Jason Furman on Productivity, Competition, and Growth (Ep. 103)
Hello.
你好。
Today we are here with Jason Furman, who is a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama.
今天我们采访的是哈佛大学肯尼迪学院教授、奥巴马总统经济顾问委员会前主席杰森·弗曼。
Jason, welcome.
杰森，欢迎。
Thanks for having me.
谢谢你有我。
First question: why has US investment behavior been so sluggish for so long?
第一个问题：为什么美国的投资行为这么长时间以来如此低迷？
You start with the easy ones.
你从简单的开始。
There’s no warm-up here, Tyler.
这里没有热身，泰勒。
I think there’s a lot of reasons.
我认为原因有很多。
Some of it isn’t a problem.
其中一些不是问题。
It’s that you don’t need as much investment from businesses in the type of intangible economy that we have today relative to the type of heavy industry we used to have.
就是说，相对于我们过去的重工业类型，我们今天所拥有的无形经济类型不需要企业那么多的投资。
But I think part of the investment shortfall does reflect problems and failures in economic policy.
但我认为投资缺口的一部分确实反映了经济政策的问题和失败。
In particular, the increase in concentration in certain industries has led to greater monopoly power and has reduced some of the incentives and need to make investments in those industries.
特别是某些行业集中度的提高导致了垄断力量的增强，并降低了对这些行业进行投资的一些动力和需求。
And I think that’s part of the investment shortfall we can and should do something about.
我认为这是投资缺口的一部分，我们可以而且应该采取一些措施来解决。
But if I take a sector like, say, hospitals, where there’s quite a bit of monopoly power, there’s been plenty of investments into healthcare.
但如果我以医院这样的行业为例，那里有相当多的垄断力量，那么医疗保健领域就有大量投资。
Is there a correlation between sectors with a lot of market power and sluggish investment?
市场力量大的行业与投资低迷之间是否存在相关性？
There is.
有。
You see this in research by Thomas Philippon.
你可以在 Thomas Philippon 的研究中看到这一点。
You see it in research that Jan Eberly has done.
你可以在 Jan Eberly 所做的研究中看到这一点。
Both of them have shown that the predictions you’d get by looking at increasing concentration are pretty similar to the predictions you’d get in terms of where you see the investment shortfalls.
两者都表明，通过关注日益集中的情况所得到的预测与根据投资短缺的情况所得到的预测非常相似。
I know Jan Eberly did look at the hospital industry, and I thought that was one of the shortfalls.
我知道简·埃伯利确实研究过医院行业，我认为这是缺陷之一。
But I’m not completely positive about that.
但我对此并不完全乐观。
Of course, health has 18 different issues and distortions going on in it all at once.
当然，健康领域同时存在 18 个不同的问题和扭曲。
Sure, but there’s a lot of investment in tech.
当然可以，但技术方面有大量投资。
And while there may be market dominance, there’s not market power there in the sense of high prices and restricted output, right?
虽然可能存在市场主导地位，但不存在高价格和有限产量意义上的市场力量，对吗？
So again, should we think market power is actually the problem here?
那么，我们是否应该认为市场力量实际上是这里的问题呢？
I think market power is a problem in some sectors.
我认为市场力量在某些领域是一个问题。
I actually think the health sector is an example of where it is.
事实上，我认为卫生部门就是一个例子。
The problem that has been very well measured and very well documented is higher prices as a result of market power.
市场力量导致的价格上涨是一个已经得到很好衡量和详细记录的问题。
So I’m quite confident that in the health sector, market power leads to higher prices.
因此，我非常有信心，在卫生领域，市场力量会导致价格上涨。
But also more investment, it seems.
但似乎还有更多的投资。
If higher prices are for something like drugs, then I think it’s tough.
如果像药品这样的东西价格更高，那么我认为这很困难。
I think you do have a tradeoff between “are you getting more innovation” on the one hand and higher prices on the other hand.
我认为你确实需要在一方面“是否获得更多创新”和另一方面更高的价格之间进行权衡。
I don’t quite know the exact thing to do there.
我不太清楚在那里要做什么。
When it comes to hospitals, there’s very few efficiencies that come out of these mergers.
对于医院来说，这些合并带来的效率非常低。
The only efficiency that might come out of them is that you can pay nurses less than you used to.
它们唯一可能带来的效率是你可以比以前更少地支付护士费用。
And I’m not sure how thrilled we should be about that.
我不确定我们对此应该感到多么兴奋。
What do you think of the Rossi-Hansberg paper that if you look at the US economy sector by sector, rather than national concentration indices, that there’s no apparent increase in market power?
你如何看待罗西-汉斯伯格的论文：如果你按部门而不是国家集中度指数来观察美国经济，就会发现市场力量没有明显增加？
These macro measures of market power are limited and problematic, and that’s something we always knew.
这些市场力量的宏观衡量指标是有限的且存在问题，这是我们一直都知道的事情。
We knew that the first time we published them at the Council of Economic Advisers.
我们第一次在经济顾问委员会发表这些报告时就知道了。
A lot of the researchers that have published them have known that.
许多发表论文的研究人员都知道这一点。
The question is, like anything else in economics, does it have predictive power?
问题是，就像经济学中的其他事物一样，它是否具有预测能力？
Does it explain something?
它能解释什么吗？
Does it work?
有效吗？
And it does seem associated with things like profitability, with things like markups at an aggregate level.
它似乎确实与盈利能力、总体加价等因素有关。
And some of the aggregate models — it matches features of the data, like the rise in the return to capital relative to the safe rate of return on Treasuries.
一些总体模型与数据特征相匹配，例如资本回报率相对于国债安全回报率的上升。
So is this going to work for every sector?
那么这对每个行业都适用吗？
No. Retail, for example — more concentration.
不。例如零售业——“更加集中”。
In part that’s more competition at the local level.
部分原因是地方层面的竞争更加激烈。
In part that’s more innovation.
在某种程度上，这是更多的创新。
So in retail, the national numbers, I think, are really misleading.
因此，我认为，在零售业，全国数据确实具有误导性。
In other sectors, I think they’re not.
在其他领域，我认为并非如此。
On balance, I think they’re not.
总的来说，我认为他们不是。
If investment is important, does that make you an economic pessimist, given the apparent end of the savings glut from Asia?
如果投资很重要，考虑到亚洲储蓄过剩的情况明显结束，这是否会让您成为经济悲观主义者？
I think I’m an economic realist.
我认为我是一个经济现实主义者。
You look at Robert Gordon, and he’s been turned into this big pessimist, this pole of prediction that’s this negative.
你看看罗伯特·戈登，他已经变成了一个大悲观主义者，这种预测的极端是消极的。
We’ve run out of ideas.
我们已经没有主意了。
Nothing ever is going to happen.
什么都不会发生。
It turns out, if you just look at average productivity growth over the last 50 years and assume that’s what you’re going to get over the next 50 years, we’re going to have a GDP growth rate that is around 2 percent, maybe a little bit below it.
事实证明，如果你只看过去 50 年的平均生产率增长，并假设这就是未来 50 年的增长率，我们的 GDP 增长率将约为 2%，甚至略低一些。
And that’s just from continuing the last 50 years.
这还只是过去 50 年的延续。
Now, the average of the last 50 years is better than the average of the last 15 years.
现在，过去50年的平均水平比过去15年的平均水平要好。
So, in some ways, I’m an optimist.
所以，从某些方面来说，我是一个乐观主义者。
I think we’ll get back to our historical productivity growth.
我认为我们将恢复历史生产力增长。
But the idea that we’re going to get way beyond that certainly could happen, but I don’t think it’s a reasonable forecast of what’s going to happen.
但是，我们将超越这个目标的想法肯定会发生，但我认为这不是对将要发生的事情的合理预测。
Referring to Gordon, here’s another softball question.
提到戈登，这是另一个垒球问题。
Why did productivity fall so much after either 1973 or in, say, the last 15 years?
为什么 1973 年之后或过去 15 年生产力下降如此之多？
This is the easy podcast.
这是简单的播客。
Yep.
是的。
I think there’s something.
我认为有一些东西。
Less infrastructure investment, less R&D.
基础设施投资减少，研发减少。
There were some major projects in terms of highways in the 1950s, the lunar landing in the 1960s, et cetera.
20世纪50年代有一些重大的高速公路项目，1960年代的登月项目等等。
I’d like to think that was the answer to your question.
我想这就是你问题的答案。
I think the truth is, when you go and quantify that type of public investment, it’s a couple tenths of a percent of the answer.
我认为事实是，当你量化此类公共投资时，你会发现它只占答案的十分之几。
In the recent period, I do think the increased concentration we’re talking about might be a tenth or two percentage point of the slowdown that we’ve seen.
在最近一段时间，我确实认为我们正在谈论的集中度的增加可能是我们所看到的放缓的十分之一或两个百分点。
Some of it may be that you need to invert your question and ask not why did productivity slow down, but why was productivity so fast?
其中一些可能是你需要颠倒你的问题，不要问为什么生产力下降，而是问为什么生产力如此之快？
There’s a lot of very special things about the 1950s and the 1960s, just coming off of World War II.
第二次世界大战结束后的 20 世纪 50 年代和 1960 年代有很多非常特别的事情。
And in terms of ’95 to 2005, well, it’s a relatively short period of time.
就 95 年到 2005 年而言，这是一个相对较短的时期。
Stuff fluctuates.
东西有波动。
You have a period of faster growth.
你有一个快速成长的时期。
But broadly speaking, we’re in a world of 1.5 percent productivity growth if we’re lucky.
但从广义上讲，如果幸运的话，我们正处于一个生产率增长 1.5% 的世界。
Unfortunately, it’s been more like 1 lately, and that’s just what it is.
不幸的是，最近它更像是 1，事实就是如此。
What is your take on the degree of unmeasured benefits from the internet?
您对互联网带来的无法估量的好处有何看法？
High, low, intermediate?
高、低、中？
Intermediate, but most of them were in the base 5, 10, 15 years ago — Google, online travel, online shopping, Wikipedia.
中等，但大多数都在 5、10、15 年前 —— 谷歌、在线旅行、在线购物、维基百科。
It’s not like adding these are going to add to your measure of productivity growth in the year 2019 or the year 2018.
添加这些并不会增加您衡量 2019 年或 2018 年生产力增长的指标。
They might add to the level of productivity, but they were in the level.
它们可能会提高生产力水平，但它们就在这个水平上。
They were in the base a while ago now.
他们不久前就在基地里了。
And they’ve just continued up.
他们只是继续上升。
So, I certainly think there’s some things we’re not measuring.
所以，我当然认为有些事情我们没有衡量。
A bunch of it, though, is about the use of our time.
不过，其中很大一部分与我们时间的利用有关。
YouTube may be better than TV, but it’s only a bit better than TV, so you can’t just take the gross benefits of YouTube.
YouTube 可能比电视更好，但也只比电视好一点点，所以你不能只享受 YouTube 的毛利。
You have to do the net benefits relative to the other activity.
你必须获得相对于其他活动的净收益。
And then, if you’re being a paternalist, you could ask, “Is any of this a good use of our time?” But without even going there, I think you get decent-size impact on the level of well-being, a small impact on the growth of well-being over the last decade.
