历年考研英语翻译真题及答案解析20
历年考研英语翻译真题及答案解析20
英译汉:考查考生理解所给英语语言材料并将其译成汉语的能力。
要求译文准确、完整、通顺。
2016年考研英语二翻译真题及答案解析
Section III Translation
Directions:
Translate the following text into Chinese. Write your translation on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points)
The supermarket is designed to lure customers into spending as much time as possible within its doors. The reason for this is simple: The longer you stay in the store, the more stuff you'll see, and the more stuff you see, the more you'll buy. And supermarkets contain a lot of stuff. The average supermarket, according to the Food Marketing Institute, carries some 44,000 different items, and many carry tens of thousands more. The sheer volume of available choice is enough to send shoppers into a state of information overload. According to brain-scan experiments, the demands of so much decision-making quickly become too much for us. After about 40 minutes of shopping, most people stop struggling to be rationally selective, and instead began shopping emotionally-which is the point at which we accumulate the 50 percent of stuff in our cart that we never intended buying.
翻译
超市旨在吸引顾客在自己店内停留尽量长的时间。
原因很简单:顾客在店里停留的时间越长,看到的商品就会越多;而看到的商品越多,你就会买的越多。
超市有大量商品。
根据食品营销研究院所说,普通超市大概有44000种不同的商品;很多超市更是会比普通超市多上万种商品。
众多选择足以让顾客面临各种信息,不堪重负。
根据脑部扫描实验,需要做这么多的决定很快就会使我们难以承受。
大约购物40分钟以后,大部分顾客就无法试图做出理性的选择,而会冲动购物--此时,在购物车里,我们已经装了一半根本没想买的东西。
真题】考研英语历年真题逐句翻译-
【真题】考研英语历年真题逐句翻译(2020年Text1)英语二第一段①Rats and other animals need to be highly attuned to social signals from others so they can identify friends to cooperate with and enemies to avoid.②To find out if this extends to non-living beings, Loleh Quinn at the University of California, San Diego, and her colleagues tested whether rats can detect social signals from robotic rats.翻译译文:老鼠等动物需要对同类发出的社交信号高度敏感,这样它们才能分辨哪些是可以合作的朋友,哪些是应该避开的敌人。
为弄清这一敏感性是否在面对非生命物体时仍适用,加州大学圣地亚哥分校的拉蕾·奎因及其同事进行了一项试验,观察老鼠是否能够感知机器鼠发出的社交信号。
第二段①They housed eight adult rats with two types of robotic rat-one social and one asocial-for four days.②The robots rats were quite minimalist, resembling a chunkier version of a computer mouse with wheels-to move around and colorful markings.翻译译文:研究人员让8只成年鼠与2只不同类型的机器鼠——一只爱社交,一只不合群——共处一室4天。
这两只机器鼠外形相当简约抽象,就像矮胖版的电脑鼠标,靠轮子四处移动,带有鲜艳的标记。
历年考研英语一阅读真题翻译(2004-2014)
2014年考研英语阅读真题Text 1In order to “change lives for the better” and reduce “dependency,” George Osbome,Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced the “upfront work search” scheme. Only if the jobless arrive at the job centre with a register for online job search, and start looking for work will they be eligible for benefit-and then they should report weekly rather than fortnightly. What could be more reasonable?为了“让生活变得更美好”以及减少“依赖”,英国财政大臣乔治?奥斯本引入了“求职预付金”计划。
只有当失业者带着简历到就业中心,注册在线求职并开始找工作,才有资格获得补助金——然后他们应该每周而非每两周报告一次。
有什么比这更合理呢?More apparent reasonableness followed. There will now be a seven-day wait for the jobseeker’s allowance. “Those first few days should be spent looking for work, not looking to sign on.” he claimed. “We’re doing these things be cause we know they help people say off benefits and help those on benefits get into work faster” Help? Really? On first hearing, this was the socially concerned chancellor, trying to change lives for the better, complete with “reforms” to an obviously indulgent system that demands too little effort from the newly unemployed to find work, and subsides laziness. What motivated him, we were to understand, was his zeal for “fundamental fairness”-protecting the taxpayer, controlling spending and ensuring that only the most deserving claimants received their benefits.更加明显的合理性如下。
考研英语翻译真题及答案
考研英语翻译真题及答案考研英语中的翻译部分一直是众多考生重点关注和努力攻克的对象。
通过对历年真题的研究和练习,能够让考生更好地把握命题规律,提升翻译能力。
以下为大家呈现部分考研英语翻译真题及答案,并对其进行详细的分析和讲解。
真题一:The study of law has been recognized for centuries as a basic intellectual discipline in European universities However, only in recent years has it become a feature of undergraduate programs in Canadian universities参考译文:几个世纪以来,在欧洲的大学里,对法律的研究一直被认为是一门基础的知识学科。
