer research, close down national parks and eliminate air-traffic control in swathes of the country. It sounds scary, and it contains more than a grain of truthbut in fact the Republicans have proposed none of these specific cuts. Mr Obamas dystopian predictions are based on his own extrapolations from the broad spending cuts proposed by the Republicans in Congress.这就是上周奥巴马总统演讲中背后的竞选逻辑，演讲中他宣称共和党人支持一种“露骨的社会进化论”，这一行为将夺去贫困儿童的健康食物，阻碍癌症研究，使国家公园关闭，同时取消美国许多地方的航空管制。这听起来很可怕，这当中包含的不止一丝真理-但是实际上共和党没有建议过削减上述特定开支。奥巴马总统这一反乌托邦式的预言基于他自己的推断，他的推断又来源于共和党在国会中提出的大范围削减开支的提案。Mr Romneys retort is that the president is attacking policies nobody is proposing, setting up straw men to distract from his record. Coming from the Republicans, this is rich. They have attacked a straw man since the day Mr Obama was inaugurated. They labelled his conventional Keynesian response to a deep recession socialist. They called Obamacare unAmerican, even though this market-based scheme to extend health cover to 30m uninsured Americans is almost identical to the one Mr Romney adopted as governor of Massachusetts.罗姆尼反驳，称总统正对没人提议过的政策进行抨击，罗姆尼此举是“创造一个假想敌，让选民不去注意奥巴马的执政成果”.很多共和党人都这样反击。从奥巴马就职的那天起，他们就一直在攻击一个假想敌。他们用奥巴马传统的凯恩斯式的回应给奥巴马贴上一个“深度衰退社会主义者”的标签。他们称“奥巴马医保方案”不符合美国人利益，尽管这一基于市场，将医保覆盖至30万未投保的美国人身上的方案和罗姆尼当马萨诸塞州州长时采取的方案大同小异。Mr Romney also accuses Mr Obama of drowning the American dream in a sea of red ink. But on this issue there is plenty of blame to go round. Although Mr Obama has yet to come up with a serious plan to tame entitlements, he did try last summer to negotiate a grand bargain on the deficit. And when that failed, Congress voted for an automatic deficit-reducing spending cut (the sequester) of $1.2 trillion over the next decade that is supposed to kick in at the end of this year.罗姆尼还控告奥巴马把美国梦拖入赤字的汪洋大海里。但在这件事情上，奥巴马有许多让人指责的地方。尽管奥巴马至今尚未出台重要的计划来削减国民福利(这里真心不会翻译)，但他去年夏季确实试着在财政赤字上做出“大妥协”。当那失败之后，国会自动对在未来十年内用削减1.2万亿美元开支来填补赤字的方案进行投票，今年年底这一方案应该会通过。Elections that offer clear choices can be good things. Isnt that politics as usual? But American voters are in danger of being forced to choose in November between a Republican Party that is allergic to needed tax rises and a Democratic Party that lacks the courage to make the spending cuts required for America to live within its means. The prospect is for a shouting match that pushes the parties ever further apart and threatens to make the whole system of government seize up.要是大选能让人做出明确的选择，那可是好事。这不正是和以往一样的政治吗？但是美国选民正面临这样一种风险，他们被迫在共和党和民主党中做出选择，前者对必不可少的税收提高过于敏感，而后者则缺乏勇气尽可能地削减可以让美国渡过难关的开支. 大选估计要演变成一场骂战，让两个党派分歧更加严重，同时两党彼此威胁要让政府停摆。This is not politics as usual这不是和以往一样的政治Indeed, the system is already dangerously close to seizing up. The present Congress is the most polarised of modern times. The Republican landslide in the 2010 mid-terms swept a new breed of conservative zealot into office, destroying the middle ground and making legislating next to impossible. The Supreme Court is polarised, tooso much so that it might strike down Obamacare, the presidents flagship achievement, on the deciding vote of a single judge.