Larry Summers on Macroeconomics, Mentorship, and Avoiding Complacency (Ep. 28 - Live at Mason)
I’m here with Larry Summers.
我和拉里·萨默斯在一起。
Of course, Larry has many notable achievements, but for me personally, the most important one is that of all the classes I took at Harvard University, he taught the very best one, and that was PhD Macro I.
当然，拉里有很多引人注目的成就，但对我个人来说，最重要的是我在哈佛大学上的所有课程中，他教的最好的一门，那就是PhD Macro I。
On mentoring and higher education
关于指导和高等教育
I’d like to start with a question about education and this idea of mentoring.
我想从一个关于教育和指导理念的问题开始。
In your career, you mentored a large number of very successful people: Alan Krueger from my class, Ed Balls, Sheryl Sandberg, Natasha Sarin, who’s here with us today.
在您的职业生涯中，您指导过很多非常成功的人：我班上的艾伦·克鲁格、艾德·鲍尔斯、谢丽尔·桑德伯格、娜塔莎·萨林，她今天也和我们在一起。
What is your philosophy of mentoring?
您的指导理念是什么？
How do you think about this analytically?
您如何分析地看待这个问题？
And what can the rest of us learn from this?
我们其他人可以从中学到什么？
I should say first, Tyler, since you were kind enough to compliment my class, that when my wife heard that I was doing this interview with you, she thought it was really exciting because you had written the only economics book that she had ever enjoyed reading.
首先，我应该说，泰勒，既然你对我的课表示了足够的好意，当我的妻子听说我正在接受你的采访时，她认为这真的很令人兴奋，因为你写了她唯一喜欢读的经济学书。
That book being about where and how to find good food.
那本书是关于在哪里以及如何找到美食的。
Yes.
是的。
Working in the White House, that was fine, but being interviewed by Tyler Cowen, that meant I had really arrived.
在白宫工作，这很好，但接受泰勒·考恩的采访，这意味着我真的到了。
Thank you.
谢谢。
I don’t really think of it as mentoring.
我真的不认为这是指导。
I think of it as finding people who are as talented as I can to work with, and then trying to make sure that it’s something that works for both people.
我认为这是寻找尽可能有才华的人一起工作，然后努力确保这对两个人都有效。
Each of the people you’ve mentioned I’ve got an enormous amount out of the working relationship as we collaborated on various kinds of projects.
当我们在各种项目上进行合作时，你提到的每个人都从我们的工作关系中获益匪浅。
I tried to give back, as well, by helping people advance in their careers.
我也试图通过帮助人们在职业生涯中取得进步来回馈社会。
In each of the cases you described I formed friendships that have lasted for a long time.
在你描述的每一个案例中，我都建立了持续很长时间的友谊。
I didn’t think of it as some huge act of generosity on my part; very much the contrary.
我并不认为这是我的某种巨大的慷慨之举。恰恰相反。
Getting to work with Sheryl Sandberg, I was a much better Treasury Secretary because I had Sheryl Sandberg as the chief of staff, and something similar is true of each of the people I’ve worked with.
与谢丽尔·桑德伯格一起工作后，我成为了一名更好的财政部长，因为谢丽尔·桑德伯格是我的幕僚长，与我共事过的每个人都是如此。
My experience working with people is that if you pick able people and you make clear that you think very highly of their talents, they will welcome it if you tell them the truth about what they’ve done better and what they have done worse.
我与人打交道的经验是，如果你挑选有能力的人，并且明确表示你非常看重他们的才能，那么如果你告诉他们真相，告诉他们哪些方面做得更好，哪些方面做得较差，他们会很欢迎。
So I’ve had a relatively direct approach with the people who I’ve worked with, and I’ve encouraged them to have a very direct approach with me.
因此，我与共事过的人进行了相对直接的接触，我也鼓励他们与我进行非常直接的接触。
And that’s tended to work out for both of us.
这往往对我们双方都有利。
Who’s innovating in higher education right now, and what are they learning from this innovation?
目前谁在高等教育领域进行创新？他们从这种创新中学到了什么？
Not enough people are innovating enough in higher education.
