经济学人_英文阅读_010

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考研英语：《经济学人》选读

考研英语：《经济学人》选读《经济学人》一直是考研阅读的命题来源之一，平日里我们可以利用碎片时间稍加阅读一些文章，领会政经类文章的写作手法，适当拓展自己的词汇量，也是不错的练习。

Britain Dug prohibition英国禁毒Banning the east African stimulant may backfire东非的兴奋剂禁令可能会适得其反OUTSIDE a newsagent's shop in the Clapham Road， a south London thoroughfare， a man sucks on a rolled-up cigarette and asks passers-by whether they want to buy some cannabis。

在伦敦大街南部的克拉彭路的一个报刊亭旁，一个人正叼着卷烟问路人他们是否需要大麻。

But shoppers seem more interested in khat， a mild narcotic popular with Ethiopians， Somalis and Yemenis。

但消费者似乎对阿拉伯茶—在俄塞俄比亚人、索马里人和也门人群中颇受欢迎的一种轻度镇定剂。

Inside， the shopkeeper pulls out bundles of the yellowish leaf and explains that it is the last batch he will sell。

店里内部，店主拿出少许淡黄色叶片并说明这些是他将卖出的最后一批货了。

“After tomorrow， they stop， no more，” he says。

“明日之后，再没有这些东西了，”他说。

On June 24th the sale of khat was prohibited in Britain，almost a year after Theresa May， the home secretary， told the House of Commons that she intended to ban it。