然而,只是在最近几年,它才成为加拿大大学本科课程的一个特色。
解析:这句话的翻译重点在于准确理解和处理一些词汇和短语。
“intellectual discipline”翻译为“知识学科”;“feature”在这里是“特色”的意思。
句子结构方面,“However, only in recent years has it become a feature of undergraduate programs in Canadian universities”是一个倒装句,正常语序为“However, it has become a feature of undergraduate programsin Canadian universities only in recent years” 翻译时要注意调整语序,以符合中文的表达习惯。
真题二:While it is easy to ignore in our contact with them the effect of our acts upon their disposition, it is not so easy as in dealing with adults参考译文:在与年轻人接触时,我们很容易忽视自己的行为对他们性格的影响,但在与成年人打交道时,就不那么容易忽视了。
考研英语阅读真题翻译2001-2010
在过去的25年英语报纸所发生的变化中,影响最深远的可能就是它们对艺术方面的报道在范围上毫无疑问的缩小了,而且这些报道的严肃程度也绝对降低了。
对于年龄低于40岁的普通读者来讲,让他们想象一下当年可以在许多大城市报纸上读到精品的文艺评论简直几乎是天方夜谭。
然而,在20世纪出版的最重要的文艺评论集中,人们读到的大部分评论文章都是从报纸上收集而来。
现在,如果读到这些集子,人们肯定会惊诧,当年这般渊博深奥的内容竟然被认为适合发表在大众日报中。
从20世纪早期到二战以前,当时的英国报纸上的评论主题广泛,包罗万象,我们现在离此类报纸评论越来越远。
当时的报纸极其便宜,人们把高雅时尚的文艺批评当作是所刊登报纸的一个亮点。
在那些遥远的年代,各大报刊的评论家们都会不遗余力地详尽报道他们所报道的事情,这在当时被视为是理所当然的事情。
他们的写作是件严肃的事情,人们相信:甚至那些博学低调不喜欢炫耀的评论家,比如George Bernard Shaw和Ernest Newman也知道自己在做什么(即他们的文章会高调出现在报纸上)。
这些批评家们相信报刊评论是一项职业,并且对于他们的文章能够在报纸上发表感到很自豪。
“鉴于几乎没有作家能拥有足够的智慧或文学天赋以保证他们在新闻报纸写作中站稳脚跟”,Newman曾写道,“我倾向于把‘新闻写作’定义为不受读者欢迎的作家用来嘲讽受读者欢迎的作家的一个‘轻蔑之词’”不幸的是,这些批评家们现在实际上已被人们遗忘。
从1917年开始一直到1975年去世不久前还在为曼彻斯特《卫报》写文章的Neville Cardus,如今仅仅作为一个撰写关于板球比赛文章的作家被人们所知。
但是,在他的一生当中,他也是英国首屈一指的古典音乐评论家之一。
他也是一位深受读者青睐的文体家,所以1947年他的《自传》一书就成为热销读物。
1967年他被授予爵士称号,也是第一位获此殊荣的音乐评论家。
然而,他的书现在只有一本可以在市面上买到。
考研英语真题翻译(2000——2009)及详解
2000年考研英语真题翻译(划线部分)详解71. Under modern conditions,this requires varying measures of centralized control and hence the help of specialized scientists such as economists and operational research experts.【考核知识点】代词指代和术语的译法【结构分析】这是一个简单句,句子主干是this requires varying measures of centralized control and...the help of specialized scientists such as...。
and连接两个并列宾语。
【翻译要点】本句的难点是hence的译法,它在句中是承上启下起连接作用的逻辑词,hence意为“从而”,翻译的时候要体现句子间的逻辑关系。
需要注意的是:require有两个宾语,第2个宾语是the help,在翻译时需要加上“获得”二字。
【词汇点滴】varying意为“不同的”;measure在这里是“程度、幅度、限度”的意思;varying measures可译成“程度不同”;operational research experts直译是“研究操作过程的科学家”,用术语翻译就是“运筹学专家”。
【参考译文】在现代条件下,这就需要不同程度的中央控制措施,从而也就需要诸如经济学和运筹学等领域的专家的协助。
72. Furthermore,it is obvious that the strength of a countrys economy is directly bound up with the efficiency of its agriculture and industry,and that this in turn rests upon the efforts of scientists and technologists of all kinds.【考核知识点】it is obvious that...的译法及短语翻译【结构分析】这是一个复合句。
2020年考研英语一真题及答案:翻译
2020年考研英语一真题及答案:翻译Part CDirections:Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. (10 points)Within the span of a hundred years, in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, a tide of emigration -one of the great folk wanderings of history-swept from Europe to America. (46) This movement, driven by powerful anddiverse motivations, built a nation out of a wilderness and,by its nature, shaped the character and destiny of an uncharted continent.(47) The United States is the product of two principal forces-the immigration of European peoples with their varied ideas, customs, and national characteristics and the impact of a new country which modified these traits. Of necessity,colonial America was a projection of Europe. Across theAtlantic came successive groups of Englishmen, Frenchmen,Germans, Scots, Irishmen, Dutchmen, Swedes, and many others who attempted to transplant their habits andtraditions to the new world. (48) But, the force of geographic conditions peculiar to America, the interplay of the varied national groups upon one another, and the sheer difficulty of maintaining old-world ways in a raw, new continent caused significant changes. These changes were gradual and at first scarcely visible. But the result was a new social pattern which, although it resembled Europeansociety in many ways, had a character that was distinctly American.