lesson研究生英语阅读教程提高级第三版原文及翻译修订稿

1、集团档案编码：YTTR-YTPT28-YTNTL98-UYTYNN08Spillonomics : U n d e r e s ti mating Risk漏油经济：低估风险David LeonhardtPublished: June 1, 20101Z In retrospect, the pattern seems clear Years before the Deepwater Horizon hrazn rig r?g blew, BP was developing a reputat ion as an oil company that took safety risks to sa

2、ve money An explosion at a Texas tkss refinery rfanrC killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame The next year, a corroded Ikrd pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay, upbr

3、aided pbredZ BP managers for their u seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues1 回想起来，模式似乎很清楚。早在“深水地平线”钻机自爆前的很多 年，BP石油公司为了省钱甘冒安全的风险就已经声名狼藉。2003年得克萨斯州 炼油厂爆炸中有15名工人丧生。联邦监管机构和前国务卿詹姆斯贝克三世领 导的专门小组认为，削减成本是事故的部分原因。笫二年，阿拉斯加腐蚀的管 道将石油漏入普拉德霍湾。就连乔巴顿，对全球变暖持怀疑态度的来自得克 萨斯州的共和党众议员，都谴责BP管理人员“对安全和环境问题表现得漠

4、不关 心”21 Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work The people running BP did a dreadful drdfil job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikelybut that would

5、 bring enormous costs2 这种冷漠大部分源于对利润的过度追求，不管出现什么情况。但似乎也 还有另一个因素在起作用，一个更普遍的人性的因素。BP的管理人员在估计似 乎不太可能发生但一旦发生就会带来巨大损失的事件真正会发生的可能性时， 犯了一个可怕的错误。3 Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives gzekjtv must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP&

6、#39; s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine as it was3 也许理解这一点最简单的方法就是思考一下BP高管们如今的想法。显 然，考虑到清理费用和对BP声誉的影响，高管们真希望可以回到过去，多花些 钱让“深水地平线”更安全。他们没有增加这笔费用就表明他们认为钻机在当 时的状

7、态下不会岀问题。4 For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are farfrom the only people to struggle withsuch low-probability,high-costevents Nearly everyone does.uThese are precisely the kinds ofevents that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally" Robert St

8、avins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says We make two basicand oppositetypes of mistakes When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood This is the proverbial lprv：rbi?l black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode

9、 on them. So they assumed it would not happen, at least not to them.4 尽管针对BP高管的所有批评可能都是他们应得的，但是他们绝不是唯- 艰难应对这种低概率、高成本事件的人。儿乎每个人都会如此。“这些正是我 们人类处理时很难做出合理反应的一类事件，”哈佛大学环境经济学家罗伯 特斯塔文斯说。我们经常犯两种基本且性质相反的错误。当一件事情是很难 想象的，我们往往会低估它的可能性。这就是众所周知的黑天鹅（稀有之物） 现象。大多数在“深水地平线”工作的人可能从未经历过钻井平台爆炸。因此 他们认为这不会发生，至少不会发生在他们身上。5

10、Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble b?bl because it had never been in one before Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house pri

11、ces would declineldkian And many home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgageslm：rgd, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price roseThats what house prices did, it seemed5同样，不久以前，本伯南克和艾伦格林斯潘也喜欢称全国房地产市 场没有泡沫，因为以前从未有过泡沫。华尔街交易员也持同样观点，他们建立 的数学模型根本不存在房价下降的可能性。许多购房者签订了负担不起的抵押 贷款，相

12、信一旦其价格上涨，他们可以再融资或卖掉房子。看起来房价好像是 在上涨。6 On the other hand,when an unlikely event is all too easy toimagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and tookto the road There were no terrorist Ltrrst attacks in this country i

13、n2002, yet the additional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalitiesftiti6 另一方面，当一个不太可能发生的事件是很容易想象的，我们经常会走 向另一个方向，高估它的可能性。“911”恐怖袭击后，美国人取消了飞机旅 行，转而驾车上路。2002年在这个国家没有发生恐怖袭击，但更多的驾车出行 显然导致了交通死亡人数的增加。7 When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid the

14、se entirely human errors The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe7当风险非常高时，应该山政府负责以帮助避免这些完全人为的错误。如 果让市场自行其是，往往做不到这一点。然而，在“深水地平线”这件事情 上，政府的政策

15、实际上起到了相反的作用。它助长BP低估了灾难的可能性。8 In a little-noticed provision Lprvn in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller* s liability over and above cleanup costs at $75 million for a rig spil1. Even ifthe economic damagesto tourism,fishing and the likestretch intothe billions,

16、the responsible party is on the hook for only $75 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claimsan economist who runs theit deems legitimate)Michael Greenstone,Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a companyf s decision making Without the cap, exe

17、cutives would have to weigh the possible revenue lrev?nju订 from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close t

18、o a shoreline To put it another way, human frailty freiti helped BP' s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event Federal law helped them underestimate the costs8 埃克森公司瓦尔迪兹漏油事件发生后，在1990年的一个法案很少引人注 意的一项条款中，美国国会将钻机泄漏清理费用的责任上限定为7500万美元。 即使对旅游业、渔业等造成的经济损失高达数十亿美元，责任方也仅需

19、要支付 7500万美元。（在这种情况下，BP已同意对它认为合法的索赔，放弃这一上 限。）在华盛顿负责汉密尔顿项LI的麻省理工学院经济学家迈克尔格林斯通 说这一法律从根本上扭曲了公司的决策。如果赔偿没有上限，管理人员就会权 衡油井可能的收益以及钻井的成本和损害赔偿的风险。而有了这个上限，他们 就可以在很大程度上忽略清理费用之外的潜在损害赔偿。所以在损害可能非常 可怕的地方，如靠近海岸线的地方，他们也会钻井。换句话说，人类的弱点使 得BP公司高管低估了低概率、高成本事件的可能性。而联邦法律则使得他们低 估了成本。In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress

20、and the Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reduce the risks of another deep-water disaster Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway Iswe? of industry. But it would be foolish to think t

21、hat the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salientseiint9 在“深水地平线”之后，美国国会和奥巴马政府毫无疑问希望通过相关 法律以减少再次出现“深水地平线”这样的风险。当然他们可以采取一些明智 的做法，如解除责任上限，摆脱石油业对监管人员的影响。不过，如果认为我 们U前仍然低估的只是那些突然间引人注目的风险，那是非常愚蠢的。10_ The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble Instead,

22、 it may be the huge deficits Idfst that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years and the possibility that lenders will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get work

23、ed up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured Isau? on the United States government before and show no signs of doing so now. But isn' t that reminiscent Crmnsntl of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?10 大的金融风险已不再是房地产泡沫。相反，它可能是医疗保险、医疗 救助和社会保障的增长在未来将会导致的巨额赤

24、字，以及贷款人可能最终不愿 再向华盛顿扩大信贷。诚然，一些经济学家和决策者坚持认为国家还不应该考 虑如何应对这种可能性，因为贷款人与美国政府的关系从来没有恶化过，也没 有迹象显示现在就是这样。但这是不是让人联想到伯南克和格林斯潘对住房市 场的老调呢？11Z Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells (among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least thr