Jeffrey Sachs on Charter Cities and How to Reform Graduate Economics Education (Ep. 2 - Live at Mason)

The purpose of these series is to have conversations that you don’t find other places on YouTube, and to ask probing questions and have a far-ranging dialogue.

这些系列的目的是进行在 YouTube 上其他地方找不到的对话，提出探究性问题并进行广泛的对话。

What I’d like to do is kind of overview of Jeff’s career and thought and try and see how it all hangs together, how the different pieces relate to each other.

我想做的是概述杰夫的职业和思想，并尝试看看它们是如何结合在一起的，不同的部分是如何相互关联的。

What I’d like to do is start with some of the early pieces, from the ’80s and 1990s.

我想做的是从 80 年代和 1990 年代的一些早期作品开始。

Then we’ll work our way up to the present.

然后我们会一直努力到现在。

The first question, Jeff, and we’ll treat this as a dialogue.

第一个问题，杰夫，我们将把它视为对话。

Some of your best-cited work has been on the natural resource curse: the idea that economies, when they have natural resources — such as oil — that can harm their prospects for growth rather than helping them.

您引用次数最多的一些著作是关于自然资源诅咒的：这种观点认为，当经济体拥有自然资源（如石油）时，它们的增长前景可能会受到损害，而不是有所帮助。

Now we’re in 2015.

现在我们已经进入 2015 年了。

How do you see this issue today?

今天您如何看待这个问题？

Do you think that has changed in any way since the first thesis you wrote?

你认为自你写第一篇论文以来，情况有什么变化吗？

About 25 years ago, I started looking more and more at my own work and how economic structure, geography, resource base, and so forth affected development.

大约 25 年前，我开始越来越多地关注自己的工作以及经济结构、地理、资源基础等如何影响发展。

I’ve been on a learning curve since then.

从那时起我就一直处于学习曲线上。

One of the early works that I engaged in at that point with Andrew Warner and others was looking at this question of how resource wealth, resource dependence one could say, affected development.

当时我与安德鲁·华纳（Andrew Warner）和其他人一起从事的早期工作之一是研究资源财富（可以说是资源依赖）如何影响发展的问题。

We found back in the 1990s, looking for the preceding 25 years or so, that the oil-rich countries had grown less rapidly, controlling for seemingly other factors that would be relevant.

早在 20 世纪 90 年代，我们就发现，在控制了看似其他相关因素的情况下，在过去 25 年左右的时间里，石油资源丰富的国家的增长速度较慢。

We started to speculate about that.

我们开始对此进行猜测。

There’s now a huge literature from many different points of view: politics, pure economics, and so forth.

现在有大量来自许多不同观点的文献：政治、纯经济学等等。

It’s a pretty rich subject and not so simple to summarize.

这是一个非常丰富的主题，并不那么容易概括。

There really is a resource curse for a lot of resource-rich countries.

对于许多资源丰富的国家来说，确实存在资源诅咒。

At this point, looking back, I would put more weight on the political economy aspects probably than the pure, market-driven “Dutch disease” aspects which I talked about a quarter century ago.

现在回想起来，我可能会更重视政治经济方面，而不是我四分之一个世纪前谈到的纯粹的、市场驱动的“荷兰病”方面。

The idea at the time was that if you have resource wealth that pulls you away from more labor-intensive and technology-intensive industries.

当时的想法是，如果你拥有资源财富，就可以远离劳动密集型和技术密集型行业。

You don’t learn as much.

你学不到那么多。

You don’t develop as much endogenous growth.

你不会发展出那么多的内生增长。

Now I would say if you have resource wealth, one problem is you’re likely to be invaded.

现在我想说，如果你有资源财富，一个问题是你可能会被入侵。

You have more vulnerability to geopolitics as well as to internal politics to mess things up.

你更容易受到地缘政治和内部政治的影响，从而把事情搞砸。

Norway will do well, whether the oil price is high or low.

无论油价高低，挪威都会表现良好。

On the other hand, last time the world oil price was persistently low, the Soviet Union collapsed.

另一方面，上次世界油价持续低迷时，苏联解体了。

Russia was near hyperinflation.