实际上，政府已经有停摆的危险。美国近代历史中，现今的美国国会现极化最严重。2010年美国中期选举共和党取得大胜，国会涌入一群新的保守主义狂热者，破坏了国会的中间立场，同时让立法变得近乎不可能。最高法院也极化严重-因此它可能会因法官的决定票而否定奥巴马这个一流的医改方案。In short, America is in dire need of the sort of comity Mr Obama promised in 2008. We are not red states and blue states, he said then, we are the United States. What a pity that he is changing tack this time, bashing the rich via gimmicks such as the Buffett rule (which is supposed to make millionaires like Mr Romney pay at least the same tax rate as their secretaries) and galvanising his base by brushing aside even the sensible part of the Republican argument that something radical must be done to curb entitlement spending. He may feel he has no choice. But it is a miserable portent for the future.总而言之，美国亟需奥巴马总统在2008年所承诺的礼让。当时他说“我们不是共和党人，也不是民主党人，我们是美国人”。这次他改变了战略，用诸如“巴菲特法案”（这一法案将让像罗姆尼这样的百万富翁和他们的秘书以同样的税率纳税）一类的花招来打击富人，同时漠视共和党观点中的明智之处（如在削减福利开支方面必须要激进）来巩固自己，这让人颇为遗憾。或许他觉得自己已经别无选择。但是这预示着美国不乐观的未来。爱思英语编者按：近日3D版泰坦尼克号电影正在国内热映。在电影里，我们看到了一幅幅充满人性、感人至深的温暖画面：爱德华老船长庄严宣布让妇女儿童首先离船。一位父亲深情地亲吻小女儿之后将她送上救生艇然而，历史的真相远远没有那么温暖。让人遗憾的是，“妇女儿童优先”的动人救生口号并非完全属实，获得优先权的主要是头等舱、二等舱的妇孺。统计数据表明，头等舱男乘客的生还率比三等舱中儿童的生还率还稍高一点。美国新泽西州州立大学教授、著名社会学家戴维波普诺在他的社会学一书中这样写道：“不幸的是救生船不够。尽管很多人 （超过1500人）遇难，但乘客注意遵守优先救助妇女儿童的社会规范”，使得英国公众和政府面对这一巨大灾难，“可以找到一些安慰”统计数据表明，“乘客中69%的妇女和儿童活了下来，而男乘客只有17%得以生还”。“我们发现，三等舱中的乘客只有26%生还，与此相应的是，二等舱乘客的生还率是44%，头等舱是60%。头等舱男乘客的生还率比三等舱中儿童的生还率还稍高一点。”“轮船的头等舱主要由有钱人住着，二等舱乘客大部分是中产阶级职员和商人，三等舱（以及更低等）主要是由去美国的贫穷移民乘坐。 ”Sea disasters海难Women and children first? 妇女儿童优先？THE Titanic disaster has lost nothing of its horrifying appeal, even as we approach its 100th anniversary on April 15. The television is brimming with documentaries, there is the inevitable rebroadcast of James Camerons famous 1997 film (a new, IMAX 3D version of which is now in theatres), and gift shops are busy coming up with new and occasionally macabre gimmicks.即便我们将在4月15日迎来泰坦尼克号事故的100周年纪念日，这场灾难令人毛骨悚然的吸引力仍历久弥新。电视上充斥着泰坦尼克号的纪录片，重播詹姆斯卡梅隆1997年拍摄的经典影片也势在必行（该片新的IMAX 3D版本正在影院热映），而礼品店也在忙于推出一些新的噱头，偶尔还有些与死亡有关的晦气玩意。Economists are interested, too. Survival on board the Titanic is famous for its gender bias: roughly three out of four women survived, and almost half of the children, but only around 20% of men and crew. Social norms, an important building block of an economy, seem to hold up even in the most extreme of circumstances. Or should we say British norms? The recent Costa Concordia disaster off the coast of Italy, in which the captain abandoned his sinking ship, led to discussions of British chivalry at sea.就连经济学家也对此很感兴趣。泰坦尼克号的幸存者因其性别分化而闻名：每四名妇女中约有三人获救，约一半儿童生还，但男性和船员只有20%左右活了下来。作为一国经济的重要基础，社会准则看似在最为极端的环境下仍坚持了下来。或者，我们是不是该称之为“英国准则”？在最近意大利的科斯塔-康科迪亚号事故中，船长弃船逃走任其沉没，引起了人们对于英国人在海上表现出的骑士精神的讨论。