(49)The first shiploads of immigrants bound for the territory which is now the United States crossed the Atlantic more than a hundred years after the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century explorations of North America. In the meantime,thriving Spanish colonies had been established in Mexico,the West Indies, and South America. These travelers to North America came in small, unmercifully overcrowded craft. During their six- to twelve-week voyage, they subsisted on meager rations. Many of the ships were lost in storms, many passengers died of disease, and infants rarely survived the journey. Sometimes tempests blew the vessels far off their course, and often calm brought interminable delay.To the anxious travelers the sight of the American shore brought almost inexpressible relief. Said one chronicler,“ The air at twelve leagues' distance smelt as sweet as a new-blown garden.” The colonists' first glimpse of the new land was a vista of dense woods. (50) The virgin forest with its richness and variety of trees was a real treasure-house which extended from Maine all the way down to Georgiain the south. Here was abundant fuel and lumber. Here was the raw material of houses and furniture, ships and potash,dyes and naval stores.【参考答案】46.在多种强大的动机驱动下,这次运动在一片荒野上建起了一个国家,其本身塑造了一个未知大陆的性格和命运。
2005-2010考研英语翻译真题译文
2005年考研英语翻译真题解析Television is one of the means by which these feelings are created and conveyed—and perhaps never before has it served so much to connect different peoples and nations as is the recent events in Europe。
译文:电视是引发和传播这些感受的方式之一——在连接不同民族和国家之间的关系方面,电视以前也许还从来没有像在欧洲最近发生的事件中那样,起过如此重大的作用。
In Europe, as elsewhere multi-media groups have been increasingly successful groups which bring together television, radio newspapers, magazines and publishing houses that work in relationship to one another.翻译:在欧洲,就像其它地方一样,各传媒集团越来越成功,整合了电视台,电台,报社,杂志社和出版社,并使之相互合作This alone demonstrates that the television business is not an easy world to survive, in a fact underlined by statistics that show that out of eighty European television network, no less than 50% took a loss in 1989.翻译:仅仅这一切就足以证实,电视行业绝非容易生存的地方,统计数据表明,欧洲80个电视网络中,在1989年有不少于50%遭受了亏损。
考研英语历年翻译真题及译文(共44篇)
一. 1980考研英语翻译真题及答案Section VI Chinese-English Translation将下列句子译成英语:(本大题共20分,第1题2分,其余各题均3分)Section VI: Chinese-English Translation (20 points)1.水一煮沸请立即把开关关掉。
1. Please turn off the switch (switch off) as soon as the water boils.2. 在八十年代,中国人民将以更大的步伐向前迈进。
2. The Chinese people will forge ahead (march on, march onward, march forward) with greater strides in 1980’s.3. 我们都同意李同志已作出的决定。
3. We all agree to the decision comrade Li has made (made).4. 这个结果比我们预期的要好得多。
4. The result is much (far) better than we expected.5. 在过去的三年中,在恢复我国国民经济方面做了大量的工作。
5. During the past three years a lot (of work) has been done in the recovery (restoration) of our national economy (in recovering our national economy; in restoring our national economy).6. 我们把英语作为学习西方先进科学技术的一种工具。
6. We use English as a tool in learning Western advanced science and technology.7. 没有党的领导,我国的社会主义现代化是不可能实现的。
2001——2010年考研英语阅读理解真题全文翻译
1997Text1难句解析:①After six months of arguing and final16hours of hot parliamentary debates,Australia's Northern Territory became the first legal authority in the world to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die.▲句子的主体结构是Australia's Northern Territory became the first legal authority...,其中,句首是表示时间的介词词组作状语:after six months of arguing and final16hours of hot parliamentary debates,后面的动词不定式to allow doctors to take the lives of incurably ill patients who wish to die 相当于定语从句which allows doctors to...,修饰legal authority,who引导定语从句who wish to die 修饰前面的patients。
△理解句子的关键在于剔除庞杂的修饰成分,抓住句子的主干。
②Some have breathed sighs of relief,others,including churches,right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association,bitterly attacked the bill and the haste of its passage.But the tide is unlikely to turn back.▲第一句话中,有用逗号松散地连接的两个表示对比的句子:Some have breathed...others...bitterly attacked...,其中others之后是介词词组:including churches,right-to-life groups and the Australian Medical Association对others进行进一步的解释。