然后，如果你是一个家长式作风者，你可以问：“这对我们的时间有好处吗？”但即使不去那里，我认为你也会对福祉水平产生相当大的影响，对过去十年福祉增长的影响很小。
On the best policy changes to boost productivity
关于提高生产力的最佳政策变化
Let’s say you are the productivity czar, and you can make two or three key changes to boost productivity.
假设您是生产力沙皇，您可以进行两到三个关键改变来提高生产力。
What would they be?
它们会是什么？
Forget the filibuster, you’re the productivity czar.
忘记阻挠，你就是生产力沙皇。
Well, number one, two, and three would be more immigration, more immigration of talented people that will add to innovation here in the United States, that would bring their ideas with them, that would start businesses.
嗯，第一、第二和第三点将是更多的移民，更多的人才移民，这将促进美国的创新，带来他们的想法，从而开办企业。
Now, if I had to go to four, five, and six, much increased federal R&D — it’s fallen as a share of GDP consistently since the 1960s — a business tax reform that included more incentives for investment like expensing, and an expanded R&D credit to encourage businesses to internalize more of the benefits that their research has for others.
现在，如果我不得不说四、五、六，那就是大幅增加的联邦研发 ——自 20 世纪 60 年代以来，它占 GDP 的比重一直在下降—— 一项营业税改革，其中包括更多的投资激励措施，如支出，以及扩大研发信贷，以鼓励企业将其研究为他人带来的更多好处内部化。
And then finally, investing in American higher education.
最后，投资美国高等教育。
I’m all for more immigration.
我完全支持更多移民。
But don’t you find it strange that the relatively high-productivity ’50s and ’60s have a fairly limited number of immigrants?
但生产力相对较高的50、60年代，移民数量却相当有限，你不觉得奇怪吗？
Some of them contribute a great deal.
他们中的一些人做出了很大的贡献。
Einstein, right?
爱因斯坦，对吗？
Simple example.
简单的例子。
The productivity shortfall comes right after we increase immigration a lot.
在我们大量增加移民之后，生产力短缺就出现了。
So maybe it’s not the number-one factor?
那么也许这不是第一因素？
Is it the number-one factor in the slowdown?
这是经济放缓的第一因素吗？
Probably not.
可能不会。
But we have a lot of micro evidence — papers that take a look at what happens when immigrants come.
但我们有很多微观证据——论文来研究移民到来时会发生什么。
Not only do they patent, but Jennifer Hunt found that the Americans end up patenting more when they’re in the presence of those immigrants.
他们不仅申请专利，而且詹妮弗·亨特发现，当美国人在这些移民面前时，他们最终会申请更多的专利。
This is something where I think we have a good enough set of micro data.
我认为我们在这方面拥有足够好的微观数据。
We don’t need to use macro decades to try to make inferences.
我们不需要用宏观十年来试图做出推论。
What about YIMBY as a way of raising productivity growth?
YIMBY 作为提高生产率增长的一种方式怎么样？
Let everyone move to Oakland or maybe even San Francisco.
让每个人都搬到奥克兰，甚至旧金山。
Would that help a great deal?
这会有很大帮助吗？
That would be on my list, too.
那也会在我的清单上。
If we keep going, probably we’ll discover that a large fraction of the thoughts I have about economic policy would fall under the heading of enhancing productivity.
如果我们继续前进，我们可能会发现我对经济政策的大部分想法都属于提高生产率的范畴。
Absolutely, I think there’s a real mismatch of people globally — people that would be more productive if they were in the United States than they were in the country that they were in.
当然，我认为全球范围内确实存在人员不匹配的问题——如果人们在美国，他们的生产力会比在他们所在的国家更高。
Then there’s a mismatch — not nearly as large, but a still sizable one — within the United States itself.
然后，美国内部也存在不匹配——“虽然没有那么大，但仍然相当大”。
The places where people can most productively add to the economy — places like the Bay Area, the Boston area, the Washington area — are ridiculously and unnecessarily expensive to live in because of artificial constraints on building that drive people out and keep people from coming in.
人们能够最有效地促进经济增长的地方——诸如湾区、波士顿地区、华盛顿地区——的居住成本高得离谱且不必要，因为人为的建筑限制导致人们迁出并阻止人们进入。
The places where people can most productively add to the economy — places like the Bay Area, the Boston area, the Washington area — are ridiculously and unnecessarily expensive to live in because of artificial constraints on building that drive people out and keep people from coming in.
人们能够最有效地促进经济增长的地方——诸如湾区、波士顿地区、华盛顿地区——的居住成本高得离谱且不必要，因为建筑方面的人为限制导致人们迁出并阻止人们进入。
The US is losing some of its manufacturing capacity, and certainly a lot of its manufacturing workforce.
美国正在失去部分制造能力，当然还有大量制造业劳动力。
Are there external benefits to keeping those activities more in the US?
将这些活动更多地留在美国是否有外部好处？
Significant benefits?
显着的好处？
I don’t think that manufacturing itself should be an important objective of US policy.
我认为制造业本身不应该成为美国政策的重要目标。
It’s one type of job.
这是一种工作。
It’s been a good type of job, but there’s other good types of jobs as well.
这是一种很好的工作，但还有其他类型的工作。
I wouldn’t focus on where physical things are being made as opposed to where services are being made.
我不会关注实体产品的生产地点，而不是服务的生产地点。
In fact, if anything, I think the error in policy is probably a little bit too much emphasis on manufacturing and a little bit less on services.
事实上，如果说有什么不同的话，我认为政策上的错误可能是有点过于重视制造业，而不太重视服务业。
What do you think of the national security argument?
您如何看待国家安全论点？
That, say, when building a ship, we might be dependent on South Korean components.
也就是说，在建造一艘船时，我们可能会依赖韩国的零部件。
If there were a war in Asia, those might be, for some reason, unreliable.
如果亚洲发生战争，出于某种原因，这些可能是不可靠的。
We depend on China for rare earths.
我们依赖中国的稀土。
We depend on Taiwan, to some extent, for high-quality chips, even though we make our own.
在某种程度上，我们依赖台湾提供高质量的芯片，尽管我们自己生产芯片。
Is the supply chain extended too long, and it was a kind of economic fantasy, and it doesn’t make national security sense?
供应链是否延伸得太长，是一种经济幻想，没有国家安全意义？
I don’t consider myself an expert in any of those national security questions, so I would be open to thinking about the national security concerns associated with the supply chain.
我不认为自己是任何这些国家安全问题的专家，因此我愿意考虑与供应链相关的国家安全问题。
I have an awful lot in specific cases — both when I was in government and just in the world more generally — heard people make national security arguments that I found tendentious and pretty unpersuasive.
我有很多具体案例——“无论是在我在政府任职时，还是在世界范围内”——听到人们提出国家安全论点，我认为这些论点具有倾向性且缺乏说服力。
There may be some that are persuasive and that are true.
可能有些是有说服力的并且是真实的。
There’s an awful lot that aren’t.
有很多都不是。
Our administration, towards the end, worried a bit about semiconductors.
我们的政府在最后阶段对半导体有点担心。
When I’ve looked at that, there’s enough of a diversified world supply, enough of an ability to scale up if necessary in the United States, that I don’t think on semiconductors — there, it was protectionism under the guise of national security.
当我看到这一点时，世界供应有足够的多元化，美国有足够的必要时扩大规模的能力，我不认为半导体是——在那里，这是打着国家安全幌子的保护主义。
So I think we should accept the possibility of national security, take it seriously, but be really, really wary that a lot of protectionist arguments use that trappings.
因此，我认为我们应该接受国家安全的可能性，认真对待它，但要非常非常警惕，许多保护主义论点都使用这种装饰。
Has the China shock literature changed your view of what is an optimal policy adjustment to foreign trade?
中国冲击文献是否改变了您对于什么是最优外贸政策调整的看法？
The first economics class I took as a freshman in college, we were told that trade had winners and losers.
我大学一年级时上的第一堂经济学课，我们被告知贸易有赢家和输家。
We were told that the winners were diffuse and tended to have smaller gains, and the losers were concentrated and tended to have large losses.
我们被告知，赢家比较分散，收益往往较小，输家比较集中，损失往往较大。
That seems to be exactly what the China shock literature has found.
这似乎正是中国震惊文献所发现的。
But the losers turned out to be bigger losers than we had thought, right?
但事实证明，输家比我们想象的输家更大，对吗？
Opioid deaths were not predicted, say, at their current magnitude.
例如，阿片类药物导致的死亡人数并未达到目前的水平。
I think the China shock literature is a fantastic contribution to labor economics and is less important in thinking about trade.
我认为有关中国冲击的文献对劳动经济学做出了巨大贡献，但在思考贸易时并不那么重要。
We’ve learned about weaknesses and deficiencies in the structure of our labor markets — the ability to connect people with jobs, the ability of people to move after a shock happens, to get themselves retrained, to have some form of insurance that could help them in the event that their next job has a lower pay.
我们已经了解了劳动力市场结构的弱点和缺陷——将人们与工作联系起来的能力、人们在冲击发生后流动的能力、让自己接受再培训的能力、拥有某种形式的保险以在下一份工作工资较低的情况下为他们提供帮助的能力。
So yes, that literature, together with other observations about what’s been going on with, for example, prime-age men in the workforce, has affected the way I think about the dynamism and efficient allocation of labor in the American workforce, much more than it’s affected the way I think about trade.
所以，是的，这些文献以及对劳动力中壮年男性等情况的其他观察，影响了我对美国劳动力活力和劳动力有效配置的看法，比对贸易的影响要大得多。
Why did labor markets recover so slowly from the 2008 crash?
为什么劳动力市场从 2008 年的崩溃中复苏得如此缓慢？
You would think, “Well, it’s the world of the internet.
你可能会想：“好吧，这是互联网的世界。
Everyone has all this information.
每个人都拥有所有这些信息。
Matching markets are better.” But the labor market recovers quite slowly.
匹配市场更好。”但劳动力市场复苏相当缓慢。
Why?
为什么？
Well, I remember in 2009, Alan Krueger was the assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury.
嗯，我记得 2009 年，艾伦·克鲁格 (Alan Krueger) 担任财政部负责经济政策的助理部长。
And he looked at every single OECD country in the last — not going to get any of these numbers exactly right — but let’s just say in the last 50 years who had seen an unemployment rate rise rapidly in a short period of time by a couple percentage points.
他研究了过去 1 个 OECD 国家——“这些数字中的任何一个都不会完全正确”——但我们只能说，在过去 50 年里，哪些国家的失业率在短时间内迅速上升了几个百分点。
And he asked the question, “How quickly does it come down?” What he found was the fastest that any OECD country achieved was 0.7 of a percentage point per year.
他问了一个问题：“它下降的速度有多快？”他发现，经合组织国家中最快的增长率是每年 0.7 个百分点。
It’s not just the United States.
不仅仅是美国。
It’s not just the present.
这不仅仅是现在。
For the last 50 years, a couple dozen countries.
在过去的 50 年里，有几十个国家。
Unemployment rates can go up very quickly.
失业率可能会迅速上升。
Unemployment rates cannot come down very quickly.
