Theprinciplesofeconomics.经济学的原理(英译中)

Theprinciplesofeconomics.经济学的原理(英译中)The word economy es from the Greek word for “one who manages a household.” at first, this origin might seem peculiar.经济这个字眼来自希腊语中“家庭的管理者”，一开始，这个起源似乎看上去有些特殊。

But, in fact, households and economies have much in mon.但是，实际上，家庭和经济有许多的共同之处。

A household faces many decisions.一个家庭面临很多的决定。

It must decide which members of the household do which tasks and what each member gets in return:它必须要决定家庭成员要完成任务，并且将每个家庭中的成员都安排在内。

Who cooks dinner?谁烧正餐？Who does the laundry?谁做洗衣服？Who gets the extra dessert at dinner?谁可以得到额外的餐后甜点？Who gets to choose what TV show to watch?谁可以选择电视节目来看？In short, the household must allocate its scarce resources among its various members, taking into account each member’s abilitie s, efforts, and desires.总之，家庭必须把其缺乏的资源分配给其中的各种成员，并把每个成员能力，努力和愿望考虑进去，--Like a household, a society faces many decisions.和家庭一样，社会也面临很多的决定。

A society must decide what jobs will be done and who will do them.社会必须决定工作将要被完成，由谁来完成它们。

It needs some people to grow food, other people to make clothing, and still others to design puter software.它需要一些人来种植粮食，一些人来制作服装，还需要一些人来设计电脑软件。

Once society has allocated people (as well as land, buildings, and machines) to various jobs, it must decide who will eat caviar and who will eat potatoes.一旦社会分派人们（比如陆地，建筑物和机器）做各种不同的工作，它肯定决定谁将吃鱼子酱，谁将吃马铃薯。

It must decide who will drive a Porsche and who will take the bus.它肯定决定谁将开保时捷，谁将乘公共汽车。

The management of society’s resources is important because resources are scarce.因为资源缺乏所以社会资源的管理是非常重要的。

Scarcity means that society has less to offer than people wish to have. 不足意味着社会的供应不能满足人们的期望值。

Just as a household cannot give every member everything he or she wants, a society cannot give every individual the highest standard of living to which he or she might aspire.就像家庭不能满足所有成员的需求一样，社会不能给所有个体以他们所期待的最高的生活标准。

Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources. 经济学就是研究社会如何管理其缺乏的资源的方法。

--In most societies, resources are allocated not by a single central planner but through the bined actions of millions of households and firms.在大部分的社会中，资源并不是被单一的中心计划者分配而是由数百万家庭与相结合的行动分配。

Economists therefore study how people make decisions:因此经济学家研究人们如何做决定：How much they work, what they buy, how much they save, and how they invest their savings.他们做多少工作，他们买什么，他们节省多少，并且他们怎样用存款进行投资。

Economists also study how people interact with one another.经济学家也研究人们之间的相互影响。

For instance, they examine how the multitude of buyers and sellers of a good together determine the price at which the good is sold and the quantity that is sold and the economy as a whole, including the growth in average ine, the fraction of the population that cannot find work, and the rate at which prices are rising.例如，他们调查一件商品的顾客群和卖主是如何一起来制定出这件被售商品的价格，数量和整体的经济情况，包括平均收入的增长，小部分人口的失业，和价格上涨的速率。

Although the study of economics has many facets, the field is unified by several central ideas.尽管经济学的研究存在很多的侧面，但这一领域被几个中心的想法所统一。

In the rest of this chapter, we look at Ten Principles of Economics. 在这章的余下的部分中，我们看一下经济学的10个原则。

These principles recur throughout this book and are introduced here to give you an overview of what economics is all about.这些原则重复贯穿于这本书中，向你们介绍对经济学的一个总体的看法。

--How people make decisions.人们该怎样做决定。

There is no mystery to what an “economy” is.“经济”是什么，并不神秘。

Whether we are talking about the economy of Los Angeles, of the united state, or of the whole world, an economy is just a group of people interacting with one another as they go about their lives.无论我们谈论美国洛杉矶的经济，还是全球世界经济，经济都是一群人们与其他人的相互作用影响，就好像他们着手的人生一样。

-Because the behavior of an economy reflects the behavior of the individuals who make up the economy, we start our study of economics with four principles of individual decision-making.因为经济的行为反映组成经济的个体的行为，我们以个体做决定的4原则来开始经济学的研究。

Principle 1 people face tradeoffs.原则1，人们面对交易。

The first lesson about making decisions is summarized in the adage: 关于下决定的第一个功课被概括在格言中：“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”“没有免费的午餐”。

To get one thing that we like, we usually have to give up another thing that we like.为了得到我们所喜欢的一件东西，我们通常不得不放弃另一件我们所喜欢的东西。

Making decisions requires trading off one goal against another.做决定需要用一个目标取代其它所有的目标。

Consider a student who must decide how to allocate her most valuable resource her time.考虑一个学生必须决定如何来分配她的最有价值的资源和她的时间。

--She can spend all of her time studying economics;她可以花费她全部的时间来学习经济学。

She can spend all her time studying psychology;她可以花费她全部的时间来学习心理学。

or she can divide her time between the two fields.或者，她可以将她的时间分配给这两门学科。

For every hour she studies one subject, she gives up an hour she could have used studying the other.每个小时她学习一门学科，放弃一个小时她可能已经用它来学习其它的事情。