2020考研英语二 翻译真题解析
考研英语二翻译真题、参考答案和来源分析"Sustainability" has become a popular word these days, but to Ted Ning,the concept will always have personal meaning. Having endured a painful period of unsustainability in his own life made it clear to him that sustainability-oriented values must be expressed through every day action and choice.当今,“可持续性”已经成为了一个流行的词语.但是,对特德宁来说,它对这个词有着自身的体会.在忍受了一段痛苦的、难以为继的生活之后,他清楚地认识到,以可持续发展为导向的生活价值必须通过日常的活动和做出的选择表现出来.Ning recalls spending a confusing year in the late 1990s selling insurance. He'd been through the dot-com boom and burst and, desperate for a job, signed on with a Boulder agency.宁回忆了在上个世纪90年代末期的某一年,他卖保险,那是一种浑浑噩噩的生活.在经历了网络经济的兴盛和衰败之后,他非常渴望得到一份工作,于是和一家博德的代理公司签了合约.It didn't go well. "It was a really bad move because that's not my passion," says Ning, whose dilemma about the job translated, predictably, into a lack of sales. "I was miserable. I had so much anxiety that I would wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling. I had no money and needed the job. Everyone said,” Just wait, you'll turn the corner, give it some time.''事情进展不顺,“那的确是很糟糕的一种选择,因为那并非是我的激情所在,”宁如是说.可以想象,他这种工作上的窘境是由于销售业绩不良造成的.“我觉得很悲哀.我太担心了,以至于我会在半夜醒来,盯着天花板.没有钱,我需要这份工作.每个人都会说,等吧,总会有转机的,给点时间吧.”原文:原文是来自一份杂志,叫“experience life”,出题人做了部分改动,原文和改动的文章如下:Sustainability has become something of a buzzword(出题人把这个单词改为popular word) these days, but to Ted Ning, the concept will always have personal meaning. Having endured a painful period of unsustainability in his own life made it clear to him that sustainability-oriented values must be expressed through everyday action and choice.Ning, director of LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability), the Boulder, Colo.–based information clearinghouse on sustainable living, recalls spending a tumultuous(出题人把这个词改为了confusing) year i n the late ’90s selling insurance. He’d been through the dot-com boom and bust(出题人似乎把这个词改为burst了) and, desperate for a job, signed on with a Boulder agency.It didn’t go well. “It was a really bad move because that’s not my passion,” says Ning, whose ambivalence about the job translated, predictably, into a lack of sales. “I was miserable. I had so much anxiety that I would pull alongside of the highway and vomit, or wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling.I had no money and needed the job. Everyone said, ‘Just wait, you’ll turn the corner, give it some time.’”Ning stuck it out for a year because he simply didn’t know what else to do, but felt his happiness and health suffer as a result. He eventually quit and stumbled upon LOHAS in a help-wanted ad for a data analyst. “I didn’t know what LOHAS was,” he says, “but it sounded kinda neat.” It turned out to be a better fit than he could have ever imagined.At the time, the LOHAS organization did little more than host a small annual conference in Boulder. It was a forum where progressive-minded companies could gather to compare notes on how to reach a values-driven segment of consumers —the LOHAS market — who seemed attracted to products and services that mirrored their interest in health, environmental stewardship, social justice, personal development and sustainable living.In contrast with his disastrous foray into the insurance business, Ning’s new job felt like coming home. Growing up in the foothills of the Rockies outside of Denver, he’d developed a love of the outdoors and a respect for the earth, while his parents provided a model of social activism —the family traveled widely, and at one point his parents created and operated a nonprofit that offered microcredit loans to small businesses in Vietnam and Guatemala. He has three adopted sisters from Vietnam and Korea. He studied international relations and Chinese at Colorado University and slipped easily into the Boulder lifestyle — commuting by bike, eating organics, buying local and the rest —though he stopped short of the patchouli-and-dreadlocks phase embraced by many of his peers. (He