失业率不可能很快下降。
In fact, the pace that the unemployment rate declined in this recovery was about the same or slightly faster than the pace it did in the 1980s.
事实上，这次复苏中失业率下降的速度与 20 世纪 80 年代的速度大致相同或略快。
And the only area where the economy probably consistently outperformed forecasts after the recession was the unemployment rate.
经济衰退后经济表现可能持续好于预期的唯一领域是失业率。
It was consistently lower than what was forecast.
它始终低于预测。
Now, the employment rate was not higher than was forecast.
现在，就业率并不高于预期。
GDP growth was weaker.
GDP 增长较弱。
But the unemployment rate itself — I don’t think it was abnormally slow in its recovery.
但失业率本身 —— 我不认为它的复苏异常缓慢。
But say after three or four years, once the nominal shock has worked its way through the system, what is the most important rigidity in preventing a more rapid adjustment?
但假设三四年后，一旦名义冲击在系统中发挥作用，阻止更快速调整的最重要的刚性是什么？
Is it the people are unwilling to move locations, or somehow matching markets are not working?
是人们不愿意搬迁地点，还是匹配市场不起作用？
What needs to be fixed?
需要修复什么？
Both the 2001 recession and the 2007 through ’09 recessions, you saw disproportionately long periods of long-term unemployment, of people working part-time for economic reasons — so involuntarily part-time — and people leaving the workforce, and the participation rate falling.
无论是 2001 年的经济衰退，还是 2007 年至 09 年的经济衰退，你都看到了不成比例的长期失业、人们因经济原因从事兼职工作——“非自愿兼职”——以及人们离开劳动力市场，参与率下降。
Something about both of those shocks led to very prolonged all three of these negative consequences.
这两种冲击都导致了这三种负面后果的长期存在。
You take a crappy job, you don’t get a job at all, or you give up entirely.
你接受了一份糟糕的工作，你根本找不到工作，或者你完全放弃了。
I think it’s related to the fact that both of the shocks hit at the same time that labor market fluidity and labor market dynamism was lower than it had been.
我认为这与这两种冲击同时发生、劳动力市场流动性和劳动力市场活力低于以往有关。
People were moving from job to job less.
人们换工作的次数减少了。
Businesses were creating and destroying fewer jobs.
企业创造和破坏的就业岗位越来越少。
So yes, I think if you have a less fluid labor market, then a shock will have all of these bad consequences.
所以，是的，我认为如果劳动力市场流动性较差，那么冲击就会带来所有这些糟糕的后果。
That begs the question of why we have a less fluid labor market.
这就引出了一个问题：为什么我们的劳动力市场流动性较差。
I think some of it is land use and the expense of moving to places.
我认为其中一些是土地使用和搬迁费用。
Some of it is occupational licensing.
其中一些是职业许可。
Some of it is the cost of healthcare and lock-in.
其中一些是医疗保健和锁定成本。
It’d be interesting to see whether that’s gotten better after the Affordable Care Act.
看看《平价医疗法案》出台后情况是否会有所改善，这将是一件很有趣的事情。
But I think that question — how do we have a more fluid labor market?
但我认为这个问题——“我们如何拥有一个更具流动性的劳动力市场？”
— means the matching models will work better the next shock hits.
— 意味着匹配的模型将在下一次冲击时发挥更好的作用。
What do you think are the best place-based policies for America’s lagging regions?
您认为针对美国落后地区的最佳地方政策是什么？
Or do you maybe not even believe in place-based policies?
或者您甚至不相信基于地方的政策？
I was about to say, I’m not sure I can think of any place-based policies that I’m particularly enthusiastic about.
我正想说，我不确定我是否能想到任何我特别热衷的地方政策。
I don’t mind algorithmic place-based policies.
我不介意基于地点的算法政策。
“This place has a bigger, deeper recession, so it gets a larger federal allocation of Medicaid, or it gets longer unemployment insurance benefits.” There’s that type of place-based that’s based on a formula about state unemployment rates or state incomes.
“这个地方的经济衰退规模更大、更深，因此它会获得更大的联邦医疗补助拨款，或者获得更长的失业保险福利。”有一种基于地点的方法，基于有关州失业率或州收入的公式。
That, I think, can make sense.
我认为这是有道理的。
The regional development — “We’re going to go into this area, create this new cluster, create this new industry” — I think that’s littered with a history of failures.
区域发展 — “我们要进入这个地区，创建这个新的集群，创建这个新的产业” — 我认为这充满了失败的历史。
I don’t even know that we know what we’re doing when it comes to place-based policy.
我什至不知道我们是否知道在基于地方的政策方面我们在做什么。
Even if academics knew what they were doing when it came to place-based policy, when the political system implemented it, I don’t think there’s any area of policy where Congress is less interested in expert input than the area of which locations in the country should get resources.
即使学者们知道他们在制定基于地方的政策时在做什么，但当政治体系实施该政策时，我认为国会对专家意见的兴趣没有任何政策领域比该国哪些地区应该获得资源的领域更不感兴趣。
How about region-specific visas?
特定地区签证怎么样？
You let people move into the US.
你让人们搬到美国。
You give them a path toward a green card.
您为他们提供了一条通往绿卡的道路。
They’re supposed to start off in Maine or West Virginia or Idaho.
他们应该从缅因州、西弗吉尼亚州或爱达荷州出发。
They won’t all stay there, but maybe half of them would for five years.
他们不会全部留在那里，但也许其中一半会呆五年。
Should we do that?
我们应该这样做吗？
Tyler, you are just so much more creative and imaginative than I am.
泰勒，你比我更有创造力和想象力。
My rather prosaic mind hears an idea like that and thinks the idea that we’re going to have internal checkpoints within the country — even if it’s for one type of people and doesn’t apply to others — doesn’t quite know how we’d do that.
我相当平淡的头脑听到这样的想法，并认为我们将在国内设立内部检查站的想法 ——即使它是针对某一类型的人而不适用于其他人 ——但我不太知道我们会如何做到这一点。
It seems —
看来 ——
No checkpoint.
没有检查站。
You enforce through the IRS.
您通过国税局强制执行。
You’re sent to Idaho.
你被派往爱达荷州。
If you leave Idaho in less than four years, you pay another 20 percent of your income in tax to the federal government.
如果您在四年内离开爱达荷州，您还需要向联邦政府缴纳收入的 20% 的税款。
There’s no strong enforcement.
没有强有力的执行力。
But also, a lot of people — if they show up in Idaho, they will stay, I think, out of good faith.
而且，很多人——如果他们出现在爱达荷州，我认为他们会出于善意而留下来。
Maybe half of them won’t.
也许有一半人不会。
But if half of them do, that seems like a big achievement.
但如果其中一半人做到了，那似乎是一项巨大的成就。
You’re for more immigration anyway, right?
无论如何，你还是希望有更多的移民，对吧？
So you don’t mind if they trickle down into Nebraska.
所以你不介意它们是否流入内布拉斯加州。
I would say, if the only way for me to get more immigrants is they have to be in one part of the country, I would probably settle for that and compromise with you on this plan.
我想说，如果我获得更多移民的唯一方法是他们必须在这个国家的某个地区，我可能会满足于此，并在这个计划上与你妥协。
Maybe that’s not where they can make the biggest contribution to the American economy, to the American fisc, to their own families.
也许这不是他们能为美国经济、美国财政、他们自己的家庭做出最大贡献的地方。
I’d rather let people choose that than make the choices about where they want to live, including immigrants make those choices.
我宁愿让人们选择这一点，而不是选择他们想要居住的地方，包括移民做出这些选择。
As you know, Bryan Caplan has a book out about open borders.
如您所知，布莱恩·卡普兰出版了一本关于开放边界的书。
Coming from the left, Matt Yglesias has a forthcoming book arguing we should target an America of one billion people.
来自左翼的马特·伊格莱西亚斯 (Matt Yglesias) 即将出版一本书，他主张我们应该以拥有 10 亿人口的美国为目标。
Do you think right now we’re just thinking too small about numbers in this country?
您是否认为现在我们对这个国家的数字考虑得太小了？
Three hundred twenty million — it’s not very much.
三亿两千万——并不算多。
China and India — they’re geopolitical rivals.
中国和印度——他们是地缘政治竞争对手。
Shouldn’t we have a plan to get to an America of, say, 700 million people?
难道我们不应该制定一个计划，让美国拥有 7 亿人口吗？
And they can’t all go to Manhattan, not even Staten Island.
他们不可能都去曼哈顿，甚至史坦顿岛也不行。
First, within any conceivable range that I can imagine for public policy, I’d rather have more immigration than less immigration.
首先，在我可以想象的公共政策的任何可以想象的范围内，我宁愿有更多的移民，也不愿有更少的移民。
When you’ve decided on the amount you have, I then do believe in enforcement.
当你决定了你拥有的金额后，我就相信执行力。
I think it is perfectly reasonable for the United States to decide who can be here.
我认为由美国来决定谁可以来到这里是完全合理的。
Certainly reasonable for the United States to decide who can vote in the United States.
由美国来决定谁可以在美国投票当然是合理的。
I’d like those rules to be much more permissive and then to enforce the much more permissive place that we set those rules.
我希望这些规则更加宽松，然后执行我们制定这些规则的更加宽松的地方。
Can I imagine 700 million, a billion?
我能想象七亿、十亿吗？
I certainly think economically, we could support that number of people in the land that we have in this country.
我当然认为从经济上来说，我们可以养活这个国家的土地上的那么多人。
If that happened, you’d end up with an awful lot of people moving to Idaho without having to tell them to move to Idaho because prices in New York and San Francisco would go up even more than they have already.
如果发生这种情况，最终会有大量的人搬到爱达荷州，而不必告诉他们搬到爱达荷州，因为纽约和旧金山的房价上涨幅度会比现在更大。
I do think Bryan Caplan’s book, which I loved, didn’t take completely seriously some of the transition issues and some of the transition costs.
我确实认为我喜欢的布莱恩·卡普兰的书并没有完全认真地对待一些过渡问题和一些过渡成本。
The speed with which these changes happen politically, culturally, economically — I think that is relevant.
这些变化在政治、文化、经济上发生的速度 ——我认为这是相关的。
What about having the US government change policy to induce or encourage a higher rate of savings?
让美国政府改变政策以诱导或鼓励更高的储蓄率怎么样？
Is there anything we should do?
有什么我们应该做的吗？
Or is the savings rate just fine?
还是储蓄率刚刚好？
I’m not that worried about the savings rate.
我并不担心储蓄率。
I don’t think it’s the constraint on business investment right now because the cost of capital is very low.
我认为现在这不是对商业投资的限制，因为资金成本非常低。
In terms of retirement security, the first place I would go for retirement security would be to expand Social Security rather than to raise savings.
在退休保障方面，我的退休保障首先是扩大社会保障，而不是提高储蓄。
I think the main issue with low savings is just an intertemporal consumption one that we’re borrowing from foreigners today.
我认为低储蓄的主要问题只是我们今天向外国人借钱的跨期消费问题。
We’ll need to repay those foreigners in the future.
我们以后需要回报那些外国人。
And with a current account deficit of around 3 percent of GDP, I think we’re on the edge of where we need to be worried, but not really that far past the edge of where we need to worry.
