经济学人267:自由交易 巨人

　　Finance and economics
财经商业
Free exchange
自由交易
One of the giants
巨人
Ronald Coase, the economist¹ who explained why firms exist, died on September 2nd, aged² 102
罗纳德科斯，著名经济学家，于9月2日逝世，享年102岁。他向世人阐明了企业存在原因。
I HAVE made no innovations in high theory, was how Ronald Coase modestly summed up his life's work.
罗纳德科斯如是总结他一生的事业：在高层理论研究中，我并没有创新。
My contribution to economics has been to urge the inclusion…of features of the economic system so obvious that…they have tended to be overlooked.
我对经济领域的贡献在于，将甄选经济指标这一步骤引入人们视野，而之前，人们对此并不重视。
Attention to the overlooked helped Mr Coase transform both law and economics.
而正是他对这一被忽视的步骤的注意使得他改变了法律与经济。
22222222222_副本.jpgBorn in the London suburb of Willesden in 1910 to working-class parents,
1910年，罗纳德科斯出生在伦敦威尔斯登的一个工人家庭，
Mr Coase had an academic temperament³ and an interest in science but lacked a taste for mathematics, a flaw that might have kept him out of economics in later decades.
他很有学术天赋，对于科学也很有兴趣，遗憾的是他缺少对数学的尝试，也许这就是使得他在接下来的十年中无缘经济的原因。
He studied commerce at the London School of Economics, a course tailored to those destined⁴ for middle management.
科斯在伦敦经济学院学习贸易，这一学科是给将来的中层管理者量身定做的。
The degree included instruction in economics, and he quickly fell for the dismal⁵ science.
该学科包含了经济介绍，科斯很快便迷上了政治经济。
A one-year travelling scholarship gave him the chance to apply what he had learned.
一年的旅行奖金给予了科斯将所学应用于实践的机会，
He chose to tour America's industrial cities in the hope of answering a question that troubled him:
他来到美国工业城市，希望能在这找到一直困扰他的问题：
why did companies exist?
企业为何存在。
Economists⁶ of the time were enthralled⁷ by the special magic of the price mechanism⁸.
时下的经济学家都被价格机制的神奇魔力吸引。
In a free market, prices should adjust to allocate⁹ resources where they are most valued.
在自由市场，通过价格的变动来分配资源，使尽其用。
A certain price for wool, for example, encourages farmers to raise sheep and bring wool to market to meet consumer demand.
例如，如果羊毛价格高，农民就会更多的喂养羊群，将羊毛销往市场以满足需求。
As more is produced and demand is sated the price falls, discouraging farmers from wasting time and resources producing unwanted goods.
当生产的羊毛越来越多，需求被不断满足，价格就会下降，这就使农民减少生产，避免将时间跟精力浪费在非需商品上。
Yet whereas some parts of the economy rely on prices to guide materials and labour to their best uses, others do not.
经济在某些方面依靠价格来引导资源和劳力发挥最大作用，而其他方面又并非如此。
Within firms tasks are doled¹⁰ out by fiat¹¹ and strategies are set by the Politburo of the corporate¹² board. Mr Coase wanted to know why.
在企业里，高层向下布置任务，企业董事会制定政策。科斯想知道为什么是这样的模式。
As he watched American car plants in action, he realised that the existence of the firm compensated¹³ for a critical flaw in the price-setting mechanism.
就在科斯观察美国汽车工厂运行时，他意识到企业的存在正好弥补了价格生成机制中最严重的漏洞。
In the real world it is often costly¹⁴ for buyer and seller to arrive at a final price.
现实生活中，让买家跟商家达成最后的交易价格很费力。
Transaction costs, like the need to negotiate or draw up contracts, prevent the price mechanism from working smoothly¹⁵.
交易成本，例如协商，签合同，这些都会使价格机制无法平稳运行。
Firms would exist, he reckoned, when it was cheaper and easier to co-ordinate activity within a centrally planned organisation¹⁶ than to spell out contract details for every step in the production process.
科斯猜想，当在一个有中心规划的机构里，协调各部门行动比在生产过程中为每一步都签订详细合同的成本更低更便捷，企业就出现了。
Mr Coase first presented his proposition in a lecture in Dundee in 1932, at the tender age of 21.
科斯首次提出这样的主张是他1932年在英国敦堤的一次演讲中，当时他才21岁。
In 1937 he published The Nature of the Firm, an article based on the Dundee lecture.
1937年，他以在敦堤的演讲为基础出版了《企业的性质》。
An entire field of research would eventually be built on this paper, but it garnered¹⁷ scant¹⁸ attention at first.