在高等教育领域进行足够创新的人还不够多。
The place to start is, General Electric looks nothing like it looked in 1975.
首先，通用电气看起来与 1975 年完全不同。
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford look a lot like they looked in 1975.
哈佛、耶鲁、普林斯顿或斯坦福看起来很像 1975 年的样子。
They’re about the same size to within a factor of two, they’re about the same number of buildings, they operate on about the same calendar, they have many of the same people or some number of the same people in significant positions.
它们的规模大致相同，相差不到两倍，它们的建筑物数量大致相同，它们的运作时间大致相同，它们有许多相同的人员或一些相同的人员担任重要职位。
The main thing to say is that, for something that’s all about ideas and for something that’s all about young people, the pace of innovation in higher education is stunningly slow.
主要要说的是，对于一切与思想和年轻人有关的事物来说，高等教育的创新步伐却慢得惊人。
We’re still on a system where the break is in the summer.
我们仍然采用夏季休息的系统。
The reason we’re on that system is that when everybody went to pick the plants, that was the natural way to organize school, and it’s still going that way.
我们采用该系统的原因是，当每个人都去采摘植物时，这是组织学校的自然方式，而且现在仍然如此。
The potential action in higher education is probably heavily through distance learning and artificial intelligence in learning technologies of various kinds because, if you think about it, the unique capacity that online education has is that, on the one hand, they’re huge economies of scale.
高等教育的潜在作用可能很大程度上是通过远程学习和各种人工智能学习技术来实现的，因为如果你仔细想想，在线教育的独特能力在于，一方面，它们具有巨大的规模经济。
Once the lecture’s filmed, 100,000 people can watch it at the same cost as 100 people watching it.
讲座拍摄完成后，10万人可以观看，费用与100人观看的费用相同。
On the other hand, you can have much more personalization.
另一方面，您可以拥有更多的个性化设置。
You can re-listen to the bit you didn’t understand.
听不懂的地方可以再听一遍。
You can insert diagnostic questions and have a different lecture for people depending on how they do on the diagnostic questions.
您可以插入诊断问题，并根据人们对诊断问题的表现进行不同的讲座。
So it permits what’s usually very rare, which is more differentiation and more economies of scale.
因此，它允许通常非常罕见的事情，即更多的差异化和更多的规模经济。
But I would say, to date, it hasn’t yet been pursued on a scale and with a degree of energy that is commensurate with the real challenge.
但我想说，迄今为止，它还没有达到与真正的挑战相称的规模和程度。
A number of universities have made what Clay Christensen would say is the first elementary error.
许多大学都犯了克莱·克里斯滕森所说的第一个基本错误。
They said that their MOOC efforts or their distance learning efforts are going to all be designed to be complementary of better education on their campuses.
他们表示，他们的 MOOC 工作或远程学习工作都将旨在与校园内更好的教育相辅相成。
There’s a certain logic to that in terms of faculty politics, in terms of faculty comfort, and all of that, but the essence of Clay Christensen’s lessons about disruptive innovation is if you want to do something all new you have to separate it from the original mission, not judge it by the standards of the original product, and let it be separate.
从教师政治、教师舒适度等角度来看，这是有一定逻辑的，但克莱·克里斯滕森关于颠覆性创新的教训的本质是，如果你想做一些全新的事情，你必须将它与最初的使命分开，而不是用原始产品的标准来评判它，并让它分开。
What I’ve been struck by in the distance education efforts is that they tend to be very much within paradigm and not set up in separate ways.
在远程教育工作中，令我印象深刻的是，它们往往非常符合范式，而不是以不同的方式建立。
I think the main thing to say about innovation in higher education is that there’s much too little of it.
我认为关于高等教育创新的主要观点是创新太少了。
On monopoly and optimal capital tax rates in America
论美国的垄断与最优资本税率
Regular economics: one hears increasingly these days that the higher concentration ratios in the American economy are an economically relevant fact.
常规经济学：如今人们越来越多地听到，美国经济的较高集中度是一个与经济相关的事实。
We all know those ratios are up somewhat.
我们都知道这些比率有所上升。
But at the same time, consumers don’t, in an obvious way, seem to feel the burden of monopoly.