英语阅读-经济学人文章三篇

IF THE Federal Reserve eases monetary policy again at its meeting on September 13th, as I expect, it will be its most meticulously debated, planned and scrutinised move in recent memory. The case for action has been apparent at least since the spring when it became clear the economy would underperform the Fed's repeatedly lowered economic forecasts. Yet Ben Bernanke spent much of the press conference following the Fed's meeting in June, when it extended Operation Twist (the purchase of long-term bonds financed by selling short-term bonds) on the defensive over why the Fed hadn't done more. In August, it again chose not to pull the trigger. But it did release a statement that hinted the point was drawing near. The minutes to that meeting released three weeks later suggested it would take an immediate and powerful improvement in the economy to stay the Fed's hand.When Mr Bernanke made his annual appearance at the Kansas City Fed's economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, today, the world was wondering whether he would send a definitive sign that action was coming. He did not, merely repeating the key sentence from the August statement, that the Fed "will provide additional policy accommodation as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery." This should not have been surprising; Fed chairmen don't like to front-run the Federal Open Market Committee.Mr Bernanke had a different goal than signaling to Wall Street. Pressure on the Fed has become intense in the last year, from hawks and conservatives (not necessarily, but increasingly, the same) who think the Fed has done all it can do and going further risks inflation, monetisation of the debt, and a loss of credibility for the central bank; and from doves and liberals who accuse Mr Bernanke of having shirked his responsibility and his own prior advice to the Bank of Japan by not more aggressively using the tools and alternative frameworks available to boost employment. That this debate has unfolded against the backdrop of a tight and divisive presidential election has only raised the stakes, because it meant no matter what the Fed does, one party will accuse it of having helped the other win.Since Mr Bernanke could not escape criticism regardless of what the Fed did, tactically he was best served by waiting until the case for action was unambiguous, unsurprising and, most important, well articulated. The data have made the case unambiguous: employment and growth are weak and inflation by the Fed's preferred measure has edged down. By September 13th, it will certainly be unsurprising. Mr Bernanke's task today was to articulate the case.Mr Bernanke has always said the test was whether the benefits of more "quantitative easing" (QE)—the purchase of assets by printing money—exceeded the costs. This is what he did today. On the benefits, he said studies that show the Fed's two previous rounds of QE (large scale asset purchases, or LSAPs in Fed jargon) plus Operation Twist had lowered Treasury yields by 80 to 120 basis points. They have also led to "significant declines in the yields on both corporate bonds...[and] substantial reductions in MBS yields and retail mortgage rates. LSAPs also appear to have boosted stock prices, presumably both by lowering discount rates and by improving the economic outlook." On the economic impact, he reported:“If we are willing to take as a working assumption that the effects of easier financial conditions on the economy are similar to those observed historically, then econometric models can be used to estimate the effects of LSAPs on the economy. Model simulations conducted at the Federal Reserve generally find that the securities purchase programs have provided significant help for the economy. For example, a study using the Board's FRB/US model of the economy found that, as of 2012, the first two rounds of LSAPs may have raised the level of output by almost 3 percent and increased private payroll employment by more than 2 million jobs, relative to what otherwise would have occurred. The Bank of England has used LSAPs in a manner similar to that of the Federal Reserve, so it is of interest that researchers have found the financial and macroeconomic effects of the British programs to be qualitatively similar to those in the United States.”Mr Bernanke also argued that the Fed's forward rate guidance, that is its commitment not to raise rates through the end of 2014, have had a powerful impact on expectations of Fed tightening. In conclusion, he said that "nontraditional policy tools have been and can continue to be effective in providing financial accommodation" (emphasis mine).He then catalogued the potential costs of further easing: impaired market functioning as the Fed's share of total bonds in circulation rose; the potential for asset bubbles if interest rates are kept low for a long time; the threat of inflation if the Fed has trouble exiting from its purchases; and potential losses if the bonds lose value when interest rates rise. Mr Bernanke said "the hurdle for using non-traditional policies should be higher than for traditional policies. At the same time, the costs of non-traditional policies, when considered carefully, appear manageable, implying that we should not rule out the further use of such policies if economic conditions warrant."Do conditions warrant? Yes. As Mr Bernanke put it, "the economic situation is obviously far from satisfactory."If Mr Bernanke has made it clear that the Fed plans to act on September 13th, he has not yet clarified how. The Fed could extend its low-rate guidance past 2014, but Mr Bernanke's speech seemed to assign such a move less efficacy than further bond purchases. If the Fed buys bonds, would it buy Treasurys or MBS or something else? By citing housing as first among the headwinds holding back the economy, and specifying the impact on mortgage rates of prior QE, he made a prima facie case for buying MBS and Treasurys. It is still not clear, though, whether the Fed would announce a fixed amount of purchases over a fixed term, or an open-ended programme (eg, $100 billion per month, keyed to economic conditions).What is fairly certain is that he will not be thanked when it happens. Conservatives will dial up their accusations of reckless Fed activism, and probably add toadying to Barack Obama to the rap sheet. Liberals will decry the Fed for not having gone further, or acted sooner. And in truth, no one can be sure that either is wrong. At today's Jackson Hole conference, there was an animated debate on this question. Adam Posen, whose last day on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee is today, decried the "defeatism about policy" which leads people to conclude that if monetary policy isn't working, it must simply be the structure of the economy. In fact the problem is more likely to be impairments to particular financial markets, which can be addressed with assetpurchases in that specific sector (eg, small-business loans). Central banks have shied away from such purchases because of "self-imposed taboos", Mr Posen fretted, such as fears that such purchases would misallocate credit or look like politicised fiscal policy. This, he said, "is a prehistoric way of thinking."Larry Lindsey, a former Fed governor and adviser to George Bush, shot back: "In a free society, individuals and institutions don’t do unusual things because if you do, and break custom and happen to be wrong, you’re betting the farm. It's normal, prudential sort of political behaviour. For our profession, after the last two decades, to realise modesty in what we express and can do, is probably becoming."Mr Bernanke can sympathise with both. When he first joined the Fed in 2002, he was, like most academics, something of a hedgehog, quite sure of the answers and impatient with the fools and cowards who refused to implement them. One of his first speeches as governor made the academic point that when short-term interest rates are at zero, the Fed still has plenty of ammo by printing money, what Milton Friedman euphemistically called dropping money from a helicopter. This was the origin of the epithet "Helicopter Ben". A year after that, he made the same case but with more nuance in Japan. In the intervening years, he has become, as most policymakers do, a fox: the real world contains political constraints and unintended consequences that must be factored in before the academically ideal remedy is applied.The fox in Mr Bernanke appears to have made peace with the hedgehog. His most important audience today was his own colleagues. He needs not just their votes but their full-throated verbal endorsement of the Fed's next move in their speeches they make afterwards. What most outsiders can't appreciate about the job of Fed chairman is that among his unwritten responsibilities is maintaining the integrity and credibility of his institution for his successors. There are two ways this can be lost: by doing too little in the face of either too high unemployment or inflation; the other