A new and timely paper from Sweden tries to shed some further light on the issue. Mikael Elinder and Oscar Erixson of Uppsala University have looked at 18 peace-time shipwrecks for which they could find detailed data. The results are striking. Women had a lower chance of survival in 11 out of 18 instances. Only on two ships was it an advantage to be a woman: on the Birkenhead in 1852 and on the Titanic. The best odds of survival on average were, somewhat surprisingly, those of the crew, followed by none other than the captain. Children were worst off (see the chart below, in which MS is the sample of the 16 ships other than the much-studied Titanic and Lusitania).瑞典一份适时的研究报告尝试进一步揭示这个问题。乌普萨拉大学的迈克尔-艾林德和奥斯卡-埃里克森研究了18起能找到详细资料的、发生在和平时期的沉船事故。结果令人大跌眼镜。18起事故中的11起，妇女的生还率都低于男性。只有在两艘船上身为女性是一种优势：伯肯黑德号（1852年沉没）和泰坦尼克号。稍微令人惊讶的是，平均生还几率最大的是船员，第二名则非船长莫属。而儿童的生还率最低（见下图。MS为被研究得最多的泰坦尼克和卢西塔尼亚号之外的16艘船的样本）。Is the Titanic therefore just an exception to the rule? Or are there other factors that can explain the difference in survival outcomes? Several possibilities come to mind: whether the ship sank fast, whether it was before or after the First World War, whether the captain gave the order that women and children are to be evacuated firstand whether the ship was British. The researchers tested all these different explanations.泰坦尼克号是否只是一个例外？还有其他因素能解释生存情况的区别吗？研究者想到了几个可能因素：船是否很快沉没，沉船发生在一战前还是一战后，船长是否下达了妇女和儿童先撤离的命令还有这艘船是否是英国船。研究者对所有假设都进行了测验。The amount of time for evacuation does not seems to matter for womens survival, contrary to what the comparison between the Titanic (slow) and Lusitania (fast) suggests. On post-World War shipwrecks, womens odds are somewhat higher.与泰坦尼克号（沉得慢）和卢西塔尼亚号（沉得快）对比结果相悖的是，撤离的时间长短看上去对妇女的生还率没有影响。而妇女的生存率在战后的沉船事故中要稍高一些。What does seem to matter, however, is the behaviour of the captain. If he orders that women and children are to be evacuated first, their odds improve considerably. And as we know from eye-witnesses (and the film), such orders were not only given, but also somewhat brutally enforced on board the Titanic. Finally, the results are bad news for notions of British chivalry: surprisingly, women fared worse on ships under British command, not better.不过，能够决定问题的看似只有船长的举动了。如果船长下令妇女儿童先走，他们生还的希望就大大提高了。并且，就如我们从目击者（以及电影）中得知的，在泰坦尼克号上，这样的命令光下达没用，还得粗暴地强制执行。最后一点，研究结果对“英国骑士精神”的观点很是不利：在英国人执掌的船只上，妇女的生还率更糟，而不是更好。The authors are careful not to overstate their conclusions. After all, they (luckily) had only 18 cases to study. But such a descriptive analysis reminds us to be cautious. Social norms may hold upif a combination of other factors supports them. But depending on the circumstances, the dynamics of the situation might go either way. One example, almost trivial in comparison, is littering and the broken window theory: if we observe others breaking social norms and rules, we are more likely to do so ourselves. Maybe it is the role of an enforcer to steer the dynamics in a favourable direction. One such example might have been the captain on the Titanic.作者谨慎地没有夸大自己的结论。毕竟，（幸好）他们只有18个案例可供研究。但这样一份叙述分析能唤起我们的警惕。社会规范可以在其他诸多因素的支持下得以维持。但是依情况不同，形势的走向可能会背道而驰。扔垃圾和破窗理论（尽管相比有点琐碎）便是例子：如果我们看到其他人打破社会规范和规则，我们也很可能会效仿。也许只有强制者的角色能够把形势朝好的方向扭转。泰坦尼克号的船长就是一个这样的例子。Political parties政党Lonel