由于经常账户赤字占 GDP 的 3% 左右，我认为我们正处于需要担心的边缘，但实际上还没有超出我们需要担心的边缘。
If we wanted to increase savings, though, certainly you could do it on the private side.
不过，如果我们想增加储蓄，当然可以在私人方面做到这一点。
But you could also decide you’re going to reduce the budget deficit.
但你也可以决定减少预算赤字。
But since we’re borrowing at real rates pretty close to zero — depending on the term structure and what day you’re talking about — and the growth rate of the economy is positive, why shouldn’t the US actually borrow much more?
但既然我们的实际利率非常接近于零 ——取决于期限结构和你所说的日期——并且经济增长率为正，为什么美国实际上不应该借更多的钱呢？
Either cut taxes, spend more, or some combination of those two changes.
要么减税、增加支出，要么将这两种改变结合起来。
What’s the constraint?
有什么限制？
You said 3 percent of GDP.
你说的是GDP的3%。
It’s just a number, right?
这只是一个数字，对吧？
As a percentage of wealth, it’s below 1 percent.
作为财富的百分比，它低于 1%。
Why not do much more?
为什么不做更多的事情呢？
We have interest rates that are lower than our growth rate.
我们的利率低于我们的增长率。
That means we can, on a sustained basis, run a primary deficit.
这意味着我们可以持续维持基本赤字。
We can spend, excluding interest, in excess of what we collect in taxes.
我们的支出（不包括利息）可以超过我们所征收的税收。
Right now, though, our primary deficit is set to be about 4 percent of GDP.
不过，目前我们的主要赤字预计约为 GDP 的 4%。
That means our debt under that plan would asymptote to about 400 percent of GDP.
这意味着该计划下我们的债务将渐近至 GDP 的 400% 左右。
Perfectly possible that we’d be fine at 400 percent of GDP.
完全有可能我们的 GDP 达到 400% 就可以了。
I’d like to explore how far we could get a whole lot more slowly than committing ourselves to our current fiscal trajectory, which is a 400-percent-of-GDP steady-state debt, or something even higher than that.
我想探讨的是，与致力于目前的财政轨迹相比，我们能走多远，目前的财政轨迹是 GDP 稳态债务的 400%，甚至更高。
If borrowing rates stay low, do you think borrowing more then is an actual free lunch, and we need only worry about rates going back up?
如果借款利率保持在低位，您是否认为借更多钱是真正的免费午餐，而我们只需要担心利率回升？
Or is it simply pushing around resources and we won’t do anything extra?
或者只是简单地调动资源而我们不会做任何额外的事情？
There’s ultimately a resource constraint that we have in terms of what the potential of the economy is.
就经济潜力而言，我们最终会受到资源限制。
And you can relax that resource constraint at the level of the planet, with the United States borrowing, financing consumption from other regions in the world, and paying those regions of the world back in the future.
你可以在地球层面上放松这种资源限制，美国可以借钱，为世界其他地区的消费提供融资，并在未来偿还世界这些地区的资金。
But by the way, if what we’re doing with the rest of the world is financing consumption and financing investment, that will come out of our well-being in the future.
但顺便说一句，如果我们与世界其他国家所做的事情是为消费和投资提供融资，那么这将取决于我们未来的福祉。
So no, I don’t think we have a free lunch there.
所以不，我不认为我们有免费的午餐。
What’s the best way to think about the risk that borrowing rates, in real terms, rise above the growth rate of the US economy?
考虑实际借款利率高于美国经济增长率的风险的最佳方式是什么？
I think that the risk is symmetric.
我认为风险是对称的。
If you look at the last 140 years, about 25 percent of the time, real interest rates have been lower than where they are now; 75 percent of the time they’ve been higher.
如果你看看过去 140 年，大约 25% 的时间里，实际利率一直低于现在； 75% 的时间他们的水平更高。
You look around the advanced economies today, and in most all of the advanced economies, real interest rates are lower than they are in the United States, so I think there’s a certain amount of symmetry.
环顾当今的发达经济体，大多数发达经济体的实际利率都低于美国，所以我认为存在一定程度的对称性。
I think rates could go down; rates could go up.
我认为利率可能会下降；利率可能会上涨。
At the extremes, though, there’s not symmetry.
但在极端情况下，就不存在对称性了。
Rates can’t go down by 10 percentage points.
利率不能下降 10 个百分点。
Rates could go up by 10 percentage points, so I think there is some tail risk there.
利率可能会上涨 10 个百分点，因此我认为存在一些尾部风险。
I don’t know that it’s so large that I would make a big effort to deal with it.
我不知道它这么大，我会花很大的力气去处理它。
If you want to deal with it, you don’t even need to reduce the deficit.
如果你想应对，甚至不需要减少赤字。
You can just borrow more long term and lock in the low interest rates you have now.
您可以借入更多长期资金并锁定现在的低利率。
But I wouldn’t want to go hog wild and assume it will never happen either.
但我不想疯狂地认为这也永远不会发生。
There’s a new paper from the Bank of England— probably you’ve seen it.
英格兰银行发布了一份新文件——您可能已经看过了。
In any case, you know Larry Summers.
无论如何，你都认识拉里·萨默斯。
But it suggests there’s a long-term secular decline over centuries, that real rates basically get lower.
但这表明几个世纪以来存在长期的下降，实际利率基本上会下降。
What should we infer from that?
我们应该从中推断出什么？
Anything?
任何事物？
I think so much damage was done to economic forecasting by the experience of the 1980s.
我认为 20 世纪 80 年代的经验对经济预测造成了很大的损害。
We had this brief, relatively brief period of unusually very high interest rates, and people built that into their forecast.
我们经历了一段短暂的、相对短暂的异常高利率时期，人们将其纳入了他们的预测中。
For the next 20 or 30 years, there was something almost that felt normal about the 1980s.
在接下来的 20 或 30 年里，20 世纪 80 年代有一些事情几乎是正常的。
Then the decline from the 1980s felt strange when a lot of what we’ve seen in interest rates in recent years is going back to the types of interest rates and the type of trend we were on before then.
然后，从 20 世纪 80 年代开始的下降感觉很奇怪，因为近年来我们在利率方面看到的很多东西都回到了之前的利率类型和趋势类型。
In terms of a longer-term decline of interest rates, you have to be careful about what’s happened to risk associated with interest rates.
就利率的长期下降而言，你必须小心与利率相关的风险发生的情况。
Bonds used to be more risky than they are right now.
债券过去的风险比现在更大。
Bonds might be negatively correlated with what your consumption is, the marginal utility of your consumption.
债券可能与你的消费量、消费的边际效用呈负相关。
So maybe they should actually have a lower interest rate now than the pure safe rate of return.
因此，也许他们现在的利率实际上应该低于纯粹的安全回报率。
I think there’s a couple other different factors going on there.
我认为还有其他一些不同的因素。
What is the right way to think about the economic losses from Brexit?
思考英国退欧造成的经济损失的正确方法是什么？
Paul Krugman says, “Two to three percent of GDP, one-off.
保罗·克鲁格曼 (Paul Krugman) 表示：“GDP 的百分之二到百分之三是一次性的。
It’s bad, but they’ll get over it.” What’s your take?
这很糟糕，但他们会克服的。”你怎么看？
I put Brexit primarily in a medium- to long-term cost of the set of microeconomic efficiencies associated with somewhat worse supply chains, somewhat worse balance of composition of imports and exports.
我将英国脱欧主要归咎于一系列微观经济效率的中长期成本，这些成本与供应链较差、进出口构成平衡较差有关。
And yes, putting that in the couple percent of GDP poor over the long run seems about right.
是的，从长远来看，将贫困人口占 GDP 的百分之几似乎是正确的。
Is that two?
那是两个吗？
Is it five?
是五个吗？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I think it’s a negative number.
我认为这是一个负数。
It’s not a large upfront negative number.
这不是一个很大的预先负数。
A few questions about tech, which you’ve been working on lately in the United Kingdom.
关于您最近在英国从事的技术工作的一些问题。
You once wrote a piece called “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.” Can we today say the same about Amazon?
您曾经写过一篇名为“沃尔玛：一个进步的成功故事”的文章。今天我们可以对亚马逊说同样的话吗？
It does lower prices, right?
它确实降低了价格，对吗？
I have a lot of fondness for Amazon.
我非常喜欢亚马逊。
I order a lot from Amazon.
我从亚马逊订购了很多。
I’ve personally benefited a lot from Amazon.
我个人从亚马逊受益匪浅。
I think an awful lot of American customers do.
我认为很多美国客户都这样做。
Amazon’s online retail platform also is, to some degree, competing with brick-and-mortar retail.
在某种程度上，亚马逊的在线零售平台也在与实体零售竞争。
And once you place it in that market, it’s a relatively small player in all of it.
一旦你把它放入这个市场，它在整个市场中就只是一个相对较小的参与者。
So personally, I actually think Amazon would probably be lowest on my list of concerns.
就我个人而言，我实际上认为亚马逊可能是我最关心的问题之一。
But that doesn’t mean I have no concerns about Amazon and don’t think it needs to be monitored.
但这并不意味着我对亚马逊不担心，也不认为它需要受到监控。
Some of the proposals that I made in the context of the report in the United Kingdom, I don’t think would constrain an awful lot of what’s good about Amazon’s business model.
我在英国的报告中提出的一些建议，我认为不会限制亚马逊商业模式的很多优点。
What’s your biggest concern?
您最关心的是什么？
My biggest concern is more the online search, social media, social networking, and —
我最关心的是在线搜索、社交媒体、社交网络，以及 ——
So not Amazon per se?
那么亚马逊本身不是吗？
Not Amazon per se.
本身不是亚马逊。
I think those are sectors where, first of all, there’s a whole set of social concerns and democratic concerns that are probably much more important than anything in terms of competition.
我认为这些行业首先存在一整套社会问题和民主问题，这些问题可能比竞争方面的任何事情都重要得多。
But those are areas where you can see Google and Facebook didn’t get to where they are today through organic growth.
但在这些领域，你可以看到谷歌和 Facebook 并没有通过有机增长达到今天的水平。
Walmart was largely organic growth.
沃尔玛主要是有机增长。
It was efficient.
这很有效率。
It opened up a new store.
它开了一家新店。
Then it opened another store.
然后又开了一家店。
Then it opened another store, and each one of those stores was better than the other things in the neighborhood, so it succeeded.
然后它又开了一家店，每一家店都比附近的其他店好，所以它成功了。
Amazon — a lot of organic growth, although certain key important acquisitions along the way.
亚马逊 ——尽管在此过程中进行了某些关键的重要收购，但仍有大量有机增长。
Facebook has three major social media companies all in one because it bought two of those three.
Facebook 将三大社交媒体公司合而为一，因为它收购了这三家公司中的两家。
Almost every component of Google was, except the search algorithm, purchased at some point along the way.
除了搜索算法之外，谷歌的几乎所有组件都是在这个过程中的某个时刻购买的。
So those are a little bit more like merger to monopolies.
所以这些更像是垄断的合并。
And when you have that, I have less of a presumption of efficiency.
