经济学人-激励员工 评级与封杀-双语阅
评级与封杀
Firms that keep grading their staff ruthlessly may not get the best from them.
那些总是无情地把员工分个三六九等的公司或许并不能得到最好的效果。
Mayer: who's for the chop next?
Mayer：谁是下一个要开除的?
IT IS a brutal management technique in which bosses grade their employees' performance along a vitality curve and sack those who fall into the lowest category.
老板们对雇员们的表现按照活力曲线来评定，然后把最差的一些炒掉鱿鱼的管理方法实在非常残酷。
Known as ranking and yanking, it had its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.
这个被称为评级与封杀的做法在19世纪80和90年代达到了全盛期。
In America its popularity faded somewhat after it was seen to have contributed to the fall of Enron.
在美国，实施该策略的公司因其被认为促成了安然公司的破产曾大量减少，
Now it is back in the headlines.
不过现在这个字眼又重新见诸报端。
On November 8th All Things D, a tech-industry website, reported that Yahoo staff are increasingly unhappy about a quarterly performance review introduced last year by the new boss, Marissa Mayer.
在11月8日，技术产业网站All Things D报道说，雅虎的员工们对于新老板Marissa Mayer去年引入的季度表现评估正日渐不满。
The grading exercise is said to have cost 600 of them their jobs in recent weeks.
据说，这种评估行为导致几周内就有600人没了工作。
Four days later, Microsoft announced that its own, equally unpopular system was being scrapped.
四天以后，微软宣布废除它自己同样不受欢迎的评价系统。
In a memo, Lisa Brummel, Microsoft's head of human
resources, said there would be no more ratings and no more curve.
在一份备忘录上，微软人力资源主管Lisa Brummel说道，再也不会有打分和曲线了。
The firm would implement a fundamentally new approach, designed to encourage teamwork and collaboration.
微软将会启用一个用来鼓励团结合作的崭新的方法。
Many firms, from Amazon to PwC, still use some version of what management theorists also call stack ranking to sort the sheep from the goats in their workforce.
从亚马逊到普华永道的许多公司依然在使用许多管理理论家称作员工排序的方法来挑选出不够格的员工。
However, many of them enforce it more flexibly than seems to have been the case at Microsoft or Yahoo.
然而，其中大多数的公司在实行时要比微软和雅虎这些公司有弹性的多。
Even General Electric, which pioneered the technique during the uncompromising reign of Neutron Jack Welch, has since softened its approach.
甚至在中子弹杰克韦尔奇治下首先采用这种管理方法的通用电气近年来也软化了实行方法。
The reason such gradings have not died out entirely is because employers still need to find ways to fairly evaluate their employees and have a basis for compensation differences, says Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School.
这种评分策略没有完全消失的原因在于老板们仍然需要找到公平评估雇员的方法并据此确定报酬差异。
This is especially true when there is a wide gap between the remuneration of top performers and the rest.
当顶级员工的工资和其他人差的很多的时候，这尤其显得很重要。
To avoid lawsuits claiming unfair discrimination, firms need to be able to show they have a clear basis for decisions on pay and bonuses.
这话来自于哈佛商学院的Robert Kaplan。为了避免不公待遇和员工歧视的诉讼，公司在决定酬劳和福利的时候需要有明确的根据。
Ranking and yanking is more logical in investment banks, law
and accountancy firms and big consultancies:
评级和封杀在投资银行、法律和会计公司以及大型咨询公司这些行业中要更合理一些：
their business model is, in a sense, built on recruiting large numbers of junior staff and motivating them with the prospect of becoming a partner, even though in practice only a few of them can ever make it.
他们的业务形式在某种程度上就是建立在招收大量新员工然后用成为合作人的目标激励他们努力工作，虽然实际上只有极少数人能够做到。
In other types of business, the evidence suggests that it may work at first, if a firm needs to cut away dead wood.