俄罗斯已接近恶性通货膨胀。

Different countries under different conditions will adjust to these shocks.

不同国家在不同情况下会适应这些冲击。

Resource-rich Norway, Australia, Canada — I wouldn’t worry too much about them.

资源丰富的挪威、澳大利亚、加拿大 ——我不会太担心他们。

Their currencies will weaken.

他们的货币将会贬值。

They will find other things to do, whereas some of the very vulnerable countries that have never been able to kick the habit of dependence, like Venezuela, will probably go into a deeper crisis.

他们会找到其他事情要做，而一些从未能够摆脱依赖习惯的非常脆弱的国家，如委内瑞拉，可能会陷入更深的危机。

The Middle East has been in flames now for years.

中东多年来一直处于战火之中。

I don’t see any easy way out there, either.

我也没有看到任何简单的出路。

Does thinking about resources lead you back to seeing institutions as important in some new and different way or are you still basically skeptical about institutions mattering at all and wanting to look most of all to geography?

对资源的思考是否会让你重新以某种新的、不同的方式看待制度的重要性，或者你仍然基本上对制度的重要性持怀疑态度，并且最想关注的是地理？

Do you see what I’m getting at?

你明白我的意思了吗？

This “institution matters” idea is one of those that I’ve found taken to extremes by causing a kind of geographic blindness, if I could say it.

如果我可以这么说的话，我发现这种“制度很重要”的想法已经走向极端，导致了一种地理盲目性。

Geography obviously matters a lot.

地理显然很重要。

Resource base matters a lot.

资源基础非常重要。

Institutions matter a lot.

机构非常重要。

The world’s complex.

世界很复杂。

We’re dealing with complex systems.

我们正在处理复杂的系统。

It’s not surprising that different things matter at different times and different places.

毫不奇怪，不同的事情在不同的时间和不同的地点很重要。

Of course, institutions make a difference.

当然，机构会有所作为。

The art of good economics, in my view, is trying to figure out what’s important, where, when, and in which context.

在我看来，优秀经济学的艺术在于试图弄清楚什么是重要的、在哪里、何时以及在何种背景下。

When you reviewed Acemoglu and Robinson, you said, “If we go to the year 1960, even knowing who the winners and losers have been, much less forget about forecasting, it’s very hard to come up with a metric of institutions that predicts which countries end up doing well and which countries end up doing poorly.”

当您回顾阿西莫格鲁和罗宾逊时，您说：“如果我们回到 1960 年，即使知道谁是赢家和输家，更不用说预测了，也很难提出一个机构指标来预测哪些国家最终表现良好，哪些国家最终表现不佳。”

When I read that, I tend to think somehow we’re mismeasuring institutional quality.

当我读到这篇文章时，我倾向于认为我们在某种程度上错误地衡量了机构质量。

We really need a better measure of institutions, which we don’t have yet.

我们确实需要更好的制度衡量标准，但我们目前还没有。

Institutions will someday matter again, but I’m looking for this in vain.

有一天，制度会再次变得重要，但我徒劳地寻找这一点。

Where does your thought stand on this now?

您现在对此有何看法？

Do you actually think there’s some deeper understanding of institutions that will rescue this proposition?

你真的认为对机构有更深入的了解可以挽救这个命题吗？

When you throw out North Korea and some other crazy countries, institutions don’t really have the predictive power for growth.

当你把朝鲜和其他一些疯狂的国家排除在外时，机构并没有真正具有增长的预测能力。

What are your thoughts on this, given that in the across-country regressions, they can do so poorly within the set of semireasonable countries?

考虑到在跨国回归中，他们在半合理国家范围内表现不佳，您对此有何看法？

They missed one fundamental point right from the start, which is that when you look at development, there are at least two fundamental drivers, not just one.

他们从一开始就错过了一个基本点，那就是，当你审视发展时，至少有两个基本驱动因素，而不仅仅是一个。

The one that they talk about is innovation, and innovation as being a fundamental driver of growth.

他们谈论的是创新，而创新是增长的根本动力。

There’s a lot of truth to that in the history of the world.

世界历史上有很多这样的事实。

But there’s a second fundamental aspect when we look out in the world and say, “Who’s doing well?