当你拥有这样的能力时，我对效率的假设就会减少。
If you grew, I think you’re probably efficient.
如果你成长了，我想你可能会很有效率。
We probably shouldn’t do anything about you.
我们可能不应该对你做任何事。
If you bought a bunch of things, I get more worried.
如果你买了一堆东西，我会更担心。
But if you take Facebook, is there consumer harm?
但如果拿 Facebook 来说，会对消费者造成伤害吗？
The WhatsApp page — it’s totally clean and pure.
WhatsApp 页面 — 完全干净、纯粹。
It’s beautiful.
很美丽。
There are no ads on it.
上面没有广告。
There are no ads on it because it’s part of Facebook, the bigger company.
它上面没有广告，因为它是 Facebook 这个大公司的一部分。
So aren’t customers better off with Facebook “the company” owning, say, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook “the page”?
那么，当 Facebook“公司”拥有 WhatsApp、Instagram 和 Facebook“页面”时，客户的处境不是会更好吗？
I would much rather have competition.
我更愿意有竞争。
I think what benefits consumers is choices, lower prices, more innovation.
我认为对消费者有利的是选择、更低的价格、更多的创新。
The price is zero, right?
价格为零吧？
There’s a lot of social networking.
有很多社交网络。
I can go on Fortnite.
我可以继续玩《堡垒之夜》。
I can recruit people through my blog.
我可以通过我的博客招聘人员。
I can email you.
我可以给你发电子邮件。
I can text you on my cell phone.
我可以用手机给你发短信。
So many ways to network with people.
与人交往的方式有很多。
These are advertising companies first of all.
这些首先是广告公司。
But the consumer facing side.
但面向消费者的一面。
If something drives up the price of steel, am I going to say, “Well, I don’t have to pay any more for steel because I don’t buy any steel”?
如果某些因素推高了钢材价格，我是否会说：“好吧，我不必再为钢材支付任何费用，因为我不买任何钢材”？
Well, I buy a lot of products that have steel in them, and I’m paying more for those products.
嗯，我买了很多含有钢材的产品，而且我为这些产品支付了更多费用。
I am paying more for any product that has to pay more in advertising fees to Google and Facebook, which dominate the online empire.
我为任何必须向主导在线帝国的谷歌和Facebook支付更多广告费的产品支付更多费用。
But they don’t dominate advertising, and it’s a much lower price for advertising than before Facebook and Google came along.
但它们并没有在广告领域占据主导地位，而且广告价格比 Facebook 和谷歌出现之前要低得多。
But the right question is the counterfactual of what would the price of online advertising be if there were five online advertising companies instead of two online advertising companies?
但正确的问题是反事实的：如果有五家在线广告公司而不是两家在线广告公司，在线广告的价格会是多少？
I think it would be lower, the price of those products.
我认为这些产品的价格会更低。
We also pay separate from that, of course, in the form of privacy, in the form of giving up our data, and then in all sorts of ways of less innovation that we don’t even see because something doesn’t exist, because it was too hard to enter the market.
当然，我们还另外付费，以隐私的形式，以放弃我们的数据的形式，然后以各种我们甚至看不到的较少创新的方式，因为有些东西不存在，因为进入市场太难了。
What do you think of GDPR as privacy legislation?
您如何看待 GDPR 作为隐私立法？
I have mixed feelings about it.
我对此百感交集。
I think privacy legislation is important.
我认为隐私立法很重要。
I think it’s something that people care about.
我认为这是人们关心的事情。
I personally, for myself, don’t care that much about it and tend not to do lots of privacy settings on things, even when I have a choice and know what I’m doing, so I don’t personally relate to it as much, but it’s something that people care about.
就我个人而言，我不太关心它，也不会在事情上做很多隐私设置，即使我有选择并且知道我在做什么，所以我个人不太关心它，但这是人们关心的事情。
I’d like .
我想要 。
.
。
.
。
in a world where I thought people were informed, I would think competition and choice would fully solve the problem.
在一个我认为人们都了解情况的世界里，我认为竞争和选择将完全解决问题。
I think it contributes to solving the problem but probably isn’t enough.
我认为这有助于解决问题，但可能还不够。
GDPR also, though, is cumbersome and in some ways has been an impediment to competition because the big companies can navigate it much more easily than small ones can.
不过，GDPR 也很麻烦，并且在某些方面阻碍了竞争，因为大公司比小公司更容易驾驭它。
Sure.
当然。
Won’t that be true of any effective privacy legislation?
任何有效的隐私立法不都是这样吗？
That it will make worse the dominance of the larger companies?
这会加剧大公司的主导地位吗？
Because any law — the bigger companies have better legal staff, PR, and so on.
因为任何法律 ——大公司都有更好的法律人员、公关人员等等。
You can make laws that are dependent on size.
您可以制定取决于规模的法律。
The recommendations that I made in my UK report were a code of conduct for the largest players, and it wouldn’t apply to the medium or small ones.
我在英国报告中提出的建议是大型企业的行为准则，不适用于中型或小型企业。
That’s easy to do if the code of conduct is around anticompetitive behavior.
如果行为准则是围绕反竞争行为的，那么这很容易做到。
That’s much harder to do if the code of conduct is about something that’s considered a human right.
如果行为准则是关于被视为人权的事情，那么做到这一点就困难得多。
It’s not like we would say industrial safety rules shouldn’t apply to a small business and only should apply to a big business.
这并不是说工业安全规则不应该适用于小企业而只适用于大企业。
If you think that a business shouldn’t be killing people — its workers — you should think that regardless of the size of the business.
如果您认为企业不应该杀人 ——“其工人”—— 无论企业规模如何，您都应该这样认为。
So privacy has been approached from a human rights frame rather than from a competition and economic frame.
因此，隐私是从人权框架而不是竞争和经济框架来对待的。
I think there’s some merit, though, to that, that human rights approach.
不过，我认为这种人权方法有其优点。
Does the European Union treat the big tech companies fairly?
欧盟公平对待大型科技公司吗？
If we’re economists, we think about this in terms of incentives.
如果我们是经济学家，我们会从激励的角度来思考这个问题。
They’re American companies.
他们是美国公司。
They just want to tax them.
他们只是想向他们征税。
Won’t it be the case, we would think, in a public choice model, that the European Union would treat them not well enough?
我们会认为，在公共选择模型中，欧盟不会对他们不够好吗？
Maybe I’m not as immersed in public choice as you are, Tyler, given where we’re sitting.
泰勒，考虑到我们现在所处的位置，也许我不像你那样热衷于公共选择。
I think that the Europeans have a pretty fair and impartial antitrust system that is largely blind to nationality.
我认为欧洲有一个相当公平和公正的反垄断体系，基本上不考虑国籍。
Look at what they did in Siemens and Alstom.
看看他们在西门子和阿尔斯通做了什么。
You had a merger of two major European companies, one from France, one from Germany.
两家主要的欧洲公司合并了，一家来自法国，一家来自德国。
The commission said they couldn’t merge.
该委员会表示他们无法合并。
Both of those countries were infuriated.
这两个国家都被激怒了。
I think they take a tougher approach to antitrust, but they take that across the board with their own companies and with American companies.
我认为他们对反垄断采取了更强硬的态度，但他们对自己的公司和美国公司都采取了全面的态度。
I think they do it in a pretty even-handed manner.
我认为他们以一种相当公平的方式做到了这一点。
But say the proposed digital tax of what, 3 percent — would that be so popular if Facebook were a French company?
但是，如果 Facebook 是一家法国公司，提议的数字税是 3%，那么会如此受欢迎吗？
I am less sympathetic to the specifics.
我对具体细节不太同情。
You asked me to antitrust enforcement, the antitrust enforcement —
你让我反垄断执法，反垄断执法 ——
But general EU policy toward the tech companies.
但欧盟对科技公司的总体政策。
So there’s privacy law there’s taxes.
所以有隐私法就有税收。
I don’t think you want to put it all in one bucket.
我认为您不想将所有内容都放在一个桶中。
Antitrust — the cases against Google were brought through a very technocratic, relatively independent, I think, honest process.
反垄断——针对谷歌的案件是通过一个非常技术官僚、相对独立、我认为诚实的过程提出的。
The tax proposals are coming from politicians, and yes, absolutely, your public choice models, I think, apply a lot more to those politicians.
税收提案来自政客，是的，绝对的，我认为你们的公共选择模型更适用于这些政客。
Those politicians are right that they’re missing out on a bunch of taxes they should be getting.
这些政客是对的，他们错过了一大堆他们应该得到的税收。
They’re wrong to have sector-specific levies and proposals, in some case, jury-rigged just to get at American companies.
他们针对特定行业的征税和提议是错误的，在某些情况下，他们只是为了针对美国公司而进行临时操纵。
So yes, antitrust in Europe, I think, is fair.
所以，是的，我认为欧洲的反垄断是公平的。
Taxes is a bit anti-American, if you want to call it that.
如果你想这么说的话，税收有点反美。
And privacy, I’m less sure of the answer to.
至于隐私，我不太确定答案。
My guess is it’s more that’s what Europeans believe as a belief about the world and not a form of protectionism.
我的猜测是，这更多的是欧洲人所相信的对世界的信仰，而不是一种保护主义。
It seems that they don’t mind Huawei for their 5G networks.
看来他们并不介意华为的5G网络。
There’s a big emphasis on privacy.
人们非常重视隐私。
And until Trump pressured them, Germany was fine.
在特朗普向他们施压之前，德国一切都很好。
“We’ll have Huawei in to do our 5G network.” Doesn’t that seem discordant to you?
“我们将让华为参与我们的 5G 网络建设。”这对你来说不显得不和谐吗？
Now that you say it, to some degree, it does.
既然你这么说，从某种程度上来说，确实如此。
As I said, I’m not immersed in how the policymaking in Europe gets done on the issues of privacy.
正如我所说，我并没有沉浸在欧洲的隐私问题决策过程中。
Huawei — it’s easier to understand that somebody’s tracking you, or somebody’s keeping data on you, or someone’s deciding what the search results about you are.
华为 — 更容易理解有人在跟踪你，或者有人在保存你的数据，或者有人在决定关于你的搜索结果是什么。
That’s transparent.
这是透明的。
You can see that happening, and you can decide if you think that’s fine or if you think that’s not fine.
你可以看到这种情况的发生，并且可以决定你是否认为这很好，或者你是否认为这不好。
In some cases, Europe decided it wasn’t fine.
在某些情况下，欧洲认为这不好。
Huawei was an awful lot of information that I don’t have access to and that you don’t have access to either.
华为有大量我无法访问的信息，你也无法访问。
Do you worry that data portability for social networks could stifle innovation?
您是否担心社交网络的数据可移植性会扼杀创新？
Let’s say I develop a new social network.
假设我开发了一个新的社交网络。
It’s based around virtual reality.
它基于虚拟现实。
Then the regulators ask me, “Well, how do we port your data into Facebook or the incumbents?” And I say, “Well, that can’t be done.” And they say, “Well, then you don’t satisfy data portability.” And the innovation is stifled.
然后监管机构问我：“那么，我们如何将你的数据转移到 Facebook 或现有企业中？”我说：“好吧，那是不可能的。”他们说：“好吧，那么你不满足数据可移植性。”而且创新受到抑制。
Don’t you lock in the current way of doing things with data portability?