is by doing too much, with activism that prompts a backlash against the institution, constraining its ability to act again. If Mr Bernanke has calculated correctly, he has found a path between the two.Barren rocks, barren nationalismTHE wave of anti-Japanese protests that has erupted across China, after tit-for-tat landings by ultranationalists on uninhabited islands which the Japanese call the Senkakus and the Chinese the Diaoyus, is alarming. It is a reminder of how a barren group of disputed rocks could upend pain-staking progress in the difficult relations between Asia’s two biggest powers (see article). And the spat even raises the spectre of a conflict that could conceivably draw in America.History always weighs heavily in East Asia, so it is essential to understand the roots of the squabble. China has never formally controlled the Senkakus, and for most Japanese, blithely forgetful of their country’s rapacious, imperial past, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Yet the islands’history is ambiguous. The Senkakus first crept into the record lying in the Chinese realm, just beyond the Ryukyu kingdom, which in the 1870s was absorbed by Japan and renamed Okinawa. The Chinese emperor objected to Japanese attempts to incorporate the Senkakus into Okinawa, but in 1895 Japan did it unilaterally. After Japan’s defeat in 1945 the Americans took over Okinawa’s administration, along with the Senkakus. In the 1951 peace treaty between Japan and the United States, as well as in the agreement to return Okinawa in 1972, the Senkakus’sovereignty was left vague (Taiwan claims them too). The Americans say the dispute is for the parties to resolve amicably.Three decades ago that looked possible. Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s modernisation, recognised the risks. When he signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship with Japan in 1978, the two countries agreed to kick the Senkakus into the long grass. “Our generation”, Deng said, “is not wise enough to find common language on this question. The next generation will be wiser.”His hopes have been dashed.Chinese maritime power is growing, in ways that not only challenge Japan’s control of the Senkakus (but also worry other countries that have maritime disputes with China). Maritime law has evolved with exclusive economic zones around territories (see article). So all the islets have become more valuable. The current squabble began when the right-wing governor of Tokyo declared that the metropolitan government would buy the Senkakus from their indebted private owner, the better to assert Japanese sovereignty. Not to be seen as weak, Yoshihiko Noda, the prime minister, retorted that the Japanese government would buy them instead.The natural solutionWhat can be done? Neither side wants to jeopardise good relations, let alone go to war, over the Senkakus. But the fact that there is a (remote) danger of conflict should prompt both governments to do two things. The long-term task is to defang the more poisonous nationalist serpents in both countries’politics. In Japan that means producing honest textbooks so that schoolchildren can discover what their predecessors did. In China (no promulgator of honest textbooks itself) the government must abandon its habit of using Japanophobia as an outlet for populist anger, when modern Japan has been such a force for peace and prosperity in Asia. But the priority now is to look for ways to minimise the chances of unwished-for conflict, especially in seas swarming withrival vessels.At a minimum that means not only having hotlines between the two governments, but also cast-iron commitments from the Chinese always to pick up the phone. A mechanism to deal with maritime issues between the two countries was set up last year, but crumbled when put to the test. Ideally, both sides should make it clear that military force is not an option. China should undertake not to send official vessels into Japanese waters, as it still occasionally does, and deal more forcefully with militaristic sabre-rattlers like the general who suggested using the Senkakus for bombing practice. Back in 2008 the two countries agreed on a framework for the joint development of disputed gasfields in the East China Sea, though China unpicked this good work when a Chinese trawler rammed a Japanese coastguard vessel near the Senkakus in 2010.As for the Senkakus themselves, Mr Noda’s proposal to buy them would have value if accompanied by a commitment to leave them unvisited. And it would be easier to face down the nationalists if America acknowledged its own past role in sweeping competing claims over the Senkakus under the carpet. Our own suggestion is for governments to agree to turn the Senkakus and the seas round them—along with other rocks contested by Japan and South Korea—into pioneering marine protected areas. As well as preventing war between humans, it would help other species. Thanks to decades of overfishing, too few fish swim in those waters anyway.CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A day after fumbling a predictable and straightforward question posed by Mitt Romney last week — are Americans better off than they were four years ago — the Obama campaign provided a response on Monday that it said would be hammered home during the Democratic convention here this week: “Absolutely.”The focus on the campaign’s handling of the question, after halting and contradictory responses from Democrats on Sunday, complicated the White House’s effort to begin striking a set of themes the president intends to highlight here and carry through the general election.That effort starts with an argument that Mr. Romney, the Republican nominee, would raise taxes on the middle class while cutting them for the wealthy. It seeks to pitch forward to the next four years the case that Mr. Obama and his allies have made over the spring and summer — that Mr. Romney’s business career showed him intent on profit even at the expense of workers and that his wealth has given him tax advantages not enjoyed by regular people.“The problem is everybody’s already seen his economic playbook,” Mr. Obama said at a campaign stop in Ohio before a Labor Day audience largely consisting of United Auto Workers union members. “On first down he hikes taxes by nearly $2,000 on the average family with kids in order to pay for a massive tax cut for multimillionaires.”The Obama campaign began running a new commercial making the same point, and asserting, “The middle class is carrying a heavy load in America, but Romney doesn’t see it.”As delegates streamed in for the opening of the convention on Tuesday, Mr. Obama and his team were putting the finishing touches on a program that requires a different kind of political daring from the one they showed four years ago, when Mr. Obama gave his speech in a stadium on a stage compared by some to a Greek temple.This week Mr. Obama is planning to undertake a tricky two-step of convincing wavering supporters being aggressively courted by Mr. Romney that they made the right decision in choosing him four years ago and that he has the country on its way to a sustainable recovery even if they do not always feel it. He will make the argument in an outdoor stadium again, on Thursday night under the threat of rain, but aides say there will be no Greek columns.Obama campaign aides indicated they were moving into a new phase, applying their case that Mr. Romney has no history of looking out for the middle class to the question of what the next four years would look like under a Romney presidency.But Republicans showed that they were not going to give Mr. Obama a free ride this week, with Mr. Romney’s running mate, Representativ e Paul D. Ryan, coming to North Carolina to keep the focus on the last four years.“The president can say a lot of things, and he will, but he can’t tell you that you’re better off,” Mr. Ryan said on Monday at a rally in Greenville, N.C. “Simply put, the J immy Carter years look like the good old days compared to where we are right now.”Mr. Obama’s aides initially appeared to stumble when television interviewers asked them to respond to Mr. Romney’s charge in his nomination acceptance speech Thursday night that Americans were not better off under Mr. Obama.On Fox News Channel, Mr. Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod, said, “We’re in a better position than we were four years ago in our economy.” But Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, a Democrat, answered “no” on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” though he blamed Republicans. Other aides equivocated.Mr. O’Malley provided another answer on Monday on CNN: “We are clearly better off as a country because we’re creating jobs rather than losing them. We have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That’s why we need to continue to move forward.”In fact, on Monday the campaign settled on a definitive answer of, as the deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter put it, “Absolutely.”。