但在其他行业中，有证据显示这个方法在公司想要除去公司的赘余部分时还是能管用一段时间的。
But the benefit can disappear and turn into a cost if the ranking and yanking is done repeatedly, says Denise Rousseau of Carnegie Mellon University.
但是如果重复进行下去，就会由使公司收益变为带来损失。卡耐基梅隆大学的Denise Rousseau如此说道。
You can quickly end up with the people in the bottom quartile being average performers rather than poor performers, she notes.
很快，处在评估表底部的人就会是一般员工而非业务糟糕者她解释道，
There is nothing wrong with being average in an above-average workforce.
在一群极其优秀的员工中成为普通一员可没什么不对的。
A lot of good work is done by average people.
众多的优秀工作都是由普通人做成的。
If a large proportion of the workforce doubt the fairness of the grading system, and fear being among an arbitrarily imposed quota of underperformers, many may try to jump before they are pushed: 如果员工中较大一部分人怀疑评价体系的公正性，并且担心被随机地划分为不合格员工，其中不少就会尝试在被开除之前跳槽：
staff turnover may thus be higher than is desirable.
人员流动程度就会比期望的更大。
Worse, employees may look for ways to game the system, as
happened at Enron, where workers conspired to inflate their results to secure their bonuses or escape the axe.
更糟的是，雇员会想法设法利用体系的规则，正如安然事件中发生的那样，员工们串通起来夸大自己的成果来保证自己的奖励或是避免被开除。
That is not the sort of teamwork and collaboration that is wanted.
这可不是我们想要的那种团结合作。
经济学人科技类文章中英双语
The Brain Activity Map 绘制大脑活动地图 Hard cell 棘手的细胞 An ambitious project to map the brain is in the works. Possibly too ambitious 一个绘制大脑活动地图的宏伟计划正在准备当中，或许有些太宏伟了 NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America’s next big science project continues to dribble out. 有关其发起人心中下一个科学大工程的新闻报道层出不穷。 A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with a report that Barack Obama’s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known as the Brain Activity Map. 2月17日，《纽约时报》刊登的一位线人报告终于泄露了秘密，报告称奥巴马政府正在考虑赞助将被称为“大脑活动地图”的计划。 And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project in Science. 3月7日，部分发起人在《科学》杂志上发表声明证实了这一计划。 The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood. “大脑活动地图”计划的目标是改变人们在认知大脑时采用的度量方法。 At the moment, neuroscience operates at two disconnected levels. 眼下，神经学的研究处在两个断开的层次。 The higher one, where the dimensions of features are measured in centimetres, has many techniques at its disposal, notably functional magnetic-res onance imaging, which measures changes in tissues’ fuel consumption. 在相对宏观的层次当中各个特征的规模用厘米来衡量，有很多技术可以使用，尤其是用来测量组织中能量消耗变动情况的核磁共振成像技术。 This lets researchers see which bits of the brain are active in particular tasks—as long as those tasks can be performed by a person lying down inside a scanner. 该技术可使研究人员找出在完成具体的任务时，大脑的哪些部分处于活跃状态。At the other end of the scale, where features are measured in microns, lots of research has been done on how individual nerve cells work, how messages are sent from one to another, and how the connections between cells strengthen and weaken as memories are formed. 而另一个度量的层次则要求用微米来测量各种特征，这一层次的研究很多都是关于单个神经细胞是如何工作的、信息在神经细胞之间是如何传递的以及当产生记忆的时候神经细胞之间的联系是如何得到加强和减弱的。 Between these two, though, all is darkness. 然而，位于这两个层次之间的研究还处于一片漆黑当中。 It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and the main highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing in between.
