经济学专业英语

Passage 1

The experience curve

The more experience a firm has in producing a particular product, the lower its costs

The experience curve is an idea developed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the mid-1960s. Working with a leading manufacturer of se miconductors, the consultants noticed that the company’s unit cost of manufacturing fell by about 25% for each doubling of the volume that it produced. This relationship they called the experience curve: the more experience a firm has in producing a particular product, the lower are its costs. Bruce Henderson, the founder of BCG, put it as follows:

Costs characteristically decline by 20-30% in real terms each time accumulated experience doubles. This means that when inflation is factored out, costs should always decline. The decline is fast if growth is fast and slow if growth is slow.

There is no fundamental economic law that can predict the existence of the experience curve, even though it has been shown to apply to industries across the board. Its truth has been proven inductively, not deductively. And if it is true in service industries such as investment banking or legal advice, the lower costs are clearly not passed on to customers.

By itself, the curve is not particularly earth shattering. Even when BCG first expounded the relationship, it had been known since the second world war that it applied to direct labour costs. Less labour was needed for a given output depending on the experience of that labour. In aircraft production, for instance, labour input decreased by some 10–15% for every doubling of that labour’s experience.

The strategic implications of the experience curve came closer to shattering earth. For if costs fell (fairly predictably) with experience, and if experience was closely related to market share (as it seemed it must be), then the competitor with the biggest market share was going to have a big cost advantage over its rivals. QED: being market leader is a valuable asset that a firm relinquishes at its peril.

This was the logical underpinning of the idea of the growth share matrix (see article). The experience curve justified allocating financial resources to those businesses (out of a firm’s portfolio of businesses) that were (or were going to be) market leaders in their particular sectors. This, of course, implied starvation for those businesses that were not and never would be market leaders.

Over time, managers came to find the experience curve too imprecise to help them much with specific business plans. Inconveniently, different products had curves of a different slope and different sources of cost reduction. They did not, for instance, all have the same downward gradient as the semiconductor industry, where BCG had first identified the phenomenon. A study by the Rand Corporatio n found that ―a doubling in the number of [nuclear] reactors [built by an architect–engineer] results in a 5% reduction in both construction time and capital cost‖.

Part of the explanation for this discrepancy was that different products provided different opportunities to gain experience. Large products (such as nuclear reactors) are inherently bound to be produced in smaller volumes than small products (such as semiconductors). It is not easy for a firm to double the volume of production of something that it takes over five years to build, and whose total market may never be more than a few hundred units.

In theory, the experience curve should make it difficult for new entrants to challenge firms with a substantial market share. In practice, new firms enter old industries all the time, and before long many of them become major players in their markets. This is often because they have found ways of bypassing what might seem like the remorseless inevitability of the curve and its slope. For example, experience can be gained not only first-hand, by actually doing the production and finding out for yourself, but also second-hand, by reading about it and by being trained by people who have first-hand experience. Furthermore, firms can leapfrog over the

experience curve by means of innovation and invention. All the experience in the world in making black and white television sets is worthless if everyone wants to buy colour ones.

参考译文：

经验曲线

公司在生产一种产品上的经验越多，成本就越低。

20世纪60年代中期，波士顿咨询公司（BCG）的提出经验曲线（Experience Curve）。在与一家领先的半导体制造商的的合作中，调研人员注意到，该公司的生产产品的数量每增加一倍，生产的单位成本约下降25%。他们称这种关联为经验曲线：公司重复生产某项特定产品的经验越多，成本越低。BCG的创始人Bruce Henderson总结如下：

实质上，每一次经验的累积，能使成本实际上下降20-30%。这意味着，将通胀因素分离出来，成本仍然会持续下降。经验上的增长越快，成本下降也越快，反之，增长缓慢，成本下降的也越慢。

没有哪条基本的经济法规可以预测的经验曲线的存在，即使它已被证明适用于所有行业。它是被证明归纳而成的，而不仅仅是演绎。然而，即使它在像投资银行或法律援助等服务业也是可行的，但低成本带来的效果也显然没有传递到客户身上。

就其本身来说，曲线并没有给外界带来什么震动。即使当BCG第一次阐述了这个关系时，它早已在二战后因直接用于劳工成本而被人所知。减少劳动成本在一定程度上取决于在劳动力经验水平上的劳工输出。比如，在飞机的制造中，每个劳工的经验增加一倍，劳动投入就能减少了大约10-15％。

经验曲线的战略影响让人震惊。因为，如果成本随着经验积累而下降（可以预见），并且经验与市场份额密切相关（看起来是必然的），而拥有最大市场份额的竞争对手将拥有较大的成本优势。推证所得（QED）：一家公司作为行业龙头，能够规避市场风险是最具价值之处。

这是增长份额矩阵思想基础（growth share matrix见文章）的逻辑基础。经验曲线解释了，财政资源（不在公司的投资项目内的）会分配到那些，在特定行业已经或将要成为市场龙头的企业，当然，也暗示了在业务上处于劣势的企业永远不会成为市场龙头。

随着时间的推移，经营人员发现经验曲线在帮助他们制定具体的业务计划时也并完全精确。令人尴尬的是，不同的产品受不同的走势和资源影响有不同的曲线。并不是所有的产业都跟BCG发现的曲线理论的半导体产业一样，拥有同样的梯度下降走势。兰德公司（Rand Corporation）的研究发现，“（建筑工程师）制造的（核）反应堆数量增加一倍，所需的制造时间和资金成本下降5%。”

这种差异的部分原因是，不同的产品提供不同经验累积的机会。大型产品（如核反应堆）在生产批量必然比小型产品（如半导体）少。一家公司所生产的产品在整个市场上不过几百个的需求，那么要他们同样在5年的生产时间内去将产量提高一倍，并不是件容易的事情。

从理论上说，经验曲线使新进入者很难挑战有一定市场份额的公司。而事实上，市场上不停有新企业进入，而他们中很多迅速成为市场主体。原因多是，这些公司能够找到绕过这些看似无情的经验曲线的方法。比如，经验的获得不光可以靠亲自动手生产一个产品，还可以通过学习或接受有切身经验的人的培训获得。此外，公司也可以通过创新和发明跳出曲线的束缚。正如每个人都要购买彩色电视，那生产黑白电视机的经验积累在市场中就没有任何价值。

Passage 2

An astonishing rebound

Asia’s emerging economies are leadin g the way out of recession; now they must make their recovery last

IT NEVER pays to underestimate the bounciness of Asia’s emerging economies. After the region’s financial crisis of 1997-98, and again after the dotcom bust in 2001, outsiders predicted a lengthy period on the

floor—only for the tigers to spring back rapidly. Earlier this year it was argued that such export-dependent economies could not revive until customers in the rich world did. The West still looks weak, with many economies contracting in the second quarter, and even if America begins to grow in the second half of this year, consumer spending looks sickly. Yet Asian economies, increasingly decoupled from Western shopping habits, are growing fast.

The four emerging Asian economies which have reported GDP figures for the second quarter (China, Indonesia, South Korea and Singapore) grew by an average annualised rate of more than 10% (see article). Even richer and more sluggish Japan, which cannot match that figure, seems to be recovering faster than its Western peers. But emerging Asia should grow by more than 5% this year—at a time when the old G7 could contract by 3.5%. Western politicians should brace themselves for more talk of economic power drifting inexorably to the East. How has Asia made such an astonishing rebound?

Out of smoke and mirrors, say some Western sceptics. They claim China’s bounceback is yet another fake. The country’s numbers are certainly dodgy: the components of GDP do not add up, and the data are always published sus piciously early. China’s economy probably slowed more sharply in late 2008 than the official numbers suggest. But other indicators, which are less likely to be massaged, confirm that China’s economy is roaring back. Industrial production rose 11% in the year to July; electricity output, which fell sharply last year, is growing again; and car sales are 70% higher than a year ago.

And surely the whole of Asia cannot be engaged in a statistical fraud. South Korea’s GDP grew by an annualised 10% in the second quarter. Taiwan’s probably increased by even more: its industrial output jumped by an astonishing annualised rate of 89%. India was hit less hard by the global recession than many of its neighbours because it exports less, but its industrial production has also perked up, rising by a seasonally adjusted rate of 14% in the second quarter. Output in most of the smaller Asian economies is still lower than a year ago, because they suffered steep downturns late last year. But at economic turning points, one should track quarterly changes.