难道你不锁定当前的数据可移植性做事方式吗？
I worry about that.
我担心这个。
That’s why you want to apply it, for example, more, or make it mandatory, for the large companies and not for Tyler Cowen’s new virtual reality company.
这就是为什么你想要更多地应用它，或者强制它适用于大公司，而不是泰勒·考恩的新虚拟现实公司。
There’s a set of costs and benefits.
有一系列的成本和收益。
And I think the right way to get that mix of cost and benefits is, with the large companies, the lack of portability creates a barrier to entry.
我认为，实现成本和收益相结合的正确方法是，对于大公司来说，缺乏可移植性会造成进入壁垒。
It entrenches them and reduces competition.
它巩固了它们并减少了竞争。
So I’d turn the dial one way for them, and for smaller companies, I’d turn the dial the other way or not even have a dial.
所以我会为他们转动旋钮，而对于小公司，我会转动旋钮到另一种方式，甚至没有旋钮。
But doesn’t it have to be symmetric?
但它不是必须是对称的吗？
If Facebook cannot export to the new virtual-reality social network .
如果 Facebook 无法导出到新的虚拟现实社交网络。
.
。
.
。
In essence, people coordinate on portability into what we have.
本质上，人们协调我们所拥有的东西的可移植性。
Having any kind of certified dominant standard, even if you regulate it more heavily, in essence ensures that standard keeps on dominating the market because you have to export from Facebook into which providers, right?
拥有任何类型的经过认证的主导标准，即使您对其进行更严格的监管，本质上也可以确保该标准继续主导市场，因为您必须从 Facebook 导出到哪些提供商，对吧？
The government has to make a list.
政府必须列出一份清单。
And that worries me.
这让我很担心。
I think it should worry you.
我想你应该担心。
If the UK moves forward establishing the digital markets unit I recommended, as they have been moving forward, I would love to have you on it, asking that set of questions.
如果英国继续推进建立我建议的数字市场部门，就像他们一直在推进的那样，我希望您能参与进来，提出一系列问题。
I don’t think that something has downsides and concerns is, in this case at least, a reason not to do it.
我不认为某件事有缺点和担忧，至少在这种情况下，不能成为不这样做的理由。
In some spaces, like messaging, they’re reasonably mature.
在某些领域，比如消息传递，它们相当成熟。
Could the iPhone have introduced Animoji in a world of required interoperability?
iPhone 能否在需要互操作性的世界中引入动话表情？
We could have figured out a way to do that.
我们本可以找到一种方法来做到这一点。
And by the way, if the world lost Animoji, probably would still have turned.
顺便说一句，如果世界失去了动话表情，可能仍然会发生转变。
I think we should ban most uses of facial surveillance.
我认为我们应该禁止面部监控的大部分用途。
Do you agree?
你同意？
In the US.
在美国。
I don’t think I agree.
我想我不同意。
You’re allowed to have a police officer on the street looking at somebody.
你可以让警察在街上看着某人。
You’re allowed to post a wanted poster for somebody.
您可以为某人张贴通缉海报。
And then if somebody, with their eyes, recognizes that face, call in a tip line and have the person arrested.
然后，如果有人用眼睛认出了那张脸，请拨打举报热线并逮捕该人。
I don’t know why we would want to give up on —
我不知道为什么我们会想放弃 ——
Privacy.
隐私。
You’re worried about privacy, and cameras always know where you are.
你担心隐私，而摄像头总是知道你在哪里。
And they track your face.
他们会追踪你的脸。
They track your gait.
他们追踪你的步态。
It’s private sector.
这是私营部门。
The government can subpoena them.
政府可以传唤他们。
Isn’t that a terrible violation of privacy?
这不是严重侵犯隐私吗？
I’m not saying we shouldn’t .
我并不是说我们不应该这样做。
.
。
.
。
I care an awful lot about violations of someone’s right to life, like murdering them, or theft and sexual assault, and breaking and entering — all of these things.
我非常关心侵犯某人生命权的行为，比如谋杀他们，或者盗窃和性侵犯，以及破门而入——所有这些事情。
I think these are problems too.
我想这些也是问题。
All of our law enforcement violates some principle.
我们所有的执法都违反了某些原则。
We take people and lock them up.
我们抓人并把他们关起来。
We take people’s rights away in all sorts of ways.
我们以各种方式剥夺人们的权利。
There’s a process for deciding whether you’re allowed to have a search warrant, whether you’re allowed to put someone in prison.
有一个程序可以决定你是否可以申请搜查令，是否可以将某人关进监狱。
I think we need to put processes around this that respect balances of rights.
我认为我们需要围绕这个问题建立尊重权利平衡的流程。
But I would hate to give up a tool that could keep us safer.
但我不想放弃一个可以让我们更安全的工具。
What’s the most likely legitimate future use for blockchain?
区块链未来最有可能的合法用途是什么？
Not gray markets.
不是灰色市场。
Not black markets.
不是黑市。
Not people playing around.
不是人家玩的。
I understand.
我明白。
I’m really bearish on blockchain.
我真的看空区块链。
Maybe I know less than everyone that’s excited about it, but everyone that’s excited about it also has a stake in it and a reason to be excited about it.
也许我对它的了解比每个对此感到兴奋的人要少，但每个对此感到兴奋的人也都与它有利害关系，并且有理由对此感到兴奋。
To me, very little of it seems like something that couldn’t be done more cheaply and efficiently with the types of systems we had in the past.
对我来说，利用我们过去拥有的系统类型，几乎没有什么事情是不能以更便宜、更高效的方式完成的。
They couldn’t do anything resembling what Visa and MasterCard — the number of transactions they process a second today.
他们无法做任何类似于维萨卡和万事达卡的事情——他们今天每秒处理的交易数量。
We just can’t do that with blockchain technology.
我们只是无法通过区块链技术做到这一点。
On things under- and overrated
关于被低估和高估的事情
Okay.
好的。
Are you up for a round of overrated versus underrated?
您准备好迎接一轮高估与低估的较量了吗？
Sure.
当然。
I toss something out.
我扔掉一些东西。
Growing up in New York City — overrated or underrated?
在纽约长大 —— 被高估还是被低估？
Underrated.
被低估了。
Why?
为什么？
It’s just an amazing city.
这真是一座了不起的城市。
You can walk right outside.
你可以直接走到外面。
Children can have a lot of autonomy in New York.
孩子们在纽约可以有很大的自主权。
They can ride the subway.
他们可以乘坐地铁。
They can take the bus.
他们可以乘坐公共汽车。
They can get so many different types of food, have so many different types of experiences.
他们可以获得很多不同类型的食物，有很多不同类型的经历。
I think it’s an amazing place.
我认为这是一个很棒的地方。
Juggling — overrated or underrated?
杂耍 — 被高估还是被低估？
Maybe correctly rated.
也许正确评价。
Am I allowed to say that?
我可以这么说吗？
You’re allowed to say that.
你可以这么说。
Okay.
好的。
You’re a juggler, correct?
你是个杂技演员，对吗？
Still?
仍然？
I juggle at my own children’s birthday parties, would be probably where I make appearances now.
我在自己孩子的生日聚会上表演杂耍，这可能就是我现在出现的地方。
Other than just practice, what makes for a good juggler?
除了练习之外，怎样才能成为一名优秀的杂耍演员？
I spent ridiculous amounts of time in high school, and to some degree middle school, on juggling.
我在高中，甚至在某种程度上的中学，花了很多荒唐的时间在杂耍上。
So probably it’s just practice.
所以可能这只是练习。
So party — you must think it’s underrated in a way, right?
所以派对 ——你一定认为它在某种程度上被低估了，对吧？
Three-Body Problem, science fiction novel.
《三体》，科幻小说。
Underrated.
被低估了。
What’s important about it?
这有什么重要的呢？
It’s so good.
太好了。
Everything in it is so plausible and real in a way that you can only have in hard sci-fi.
其中的一切都如此可信和真实，只有硬科幻才能拥有。
It operates on every time level.
它在每个时间级别上运行。
A time span of years, especially in the first book.
时间跨度长达数年，尤其是在第一本书中。
And a time span of billions, or maybe it was trillions, of years by the time you get to the third book.
当你读到第三本书时，时间跨度已经数十亿年，或者可能是数万亿年。
Just the way you think about computers is different when you learn about the human computers that they have there.
当你了解计算机中的人类计算机时，你对计算机的看法就会有所不同。
The Fermi paradox is something I worried about from time to time.
费米悖论是我时常担心的事情。
Now I’m almost scared of an alien civilization discovering we exist and wanting to destroy us, and make sure they don’t find out about us.
现在我几乎害怕外星文明发现我们的存在并想要摧毁我们，并确保他们不会发现我们。
Yeah.
是的。
Who is an underrated figure from pre-20th-century world history?
谁是20世纪前世界历史上被低估的人物？
I guess Abraham Lincoln isn’t a reasonable answer.
我想亚伯拉罕·林肯不是一个合理的答案。
COWEN: He’s probably correctly rated.
COWEN：他的评价可能是正确的。
Certainly important.
当然重要。
Certainly highly rated.
当然评价很高。
I don’t have a great answer for you.
我没有一个很好的答案给你。
What’s your favorite movie?
你最喜欢的电影是什么？
Might be something conventional like Blade Runner, but I’m really partial to a romantic comedy called Kiss Me, Stupid that I once saw at the Brattle.
可能是像《银翼杀手》这样的传统电影，但我真的很喜欢我在 Brattle 看过的一部名为《吻我，愚蠢》的浪漫喜剧。
Had never heard of it, walked in there, and found it just so delightfully pleasant, fun.
从来没有听说过，走进去，发现它是如此令人愉快、有趣。
I’ve watched it probably twice since then, and it’s made me happy every time I’ve seen it.
从那以后我大概已经看了两遍了，每次看都让我很高兴。
Which is the best Matt Damon movie?
马特·达蒙最好的电影是哪部？
He was your college roommate, correct?
他是你的大学室友，对吗？
He was my college roommate.
他是我的大学室友。
When I saw him in the John Grisham one — he’s in The Rainmaker, I think it was.
当我在《约翰·格里沙姆》中看到他时，我想他是在《造雨人》中。
That was his first super successful one.
这是他的第一个超级成功的作品。
The day I met him in college, when he showed up at college, he told me he wanted to be a movie star.
我在大学遇见他的那天，当他出现在大学时，他告诉我他想成为一名电影明星。
Told me he was going to be a movie star.
告诉我他要成为一名电影明星。
He was completely confident of it.
他对此完全有信心。
And I cried at the end of that movie when I saw that he had achieved his dream and his plan.
当我看到他实现了他的梦想和他的计划时，我在那部电影的结尾哭了。
If you’re recommending an Africa trip for someone, where do you tell them to go?
如果您向某人推荐非洲旅行，您会告诉他们去哪里？
I did a six-week honeymoon in Africa.
我在非洲度过了为期六周的蜜月。
Started in Cape Town, ended up on an island off the coast of Tanzania, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro —
从开普敦出发，到达坦桑尼亚海岸附近的一座岛屿，并攀登乞力马扎罗山——
Zanzibar?