但当我们放眼世界并问“谁做得好？

Who’s doing badly?

谁做得不好？

Why?” and so forth.

为什么？等等。

That’s what is sometimes called “catching up.” The phenomenon of catching up is very different from the phenomenon of forging ahead at the front of the technology horizon.

这就是有时所谓的“追赶”。追赶现象与在技术前沿奋进的现象有很大不同。

When you take that simple distinction, it helps to explain a lot of the post-1960 question that you’re asking.

当你进行这个简单的区分时，它有助于解释你所提出的许多 1960 年后的问题。

The most successful countries in the world in the last 50 years have been basically the East Asian economies and Southeast Asian economies.

过去50年世界上最成功的国家基本上是东亚经济体和东南亚经济体。

Very rarely do they look like the textbook model of Acemoglu and Robinson of the free market economy and so forth.

它们很少看起来像阿西莫格鲁和罗宾逊的自由市场经济等教科书模型。

In fact, the People’s Republic of China they characterize as just — that’s an anomaly that is going to collapse in the future so we don’t have to explain it now.

事实上，他们所描述的中华人民共和国只是“一种异常现象，将来会崩溃，所以我们现在不必解释”。

I think that’s a huge mistake and a misunderstanding of the basics.

我认为这是一个巨大的错误，也是对基础知识的误解。

China’s in a catching-up mode.

中国正处于追赶模式。

The institutions of catching up are quite different from the institutions of being the technology leader, for example.

例如，追赶的制度与成为技术领先者的制度有很大不同。

Just understanding that would give them a little more clarity about institutions, per se.

只要理解这一点就能让他们对制度本身有更清晰的认识。

Other places have been corrupt for a long time — I’m thinking of New York, Washington, Lagos, Beijing, and other places — and you get a lot of economic progress.

其他地方已经腐败了很长时间 ——“我想到的是纽约、华盛顿、拉各斯、北京和其他地方”—— 你会得到很多经济进步。

In that sense, there is no purity in the world.

从这个意义上说，世界上没有纯粹的东西。

I’m not a fan of corruption for a lot of reasons that have started with the ethics.

我不喜欢腐败，原因有很多，首先是道德问题。

As you know, Rosenstein-Rodan was a development economist.

如您所知，罗森斯坦-罗丹是一位发展经济学家。

He was one of the pioneers of the notion of the big push of an extended move forward on many fronts, all at the same time.

他是同时在多个方面大力推进这一理念的先驱之一。

But when you look at the early years of his thought, he studied with Mises.

但当你回顾他早年的思想时，你会发现他曾师从米塞斯。

He worked with Hayek.

他与哈耶克一起工作。

He was an Austrian.

他是奥地利人。

He was a subjectivist, methodological individualist, and he made some kind of theoretical shift in his mind.

他是一位主观主义者、方法论个人主义者，他在思想上做出了某种理论转变。

What is it that you think that Paul Rosenstein-Rodan saw, and presumably you think you see it as well, that the people today who are still Austrians at the theoretical level, what is it that Rosenstein-Rodan saw that allowed him to make that shift or induced him to make that shift at the most basic conceptual level?

你认为保罗·罗森斯坦-罗丹看到了什么，想必你认为你也看到了，今天在理论层面上仍然是奥地利人的人们，罗森斯坦·罗丹看到了什么，让他做出了这种转变，或者诱导他在最基本的概念层面上做出了这种转变？

I would say that his idea — I’d go back even .

我会说他的想法 —— 我什至会回去。

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actually, it’s not back.

事实上，它并没有回来。

It was almost contemporaneous with him.

这几乎与他同时代。

Alexander Gerschenkron, who was a very clever economic historian at Harvard.

亚历山大·格申克伦（Alexander Gerschenkron）是哈佛大学一位非常聪明的经济历史学家。

I came as a student just as he was retiring.

当他退休时，我以学生的身份来到这里。

He was a great mid-century, mid-20th century economic historian.

他是一位伟大的20世纪中叶经济史学家。

He observed that what countries do for development depends on how they stand in relation to the leader, and this is a point I was making earlier, which is that catching up is a fundamental phenomenon in development.