Thrift in the boom, stimulus in the slump

Asia’s rebound has several causes. First, manufacturing accounts for a big part of several local economies, and industries such as cars and electronics are highly cyclical: output drops sharply in a downturn and then spurts in the upturn. Second, the region’s decline in exports in late 2008 was exacerbated by the freezing up of global trade finance, which is now flowing again. Third, and most important, domestic spending has bounced back because the fiscal stimulus in the region was bigger and worked faster than in the West. India aside, the Asians entered this downturn with far healthier government finances than rich countries, allowing them to spend more money. Low private-sector debt made households and firms more likely to spend government handouts; Asian banks were also in better shape than their Western counterparts and able to lend more. Asia’s prudence during the past decade did not allow it to escape the global recession, but it m ade the region’s fiscal and monetary weapons more effective.

Western populists will no doubt once again try to blame their own sluggish performance on ―unfair‖ Asia. Ignore them. Emerging Asia’s average growth rate of almost 8% over the past two decades—three times the rate in the rich world—has brought huge benefits to the rest of the world. Its rebound now is all the more useful when growth in the West is likely to be slow. Asia cannot replace the American consumer: emerging Asia’s total consumption amounts to only two-fifths of America’s. But it is the growth in spending that really matters. In dollar terms, the increase in emerging Asia’s consumer-spending this year will more than offset the drop in spending in America and the euro area. This shift in spending from the West to the East will help rebalance the world economy.

Beijing, Bangkok and Bangalore: beware boastfulness

It is easy to boost an economy with lots of government spending. But Asian policymakers now face two difficult problems. Their immediate dilemma is how to sustain recovery without inflating credit and asset-price bubbles. Local equity and property markets are starting to froth. But policymakers’ reluctance to let their currencies rise faster against the dollar means that their moneta ry policy is, in effect, being set by America’s Federal Reserve, and is therefore too lax for these perkier economies. The longer-term challenge is that once the impact of governments’ fiscal stimulus fades, growth will slow unless economic reforms are put in place to bolster private spending—something Japan, alas, never did (see article).

Part of the solution to both problems—preventing bubbles and strengthening domestic spending—is to allow exchange rates to rise. If Asian central banks stopped piling up reserves to hold down their currencies, this would help stem domestic liquidity. Stronger currencies would also shift growth from exports to domestic demand and increase households’ real spending power—and help ward off protectionists in the West.

Hubris is the big worry. With the gap in growth rates between emerging Asia and the developed world heading towards a record nine percentage points this year, Chinese leaders have taken to warning America about its lax monetary policy (while Washington has stopped lecturing China about the undervalued yuan). But it would be a big mistake if Asia’s recovery led its politicians to conclude that there was no need to change their exchange-rate policies or adopt structural reforms to boost consumption. The tigers’ fas ter-than-expected rebound from their 1997-98 financial crisis encouraged complacency and delayed necessary reforms, which left them more vulnerable to the global downturns in 2001 and now. Make sure this new rise is not followed by another fall.

参考译文：

亚洲经济之绝地反弹

正逐步走出衰退泥潭的亚洲新兴经济，如今要做的是如何保持好反弹的势头

永远不要小觑亚洲新兴经济的反弹之势。无论是1997-1998年的亚洲金融危机，还是2001年互联网泡沫的破灭，外人都曾预言，这只亚洲猛虎若要再度出山，则需休养生息好一阵子。今年早些时候，又有说法认为在发达国家的消费者开始掏腰包之前，这种出口依赖型的经济很难恢复元气。气色虚弱的西方诸国，在第二季度仍遭受经济缩水。即便是在下半年开始出现经济回暖的美国，其消费市场依旧冷寂。但反观亚洲经济，在飞速增长的同时，非但没有理会西方的消费习惯，反而越发显得与―西‖隔绝了。

在第二季度的发布的GDP数据显示，亚洲四大经济体（中国，印度，韩国和新加坡）的平均年增长速度超过了10%。而经济更显富庶但却略带迟缓的日本，虽无法企及那样的数据，但比起那些西方强国，他的恢复速度有过之而无不及。当老牌的G7成员国经济缩水达3.5%的时候，新兴的亚洲却仍能在本年度享受到超过5%的经济增长。关于经济力量不可阻挡的东迁之势，西方政客们也该促膝长谈了。亚洲究竟何以具备如此惊人的―弹力‖？

一场障人耳目的骗术罢了，一些西方批评家说到。他们把中国的经济回勇权当是又一场骗局。国家的数据显然是有水分的：GDP的各种成分并没有增加，而且数据发布总是过早，不免令人生疑。或许，中国经济在在2008年尾声所遭受的创伤远比官方数据显示的要严重。但另有些不易被粉饰的指标确实印证了中国经济复苏的迹象。截止本年度7月份，工业生产涨了11个百分点，去年一度锐减的电力输出也开始攀升，汽车销量则较去年猛增了70%。

诚然，不是每个亚洲国家都会沉迷于―放卫星‖这样的小把戏。韩国在第二季度的GDP年增长就达到了10%。台湾的势头或许更为生猛：其工业产量一度井喷，增幅达到令人瞠目的89%。印度由于出口量甚小，因而并没有在这场全球衰退中感受到诸如其邻国这般切肤之痛。但印度的工业生产依旧飘红，第二季度的季节调整涨幅达到了14%。受去年年低经济滑坡的影响，许多亚洲小国的经济产值仍低于去年的水平。然而，到了这样一个节骨眼儿上，每一个季度的经济变化我们都应当牢牢盯紧。

丰衣足食不忘日积月累，危难时刻方能厚―激‖薄发

自然是有多方因素造就了亚洲经济的重生。其一，手工业在许多地方经济中所占比重巨大。一些产业，诸如汽车业和电子工业，都具有着高度的周期性：于是，低谷时的产业萧条转而迸发作经济复苏时的一片生机。其二，受冻的全球

贸易经济曾给2008年年末滑坡的亚洲出口业雪上加霜。如今，全球贸易已经解冻回暖。其三，也是重中之重。相比西方国家，亚洲的财政刺激数额更大，见效更快，所以才能拉动国内消费。除了印度，陷入这场经济滑坡的亚洲诸国拥有比发达国家更为健康的政府财政，来调用更多的资金。私营部门较低的债务给了个体户和公司更多的空间来赢得政府的补贴。比起西方的银行界，亚洲银行的腰包里能掏出更多的钱，状况也要好的多。亚洲在过去十年中一直谨小慎微，虽仍在此番全球衰退中避闪不及，却使亚洲的财政和货币利器显得异常锋利。

西方民粹派无疑又会将亚洲的―不公‖作为自身疲软的一个怪罪的借口。大家也别当回事。在过去20年中，新兴亚洲将近8%的平均增长速度（是发达国家的3倍）已经给世界其它地区创造了巨大的财富。尤其在西方国家可能停滞不前的情况下，亚洲的反弹愈发显得弥足珍贵。亚洲虽然无法匹敌美国的消费群，其消费总量也就美国的2/5，但亚洲消费量的攀升却是至关重要的。就美元而言，新兴亚洲在今年的消费增额就足以填补欧美消费下降所留下的大坑。这次自西向东的消费转移将会帮助世界经济重新找回平衡。

北京，曼谷，班加罗尔：切勿沾沾自喜

大量的政府支出更易推动经济的发展。但亚洲的政策制定者现在正面临两大棘手的问题。首先，当务之急是如何能够在维持经济回复势头的同时防止信贷膨胀和资本资产泡沫。当地的证券市场和楼市已经开始产生泡沫了。但是，政策制定者对货币与美元汇率的上升不甚情愿，也看出其货币政策实质上还受到美联储的牵制，因而也桎梏了日渐活跃的经济。更为长远的挑战在于，一旦政府财政刺激失效，经济势必减速，除非有经济改革来刺激个人消费——此举就连日本也未曾尝试。

防止泡沫和促进国内消费，解决这两大问题的部分方案是允许汇率上升。如果亚洲的中央银行不再用囤积外汇的手段来压低汇率，那么将有助于遏制国内货币的流动性。更为坚挺的货币能使出口增长转型至内需增加，提高个体的实际消费水平，进而抵御西方的贸易保护主义。

傲慢的态度乃一大隐忧。今年，随着新兴亚洲经济的增长率与发达国家之间的差距直奔向创纪录的9%，中国的领导人也已向美国松弛的货币政策亮起了红灯（华盛顿方面也已不再指责人民币被低估的问题）。若亚洲的复苏致使其政客们相信无需调整汇率政策或采取结性构改革来拉动消费，那恐怕就失了大策。在1997-1998年的金融危机中，亚洲猛虎们超乎预期的康复速度，滋生了自满情绪也耽误了必要的改革，使其在2001年以及此次全球衰退中愈发显得气虚。那得确保新一轮经济复苏后，不会一波平息又一波来袭。

Passage 3

Is Wall Street back to normal? Keeping up with the Goldmans

Goldman Sachs’s record profits are not a signal to relax

TO THE survivors, the spoils. That is the cry going up at Goldman Sachs after it chalked up recession-defying—nay, record-breaking—quarterly profits on July 14th. Minting more than $3 billion in three months, so soon after its own near-death experience in the wake of Lehman Brothers’ demise, will enhance Goldman’s reputation as Wall Street’s overachiever. But it will also strike some as obscene given the scale of public support needed to keep the firm and its peers from buckling last year.