考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：健身产业

考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：健身产业The fitness industry健身产业It works out cheaper降低成本运作Cut-price gyms are seizing a growing share of a stagnant market减价的健身房在萧条的市场中的份额日益增加Bulk discount批量折扣GETTING out of a pricey monthly gym membership has traditionally been as hard as squeezing into lycra after the Christmas break.摆脱昂贵的月制健身房会员身份从传统意义上来说就如圣诞节假期后挤入莱卡那样难But at Fitness4Less, a low-cost gym in east London, membership is more flexible. Customers pay 15.99a month and can leave at any point. Like cut-price airlines and supermarkets, budget gyms are muscling in on the market.但是在伦敦东部的一个低成本健身房Fitness4Less 里，会员制度更为灵活。

客户只需每月缴纳15.99 英镑，并且可以在任何时候终止会员关系。

就像廉价航空和打折超市那样，廉价健身房也打算在市场中分得一杯羹。

Their rise reflects the recent shakiness of Britain’s economy. Although budget chains constitute only 8% of the revenue, they now account for 21% of all fitness-club members. Low-cost gyms boast around 5,000 members per club compared with an industry average of about 1,900, according to Mintel, a consultancy. Such high numbers help keep membership cheap. Many accommodate such large numbers by opening 24 hours a day. That is appealing to the growing numbers of Britons doing shift work.廉价健身房的崛起反应了英国经济近期的局势动荡。

考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：收入与幸福感

考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：收入与幸福感Happiness and Income收入与幸福感Everything that rises must converge幸福的家庭总是相似的Emerging markets are catching up with the West inthe happiness stakes新兴国家的幸福指数将要赶上西方POETS, songwriters and left-wing politicians hate theidea, but for decades opinion-poll evidence has been clear: money buys happiness and thericher you are, the more likely you are to express satisfaction with your life. Until now. Asurvey of 43 countries published on October 30th by the Pew Research Centre of Washington,DC, shows that people in emerging markets are within a whisker of expressing the same levelof satisfaction as people in rich countries. It is the biggest qualification to the standard viewof happiness and income seen so far.诗人，作词家，左翼政治家总是反驳这样一个观点：钱可以买到幸福，一个人越有钱，他对生活的满意感就可能越高。

但是十年来民意调查却清楚证明了这一点。

不过，位于华盛顿特区的皮尤研究中心调查了43个国家后，发现发展中国家的人对生活满意度与富有国家的人们生活满意度相差无几。

《经济学人》英语热点文章精选8篇(中英文对照

（考研英语阅读原文很多来自《经济学人》，希望大家好好看看)印度的救赎IN MAY America’s Federal Reserve hinted that it would soon start to reduce its vast purchases of Treasury bonds. As global investors adjusted to a world without ultra—cheap money, there has been a great sucking of funds from emerging markets。