他指出，国家为发展做些什么取决于它们与领导者的关系，这就是我刚才讲的一个观点，即追赶是发展的一个基本现象。

There’s a difference of growth, which we study as an economy, how does it grow?

我们作为一个经济体来研究增长是有差异的，它是如何增长的？

From the question of catching up, which is a question for a country that is situated with weak technology, weak infrastructure, weak training, and so forth.

从追赶问题来看，这是一个技术薄弱、基础设施薄弱、培训薄弱等国家的问题。

In the face of advanced economies, what should they do?

面对发达经济体，他们该怎么办？

Now that’s been a question that’s been asked for at least 224 years, since Alexander Hamilton sent his letter to the congress on manufacturing in the United States.

自亚历山大·汉密尔顿 (Alexander Hamilton) 向美国制造业大会寄信以来，这个问题已经被问了至少 224 年。

Because he said we have to catch up with Britain.

因为他说我们必须赶上英国。

Then Friedrich List said, “We have to catch up with Britain.” Economic reformers from basically Hamilton on in countries that were lagging behind the lead said, “What do we do to catch up?”

然后弗里德里希·李斯特说：“我们必须赶上英国。”从汉密尔顿开始，那些落后国家的经济改革者说：“我们要做什么才能赶上？”

Now you can carry this too far because the insane version of this, and the unbelievably destructive version of this, was Lenin and Stalin.

现在你可以把这个说得太远了，因为这个的疯狂版本和令人难以置信的破坏性版本是列宁和斯大林。

We have to do anything at no matter what cost of life to catch up, or Mao in the Great Leap Forward, which is insanity and cruelty.

我们必须不惜一切代价去赶上毛泽东的大跃进，这是疯狂和残酷的。

But, on the other hand, the idea that you do different things to catch up by accelerating the process or by making the big push in a variety of ways has been shown time and again to have a lot of merit.

但另一方面，通过加速进程或以各种方式大力推动来做不同的事情来赶上的想法已经被一次又一次地证明有很多优点。

It’s a balance, once more.

这又是一种平衡。

The first countries to develop, Britain and the United States .

最先发展起来的国家是英国和美国。

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Take the US.

以美国为例。

We’ve achieved almost continuous 1.8 percent per year per capita growth for the last 200 years.

过去 200 年来，我们的人均增长率几乎连续 1.8%。

Not bad, if you do it for 200 years.

如果你这样做200年，也不错。

But if you’re an impoverished country today and you say, “What’s our aim?

但如果你今天是一个贫穷的国家，你说：“我们的目标是什么？

1.8 percent growth?” No, our aim is 10 percent growth, because we really need to catch up.

增长1.8%？”不，我们的目标是增长 10%，因为我们确实需要迎头赶上。

It turned out, because of that catching-up phenomenon, you can make a very, very rapid advance in a way unthinkable for a country in front.

事实证明，由于这种追赶现象，你可以取得非常非常快的进步，这对于领先的国家来说是不可想象的。

But how do you make that advance?

但如何取得这一进展呢？

Through pure government just stepping back and letting things happen?

纯粹的政府只是退后一步，让事情发生吗？

No. Through a concerted policy to close gaps.

不会。通过协调一致的政策来缩小差距。

That’s the difference.

这就是区别。

If you’ll bear with me for a moment, I’m going to try to do that with you, and then you tell me where I’m off, or what you would add to that.

如果你能容忍我一会儿，我会尝试和你一起做这件事，然后你告诉我我的不足，或者你会补充什么。

Reviewing all the things you’ve written .

查看您所写的所有内容。

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When we start with primitive society, everything is determined by geography and resources.

从原始社会开始，一切都是由地理和资源决定的。

Economic development, in a sense, is an ongoing process where human beings impose their will and their reason on the world in a kind of planning or voluntaristic fashion.

从某种意义上说，经济发展是人类以一种计划或唯意志论的方式将自己的意志和理性强加于世界的持续过程。

Then there’s a belief that first this needs to be done in a differential way.

人们相信，首先这需要以不同的方式来完成。

Not the same recipe everywhere.

各地的食谱都不一样。

But a belief in the power of human reason to perform these differential diagnostics to turn this era when humans are on the earth into a time when we’re no longer ruled by resources and geography and the prevalence of malaria.