The first half of 2009 was fertile territory for investment bankers as markets rebounded and companies (not least banks themselves) rushed to raise debt and equity. But none of the banks due to report after The Economist went to press, not even a resurgent JPMorgan Chase, was expected to come close to Goldman’s blowout performance. Having incurred smaller losses than rivals, it is still prepared to deploy risk capital where others fear to tread.

Goldman claims that most of its profit came not from ―proprietary‖ trading, or punting its own money, but by acting as a middleman, making markets for clients in everything from bonds and shares to currencies and commodities. Such business, barely profitable in the boom years, has become a gold mine as competition has dwindled and bid-ask spreads (the money dealers pocket on trades) have ballooned. A bank with the capital and cojones to deal mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can earn 10-15 times more

than before the crisis.

Goldman, a dyed-in-the-wool trading firm, is grabbing such opportunities with glee, taking business from once ubiquitous but now reeling rivals such as Citigroup and UBS. It also helps that its arch-rival Morgan Stanley has pulled in its horns. By contrast, Goldman’s value-at-risk number—an imperfect but popular measure of risk appetite—hit a new high in the second quarter. But with spreads so high the firm no longer needs to use so much borrowed money to get results. Its leverage ratio has fallen to 14, half its pre-crisis level but still higher than a typical commercial bank’s.

Big profits mean big payouts. For the year to date Goldman has set aside $11.4 billion for compensation and benefits, more even than in the halcyon first half of 2007. Its ratio of pay to revenues continues to hover near the dizzying 50% level that was the norm on Wall Street before the meltdown

For a firm that probably would have collapsed without government capital, debt guarantees and fast-track approval to turn itself into a commercial bank (not to mention a multi-billion-dollar payout as a counterparty of American International Group), such largesse looks cheeky at best. It has already drawn rebukes on Capitol Hill, even though Goldman has repaid the government’s $10 billion preferred-equity investment. ―They can’t continue along these lines or there will be outrage,‖ thundered Jon Tester, a Democratic senator.

The windfall will eventually dwindle. Goldman and other survivors will continue to benefit from the coming wave of debt issuance by federal, state and local governments. But dealer spreads are sure to shrink as markets normalise and those that have retreated return to the fray. This is likely to be only partially offset by a pickup in businesses tied more closely to economic growth, such as advising on mergers and acquisitions.

Wall Street also faces tighter shackles. Regulators are on the warpath against commodities speculators. A clampdown is coming in credit derivatives; America’s Department of Justice has joined those probing that market. The largest financial firms face higher capital requirements. These changes may not bring Goldman back to earth but they will clip its wings.

Markets remain fragile. Even Goldman would struggle to make money without the array of government backstops propping up the system. Others are struggling just to survive. As The Economist went to press, CIT, a liquidity-crunched lender to small and middling companies, was scrambling to avert bankruptcy by lining up emergency loans from its debtholders after the government pulled out of rescue talks. Officials had looked at several options but concluded that the firm was too sick to save—and small enough not to pose a systemic threat. But some policymakers worry that the financial system is still in no state to absorb even modest shocks.

And although a few on Wall Street are reaching for the champagne, most Main Street lenders are more inclined to drown their sorrows. Credit-card losses, fuelled by rising rates of unemployment, are at a record high. Mortgage delinquencies have yet to stabilise, with supposedly high-quality ―prime‖ loans now also sour ing fast and loan-modification schemes having little impact.

Losses are also accelerating in commercial property, on which banks of all sizes loaded up in the fat years. This was the biggest stain on Goldman’s ledger, accounting for $1.4 billion of mark-to-market losses. Unnervingly for other banks, many of which carry their commercial-property loans at close to par value, Goldman marks its portfolio at a mere half that.

A Federal Reserve financing programme was recently extended to commercial mortgage-backed securities but many are or will become ineligible under its present rules because of ratings downgrades. Meanwhile, a public-private scheme to take troubled loans off banks’ books has stalled, partly because of accounting-rule changes that give the banks more leeway in valuing their assets. A sister programme for toxic securities finally

got going this month, albeit in substantially scaled-down form.

Small wonder then that David Viniar, Goldman’s finance chief, admitted on a call with analysts that ―we are way far away from being out of the woods‖. The firm may be scooping up market share, but the bigger picture is still far from pretty.

参考译文：

华尔街恢复元气了吗

与高盛齐头并进

高盛创纪录的利润并不意味着可以放松。

对于金融风暴的生还者而言，他们会享受风暴留下的盛宴。7月14日，高盛逆市前行，创下了单季度的利润新高，人们为此欢呼雀跃。雷曼兄弟瓦解之后，高盛也险些倒闭。但在那之后不久的三个月中，它收入了30亿美元的利润。这无疑将巩固高盛在华尔街佼佼者的地位。但同时也会让人感到厌恶，因为公众曾付出了高昂的代价来维持高盛以及它的同行在去年的正常运营。

随着市场逐渐回稳，以及各家公司（不仅仅是银行家自生）急于进行股权融资和举债，2009年上半年对于投资银行家来说就是收获颇丰的一年。但由于《经济学人》出版后的报道，没有一家银行，甚至是获得新生的JP摩根.大通也无望匹敌高盛突出的业绩。比起其对手而言，高盛损失较小，仍准备继续部署风险资本，而其他银行纷纷望而止步。

高盛表示其大多数利润不是来自于业主帐户交易，或是拿它的资金下赌注，而是来自于作为中间商的活动，在债券，股票，货币及商品领域为顾客营造市场。这些生意在经济繁盛时期几乎无利可图，但现在却成了吸金的重要商业领域，因为业界竞争下降，而买卖差价也（货币交易商从中获利丰厚）不断高攀。拥有资本的银行可以处理房利美和房地美发行的抵押贷款证券，而收益却是危机前的10到15倍。

作为一家彻彻底底的交易公司，高盛正高兴地抓住此次机会，从以前无处不在但现在却步履蹒跚的竞争对手花旗集团和UBS手中抢过商机。同时，它的主要对手摩根士丹利此时也无力扩张，这对高盛来说无疑就是千载难逢之机。高盛的风险价值数据——一个并不完美但使用流行的测量风险的指标——在第二季度达到了新高。但高差价的存在使得公司不必使用过多的贷款就可以取得既定目标。高盛杠杆率已经下滑到14，仅为金融危机前的一半，但对于一个典型的商业银行来说还是显得略高。

高额利润也意味着巨额支出。迄今为止，高盛拿出了114亿美元用于补偿金和福利金，这比动荡的2007上半年的数额还多。公司薪金与收入比仍在保持在令人羡慕的50%，这在华尔街危机到来之前曾是通行的惯例。

对于高盛来说，没有政府提供的资本，债务担保和快速转变为商业银行的批准（更不要提其同行美国国际集团拿出的数十亿美元薪金），它几乎难以为继。而现在，高盛这样的巨额支出似乎显得厚颜无耻。该行为已经引起了来自国会山的谴责之声，尽管高盛偿还了政府的100亿美元优绩股投资.民主但议员Jon Tester大发雷霆：“它们不能继续大笔开支，否则会引起人们愤怒。”

这种大笔巨额的收入最终会萎缩。高盛和其它的幸存者将继续从联邦，各州及当地政府发行的债务中受益。但随着市场恢复正常，以及那些退却的公司逐渐开始运营，交易员的差价肯定会缩小。如果与经济增长紧密相关的公司能够复苏（如给合并并购活动提供咨询的公司），那差价的缩小还可得到一丝缓和，

同时，华尔街也面临着更多的束缚。监管者和商品投机者相互为敌，水火不容。信贷衍生品将会遭到严格清理，美国司法部也参与其中，调查该市场的运作情况。最大的金融公司必须拥有更高的资本储备。这些变化也许不会使高盛大伤元气，但会阻碍它的发展。