桑给巴尔？
Off the coast of Zanzibar, actually.
实际上，在桑给巴尔海岸附近。
Small island off the coast of Zanzibar.
桑给巴尔海岸附近的小岛。
And climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in between those two.
并在两者之间攀登了乞力马扎罗山。
So I think that’s what anyone should do.
所以我认为这是任何人都应该做的。
That’s the trip to do.
这就是这次旅行要做的事情。
Are you up for a few questions about money and finance?
您有一些关于金钱和金融的问题吗？
Sure.
当然。
These are, again, easy ones.
这些都是简单的。
Should we allow banking and commerce to mix in the US, as is done in many other countries?
我们是否应该像许多其他国家那样允许银行业和商业在美国混合？
I don’t see any large benefit to allowing that.
我不认为允许这样做有什么大的好处。
And on the precautionary principle, I don’t see any particular problem we’d be solving by allowing a greater mixture than we do.
出于预防原则，我认为通过允许比现在更大的混合量，我们不会解决任何具体问题。
Why do you think it evolves in so many other places?
您认为为什么它会在许多其他地方演变？
China now has it to a major extent.
中国现在已经在很大程度上拥有了这一点。
I’m not sure what those efficiencies are.
我不确定这些效率是多少。
Some of them may be rent capture.
其中一些可能是租金捕获。
But we see it so many times, including in the US when we allow it.
但我们多次看到这种情况，包括在我们允许的情况下在美国。
Why isn’t the presumption to allow it?
为什么推定不允许呢？
Banks will be bigger, more diversified, safer, lower cost of capital?
银行会变得更大、更多元化、更安全、资本成本更低吗？
Yep.
是的。
I don’t have conviction on this.
我对此没有信心。
I’d be open to changing my mind.
我愿意改变主意。
Which macro indicators do you think are now not so meaningful anymore?
您认为哪些宏观指标现在不再那么有意义了？
GDP could be more meaningful if we measured it better.
如果我们更好地衡量GDP，它可能会更有意义。
The inflation rate gets harder and harder to measure over time.
随着时间的推移，通货膨胀率变得越来越难以衡量。
So I think the one that probably has deteriorated in meaningfulness is the measure of inflation.
所以我认为意义可能已经恶化的是通货膨胀指标。
Number one, we don’t measure it well, and number two, it’s low enough that it’s hard to get that excited about it.
第一，我们没有很好地衡量它，第二，它足够低，很难对此感到兴奋。
Is that a quality-of-goods problem?
这是商品质量问题吗？
Or how we do chaining over time?
或者我们如何随着时间的推移进行链接？
Where are we going wrong in measuring inflation?
我们在衡量通货膨胀时哪里出了问题？
Just more and more of the economy is in areas that are harder to measure the quality of, healthcare being the most notorious.
只是越来越多的经济领域处于难以衡量质量的领域，其中医疗保健是最臭名昭著的。
How productive is healthcare?
医疗保健的生产力如何？
You know the old RAND study from the 1970s.
你知道 20 世纪 70 年代兰德公司的一项古老研究。
That’s an old study, but you give people more healthcare, and only the poorest people end up being healthier.
这是一项古老的研究，但如果你为人们提供更多的医疗保健，那么只有最贫穷的人最终会变得更健康。
Christian Scientists, Amish who don’t use much healthcare — at least their life expectancy is still quite high.
基督教科学家、阿米什人不使用太多医疗保健——至少他们的预期寿命仍然相当高。
What percent capacity do you think our healthcare sector is operating at?
您认为我们的医疗保健行业的运营能力百分比是多少？
Certainly, if you look at differences in mortality, differences in health outcomes — behavior, genetics, social environment — I think all matter a lot more than healthcare.
当然，如果你看看死亡率的差异、健康结果的差异——“行为、遗传学、社会环境”——我认为所有这些都比医疗保健更重要。
It’s much easier to know how to change healthcare, though, than it is to know how to change all of those others.
然而，了解如何改变医疗保健比了解如何改变所有其他方面要容易得多。
So, I think, at the margin, we might have more gains that we’re able to make in healthcare.
因此，我认为，在边际上，我们可能会在医疗保健方面获得更多收益。
Even if I agree with you, I don’t think that’s the number-one factor in health.
即使我同意你的观点，我也不认为这是健康的第一因素。
What do you think is the promising future direction for fintech?
您认为金融科技未来的发展方向是什么？
I think that’s a great place where more competition and more choices.
我认为这是一个有更多竞争和更多选择的好地方。
I’m fine with the big tech companies entering it.
我对大型科技公司进入这个领域很满意。
I think that would be a good thing.
我认为那将是一件好事。
But as long as we put some of the rules in place up front, I’d love to see some smaller ones.
但只要我们预先制定一些规则，我就很乐意看到一些较小的规则。
And just the fact that payments aren’t simple and free for anyone anywhere in the world between anyone else and anyone else in the world, to me seems like the lowest-hanging fruit for billions of people, and something that we should fully be able to solve in the near future.
事实上，支付对于世界上任何地方的任何人来说都不是简单和免费的，对我来说，这似乎是数十亿人最容易实现的目标，也是我们应该在不久的将来完全能够解决的问题。
Our last conversation was with Reid Hoffman.
我们的最后一次谈话是与里德·霍夫曼进行的。
He suggested that higher ed in the US now is operating maybe at 30 percent of possible capacity or effectiveness, and I think he meant the good schools, not the community college gone wrong or something.
他表示，美国的高等教育目前的运行能力或效率可能达到了 30%，我认为他指的是好学校，而不是出了问题的社区大学或其他什么。
What’s your response to that?
您对此有何回应？
And what improvement do you think we should make, if any?
如果有的话，您认为我们应该做出哪些改进？
Yeah.
是的。
The hard thing is that there’s so little that we have evidence on.
困难的是我们的证据太少了。
I co-taught the introductory economics course at Harvard with David Laibson.
我在哈佛大学与大卫·莱布森共同教授经济学入门课程。
This past semester we did micro.
上个学期我们做了微课。
Next semester we’re doing macro.
下学期我们要做宏观。
We have over 600 students.
我们有超过 600 名学生。
We put a huge amount of effort into rethinking the course: how we taught the course, what we were teaching in the course, how we did assignments.
我们投入了大量的精力来重新思考这门课程：我们如何教授课程，我们在课程中教授什么，我们如何完成作业。
how we assessed people, what we expected them to know.
我们如何评估人们，我们期望他们知道什么。
And we did all of that with, frankly, less randomized trial, rigorous evidence than I would do on most of the public policy questions that I work on because it’s simply not there.
坦率地说，我们做这一切的随机试验和严格的证据比我在研究的大多数公共政策问题上所做的要少，因为它根本不存在。
We used an awful lot of judgment.
我们使用了很多判断力。
I talked to different people.
我和不同的人交谈过。
I asked you your opinion of this question.
我问过你对这个问题的看法。
I think what we did was good, but that there’s some other thing we could have done in terms of changing how we do the lectures, how we do the assignments, that would be even better, that it’s right next to us, and that I don’t realize it because the evidence is there.
我认为我们所做的很好，但是我们可以做一些其他的事情来改变我们讲课的方式，我们做作业的方式，那会更好，它就在我们旁边，而且我没有意识到这一点，因为证据就在那里。
I’m painfully open to that possibility myself and would love to know.
我自己也痛苦地接受这种可能性，并且很想知道。
So the observation that we’re operating at 30 percent capacity — that’s probably true.
因此，观察到我们正在以 30% 的产能运行 ——这可能是真的。
But that’s only useful if you can tell me what I need to do to get to 50 or 100.
但只有当你能告诉我需要做什么才能达到 50 或 100 时，这才有用。
And I don’t know where to find that information.
而且我不知道在哪里可以找到这些信息。
But just taking that one class, Ec 10, now that you’ve taught it, what don’t other people teach enough of?
但只要上一门课，Ec 10，既然你已经教了它，其他人还教得不够多吗？
In that class.
在那堂课上。
One thing that I think David Laibson and I, I hope, did very well and certainly tried very hard to do and seemed to be something that the students appreciated was convey our enthusiasm and excitement for economics.
我认为我和大卫·莱布森（David Laibson）做得很好，并且确实非常努力去做，并且似乎受到学生赞赏的一件事是传达了我们对经济学的热情和兴奋。
In David Laibson’s case, conveyed that enthusiasm for how many different things in your own life it helps you to think about — decision-making under uncertainty, if you enter an auction, if you’re dealing with splitting a bill with your roommate, deciding whether to do your homework.
在大卫·莱布森的案例中，他表达了对生活中许多不同事物的热情，它可以帮助你思考不确定性下的决策，如果你参加拍卖，如果你正在与室友分摊账单，决定是否做作业。
In my case, I think I brought more excitement to the questions about public policy.
就我而言，我认为我给有关公共政策的问题带来了更多的兴奋。
We talked about tax policy, health policy, climate, and the like.
我们讨论了税收政策、卫生政策、气候等等。
One thing we did, hopefully, was teach students, but another thing is tell them, “Here’s this whole area of knowledge that can help you in so many different ways that you might not have realized.
希望我们做的一件事是教学生，但另一件事是告诉他们，“这整个知识领域可以以许多你可能没有意识到的不同方式帮助你。
You may want to not just pay attention in our class, but maybe even keep learning about it in the many different ways you can learn about economics.”
你可能不仅想在我们的课堂上集中注意力，甚至还可以通过多种不同的方式继续学习经济学。”
What should instructors try to do to ensure that students remember the content they’ve been taught?
教师应该如何确保学生记住所教的内容？
And in some way, however broadly, apply it, use it, vote on it.
以某种方式，无论多么广泛，应用它、使用它、对其进行投票。
I did read — there is a literature on economic pedagogy.
我确实读过——有一本关于经济教育学的文献。
And the scariest paper I read in that literature — I can’t remember who it was by — compared performance on a test a year after an economics class, people who had taken the class to people who hadn’t.
我在该文献中读到的最可怕的论文 ——“我不记得是谁写的”—— 比较了上完经济学课一年后的测试表现，参加过经济学课程的人和没有参加过经济学课程的人。
Asking them questions like “What’s the opportunity cost?” And the two groups performed quite similarly.
问他们诸如“机会成本是多少？”之类的问题。两组的表现非常相似。
So that is certainly my biggest objective, is to have students in my class — most of them aren’t going to take another economics class — so that when they’re dealing with an issue 15, 20 years from now, they’re thinking to some of the ideas we talked to them.
因此，这当然是我最大的目标，就是让学生加入我的班级——“他们中的大多数人不会再上经济学课”——这样，当他们在 15、20 年后处理某个问题时，他们就会思考我们与他们讨论过的一些想法。
That’s my highest and most important objective.
这是我的最高和最重要的目标。
And that’s the hardest one to be sure you’ve accomplished or even know how to evaluate whether or not you have accomplished.
这是最难确定你已经完成的任务，甚至不知道如何评估你是否已经完成任务。
You’ve coauthored a paper on corporate income tax with Robert J.
您与 Robert J. 共同撰写了一篇关于企业所得税的论文。
Barro, and you and he disagree within the context of the paper.