13英语阅读-经济学人《Economics》双语版-Go forth and multiply
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China in Laos Busted flush How a Sino-Lao special economic zone hit the skids May 26th 2011 | BOTEN, LAOS | from the print edition ?Tweet ? Soon all this will be jungle again AT HOME and abroad, China is a byword for fast-track development, where yesterday’s paddy field is tomorrow’s factory, highway or hotel. Less noticed is that such development can just as quickly go into reverse. Golden City, in Boten, just over the border from China in tiny Laos, is a case in point. When a Hong Kong-registered company signed a 30-year, renewable lease with the Lao government in 2003 to set up a 1,640-hectare special economic zone built with mainland money and expertise, Golden City was touted as a
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经济学人双语阅读1
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经济学人双语阅读：政治遗传学 人体政治
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《经济学人》英中对照翻译版(考研英语必备)
来源于https://www.360docs.net/doc/e815693577.html,/wordpress/（The Economist《经济学人》中文版）和https://www.360docs.net/doc/e815693577.html,/（《The Economist》《经济学人》中文版） 11月10, 2008 [2008.11.08] 美国大选：无限期望 America's election：Great expectations NO ONE should doubt the magnitude of what Barack Obama achieved this week. When the president-elect was born, in 1961, many states, and not just in the South, had laws on their books that enforced segregation, banned mixed-race unions like that of his parents and restricted voting rights. This week America can claim more credibly that any other western country to have at last become politically colour-blind. Other milestones along the road to civil rights have been passed amid bitterness and bloodshed. This one was marked by joy, white as well as black (see article). 相信无人质疑奥巴马于本周取胜的重要意义。这位新总统出生于1961年，那时美国很多州的法律都要求强化种族分离、禁止像奥巴马父母那样的跨族通婚、限制选举权利；这些不仅限于南部地区，而出现在全国范围内。从本周开始，美国可以更加自信的宣称：任何其他的西方国家都变得有些政治色盲了。在通向民权的道路上，其它里程碑似的重大历史事件都是在痛苦与血泊中通过的；而此次总统选举则以愉快著称，受到了包括白人及黑人在内的全国选民的称赞。 Mr Obama lost the white vote, it is true, by 43-55%; but he won almost exactly same share of it as the last three (white) Democratic candidates; Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. And he won heavily among younger white voters. America will now have a president with half-brothers in Kenya, old schoolmates in Indonesia and a view of the world that seems to be based on respect rather than confrontation. 奥巴马丢掉了大约43%-55%的白人选票，这是不争的事实；但他与过去三位白人民主党候选人–克林顿、戈尔和肯尼迪–得到的白人选票几乎相同。同时，他在年轻一代的白人选民中取得了重大胜利。这位新总统有一个同父异母的兄弟在肯尼亚，有老同学在印尼，他的世界观似乎建立在尊重而不是对抗的基础之上。 That matters. Under George Bush America’s international standing has sunk to awful lows. This week Americans voted in record-smashing numbers for many reasons, but one of them was an abhorrence of how their shining city’s reputation has been tarnished. Their country will now be easier for its friends to like and harder for its foes to hate. 这很重要。在布什治下，美国的国际声誉降到了糟糕地步。本周美国选民的投票数量突破了历史纪录，其中原因很多，有一个就是他们对曾经辉煌无比的城市形象已然黯淡无光而感到愤恨。现在他们的国家将会更易赢得朋友的喜爱，而不易引起敌人的仇恨。 In its own way the election illustrates this redeeming effect. For the past eight years the debacle in Florida in 2000 has been cited (not always fairly) as an example of shabby American politics. Yet here was a clear victory delivered by millions of volunteers-and by the intelligent use of technology to ride a wave of excitement that is all too rare in most democracies. Mr Obama showed that, with the right message, a candidate with no money or machine behind him can build his own.