市场仍旧脆弱不稳定。在没有政府支持金融体系的情况下，高盛这样的公司也得奋力拼搏才能盈利。其它的公司则是挣扎着活命。在《经济学人》出版之时，CIT，一个向中小公司提供贷款而自身资金紧缺的借贷公司正挣扎着排队等候债务持有者提供的紧急贷款（政府已经撤离出援救谈判），从而避免倒闭。官员们权衡了数个选择，但最终认为该公司损失过于惨重，无法挽救——同时规模也偏小，不会给整个体系带来威胁。但是一些决策者认为，目前的金融体系

还不能接受任何轻微的振荡。

尽管一些华尔街的商人开始开酒庆祝，大多数普通的借贷者更愿意排解他们的忧愁。不断攀升的失业率造成了信用卡业务的损失，并创下了新高。按揭贷款的违约至今还没稳定下来，所谓的高质量“普通”贷款正在不断地恶化，而贷款调整计划产生的影响也显得微乎其微。

商业房产的损失不断加剧，而大大小小的银行在房市繁荣的时期大举买入这些房产。这是高盛帐户上最大的污点，市价计值的损失达到了14亿美元。许多银行的商业房产借贷额接近其票面价值，因而它们心惊胆战，惶恐不安，而高盛组合投资的价值仅为票面价值的一半。

最近，美联储的融资计划享受面扩大到了商业抵押贷款证券，但是由于评级下调，在目前的规则之下，许多银行都不能享受到该融资计划带来的好处。与此同时，一个将麻烦贷款剥离银行帐簿的公私合营计划也遭到终止，部分原因是因为会计规则的改变使得银行获得了更大的评估其资产的余地。本月，另一个削减不良债券的项目最终得以施行，但其执行范围被大大削弱。

难怪高盛的财政总监David Viniar在与分析师通话时承认“我们还远为摆脱困境”。该公司也许正在攫取市场份额，但公司的总体情况还远不够令人满意。

Passage 4

Creative tension

The internet giant seeks new ways to foster innovation

FEW companies are as creative as Google, which serves up innovations almost as fast as its popular search-engine serves up results. This week the firm unveiled a new version of its Chrome web browser and launched Fast Flip, which lets users scroll through the contents of an online newspaper in much the same way that they leaf through its pages in print. On September 30th the company will roll out another fledgling product, Google Wave, for a test involving some 100,000 people. Billed as a revolutionary way to collaborate online, Wave is also the product of a new, more structured approach to innovation within the company.

For years Google has had a fairly informal product-development system. Ideas percolated upwards from Googlers without any formal process for senior managers to review them. Teams working on innovative stuff were generally kept small. Such a system worked fairly well while Google was in its infancy. But now that it is a giant with 20,000 employees, the firm risks stifling potential money-spinners with a burgeoning bureaucracy. To stop that happening, Google has begun to hold regular meetings at which employees are encouraged to present new ideas to Eric Schmidt, the firm’s chief executive, and Larry Page and Sergey Brin, its co-founders. It has also given some projects more resources and independence than in the past. Both moves are designed to ward off the conservatism that can set in as companies mature. ―We are actively trying to prevent middle-agedom,‖ explains Mr Schmidt.

Google Wave has benefited from this anti-ageing treatment. The new software allows people to create shared content that is hosted on Google’s servers online, or ―in the cloud‖. When they open Google Wave, users see three columns on their screens. The left-hand one contains folders and address books, while the middle column is a list of ―waves‖—online conversations users have initiated or signed up to. Clicking on a wave displays its contents in the right-hand column. People can post text, photos, web feeds and other things into a wave and exchange comments with one another instantly.

The sof tware excites tech folk, some of whom reckon it poses a threat to Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration

package. Inside Google the project has generated much enthusiasm too, plus some controversy. The Wave team deliberately distanced itself from Google’s headquarters, choosing to be based in the company’s Sydney office. And it insisted that its work be kept secret for a long time so its nascent idea was not subject to nit-picking criticism. Some Googlers felt this was a betrayal of the firm’s open culture. ―Not everyone inside the company thought that this was super cool,‖ admits Lars Rasmussen, one of the two brothers leading the project, which was allowed to recruit dozens of software engineers to its ranks.

That has not dented Google’s enthusiasm for creat ing more such teams. Mr Schmidt wants the number to grow from a dozen or so today to perhaps 50. The challenge, he says, is to find leaders with the calibre of Mr Rasmussen, who previously worked on an initiative that evolved into the successful Google Maps.

Some Google-watchers see a much bigger challenge. ―Google has been masterful at coming up with a lot of ideas, but none of them has matured to become something that moves the revenue needle,‖ says Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, an investment bank. In fairness to the company, that is partly because many of its popular innovations, such as Gmail, have been given away to boost search-related advertising, which accounts for almost all of Google’s revenues. But search has been suffering in the downturn: in th e second quarter of 2009 Google’s revenues were $5.5 billion, barely 3% higher than the same period in 2008. Time, then, for the company to find new ideas that can make a big splash.

参考译文：

创新危机

互联网巨人寻求新路鼓励创新

论创造力，及得上谷歌的公司寥寥无几。谷歌出炉创意的速度犹如它广为人知的搜索引擎获取结果，迅雷不及掩耳。本周，这家公司发布了一款新的chrome浏览器并采用了“快速翻转”，用户几乎可以像翻阅纸媒报纸一样翻阅网上报纸的内容。9月30日，谷歌公司将会推出另一新产品Google Wave，给10万名用户进行体验。Wave被宣传为革命性的在线交流方式，而作为一款新产品，也是谷歌公司内部创新更为系统化的途径。

多年来，谷歌公司的产品开发体制极不规范。不经过任何高级管理人员审核的正式程序，谷歌员工的奇思妙想便传播开来。负责创意开发的工作团队一般保持在较小的规模。在谷歌公司起步阶段，这样的体制运转良好。但现在谷歌成了一家拥有2万名员工的大公司，因此，这家公司官僚作风日益滋长，扼杀了潜在的价值创造能力，铤而走险。

为了亡羊补牢，谷歌公司已经开始定期召开会议，鼓励员工们在会上向公司总裁Eric Schmidt和两名联合创始人Larry Page与Sergey Brin提供创意。与过去相比，公司也给了一些项目更多的资金和自主权。这两项举措都是为了防止公司走向成熟的过程中可能犯的保守主义。Schmidt先生说：“我们正在积极主动地预防中年危机。”

Google Wave正是在这个抗老化治疗中应运而生。这款新软件让人们在谷歌网络服务器或者“云端”存储器的支持下进行资源共享。用户打开Google Wave的时候，他们会在显示器上看到三个栏目。左边的栏目包涵多个文件夹和地址簿，而中间的栏目是一列“wave”——在线聊天用户事先注册这一功能。点击一个wave右边的栏目就会显示出它的内容。人们可以上传文字、图片、网络订阅源和其它东西到一个wave，然后互相进行实时评论。

这个软件让科技一族兴高采烈，其中有人认为它对微软公司的协作套件SharePoint构成了威胁。在谷歌公司内，这一项目也让员工们欢欣鼓舞，不过也有一些争议。Wave团队有意疏远谷歌总部，选择在公司的悉尼办事处安营扎寨。他

们坚持要求将团队的工作长期保密，以免有人对他们的创意吹毛求疵。一部分谷歌员工觉得此举有悖公司的开放文化。领导这个项目的是两兄弟，其中Lars Rasmussen承认：“并不是全公司的人都觉得这是一件超级酷的事。”这个项目允许招募一群软件工程师加入它的行列。

异议并没有浇灭谷歌公司组建更多创意团队的热情。Schmidt先生想让团队数量从今天的十来个增长到50个左右。他表示，找到具Rasmussen先生之才的团队领袖是挑战所在。Rasmussen先前进行的创意后来发展成了现在大获成功的谷歌地图。

有些人观察着谷歌的一举一动，他们认为挑战远远不止如此。Piper Jaffray投资银行的Gene Munster表示：“在提出大量创意方面，谷歌公司一马当先。但这些创意中发展成型，变成真金白银的一个都没有。”公平地讲，此种情况一部分是由于谷歌的许多受欢迎的创新，比如Gmail，为了加强和搜索相关的广告被赠送出去了。谷歌公司几乎全部的收入都来源于此类广告。但经济危机中搜索部分饱经磨难：2009年第二个季度，谷歌公司的收入为55亿美元，仅比2008年同期增长了3%。那么，开发出一鸣惊人的创意，谷歌公司此时不鸣，更待何时。

Passage 5

A concrete problem

Banks face another round of property-related bad debts: this time it will be flashy offices, not rundown homes

THERE is something comforting about investing in bricks and mortar. To many people it is a solid, “real” asset, unlike those complex pieces of paper that flighty financial markets spend all their time trading.