opted instead for the university’s ski team and, after graduating, wound up coaching the Japanese development team during the Nagano Olympics in 1998.)From his ground-level job, Ning moved quickly up the ranks in the organization, becoming its executive director in 2006. “When I got the job, LOHAS was a sleepy conference in Boulder,” says Ning. Today, the forum is booming, the organizationis expanding and the market is evolving. Ning has more than grown into the position he stumbled on in the want ads. “I don’t consider this a job. It is really more of a calling.”Ning, 41, coordinates the conference and oversees the organization’s annual journal and Web site (), while compiling research on trends and opportunities for businesses. He also travels the country promoting —and explaining —the LOHAS concept and the burgeoning market it represents.First identified by sociologist Paul Ray in the mid-1990s as “cultural creatives,” the U.S. market segment that embraces LOHAS today has grown to about 41 million consumers, or roughly 19 percent of American adults. But those LOHAS consumers are powerfully influencing the attitudes and behaviors of others (witness the rise of interest in yoga, all-natural products, simplicity and hybrid vehicles). Which is why LOHAS-related products now generate an estimated $209 billion annually.“Over the last two years a green tidal wave has come over us,” says Ning. Riding that wave, says Ning, is not about jumping on a trend bandwagon. It’s connecting with — and acting on —a set of shared, instrinsic values. “People know what is authentic. You can’t preach this lifestyle and not live it,” he says. He and his wife, Jenifer, live in a solar-powered home, raise organic vegetables in their backyard and drive a car that gets 48 miles to the gallon. He even buys carbon offsets to negate the global warming impact of his cell phone.Ning emphasizes that there are many different ways of “living LOHAS.” Ultimately, it’s really about finding a way of life that makes sense and feels good —now and for the long haul. “People are looking internally,” he says, “asking themselves,‘What really makes me happy?’ Is it the fact that I can go out and buy that giant flat-screen TV, or is it that I can have a quiet evening with my family just hanging out and playing a game of Scrabble?”For Ning, it’s a no-brainer. He’ll take Scrabble ev ery time.Laine Bergeson is an Experience Life senior editor.考研英语二翻译真题、参考答案和来源分析Who would have thought that, globally, the IT industry produces about the same volumes of greenhouse gases as the world’s airlines do-rough 2 percent of all CO2 emissions?全球范围内,信息技术行业与航空业产生的温室气体总量相同——约占二氧化碳排放总量的2%,这有谁曾想到过?Many everyday tasks take a surprising toll on the environment. A Google search can leak between 0.2 and 7.0 grams of CO2 depending on how many attempts are needed to get the “right” answer. To deliver results to its users quickly, then, Google has to maintain vast data centres round the world, packed with powerful computers. While producing large quantities of CO2, these computers emit a great deal of heat, so the centres need to be well air-conditioned, which uses even more energy.许多日常工作对环境造成的损失大得惊人.每一次谷歌搜索能释放0.2到0.7克的二氧化碳,这取决于为了获得“正确”答案你试过多少次.为了迅速向用户提供搜索结果,谷歌不得不在世界各地建立大型数据中心,安装一台台强大的计算机.这些计算机不仅产生大量的二氧化碳,还释放大量热能,因此这些数据中心需要良好的空调设备,这甚至会耗费更多的能源.However, Google and other big tech providers monitor their efficiency closely and make improvements. Monitoring is the first step on the road to reduction, but there is much to be done, and not just by big companies.然而,谷歌和其他大型技术供应商严密地监控其效果,并做出改进.监控是减排的第一步,仍有太多问题需要解决,并且不只是由大公司来解决.