经济学人双语阅读3
经济学人杂志双语阅读：Fatalism v fetishism宿命论VS进口至上说 Economics focus 经济聚焦 Fatalism v fetishism 宿命论VS进口至上说 Jun 11th 2009 From The Economist print edition How will developing countries grow after the financial crisis? 金融危机后发展中国家将如何成长？ FORTY years ago Singapore, now home to the world's busiest port, was a forlorn outpost still garrisoned by the British. In 1961 South Korea was less industrialised than the communist north and dependent on American aid. In 1978 China's exports amounted to less than 5% of its GDP. These countries, and many of their neighbours, have since traded their way out of poverty. Given their success, it is easy to forget that some development economists were once prey to “export fatalism”. Poor countries, they believed, had little to gain from venturing into the world market. If they tried to expand their exports, they would thwart each other, driving down the price of their commodities. 现今世界最繁忙的港口坐落于新加坡-在40年前它还只是英国人驻军的遥远哨所。1961年的南朝鲜靠美国援助度日，在产业化的路上远远落后于他们北面的社会主义邻居。1987年的中国出口额占GDP总量不到5%。之后，这些国家和他们的邻居们靠开放商路脱离了贫穷。在这些国家成功的光环下，过去许多发展经济学家深受“出口宿命说”(注一)折磨的往事被淡忘了。他们曾经相信，穷国投身全球市场并无利可图。一旦他们试图扩大出口，那么穷国之间便会互相伤害并造成他们出产的商品价格下降。 The financial crisis of the past nine months is stirring a new export fatalism in the minds of some economists. Even after the global economy recovers, developing countries may find it harder to pursue a policy of “export-led growth”, which served countries like South Korea so well. Under this strategy, sometimes called “export fetishism”, countries spur sales abroad, often by keeping their curr encies cheap. Some save the proceeds in foreign-currency reserves, rather than spending them on imports. This strategy is one reason why the developing world's current-account surplus exceeded $700 billion in 2008, as measured by the IMF. In the past, these surpluses were offset by American deficits. But America may now rethink the bargain. This imbalance, whereby foreigners sell their goods to America in exchange for its assets, was one potential cause of the country's financial crisis. 过去九个月里的金融危机在某些经济学家的脑海里搅起了新的出口宿命论。就算是在金融危机过后，也许发展中 国家也可能会觉得他们要想采用那种使南朝鲜一类的国家受益颇多的“出口带动型增长”政策变得更加困难了。在这种被称为“出口至上主义”的策略下，政府常以保持本国货币的廉价来激励跨国贸易。一些国家选择把出口收益存入外汇储备，而不是用它们来进口。国际货币基金组织统计出，2008年发展中国家的经常账户(注二)有7千亿美元的结余，这(出口至上主义的策略)也许就是原因之一。在过去，这些结余会被美国的贸易逆差抵消。但是美国现在可能要重新考虑一下
经济学人双语版1
Europe's debt crisis 欧洲债务危机 Spot the pattern 看变化模式 Jul 5th 2011, 18:55 by R.A. | WASHINGTON 2011年7月5日18：55 R.A./华盛顿 HERE'S a chart showing the yields on 10-year Greek debt over the past three months. See the pattern? 本图显示的是在过去3个月10年期希腊债券的收益率。变化模式看清楚了吧？ There's a spike, followed by a decline, followed by a higher spike, followed by a decline to a higher trough, and so on. European leaders keep taking steps to avert disaster, and each time markets are less assuaged. 有个尖峰，接着是下跌，然后又是稍高一些的尖峰，接着跌入一个较高的波谷，如此反复。欧洲国家的领导人一直在采取措施避免灾难，而每一次市场都没有大的起色。 The latest spike corresponds to the stalemate over the IMF's willingness to continue making bail-out payments without a new, long-term rescue package in place (and the corresponding disagreement over how to rollover Greek debt, plus the drama surrounding the passage of Greece's new austerity plan). The IMF agreed to keep paying, French and German banks seemed willing to sign on to a rollover plan, and Greece got its new austerity programme through parliament. But it wasn't long before trouble kicked up again. 最近的尖峰反映了这样一个困境：国际货币基金组织愿意继续救助，但又没有制定出一个长期的一揽子救助计划（同时也反映出如何缓解希腊债务各方存在分歧，以及希腊的新紧缩计划能否通过依然有变数）。国际货币基金组织同意继续提供支付，法国和德国的银行似乎愿意签署资金周转计划书，希腊国会通过了新的紧缩计划。但是，没过多久，麻烦又来了。 