But that very tangibility can lead to reckless speculation. Banks are almost always willing to lend against the security of

property. The more they lend, the higher prices are driven. History is littered with stories of property crazes that ended in tears, from the Florida land boom of the 1920s to the recent subprime bubble.

After two years of pain, American house prices seem to be stabilising. But attention is now switching to the commercial-property market. Here too loans were bundled together to make complex securities, known as commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBSs), on which defaults are now rising. And here too prices were driven higher by the use of borrowed money. Thanks to cheap finance, investors could use the time-honoured trick of covering the interest payments with the rental yield and hoping for capital growth on top.

Of this, there was plenty. IPD, an information group, calculates an index of global commercial-property returns. Between 1998 and 2007, this index trebled, easily outstripping the performance of the world’s stockmarkets. And last year, while the MSCI World Index of global share prices suffered a negative return of 40.3%, commercial property lost just 10.1%. The good news is that, in most developed markets, the boom did not result in a glut of new building. But the good news pretty much ends there. Vacancy rates are rising sharply and in

some businesses, such as investment banking, demand for space may never reattain its previous peak.

The next shoe to drop

The aftermath of bubbles can last for a long time in financial markets. Wall Street has been celebrating the return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the terrain above 9,000. But it first passed that mark in April 1998. As with paper, so it can be with property. In Japan land prices are still nearly 60% below the peak they reached in 1991. Earlier this decade American homebuyers took false assurance from the oft-quoted fact that house prices had not fallen, at the national level, since the second world war; well, they have now. At the moment transactions have dried up in the commercial-property market as owners try to avoid selling at a loss. Those owners are implicitly assuming that a rebound is imminent, yet the downturn may be prolonged.

Such a downturn could inflict further damage on the banks. All the bad news may not yet be reflected on their balance-sheets; although they have had to take the hit on traded securities, like CMBSs, banks are usually slow to write down property-related loans. But as those loans come up for refinancing, losses will have to be taken unless owners put up more capital. Richard Parkus, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, reckons that American banks may eventually face $200 billion-$230 billion of losses on property-related loans.

Most of those losses are likely to land on small, regional banks, rather than the Wall Street giants that wobbled last year. That will still leave the American authorities with a dilemma if the losses prove potentially fatal. Will they allow banks to fail on the ground they are “too small to rescue”, even if their failure would devastate the economies of the regions they serve? On the other hand, if they want to rescue the banks, do regulators have the resources to cope?

This is a dilemma that will spread worldwide. The commercial-property downturn has a greater geographical spread than the residential bust. Prices and rents have already taken a hit in Asian financial centres like Singapore and Hong Kong, in developing economies like India and Russia and in European countries such as Spain and Ireland (see article).

The biggest danger may lie in refusing to acknowledge the scale of the problem. Some countries are awake to this: in Britain, where prices have fallen by nearly half in real terms, big property groups have raised equity to shore up their balance-sheets, and reduced prices are attracting foreign buyers to London. As the example of Japan shows, a short,

sharp fall in prices is better than prolonged obfuscation and denial.

参考译文：

现实的问题

银行面临另一轮与地产相关的死帐：这一次将会是富丽堂皇的办公楼，而不是破败不堪的住房

投资房地产，人们多少会得到一丝安慰。对于许多人来说，它不像变幻无常的金融市场花费所有时间交易的复杂的股

票那样，是一个可靠，“真正的”资产。

但正是这种实物性导致了粗心大意的炒卖。银行几乎总是愿意在地产安全的情况下放贷。放贷的越多，地产的价格也就越高。有关炒地产热的故事早已屡见不鲜，但到头来都是以泪水收场，远有20世纪20年代的佛罗里达地价猛涨，近有次级抵押贷款泡沫破灭。

经历了2年痛苦之后，美国房价似乎趋于稳定了。但是现如今人们的视线转移到了商业地产市场。在这里，许许多多的贷款捆绑在一起催生出复杂难以操作的证券，即按揭贷款支持的商业证券（CMBSs）。现在按揭违约呈逐渐上升趋势。并且，贷款的使用迫使地价不断攀升。由于融资较为廉价，投资者可以利用经过时间检验的投机伎俩进行操作，即用房屋的租金来支付应付利息，另外期待资本上涨。

这种现象比比皆是。房地产信息机构IPD预测全球商业地产收益指数。在1998到2007几年间，这个指数翻了三倍，轻而易举地令全球股票市场表现相形见绌。并且就在去年，当全球股票价格MSCI全球指数遭遇40.3%的负收益时，商业地产损失却只有10.1%。

利好消息是，在大部分发达国家市场中，地产价格的攀升并未导致新房的供过于求。然而这儿也恰恰就是利好消息消失的地方。房屋闲置率急剧上升，并且一些寻求生存空间的机构，比如投资银行，也许不能再现往日的辉煌。

需要扔的下一只鞋子

泡沫破灭后产生的阴霾会在金融市场停留一段时间。华尔街已庆祝道琼斯平均工业指数重新站在9000点以上。但是它首次超过该点是在1998年的四月份。股票尚且如此，地产就不用说了。在日本，现在地价仍然低于1991年地价最高值的将近60%。早在十年前，人们常说自二战以来，就全国水平而言，房价未曾出现下降。美国购房者从中得到了看似真实的慰藉；不过，他们现在得到了。眼下，随着投资者尽力避免茫然地抛售股票，商业地产市场上的交易越来越少。这些人虽然冥冥之中认为股市反弹即将出现，然而下滑的形势也许会持续。

这样的下滑形势会给银行招致更大的损失。所有利空消息也许并不会体现在其资产平衡表上；虽然像按揭贷款支持的商业证券一样，银行会在交易的证券上痛快的赚一笔，然而减记与地产相关的贷款的步伐缓慢。但是当这些贷款快要到再融资的时候，除非投资者注入更多的资金，否则将不得不考虑这些损失。一位德意志银行的分析师，Richard Parkus 认为美国各大银行最后将会面临2000亿到2300亿美元与地产相关的贷款的巨额损失。

这其中的大部分损失有可能降临在一些小的，区域性的银行头上，而不是去年摇摇晃晃的华尔街巨头上。如果这些损失被证明是潜在致命的话，美国众多监管机构会陷入窘境。他们会因为这些银行太小了，没有救的必要，而让他们倒闭吗，即使这些银行的倒闭会给予他们所服务的地区经济以致命一击？另一方面，就算监管机构想去拯救这些银行，可监管者有充足的资源吗？

这一窘境会波及全球。商业地产下滑的地理影响范围要远比住房泡沫的广。在亚洲金融中心新加坡和香港，发展中国家印度和俄罗斯，欧洲国家西班牙和爱尔兰，价格和租金已经颇受欢迎。

最大的危险在于拒绝承认问题的严重程度。不过一些国家已觉察到此：在房价按实际计算已经下降将近一半的英国，大的地产机构已经开始开始招募普通股来支撑资产平衡表，并且以减价吸引国外购房者到伦敦购房。正如日本所出现的那样，短暂而急剧的房价下降要远比混淆视线和否认躲避好得多。

Passage 6

The power of mobile money

Mobile phones have transformed lives in the poor world. Mobile money could have just as big an impact ONCE the toys of rich yuppies, mobile phones have evolved in a few short years to become tools of economic empowerment for the world’s poorest people. These phones compensate for inadequate infrastructure, such as bad roads and slow postal services, allowing information to move more freely, making markets more efficient and unleashing entrepreneurship. All this has a direct impact on economic growth: an extra ten phones per 100 people in a typical developing country boosts GDP growth by 0.8 percentage points, according to the World Bank. More than 4 billion handsets are now in use worldwide, three-quarters of them in the developing world (see our special report). Even in Africa, four in ten people now have a mobile phone.

With such phones now so commonplace, a new opportunity beckons: mobile money, which allows cash to travel as quickly as a text message. Across the developing world, corner shops are where people buy vouchers to top up their calling credit. Mobile-money services allow these small retailers to act rather like bank branches. They can take your cash, and (by sending a special kind of text message) credit it to your mobile-money account. You can then transfer money (again, via text message) to other registered users, who can withdraw it by visiting their own local corner shops. You can even send money to people who are not registered users; they receive a text message with a code that can be redeemed for cash.

By far the most successful example of mobile money is M-PESA, launched in 2007 by Safaricom of Kenya. It now has nearly 7m users—not bad for a country of 38m people, 18.3m of whom have mobile phones. M-PESA first became popular as a way for young, male urban migrants to send money back to their families in the countryside. It is now used to pay for everything from school fees (no need to queue up at the bank every month to hand over a wad of bills) to taxis (drivers like it because they are carrying around less cash). Similar schemes are popular in the Philippines and South Africa.