巴罗，你和他在这篇论文的背景下存在分歧。
Should more people do this?
应该有更多的人这样做吗？
More than one voice in a paper?
一篇论文中不止一个声音？
Absolutely.
绝对地。
What did you learn from that experience?
你从那次经历中学到了什么？
First of all, when we started that paper, the goal was largely to estimate the economic effects of the 2017 tax law, and we had a number of conversations.
首先，当我们开始撰写那篇论文时，目标主要是估计 2017 年税法的经济影响，我们进行了多次对话。
We agreed on the general modeling approach.
我们就一般建模方法达成了一致。
And we said, “You know what we’re going to do?
我们说：“你知道我们要做什么吗？
We may reach two different sets of point estimates.
我们可能会得出两组不同的点估计。
And if we have two sets of point estimates, we’re going to put them together in a table.
如果我们有两组点估计，我们会将它们放在一个表格中。
And there’s going to be a crosswalk so you can see what assumptions I used, what assumptions Robert used.”
将会有一个人行横道，这样你就可以看到我使用了哪些假设，罗伯特使用了哪些假设。”
In the course of writing that paper, we converged, and we ended up having quite similar views on the causal question of what the impact of this law would be.
在撰写那篇论文的过程中，我们达成了共识，最终在该法律的影响是什么这一因果问题上达成了非常相似的观点。
We then evaluated the law quite differently.
然后我们对法律的评价就截然不同了。
So the body of the paper — we intended to actually have different voices, but we ended up having a pretty unified voice.
所以论文的正文——我们本来打算实际上有不同的声音，但最终我们得到了一个非常统一的声音。
When it came to the conclusion and what inferences we drew from all of this, we had very different voices.
当得出结论以及我们从这一切中得出什么推论时，我们有非常不同的声音。
But I would love to see more people paired up.
但我很乐意看到更多的人结伴而行。
Take inequality — force people who have two different sets of numbers to write a paper together, so we can have something that we can reliably understand is the truth on the issue.
以不平等为例——强迫拥有两组不同数字的人一起写一篇论文，这样我们就可以得到一些我们可以可靠地理解的问题的真相。
Or alternatively, understand what those differences are.
或者，了解这些差异是什么。
Yeah, I’d love to see more of that.
是的，我很想看到更多这样的事情。
On the Jason Furman production function
关于 Jason Furman 生产函数
I will close with a few questions about what I call the Jason Furman production function.
最后我将提出几个关于我所说的 Jason Furman 生产函数的问题。
Who was your first mentor, ever?
谁是你的第一位导师？
Can’t remember that far past high school.
不记得高中过去那么久了。
But we had a geometry teacher at my high school named Mr. Sturm — just the level of rigor he brought to proofs and thinking was something that I learned a huge amount from.
但我们高中有一位名叫斯特姆先生的几何老师——他在证明和思考方面的严谨程度让我学到了很多东西。
What was special about you in high school intellectually?
你在高中时的智力有什么特别之处？
Obviously, you were smart, but what set you apart?
显然，你很聪明，但是是什么让你与众不同呢？
What did you do that was different?
你做了什么与众不同的事情？
I mostly did what I wanted to do and not what I was told to do.
我主要做我想做的事，而不是别人告诉我要做的事。
If I wasn’t interested in a subject, I did very, very little on it.
如果我对某个主题不感兴趣，我就会做得非常非常少。
And if I liked something, I would read 12 other books that no one told us to read on the topic.
如果我喜欢某件事，我会阅读其他 12 本书，而这些书没有人告诉我们要读关于该主题的书。
I remember when, in the Harvard application, they had you list all the books you’d read in the last year, I wrote down that list.
我记得在哈佛申请中，他们让你列出去年读过的所有书籍，我写下了该清单。
And then I was so terrified they would think that I was a liar, that I ended up cutting that list in half lest they would think I was making things up.
然后我非常害怕他们会认为我是个骗子，所以我最终把这份清单切成两半，以免他们认为我在编造事情。
I had this problem, too.
我也有这个问题。
You are, to this day, a prolific book reviewer on Goodreads.
直到今天，您仍然是 Goodreads 上一位多产的书评人。
Why do those?
为什么要做那些？
Out of habit?
不习惯？
Why choose Goodreads for your reviews?
为什么选择 Goodreads 进行评论？
I remember when, in the Harvard application, they had you list all the books you’d read in the last year, I wrote down that list.
我记得在哈佛申请中，他们让你列出去年读过的所有书籍，我写下了该清单。
And then I was so terrified they would think that I was a liar, that I ended up cutting that list in half lest they would think I was making things up.
然后我非常害怕他们会认为我是个骗子，所以我最终把这份清单切成两半，以免他们认为我在编造事情。
I think Goodreads is the third platform I’ve been on.
我认为 Goodreads 是我使用的第三个平台。
More people are on that platform than others, so that’s why I’m there.
这个平台上的人比其他人多，所以这就是我在那里的原因。
I actually don’t even particularly love the platform, but it’s where other people are.
事实上，我什至不是特别喜欢这个平台，但这是其他人所在的地方。
I started the reviews for myself just to remember what I thought about a book and why I thought it.
我开始为自己写评论只是为了记住我对一本书的看法以及我为什么这么想。
And now there’s a few people that are reading my Goodreads reviews, but I still rarely spend more than half an hour on any one of them.
现在有几个人在阅读我的 Goodreads 评论，但我仍然很少在其中任何一篇上花费超过半小时。
For me, I’m always trying to discover — I think a little bit like you Tyler, although presumably a much lesser version of you — really omnivorous and read in a lot of different genres within fiction and nonfiction, always trying to find new things.
对我来说，我总是试图发现 ——我觉得有点像你泰勒，尽管可能是你的小版本 —— 真正杂食性，阅读小说和非小说中的许多不同类型，总是试图找到新的东西。
Goodreads — I’ve gotten to know if it’s young adult fantasy, it needs to have at least a 4.5 or above or you shouldn’t read it.
Goodreads — 我知道这是否是青少年奇幻小说，至少需要4.5或以上，否则你不应该读它。
But it’s not like I’d not read Madame Bovary because it got 3.7, because a bunch of college students were mad they were assigned it.
但这并不是说我不读《包法利夫人》，因为它得了 3.7 分，因为一群大学生很生气他们被分配了这本书。
Let me try a very embarrassing question on you.
让我尝试问你一个非常尴尬的问题。
I sometimes tell people that, along a particular dimension, which I can’t quite myself define, that I think you are the greatest economist in the world.
我有时告诉人们，在我自己无法定义的特定维度上，我认为你是世界上最伟大的经济学家。
A particular kind of policy economist, I guess.
我猜是一种特殊的政策经济学家。
But if you had to describe what you think is the dimension of economist where you are the best, how would you put it?
但如果你必须描述你认为你最擅长的经济学家的维度是什么，你会怎么说？
Economists who have been chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and read everything that Charles Dickens has ever written.
曾担任经济顾问委员会主席并阅读查尔斯·狄更斯所有著作的经济学家。
But yeah, I think you’re kinder about me than I would be, frankly.
但是，是的，坦白说，我认为你对我比我要友善。
But there’s some kind of mix of breadth and being analytical and knowing facts and theories about different areas, and having real-world experience, but being focused on policy, not writing a column.
但有某种广度、分析能力、了解不同领域的事实和理论、拥有现实世界经验的混合体，但专注于政策，而不是写专栏。
You’ve done a lot of published academic research, but it’s not the focus of your life the way it has been for, say, Joe Stiglitz in his earlier years.
你已经发表了大量学术研究，但这并不是你生活的焦点，就像乔·斯蒂格利茨早年那样。
And along that dimension, who’s better than you?
在这个维度上，谁比你更好？
Seriously.
严重地。
Now I’m embarrassing you.
现在我让你难堪了。
Yeah, honestly, I think you are embarrassing me.
是的，说实话，我觉得你让我难堪。
I think this isn’t the way I’d think about myself.
我认为这不是我看待自己的方式。
I know it isn’t.
我知道不是。
That’s why I’m embarrassing you.
这就是我让你难堪的原因。
It’s certainly the case for any human being that if you draw the criteria narrowly enough, you can have a set of people that includes just one and they can be the very best in that set.
对于任何人来说，情况当然都是如此，如果你把标准定得足够窄，你可以拥有一组只包括一个人的人，而他们可能是该组中最好的。
Is it harder to produce Jason Furmans today through the academic process?
今天通过学术过程生产杰森·弗曼是不是更难了？
And is that something we should regret?
这是我们应该后悔的事情吗？
I have grad students that come to me and say they love my career trajectory.
我有研究生来找我并说他们喜欢我的职业轨迹。
How do they have it?
他们如何拥有它？
And I don’t know what to answer them because what I’ve done has been pretty idiosyncratic.
我不知道该怎么回答他们，因为我所做的事情非常奇怪。
I don’t know that it would work out for even one out of ten other people that tried it.
我不知道尝试过的人中是否有十分之一会成功。
Presumably a bunch of luck, circumstances, et cetera.
大概是运气、环境等等。
I think it’s always been hard to have this, maybe a little bit harder now because the think tanks tend to be more tribal, more partisan.
我认为一直以来都很难做到这一点，现在可能更难一点，因为智囊团往往更加部落化，更加党派化。
So there may be a bit less of a space for just wanting to think what you want to think as opposed to being useful in the short term.
因此，与短期内有用的想法相比，只想思考自己想要思考的事情的空间可能会少一些。
And what’s that key idiosyncratic move you made or was done to you, that enabled it to work for you?
你所做的或别人对你做过的关键的特殊举动是什么，使它对你有用？
I didn’t intend to go into public policy.
我本来不想讨论公共政策。
I ended up almost accidentally at the Council of Economic Advisers in the middle of grad school.
我在研究生院中期几乎意外地加入了经济顾问委员会。
I discovered I liked it and ended up staying in government longer than I expected.
我发现我喜欢它，并且最终在政府任职的时间比我预期的要长。
But there probably have been a dozen things, from Joe Stiglitz calling and asking me to come to the Council of Economic Advisers to something that happened yesterday.
但可能有十几件事，从乔·斯蒂格利茨打电话让我去经济顾问委员会，到昨天发生的事情。
Last question — if you’ve read all the Dickens novels, which one is your favorite and why?
最后一个问题 —— 如果你读过狄更斯的所有小说，你最喜欢哪一本，为什么？
Bleak House, for sure.
荒凉山庄，当然。
I love that you have a woman’s voice in it, Esther Summerson.
我喜欢你在里面有一个女人的声音，埃丝特·萨默森。
I love the huge number of .
我喜欢大量的。
.
。
.
。
every Dickens thing you can imagine is in that book: villains, heroines, scoundrels.
你能想象到的狄更斯的一切都在那本书里：恶棍、女英雄、恶棍。
You have a little murder mystery right in the middle of it, a police inspector.
一名警察督察，中间有一个谋杀之谜。
I think that book contains everything.
我认为那本书包含了一切。
On this we fully agree.
对此我们完全同意。
Jason Furman, thank you very much.
杰森·弗曼，非常感谢你。
Thank you.
谢谢。