Moody's and Standard and Poor's have both suggested that the agreed-upon rollover plan might well constitute a default. Since that's precisely the outcome European leaders were hoping to avoid, this news has sent everyone scurrying to come up with a new and better deal. Meanwhile, Moody's has cut Portugal's debt rating to junk. Portugal may well need a new rescue package, which will surely include debate over the fate of creditors, which will mean more questions about bank finances and more brinksmanship. And the European economy continues to slow, even as the European Central Bank continues to tighten policy. 穆迪和标准普尔都暗示，商定好的周转计划很可能得不到执行。因为这种结果正是欧洲国家的领导人们想避免的，所以这条消息让每个人都急不可待地要制定出一个新的、更好的解决办法。与此同时，穆迪公司已经将葡萄牙的债务评级降至垃圾级。葡萄牙很可能需要一个新的一揽子救援计划，这必将包括对债权人命运的辩论，而辩论的内容将更多的是关于银行财政方面的问题和边缘政策。欧洲经济增长速度持续放缓，尽管欧洲央行继续收紧货币政策。 I don't know that there's any broad lesson here, other than: for all the steps already taken by European leaders, the euro zone hasn't really gotten any closer to solving the underlying issues of insolvency and institutional weakness.
经济学人中英对照文章 Northern lights
Northern lights 北极光 The Nordic countries are reinventing their model of capitalism, says Adrian Wooldridge 艾德里-伍尔德里奇（Adrian Wooldridge）指出北欧国家正在重塑它们的资本主义模式 THIRTY YEARS AGO Margaret Thatcher turned Britain into the world’s leading centre of “thinking the unthinkable”. Today that distinction has pas sed to Sweden. The streets of Stockholm are awash with the blood of sacred cows. The think-tanks are brimful of new ideas. The erstwhile champion of the “third way” is now pursuing a far more interesting brand of politics. 三十年前马格丽特-撒切尔（Margaret Thatcher）将英国转变成了一个在全世界首屈一指“敢于想不可想象之事”的中心。今天这项荣耀则移到了瑞典头上。斯德哥尔摩的大街上充满着打破禁忌局限所产生的新气象。智囊机构的好点子层出不穷。之前身为“第三条道路”[1]的拥护者，如今瑞典所追求的政治模式要比过去有趣得多。 Sweden has reduced public spending as a proportion of GDP from 67% in 1993 to 49% today. It could soon have a smaller state than Britain. It has also cut the top marginal tax rate by 27 percentage points since 1983, to 57%, and scrapped a mare’s nest of taxes on property, gifts, wealth and inheritance. This year it is cutting the corporate-tax rate from 26.3% to 22%. 瑞典政府开支占国民生产总值（GDP）的比例已从1993年的67%降到了今天的49%。很快其政府规模将会比英国更小。同时，瑞典的最高边际税率已降到了57%，比1983年整整低了27个百分点，而且瑞典政府也已取消了大量混乱不堪的财产税，馈赠税以及继承税。今年瑞典将会把企业所得税从26.3%下调到22%。 Sweden has also donned the golden straitjacket of fiscal orthodoxy with its pledge to produce a fiscal surplus over the economic cycle. Its public debt fell from 70% of GDP in 1993 to 37% in 2010, and its budget moved from an 11% deficit to a surplus of 0.3% over the same period. This allowed a country with a small, open economy to recover quickly from the financial storm of 2007-08. Sweden has also put its pension system on a sound foundation, replacing a defined-benefit system with a defined-contribution one and making automatic adjustments for longer life expectancy. 瑞典也披上了“黄金紧身衣”[2]——承诺会在这个经济周期内达到财政预算盈余。其政府债务占GDP的比例已从已从1993年的70%减少到了2010年的37%。同期瑞典政府预算也从11%的赤字转变至0.3%的盈余。所有这些行动使这个开放的小经济体迅速地从2007-08的金融风暴中恢复过来。瑞典同时也打稳了其退休金制度的基础，将约定提存制度改成了约定给付制度[3]，并让退休金根据平均寿命的增长自动进行调整。
2015经济学人双语阅读
2015经济学人双语阅读 London Fashion Week WITH its whirl of frocks, models and million-dollar deals London Fashion Week has always been rather a closeted affair, accessible to few. Amateur fashionistas have had to wait for glossy magazines and blogs to tell them what to wear next. But at the second of London's biannual fairs, which ran from September 13th to 17th, that was starting to change. Around half the shows were live-streamed to the internet and TV channels with bulletins broadcast to commuters waiting at underground Tube stops. A free pop-up cinema screened fashion-themed films. This push to bring Fashion Week to a wider audience is likely to pay off. Though unaffordable to most shoppers, high fashion is the beating heart of high-street retail. More wearable versions of the transparent outfits that entertained audiences in London this month will soon appear in shops up and down the country. In the week following last September's shows, online fashion sales were up 45%, according to Ve Interactive, an e-commerce firm. Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council (BFC), which organises Fashion Week, expects that the digital buzz surrounding the event will push buyers' orders well beyond ￡100m ($160m). The changes seen at the shows are part of a wider effort to bring a businesslike approach to British fashion. London has long been feted as a breeding ground for brilliant designers. Many of them, including John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, trained at Central St Martins, a college known for turning out skilful originals. But a tendency to focus on art over business has meant that too many designers have failed to make the most of their critical acclaim. London Fashion
《经济学人》双语阅读1.服装零售
Clothes Retailing: The Forgotten Majority The fashion industry blatently pays attention to plus-size women. A good fit is everything, stylists often counsel, but in assessing its market America's fashion business appears to have mislaid the measuring tape. A frequently-cited study done a few years ago by Plunkett Research, a market-research firm, found that 67% of American women were “plus-size”, meaning size 14 or larger. That figure will not have changed much, but in 2016, only 18% of clothing sold was plus-size, according to NPD Group, another research firm. Designers and retailers have long thought of the plus-size segment as high-risk. Predicting what these customers will buy can be difficult, as they tend to be more cautious about styles. Making larger clothes is more expensive; higher costs for fabric cannot always be passed on to consumers. In turn, plus-size women shopped less because the industry was not serving them well. “We have money but nowhere to spend it,” says Kristine Thompson, who run s a blog called Trendy Curvy and has nearly 150,000 followers on Instagram, a social-media site. At last, that is changing. Fast-fashion brands, including Forever 21 and a fashion line sold in partnership with Target, a giant retailer, have expanded their plus-size collections. Lane Bryant, a plus-size retailer, and Prabal Garung, a designer, have done the same. In March Nike extended its “X-sized” sportswear range. Revenue in the plus-size category increased by 14% between 2013 and 2016, compared with growth of 7% for all apparel. Takings were $21.3bn last year. Social media has played an important role in changing attitudes in the fashion business, says Madeline Jones, editor and co-founder of PLUS Model Magazine. Nonetheless, designer brands still hold back (Walmart sells the most plus-size apparel). Some brands, such as Michael Kors, do sell plus-size ranges but do not advertise them or display them on websites. For those that are willing to take a chance, several internet startups that deliver personally styled outfits to individuals, including plus-size women, offer data to “straight-size” designers. Gwynnie Bee, Stitch Fix and Dia & Co, for example, share information with designers on preferred styles and fits. Tracy Reese, a designer known for creating Michelle Obama's dress for the Democratic National Convention in 2012, is one brand that recently enlisted Gwynnie Bee's help to create a new plus-size collection.