2018年06月六级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 1 原文翻译及答案解析

Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago? In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015.

从经济角度看，我们比十年前更富裕吗？比二十年前呢？评论家们渴望获得这个问题的证据，因此抓住了人口普查局最近的一份报告，该报告发现2015年平均家庭收入增长了5.2%。

Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census's measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.

不幸的是，这一结论过于依赖一个有用但有缺陷且不完整的统计指标。人口普查局衡量方法中较为重要的问题包括：1) 它排除了税收、转移支付和雇主提供的健康保险等补偿；2) 它基于调查而非数据。即使精确测量，收入数据也排除了经济福祉的重要决定因素，例如赚取该收入所需的工作时长。

While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.

在思考这个问题时，我们偶然发现查尔斯·琼斯和彼得·克伦诺最近发表的一篇文章，该文章提出了一种有趣的新经济福利衡量方法。尽管绝非完美，但它比平均收入全面得多，不仅考虑了人均消费的增长，还考虑了工作时间、预期寿命和不平等的变化。此外，它可以用于评估跨国和跨时间的经济表现。

The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U.S. and France in 2005.

琼斯-克伦诺方法可以通过一个跨国示例来说明。假设我们想比较2005年美国和法国公民的经济福利。

In 2005, as the authors observe, real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as in the U.S., making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U.S. Because of these differences, comparing France's consumption with the U.S.'s overstates the gap in economic welfare.

正如作者所观察到的，2005年法国的实际人均消费仅为美国的60%，这似乎表明美国人在经济上平均比法国人富裕得多。然而，这一比较忽略了其他相关因素：休闲时间、预期寿命和经济不平等。法国人休假更长，退休更早，因此通常工作时间更短；他们享有更高的预期寿命，可能反映了在医疗保健、饮食、生活方式等方面的优势；而且法国的收入和消费分配比美国更平等。由于这些差异，将法国的消费与美国比较夸大了经济福利的差距。

Similar calculations can be used to compare the U.S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U.S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.

类似的计算可用于比较美国和其他国家。例如，这一计算将英国的经济福利定为美国水平的97%，但估计墨西哥的福祉为22%。

The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy's performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U.S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U.S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.

琼斯-克伦诺衡量方法还可以评估一个经济体随时间的表现。根据这一衡量方法，截至21世纪初至中期，美国是所有大型国家中经济福利最高的。自2007年以来，美国的经济福利持续改善。然而，改善的速度已明显放缓。

Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multi-dimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated—for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates.

从方法论上看，琼斯-克伦诺研究的启示是经济福利是多维度的。他们的方法足够灵活，原则上可以纳入其他重要的生活质量变化——例如，污染物总排放量的减少和犯罪率的下降。