但相信人类理性的力量能够进行这些差异诊断，将人类在地球上的这个时代转变为一个我们不再受资源、地理和疟疾流行统治的时代。

But brought into an era where human reason is in some sense running the show.

但进入了一个人类理性在某种意义上起主导作用的时代。

If I had to boil down my reread of you into a very short bulletin, that’s what I would say.

如果我必须把我对你的重读浓缩成一篇很短的公告，我会这么说。

Now do you agree with that, how would you change it, and what would you add to that?

现在你同意这一点吗？你会如何改变它，你会添加什么？

I’ve listened to my wife take an oral history a thousand — thousands of times, perhaps.

我听我妻子口述历史可能有一千遍了。

It’s a wonderful art, first of all, because a mother calls with a crisis of a baby or a young child — usually a high fever.

首先，这是一门奇妙的艺术，因为母亲打电话来表示婴儿或幼儿的危机——通常是高烧。

The first thing that is important to know is that there are a thousand possible etiologies of that fever.

首先要知道的是，发烧有上千种可能的病因。

My wife doesn’t say institutions.

我妻子没有说机构。

She says .

她说。

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The purpose of a differential diagnosis is two things.

鉴别诊断的目的有两个。

First, it is of course to try to get to the core reasons so that you can make a proper prescription based on a proper diagnosis.

首先，当然是要尝试找出核心原因，以便根据正确的诊断来制定正确的处方。

Second, it’s done in a way that you’re minimizing serious risk.

其次，这样做的方式可以最大限度地降低严重风险。

The first question always that my wife asks is, “Is the baby’s neck stiff, or do you notice that?” Because that’s one of the symptoms of meningitis.

我妻子问的第一个问题总是：“宝宝的脖子僵硬吗？你注意到了吗？”因为这是脑膜炎的症状之一。

If the mother answers that way, the next point is “I’ll meet you at the emergency room.

如果母亲这样回答，下一点就是“我会在急诊室等你。”

Don’t stop.

不要停下来。

Just go.” Because it could be something that is fulminant and life-threatening immediately.

走吧。”因为这可能是一种暴发性的、立即危及生命的事情。

If it’s not that, then it can go on for an hour.

如果不是这样，那么它可以持续一个小时。

But by the way, it’s not just an hour of questions.

但顺便说一句，这不仅仅是一个小时的问题。

It’s an hour of sequenced questions down a decision tree, and it’s fascinating to watch.

这是一个小时的按决策树顺序排列的问题，观看起来很有趣。

I wish as economists we had those basic skills inbred.

我希望作为经济学家，我们能够拥有这些与生俱来的基本技能。

I certainly didn’t learn them, and it took me a long time of seeing lots of “patients” to see that one needs that same kind of approach.

我当然没有学过它们，而且我花了很长时间看了很多“病人”，才发现人们需要同样的方法。

That’s what I mean by differential diagnosis.

这就是我所说的鉴别诊断的意思。

Why it’s so annoying to me, the one explanation fits all viewpoints.

为什么这对我来说如此烦人，一种解释适合所有观点。

Because now I’ve seen a lot of places, a lot of crises, a lot of challenges.

因为现在我看到了很多地方，很多危机，很多挑战。

One of the things that I discovered was how poor our profession is at times in having that sense that the problem that you saw over there is not the same as the problem that you’re seeing here.

我发现的一件事是，我们的职业有时是多么糟糕，因为你有一种感觉，你在那里看到的问题与你在这里看到的问题不一样。

To some extent you have people voting on the baby, not all of whom even know who the baby is or what the baby’s symptoms are.

在某种程度上，人们对婴儿进行投票，但并非所有人都知道婴儿是谁或婴儿有什么症状。

The differential diagnostics may exist in a kind of platonic realm, but you are more optimistic about them than I am.

鉴别诊断可能存在于某种柏拉图式的境界，但你比我更乐观。

What would you tell me to address my skepticism and make me more of a Sachsian, given that I have this reluctance to embrace your view the way you hold it?

鉴于我不愿意接受你的观点，你会告诉我什么来消除我的怀疑并使我更像一个萨克斯主义者？