Banking on it

Extending mobile money to other poor countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, would have a huge impact. It is a faster, cheaper and safer way to transfer money than the alternatives, such as slow, costly transfers via banks and post offices, or handing an envelope of cash to a bus driver. Rather than spend a day travelling by bus to the nearest bank, recipients in rural areas can spend their time doing more productive things. The incomes of Kenyan households using M-PESA have increased by 5-30% since they started mobile banking, according to a recent study.

Mobile money also provides a stepping stone to formal financial services for the billions of people who lack access to savings accounts, credit and insurance. Although for regulatory reasons M-PESA accounts do not pay interest, the service is used by some people as a savings account. Having even a small cushion of savings to fall back on allows people to deal with unexpected expenses, such as medical treatment, without having to sell a cow or take a child out of school. Mobile banking is safer than storing wealth in the form of cattle (which can become diseased and die), gold (which can be stolen), in neighbourhood savings schemes (which may be fraudulent) or by stuffing banknotes into a mattress. In the Maldives many people lost their savings in the tsunami of 2004; it hopes to introduce universal mobile banking next year.

Financial innovation has a bad reputation at the moment, because exotic derivatives were one of the causes of

the credit crunch. But mobile money and other new ideas that could help the poor (see article) provide a useful reminder that financial innovation in itself is not always a bad thing.

Given all of its benefits, why is mobile money not more widespread? Its progress has been impeded by banks, which fear that mobile operators will eat their lunch, and by regulators, who worry that mobile-money schemes will be abused by fraudsters and money-launderers. In many countries mobile money has been blocked because operators do not have banking licences and their networks of corner-shop retailers do not meet the strict criteria for formal bank branches. And some mobile-money schemes that have been launched, such as one in Tanzania, failed to catch on. As recently as a year ago people wondered whether M-PESA’s success was a fluke.

Out of Africa, always something new

But in recent months there have been some more hopeful signs. Kenya’s success story has demonstrated mobile money’s potential, and its benefits are starting to be more widely appreciated. More enlightened regulators are no longer insisting that these services meet the rigid rules for formal banking. Some banks, meanwhile, have come to see mobile money not as a threat but as an opportunity, and are teaming up with operators. And phone companies have studied Kenya closely to learn how to establish and market a successful mobile-money scheme. MTN, Africa’s biggest operator, has launched a mobile-money service in Uganda in conjunction with Standard Bank; it appears to be doing well. MTN is fine-tuning its service in Uganda before rolling it out across Africa.

Banks and regulators elsewhere should take note. Instead of lobbying against mobile money, banks should see it as an exciting chance to exploit telecoms firms’ vast retail networks and powerful brands to reach new customers. Tie-ups between banks and operators will help reassure regulators. But they, too, need to be prepared to be more flexible. People who want to sign up for mobile-money services should not, for example, have to jump through all the hoops required to open a bank account. Concerns about money-laundering can be dealt with by imposing limits (typically $100) on the size of mobile-money transactions, and on the maximum balance. And inflexible rules governing the types of establishments where cash can be paid in and taken out ought to be relaxed.

Mobile money presents a shining opportunity to start a second wave of mobile-led development across the poor world. Operators, banks and regulators should seize it.

参考译文：

移动钱包的力量

移动电话已经改变了贫穷世界的生活，而移动钱包可以具有一样大的影响力

曾是富有雅皮士玩具的移动电话在短短几年变成了世界上最贫困国家增强经济实力的工具。移动电话弥补了交通不便，邮政服务低效等基础设施不足的缺憾，使信息能够更加畅通地传播，提高了市场效率并释放了人们的创业精神。这对经济产生了直接的影响：世界银行称，在典型的发展中国家里，每百人多拥有十部移动电话，就会推动国民生产总值增长0.8个百分点。如今全世界有40多亿部手机在使用中，其中的四分之三在发展中国家。即使是在非洲，现在每十个人中就有四个人有手机。

随着移动电话广泛普及，新的商机随之而来：移动钱包，可以使得传送现金像传送文本信息一样快捷。在发展中国家，街角小商店是人们购买现金充值卡的地方。移动钱包业务使得小零售商像银行分行一样运转。他们会接受你的现金，（以发送一种特殊文本信息的方式）将之计入你的移动钱包账户。（通样，通过文本信息）你可以将现金转给其他注册用户，这样他们就可以在当地街角商店提取这笔现金。你甚至可以向非注册用户汇现金：他们接受到带有密码的文本信息，凭密码兑取现金。

至今移动钱包最成功的例子就是由肯尼亚的Safaricom公司在2007年发起的M-PESA项目。如今，这一项目已有700万的用户——对一个总人口为3800万，其中183万人拥有手机的国家来说，已经很不错了。M-PESA 首先在到城市打工的年轻男性中流行开来，他们以这种方式向农村的家里汇钱。现在则已被用来支付从学费（无需每个月都得在银行排队缴纳一大堆账单）到出租车费（司机喜欢这样因为他们正携带更少的现金在身上）等各种费用。

投资移动钱包

将移动钱包业务扩展到其它尤其是非洲和亚洲贫穷国家会产生重大的影响。移动钱包业务更快捷，便宜和安全，而其它方式，比如银行，邮政或通过公共汽车司机周转现金则更加费时和昂贵。与其花一天时间坐着公共汽车到最近的银行取钱，农村地区的人可以节省这些时间做些更有意义的事。最近的一项研究显示，参与M-PESA项目，并开始使用移动银行业务的肯尼亚家庭的收入增加了5-30%。

移动钱包业务也为数十亿缺乏储蓄账户、信贷和保险服务的人群在面对常规金融业务时提供了一个跳板。尽管由于缺乏监管，M-PESA账户不需支付利息，但该业务已被一些人用作储蓄账户。有了这一数量虽少但可用于急救的储蓄，穷人便可以在面对突如其来的开销，比如医药费时，不必非得卖掉一头牛或让孩子辍学。移动银行也比养牛（会得病死掉）和收藏黄金（会被偷掉）更加安全，也比社区储蓄计划（可能是欺诈）或将存款单藏在床垫下更安全。在马尔代夫，许多人在2004年的海啸中失去了储蓄。该国希望明年能够全面普及移动银行。

因为异域衍生品是信贷紧缩的一个原因，因此目前金融创新声名不佳。但移动钱包和其它可以帮助贫穷人群的新想法对我们也有所启发，那就是金融创新本身并不总是一件坏事。

既然有这么多的好处，为何移动钱包没有得到更广泛的普及呢？进展如此缓慢是因为受到银行和监管机构的阻挠：银行害怕移动运营商会吃掉他们的利益，而监管机构则是担心移动钱包计划会被诈骗和洗钱者滥用。移动钱包已经在很多国家被阻止，理由是运营商没有银行执照，以及他们的街角商店零售商网络没有达到常规银行分行的标准。而一些已经发起的移动钱包计划，比如坦桑尼亚的一个计划，都没能够流行起来。就在一年前，人们开始怀疑M-PESA的成功是不是只是昙花一现。

非洲之外，移动钱包还是个新事物

但就在最近又有了更多有希望的迹象。肯尼亚的成功显示了移动钱包的潜力，它带来的好处也受到广泛赞誉。开窍了点的监管者也不再坚持这些业务必须遵守常规银行要遵守的硬性规则。同时，一些银行开始将移动钱包看作是个机遇，而不是威胁，并正和运营商展开合作。非洲最大的移动钱包运营商MTN与渣打银行在乌干达合作发起了一项移动钱包业务。从目前来看，运营得不错。在向非洲大陆全面推广前，MTN正在完善它在乌干达的业务。

其它地方的银行和监管机构应该注意了。不仅不应游说反对移动钱包，而应视此为一个充分利用电信企业巨大的零售网络，并发挥强大的品牌效应以争取新客户的机会。银行和运营商的联手也会使监管者减少忧虑。前两者自己也应更有灵活性，比如说想要签订移动钱包业务的人不必再像开设银行账户那样经历种种关卡。至于有关洗钱问题的担忧，则可以通过为交易规模和最大账户余额设置上限（通常为100美元）。同时应该放松用于监管现金支付机构的僵硬规则。

移动钱包业务向人们展示了一个将普及贫穷国家，由移动领域引领的第二波灿烂商机。运营商、银行还有监管者应抓住这次机会

Passage 7

The boom in busts

Bankruptcies are at near-record levels

IT IS not quite the Armageddon that was being predicted in the weeks after Lehman Brothers became America’s biggest corporate bankruptcy last September. But this recession is still on course to be second only to the Depression in terms of companies going bust. Measured by the firm’s assets at the time of filing for protection from their creditors, the past year has seen five of the eight biggest bankruptcy filings in the history of American business—with Washington Mutual, Thornburg Mortgage, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler joining Lehman on the list.