Currencies and shares have tumbled, from Brazil to Indonesia, but one country has been particularly badly hit。

今年五月，美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve）暗示，它将很快开始缩减大量购买国债的规模。

随着全球投资者开始调整策略，以适应没有超廉价资金的世界，大量资金开始逃离新兴市场.从巴西到印度尼西亚，货币及股票纷纷暴跌，但有一个国家受创尤其严重.Not so long ago India was celebrated as an economic miracle. In 2008 Manmohan Singh，the prime minister，said growth of 8—9% was India’s new cruising speed. He even predicted the end of the “chronic poverty，ignorance and disease, which has been the fate of millions of our countrymen for centuries”. Today he admits the outlook is difficult. The rupee has tumbled by 13% in three months。

考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：印度税制改革_百度文库

考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》:印度税制改革Tax reform in India印度税制改革The truck stops here如鲠在喉A fix for India's indirect-tax system is overdue butit may fall short of the ideal由于印度未能及时对其间接税系统进行调整使得其未能达到理想状态TRADE negotiators were dismayed when in July India scuppered a chance to make modestprogress on a global trade deal. Perhaps they hoped for too much. For years India has failed tosign a free-trade agreement even with itself. A recent report from the World Bank saidbureaucracy related to tax-collection at state borders is a big reason why India's long-distance truckers are parked 60% of the time. A proposal to address this by rationalising themyriad state and central-government levies into a harmonised goods-and-service tax, or GST,has been around since at least 2007. But grubby politics has put paid to the idea—until now.7月,印度本可让不温不火的全球贸易谈判有所进展的,可他却让贸易代表们的愿望化成了泡影,对此代表们十分沮丧。

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The Economist explains
Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?
May 27th 2013, 23:50 by T.S.
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PAYING for a taxi ride using your mobile phone is easier in Nairobi than it is in New York, thanks to Kenya’s world-leading mobile-money system, M-PESA.
Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the country’s largest mobile-network operator, it is now used by over 17m Kenyans, equivalent to more than two-thirds of the adult population; around 25% of the country’s gross nat ional product flows through it.
M-PESA lets people transfer cash using their phones, and is by far the most successful scheme of its type on earth. Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?
M-PESA was originally designed as a system to allow microfinance-loan repayments to be made by phone, reducing the costs associated with handling cash and thus making possible lower interest rates. But after pilot testing it was broadened to become a general money-transfer scheme. Once you have signed up, you pay mo ney into the system by handing cash to one of Safaricom’s 40,000 agents (typically in a corner shop selling airtime), who credits the money to your M-PESA account. You withdraw money by visiting another agent, who checks that you have sufficient funds before debiting your account and handing over the cash.
You can also transfer money to others using a menu on your phone. Cash can thus be sent one place to another more quickly, safely and easily than taking bundles of in person, or asking others to carry it for you. This is particularly useful in a country where many workers in cities send money back home to their families in rural villages. Electronic transfers save people time, freeing them to do other, more productive things instead.
Dozens of mobile-money systems have been launched, so why has Kenya’s been the most successful? It had several factors in its favour, including the exceptionally high cost of sending money by other methods; the dominant market position of Safaricom; the regulator's initial decision to allow the scheme to proceed on an experimental basis, without formal approval; a clear and effective marketing campaign (“Send money home”); an efficient system to move cash around behind the scenes; and, most intriguingly, the post-election violence in the country in early 2008. M-PESA was used to transfer money to people trapped in Nairobi's slums at the time, and some Kenyans regarded M-PESA as a safer place to store their money than the banks, which were entangled in ethnic disputes. Having established a base of initial users, M-PESA then benefitted from network effects: the more people who used it, the more it made sense for others to sign up for it.
M-PESA has since been extended to offer loans and savings products, and can also be used to disburse salaries or pay bills, which saves users further time and money (because they do not need to waste hours queuing up at the bank). One study found that in rural Kenyan households that adopted M-PESA, incomes increased by 5-30%. In addition, the availability of a reliable mobile-payments platform has spawned a host of start-ups in Nairobi, whose business models build on M-PESA’s foundations. Mobile-money schemes in other countries, meanwhile, have been held up by opposition from banks and regulators and concerns over money-laundering. But M-PESA is starting to do well in other countries, including Tanzania and Afghanistan, and last month it was launched in India. At the same time, operators in some other countries are doing an increasingly good job of imitating it. Some of the factors behind Kenya's lead cannot be copied; but many of them can, which means it should eventually be possible for other countries to follow Kenya's pioneering example.。