原文:Who would have thought that, globally, the IT industry produces about the same volume of greenhouse gases as the world's airlines do - roughly 2 per cent of all CO2 emissions?Many everyday tasks take a surprising toll on the environment. A Google search can leak between 0.2 and 7.0 grams of CO2, depending on how many attempts are needed to get the "right" answer. At the upper end of the scale, two searches create roughly the same emissions as boiling a kettle.To deliver results to its users quickly, Google has to maintain vast data centres around the world, packed with powerful computers. As well as producing large quantities of CO2, these computers emit a great deal of heat, so the centres need to be well air-conditioned - which uses even more energy.However, Google and other big tech providers such as BT, IBM, Microsoft and Amazon monitor their efficiency closely and make improvements. (Google claims to be more efficient than most.) Recently, industry and government agencies from theUS, Europe and Japan reached an agreement, orchestrated by the Green Grid, an American industry consortium, on how to benchmark the energy efficiency of data centres. Monitoring is the first step on the road to reduction, but there's much more to be done, and not just by big companies.Simple things - such as turning devices off when they are not in use - can help to reduce the impact of our love affair with all things digital. Research from the National Energy Foundation in the UK found that nearly 20 per cent of workers don't turn their PCs off at the end ofthe day, wasting 1.5 billion kWh of electricity per year - which equates to the annual CO2 produced by 200,000 small family cars.Technology could have a huge role to play in reducing energy consumption - just think of the number of car and bus journeys saved by something as simple as online banking. But the sector must still work harder to get its own house in order.Jason Stamper is NS technology correspondent and editor of Computer Business Review考研英语二翻译真题、参考答案和来源分析When people in developing countries worry about migration, they are usually concerned at the prospect of their best and brightest departure to Silicon Valley or to hospitals and universities in the developed world. These are the kind of workers that countries like Britain, Canada Australia try to attract by using immigration rules that privilege college graduates.发展中国家的人们若为移民问题操心,往往是想到硅谷或发达国家的医院和大学去创造自己最辉煌的未来.英国、加拿大和澳大利亚等国给大学毕业生提供的优惠移民政策,就是为了吸引这部分人群.Lots of studies have found that well-educated people from developing countries are particularly likely to emigrate. A big survey of Indian households in 2004 found that nearly 40% of emigrants had more than a high-school education, compared with around 3.3% of all Indians over the age of 25. The “brain drain” has long bothered policymakers in poor countries. They fear that it hurts their economies, depriving them of much-needed skilled workers who could have taught at their universities, worked in their hospitals and come up with clever new products for their factories to make.诸多研究表明,发展中国家受过良好教育的人才往往可能有移民倾向.2004年,曾针对印度家庭进行过一次大型调查,结果发现,近40%有移民倾向的人受过中学以上教育,而25岁以上的印度人只有约3.3%受过中学以上教育.“人才流失”问题长期以来一直让发展中国家的决策者很苦恼,他们担心这种情况会危及其经济发展,夺去他们紧缺的技术人才,而这些人才本该在他们自己的大学任教,在他们自己的医院工作,为他们自己的工厂研发新产品.原文:WHEN people in rich countries worry about migration, they tend to think of low-paid incomers who compete for jobs as construction workers, dishwashers or farmhands. When people in developing countries worry about migration, they are usually concerned at the prospect of their best and brightest decamping to Silicon Valley or to hospitals and universities in the developed world. These are the kind of workers that countries like Britain, Canada and Australia try to attract by using immigration rules that privilege college graduates.Lots of studies have found that well-educated people from developing countries are particularly likely to emigrate. By some estimates, two-thirds of highly educated Cape Verdeans live outside the country. A big survey of Indian households carried out in 2004 asked about family members who had moved abroad. It found that nearly 40% of emigrants had more than a high-school education, compared with around 3.3% of all Indians over the age of 25. This “brain drain” has long bothered policymakers in poor countries. They