A good indicator of the awfulness of the downturn is the market for junk bonds, which surely deserve the name again after nearly two decades of attempts to rebrand them as safer-sounding ―high-yield debt‖. At the end of

May 9.2% of high-yield debt issues (globally, but dominated by American paper) had defaulted during the previous 12 months, compared with less than 1% in the year to December 2007. The failure rate is on course to hit 13.8% in the fourth quarter of this year, according to Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, after which it should start to decline. That would be slightly higher than in the two previous recessions, when the percentage of defaults peaked at 10.9% (in January 2002) and 12.8% (in June 1991), but below the all-time high of around 16.3% in 1933.

Although they have wobbled a bit lately, junk-bond prices have recovered sharply in the past few months. This is particularly true of distressed issues (the ones trading at yields at least ten percentage points higher than those of Treasury bonds). In the fourth quarter of last year 87.5% of high-yield issues were distressed, which on past form implied an eventual default rate of more than 20% in the fourth quarter of this year, says Martin Fridson, of Fridson Investment Advisors. Now about 40% of issues are distressed, implying a default rate of 10% this time next year. According to JPMorgan, there were 15 defaults a month in the first four months of 2009, but the rate fell by half in May and June.

Not surprisingly, many prominent recent failures have been firms reliant on the American consumer, such as Eddie Bauer, a clothing retailer, and Six Flags, a theme-park operator. On July 1st Crabtree & Evelyn, a maker of soap and fragrances, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. There is much speculation about possible bankruptcy for Harrah’s Entertainment, a huge casino operator. Lear, a supplier of car parts, was expected to file as The Economist went to press.

The leading role of the federal government in the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler has prompted fierce debate about the future of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The government’s proposals gave much less to some classes of creditors—including those who thought their debt was secured—than the usually strict rules of Chapter 11 dictate. This has prompted fury, lawsuits and talk of a slippery slope. Others argue that GM and Chrysler are exceptionally politicised.

Some courts are also giving bosses of bankrupt firms shorter shrift. On June 29th a bankruptcy judge ordered the executives of Gainey, a bankrupt trucking firm, to fly coach, ―not first class, not business class. You’ll travel like most of the rest of us do.‖ At a bankruptcy hearing on July 21st for LyondellBasell, a petrochemicals giant, a judge will rule on a proposed $32m remuneration package for its putative new boss, James Gallogly.

What is clear is that law firms are doing very nicely out of corporate failure, as usual. The bill submitted by Jones Day for the first month of the Chrysler bankruptcy was for more than $12m.

参考译文：

破产潮

破产要创纪录

去年九月雷曼兄弟成为美国最大破产公司后几周内，曾有人预测世界末日来临，现在看来还没有那么严重。但是从公司破产数量来看这次衰退仅次于大萧条。以公司申请对债权人的破产保护时的资产计算，过去一年中美国经济史上最大的八家公司有五家破产，除雷曼兄弟外，华盛顿互惠银行，桑伯格抵押，通用和克莱斯莱也榜上有名。

经济恶化的有效指标之一就是垃圾债券市场，在经过了近20年徒劳的把自己包装成“高能债券”后，毫无疑问还是垃圾债券名副其实。五月底9.2%的高能债券（全球发行但是美元面值）在过去的12个月里违约，相比之下2007年全年的违约率还不到1%。信用评级机构穆迪预测以此态势今年第四季度违约率将达到13.8%，此后将转为下降。这一比率略高于前两次衰退，2002年一月违约率最高为10.9%，1991年6月最高为12.8%，但是低于1933年最高约16.3%的水平。

虽然违约率最近不稳定，但是过去几个月垃圾债券的价格急速上升。尤其是受压债券（收益比财政债券至少高出10%）。弗里德森投资咨询的马丁·弗里德森说，去年第四季度87.5%的高能债券风险增大，按照过去的规律这意味着今年第四

季度违约率将超过20%。现在约有40%的债券风险升高，意味着下一年这个时候的违约率为10%。据摩根大通，2009年第一季度一个月的违约就有15件，但是五、六月份的违约率将下降一半。

毫不意外，很多近期破产的都是严重依赖美国消费者的著名公司，如服装零售商埃迪·鲍尔（Eddie Bauer），主题公园六旗游乐园（Six Flags）。7月1号，肥皂和芳香剂制造商瑰柏翠（Crabtree & Evelyn）申请破产保护。大型赌场哈拉斯娱乐公司（Harrah’s Entertainment）很有可能破产，经济学人付印之时汽车零件供应商里尔美国汽车零件很有可能申请破产保护。

通用和克莱斯莱破产案中联邦政府的主导地位引发了对破产程序的激烈讨论。政府措施给予某些等级债权者的还不如依据通常的破产法来得多，他们中有人本来认为自己的债权是安全的。这些引起愤怒，诉讼以及对“滑坡”的讨论。还有人主张通用和克莱斯莱被特别政治化。

一些法庭对破产公司老板们毫不留情。6月29日，一位破产法官命令破产的卡车公司盖尼（Gainey）的首席执行官乘经济舱，“不是头等舱也不是商务舱，你要跟我们大多数人一样”。7月21日在对石化巨头莱昂德尔巴塞尔工业公司（LyondellBasell）的破产听证会上，法官将对给予其继任老板詹姆斯·盖洛格里3200万美元报酬的申请作出判决。跟平常一样，公司破产使得法律公司如鱼得水。克莱斯莱破产一个月里众达律师事务所（Jones Day）提交的账单就超过了1200万美元。

Passage 8

Back from the dead

But the IMF is not quite ready for the future

THE International Monetary Fund has had a good crisis. T wo years ago the world’s main international economic institution was heading for irrelevance, its homilies ignored by rich countries, its advice despised in poorer ones and its lending unnecessary in a world flush with private capital. Today the fund is widely hailed as a flexible and innovative crisis-responder. It has committed over $160 billion in a host of new loans and credit lines, up from barely more than $1 billion in 2007. Its lending capacity is being trebled to $750 billion.

This warp-speed revival is the result, in part, of good luck. The sudden slump in private capital flows after the collapse of Lehman Brothers a year ago was calamitous for many emerging economies, but it was a powerful reminder of the importance of an official emergency lender. Good leadership has also played a role. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former French finance minister who took the IMF’s helm in November 2007, has shown a boldness and political deftness his predecessors lacked. His Keynesian instincts (he hails from Franc e’s Socialist Party) proved right for the times. His call for a global fiscal stimulus in January 2008, for instance, now seems prescient. He has pushed through reforms that allow the fund to dole out large amounts of money fast, while convincing a broad array of countries, including rising powers like China, India and Brazil, to contribute to its coffers (see article).

By and large this transformation should be celebrated. The world economy is better off with an IMF that has the wit and wherewithal to act fast in a crisis, and which is respected, not reviled, by its clients. If emerging economies regard the IMF as a dependable source of cash in a crisis, they might be less inclined to insure themselves against trouble by building up huge foreign-exchange reserves—as many have done over the past

decade. That, in turn, would lead to more balanced global growth. Mr Strauss-Kahn, a staunch advocate of this logic, wants the fund to get much bigger, to perhaps $2 trillion.

Nonetheless, there are risks in the fu nd’s rapid revival and Mr Strauss-Kahn’s expansive vision of its future. The IMF has become relevant by lending freely, quickly and with few strings attached. But because the organisation is still dominated by rich-country governments, emerging economies are unlikely to rely on it as a lender of last resort unless there are clear rules that promise free lending in future panics. Such promises, though necessary to convince the prudent to rely on the fund, will however tempt some countries to run profligate policies. At the same time the fund still has no clout over countries it does not lend to, even if their policies hurt the global economy (as the excess build-up of reserves, especially in China, surely did). This poisonous combination could fuel instability rather than assuage it.

Move over, Belgium

Striking the right balance between being a credible lender of last resort and an effective policy policeman is hard. But it is made all the harder by the institution’s governance. Rich countries, especially in Europe, wield disproportionate clout. Belgium has more votes than Brazil. China and India have paltry shares. The process of revamping countries’ quotas (which determine their role in the fund) and reforming its executive board to reduce the number of Europeans has been far too slow, not least because many Europeans are fighting hard against any loss of clout. That is shamefully short-sighted. Fixing the IMF’s governance and giving emerging economies more say are prerequisites if the fund is to build upon its newly acquired relevance. Those tasks should be high on the G20’s agenda when it meets in Pittsburgh next week.