但与此同时，消费者似乎并没有明显感受到垄断的负担。
If you look just at product choice and variety, productivity may be slow, the growth of manufacturing output appears to be quite steady.
如果只看产品选择和品种，生产率可能会很慢，制造业产出的增长似乎相当稳定。
There’s not obviously a break in that series where all the monopolies restrict output.
在所有垄断都限制产量的系列中，并没有明显的突破。
We have all these different pieces of data: high-share values, high measured profits, very steady output behavior, a lot of product variety.
我们拥有所有这些不同的数据：高份额价值、高测量利润、非常稳定的产出行为、大量的产品种类。
How do you think about the issue of monopoly in the American economy right now?
您如何看待当前美国经济的垄断问题？
Is it significant or not?
重要还是不重要？
Most things I might be right or wrong, but I’m confident.
大多数事情我可能是对的，也可能是错的，但我很自信。
This is one where I’m not certain.
这是我不确定的地方。
On the one hand, Tyler, higher concentration ratios, higher profit — with lower investment — manifest in lower interest rates.
泰勒认为，一方面，集中度越高，利润越高——投资越低——体现在利率越低。
More monopoly power fits the story.
更多的垄断力量符合这个故事。
On the other hand, take a thing like Apple Pay.
另一方面，以 Apple Pay 为例。
Apple Pay means that Apple, which is already the largest company in America, is even larger.
Apple Pay意味着已经是美国最大公司的苹果公司规模更大。
So you could say that’s more monopoly and more market power.
所以你可以说这是更多的垄断和更多的市场力量。
Or you could say there’s a whole financial industry it’s now getting competed with from outside the financial industry, and so it’s making things more competitive.
或者你可以说，整个金融行业现在都在与金融行业以外的人竞争，因此这使得竞争变得更加激烈。
Both those views have merit.
这两种观点都有其道理。
I think the second may have more merit than the first.
我认为第二个可能比第一个有更多的优点。
Some of the rhetoric one hears recently, which leaves you with the impression that we’re seeing an era of a lot of new Standard Oils, seems to me to be quite overdone, with respect to the facts as I understand them.
最近听到的一些言论给你留下了这样的印象：我们正在看到一个有大量新标准石油的时代，在我看来，就我所了解的事实而言，这些言论似乎有些过头了。
On the other hand, are there combinations of healthcare systems in cities where we go from having some real competition to there being one dominant provider and networks to consumers’ benefits.
另一方面，城市中的医疗保健系统是否存在组合，从真正的竞争到有一个占主导地位的提供商和网络，从而为消费者带来好处。
Clearly, there’s problems there.
显然，那里存在问题。
There’s almost certainly some problems there.
几乎可以肯定那里存在一些问题。
Are there difficult issues when information is central, as it would be with a Facebook or a Google?
当信息成为中心时，就像 Facebook 或 Google 那样，是否会出现困难的问题？
Yes, there are difficult issues: privacy, reliance on information, networks.
是的，存在一些难题：隐私、对信息的依赖、网络。
But are those best thought of through the prism of antitrust and monopoly?
但最好是通过反垄断和垄断的棱镜来思考这些问题吗？
I’m not at all sure that that is the best way to think about them.
我完全不确定这是思考它们的最佳方式。
After all, in some sense, the products in those two examples are given away to consumers for free.
毕竟，从某种意义上说，这两个例子中的产品是免费赠送给消费者的。
One of the most important issues for economists to figure out over the next couple of years is how to think about these trends.
经济学家在未来几年需要解决的最重要问题之一是如何思考这些趋势。
I think there are some selective grounds for concern.
我认为有一些选择性的担忧理由。
It’s much more likely that antitrust has been insufficiently tough than it is that it’s been too tough over the last decade.
过去十年，反垄断执法力度不够，而不是过于严厉。
But I also think one needs to be careful about the fact that being a successful business will tend to cause you to have more profits.
但我也认为人们需要小心这样一个事实：成为一家成功的企业往往会让你获得更多的利润。
We usually think of that as a good thing, not a bad thing.
我们通常认为这是一件好事，而不是坏事。