fear that it hurts their economies, depriving them of much-needed skilled workers who could have taught at their universities, worked in their hospitals and come up with clever new products for their factories to make.Many now take issue with this view (see article). Several economists reckon that the brain-drain hypothesis fails to account for the effects of remittances, for the beneficial effects of returning migrants, and for the possibility that being able to migrate to greener pastures induces people to get more education. Some argue that once these factors are taken into account, an exodus of highly skilled people could turn out to be a net benefit to the countries they leave. Recent studies of migration from countries as far apart as Ghana, Fiji, India and Romania have found support for this “brain gain” idea.The most obvious way in which migrants repay their homelands is through remittances. Workers from developing countries remitted a total of $325 billion in 2010, according to the World Bank. In Lebanon, Lesotho, Nepal, Tajikistan and a few other places, remittances are more than 20% of GDP. A skilled migrant may earn several multiples of what his income would have been had he stayed at home. A study of Romanian migrantsto America found that the average emigrant earned almost $12,000 a year more in America than he would have done in his native land, a huge premium for someone from a country where income per person is around $7,500 (at market exchange rates).It is true that many skilled migrants have been educated and trained partly at the expense of their (often cash-strapped) governments. Some argue that poor countries should therefore rethink how much they spend on higher education. Indians, for example, often debate whether their government should continue to subsidise the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), its elite engineering schools, when large numbers of IIT graduates end up in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street. But a new study of remittances sent home by Ghanaian migrants suggests that on average they transfer enough over their working lives to cover the amount spent on educating them several times over. The study finds that once remittances are taken into account, the cost of education would have to be 5.6 times the official figure to make it a losing proposition for Ghana.There are more subtle ways in which the departure of some skilled people may aid poorer countries. Some emigrants would have been jobless had they stayed. Studies have found that unemployment rates among young people with college degrees in countries like Morocco and Tunisia are several multiples of those among the poorly educated, perhaps because graduates are more demanding. Migration may lead to a more productive pairing of people's skills and jobs. Some of the benefits of this improved match then flow back to the migrant's home country, most directly via remittances.The possibility of emigration may even have beneficial effects on those who choose to stay, by giving people in poor countries an incentive to invest in education.A study of Cape Verdeans finds that an increase of ten percentage points in young people's perceived probability of emigrating raises the probability of their completing secondary school by around eight points. Another study looks at Fiji.A series of coups beginning in 1987 was seen by Fijians of Indian origin as permanently harming their prospects in the country by limiting their share of government jobs and political power. This set off a wave of emigration. Yet young Indians in Fiji became more likely to go to university even as the outlook at home dimmed, in part because Australia, Canada and New Zealand, three of the top destinations for Fijians, put more emphasis on attracting skilled migrants. Since some of those who got more education ended up staying, the skill levels of the resident Fijian population soared.1、最困难的事就是认识自己。