参考译文：

起死回生

但国际货币基金组织还未准备好应对未来

国际货币基金组织（IMF）已经从过去的危机中学到不少东西。就在两年前，作为一家世界主要国际经济组织，IMF变得可有可无：富裕国家无视它的训诫，平穷国家漠视它的建议，而其贷款对于这个私有资本充裕的世界来说则显得毫无必要。今天，IMF被称赞为一个具有灵活性和创新性的危机应对者。IMF已经拨出了超过1600亿美元的新贷款和信用额度，而在2007只有10亿美元多一点。IMF的放贷能力提高了两倍，达到了7500亿美元。

这种反常速度的恢复部分原因是运气不错。一年前，在雷曼兄弟公司的倒闭之后，私有资本流动骤然陷入低潮。这对许多新兴经济体来说是一场灾难，但却有力地提醒了人们有一家官方应急放贷者是多么的重要。此外，成功的领导才能也起了一定作用。前法国财政部长多米尼克-施特劳斯-卡恩在2007年11月份接过IMF的总裁职位后，表现出了其前任们所缺少的果敢和政治灵巧性。他的凯恩斯主义本能（他来自法国社会党）正符合了当时的时代要求。比如在2008年1月份，他呼吁全球各国刺激财政，如今看来是具有先见之明的。施特劳斯-卡恩一方面推动IMF的改革，使得发放巨额救济金更加快捷，一方面说服更广泛的国家，包括不断崛起的大国，如中国，印度以及巴西，向金库贡献更多的资金。

总的来说，这种转变值得庆贺。IMF足智多谋，库存充裕，从而能够在面对危机时迅速作出反应，这对世界经济的更好发展是件好事，而且也会得到客户的尊重，而不是贬损。过去十年中很多新兴经济体通过储备大量外汇未雨绸缪以求自保，如果他们将IMF视为在危急时刻值得信赖的资金来源，这种囤币的倾向也会有所下降。这样一来，全球的经济

增长也会更加平衡。施特劳斯-卡恩是这一想法的坚定支持者，他希望IMF更加壮大，或许达到2万亿。

然而，IMF的快速东山再起以及施特劳斯-卡恩怀有的IMF未来扩张性抱负存在着风险。IMF因为慷慨，迅速且几乎无附带条件的借贷而变得举足轻重。但由于该组织依然由富裕国家的政府所主导，因而新兴经济体不太可能将IMF当做最后的贷款者，除非有明确的规定保证在将来的恐慌中可以免费从IMF获得贷款。这种保证虽然对于劝说谨慎者依赖IMF尤其必要，但却会诱使一些国家恣意挥霍。同时，IMF对于那些其政策危害到全球经济（尤其是像中国那样过度扩大外汇储备），但却不是IMF借贷者的国家依然没有影响力。这种有害的结合只会激起而不是减轻不稳定。

靠边站，比利时

在成为可以信赖的最后贷款者和有效政策监督者之间寻求一种恰当的平衡并不容易。但是机构的管理方式则使其难上加难。富裕国家，尤其是欧洲的富裕国家，施加与其自身不相协调的政治影响力。比利时就比巴西拥有更多的票数；中国和印度的影响也是微乎其微。调整这些国家在IMF中的配额（这决定其在组织中的地位）及改革执行委员会以减少欧洲人数量的进程极其缓慢，最重要的原因就是许多欧洲人不断抵制，生怕失去影响力。这种鼠目寸光令人觉得可耻。改革IMF管理模式，给予新兴经济体更多的话语权是IMF在新获得的重要地位基础上继续发展的先决条件。当下周20国峰会在匹兹堡召开的时候，这些任务应成为主要议题。

Passage 9

Hard talk, soft policy

The ECB has run as loose a monetary policy as other central banks have. It is just rather more coy about it

THE global economy has stopped sinking and central bankers are pausing for breath. As The Economist went to press on July 2nd, the European Central Bank (E CB) was expected to keep its main ―refi‖ interest rate unchanged, at 1%. The ECB’s rate-setting council has been chary of cutting rates closer to zero as policymakers elsewhere have done. Its reluctance to do more has attracted criticism, only some of it fair.

The focus on policy rates may put the ECB in a bad light but these are no longer a reliable guide to the overall monetary-policy stance. If you look at market rates the policy stance in the euro area is as loose as anywhere else, because of stimulus decisions taken at the height of the financial crisis. In October the ECB decided it would offer banks as much cash as they wanted, at a fixed interest rate (the refi rate) and against a wider range of security than usual, for up to six months. It also scheduled extra three-month and six-month refinancing operations, so that banks could come more often to the central-bank well.

In May the ECB council agreed to extend the offer of fixed-rate cash to one year. At the first 12-month refinancing operation on June 24th, euro-zone banks borrowed a staggering €442 billion ($620 billion). With so much cash splashing around, the charge that banks make for overnight loans has stayed well below the refi rate, with some occasional spikes (see chart). Since the €442 billi on cash injection, overnight interest rates in the euro zone have fallen to a record low of 0.3%, below those in Britain and scarcely higher than in America. Indeed banks can now borrow more cheaply in euros than in pounds for either three, six or 12 months.

Before the crisis, the ECB would aim to keep overnight interest rates close to the refi rate. Since it moved to unlimited fixed-rate funding, the central bank has been content to allow the overnight rate to drift much lower than the policy rate. In effect, the bank now has a target range for short-term rates: the upper bound is the 1% refi rate and the lower bound is the rate the central bank pays on banks’ deposits with it, currently 0.25%. The

deposit rate has been a better guide to the policy stance than the refi rate has. ECB-watchers and markets understand this, even though it has not been spelt out in so many words by Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB’s president.

Why be so coy? One concern is that by playing up the fight against recession, the ECB could appear to have lost sight of inflation. Keeping the totemic refi rate above zero may be seen as necessary to prevent inflation expectations from drifting up. There may also be a reluctance to admit that such a gushing provision of liquidity has altered the policy stance. Since the start of the crisis in August 2007, the ECB has insisted the two are separate. ―They are bold on liquidity because they don’t see it as mainstream monetary policy,‖ says Charles Wyplosz of the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Yet the terms of its refinancing for banks have clearly led to looser monetary conditions.

Another reason for obfuscation is to mask differences among rate-setters. Monetary-policy hawks can reassure themselves that the policy rate is not too low. Doves are happy that effective interest rates are nearer to zero. And Mr Trichet can claim there is a ―consensus‖. The terms of the truce make it easier to reverse policy when the time comes. By restricting its liquidity support, the ECB will be able to guide overnight interest rates towards 1% without having to alter its policy rate.

Because the ECB has had one eye on the exit since the start of the crisis it has earned plaudits from those who think the Federal Reserve has been incautious. That judgment is too kind to the ECB, which could afford to have scruples about the medium term because other central banks were taking more care of the present. It is also unfair on the Fed, which had to stand in place of America’s collapsed shadow-banking system. When the economy w as in most danger, the ECB could have cut rates more quickly. ―If the ECB had been more proactive, the recession would have been less bad,‖ says Marco Annunziata of UniCredit. The striving for consensus militated against bolder action.

Another criticism is that the ECB has not done more to ease credit conditions by buying government and corporate bonds outright, as the Bank of England and the Fed have done. Its scheme to purchase up to €60 billion of the safest bank bonds, launched this month, is modest by comparison. Mr Trichet believes that focus makes sense, as euro-zone businesses and homebuyers rely more on banks than capital markets for credit. In America, capital markets matter more, so the Fed had to get its hands dirtier by buying commercial paper and mortgage-backed securities.

The ECB is also loth to soil its hands with public debt, though banks flush with central-bank cash are keen buyers of such low-risk assets. If this is monetisation at a remove, so be it. The central bank keeps its independence from government and does not have to worry about selling bonds back into the market once the interest-rate cycle turns. ―If you want to stay clean, the exit strategy is easier,‖ says Thomas Mayer of Deutsche Bank.

But offering ample liquidity support to banks gets you only so far. By buying assets, the Fed allows American banks to shed them, freeing scarce capital for fresh lending. As losses mount in the euro zone, capital may trump liquidity in determining credit growth. Lending to the private sector slowed to 1.8% in the year to May, an all-time low. Until credit starts to revive, the ECB cannot think about tightening policy. It may yet have to be bolder.

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