后来整个领域的研究都是以科斯在敦堤的演讲内容为基础，只是一开始并未引起很多人的注意。
Mr Coase bounced around British academia in the 1930s and 1940s, from Dundee to Liverpool and back to the LSE, researching the workings of public utilities as he went.
上个世纪30跟40年代，科斯在英国学术界十分活跃，从敦堤到利物浦，然后又回到伦敦经济学院，科斯一路研究公共事业公司的运行机制。
In 1951 he migrated to America and proved similarly itinerant¹⁹, until an article on radio-spectrum property rights caught the eye of scholars at the University of Chicago.
1951年，他移民到美国，并不断地继续证明类似的理论，直到射频频谱的知识产权一文的发表才吸引了芝加哥大学学者们的眼球。
In 1959 he was invited to Chicago to air his views.
1959年，科斯受邀到芝加哥去阐明他的观点，
His audience included future Nobel prizewinners like George Stigler and Milton Friedman:
底下的观众包括像未来诺贝尔得奖者乔治·施蒂格勒，弥尔顿·弗里德曼。
confident, room-commanding men sceptical of Mr Coase's conclusions.
他们自信对科斯的结论表示怀疑。
Over the course of a two-hour discussion the measured Mr Coase won them around.
在两个小时的讨论之后，科斯终于得到他们的认可。
He was asked to write up his arguments and in 1961 produced The Problem of Social Cost, another landmark²⁰ text.
科斯尽数写下他的观点，并于1961年出版了另一代表作《社会成本问题》。
By 1964 Mr Coase was on the University of Chicago's faculty²¹.
从1964年起，科斯一直在芝加哥大学任教。
His debates with the Chicago academics centred on market externalities:
科斯与芝加哥的学者们围绕市场外部性进行了讨论：
economic choices that impose social costs or benefits on others.
经济选择会带来利益或需要社会成本。
Factory pollution may disturb or poison nearby residents, for example.
例如，工厂污染会影响或者危害周围的居民。
Earlier generations of economists diagnosed a market failure that governments could set to rights.
以往的经济学家得出政府能调整市场失败的结论。
The polluting factory does not face any costs from spouting²² black smoke over a town: the costs are external from its perspective.
污染性工厂对于向城镇释放黑烟的成本表示无压力，因为这个成本在他们的估算外。
A tax on pollution would internalise the cost, however.
但是征收污染税能将这个成本内部化，
The price mechanism would work once more, as the tax encouraged the factory's managers to reduce pollution to socially optimal²³ levels.
于是价格机制再一次生效，因为税收能迫使工厂管理者将污染物的排放减少到社会最优水平。
Mr Coase's work suggested another answer.
科斯的成果又暗示了另一个结论。
In the world of theory, without transaction costs, no government intervention²⁴ would be needed to address externalities.
理论上说，如果没有交易成本，就不需要政府干预来强调外部性。
The factory owners and the residents could work out side-payments on their own.
工厂拥有者跟居民他们自己就能达成赔偿协议，
Residents might pay the factory to emit less or the factory might pay the town for leeway to pollute more.
居民能弥补工厂，让他们少排放，工厂也能赔偿给居民，使自己多排放，
Either way an efficient outcome should result without government help. This Panglossian view became known as the Coase Theorem.
其中任一有效的办法都不需要政府的帮助。这种趋于至善的观点就变成了科斯理论。
Yet Mr Coase himself recognised life is more complex than theory.
但是科斯本人也意识到现实远比理论复杂。
Neither private bargaining nor a pollution tax can make a market perfectly²⁵ efficient given transaction costs like the expense of monitoring a factory's emissions²⁶.
如果考虑到像监控工厂排放这样的交易成本，不管是私下解决或者立法征税，都不能使市场最有效。
Mr Coase reckoned the law had a critical economic responsibility: to minimise the disruptive effect of these costs on markets.
于是科斯想到法律负很大的经济责任：法律能最小化交易成本对市场的负面影响。
A system of clear and easily transferable property rights can play a role like that of the firm, allowing useful economic activity to take place that might otherwise be gummed up by the hassle of negotiating and enforcing contracts.
一个清晰并且容易转让的产权体系能扮演一个类似企业这样的角色，它可以保证那些可能被协商跟强加协议弄砸但其实有利可寻的经济活动的正常进行。
His insight revolutionised policy.
科斯这般的洞察力使政策发生了变革。
Tradable emissions permits, which helped eliminate acid rain as an environmental problem in America, are a direct application of his work.
可议的排放许可就是科斯理论成果最直接的应用，这项应用帮助降低了美国酸雨这样的环境问题。
Almost 70 years after that first Dundee lecture Mr Coase won the Nobel prize for economics.
大概在科斯第一次敦堤演讲70年后，他获得了诺贝尔经济学奖。
A scholar must be content with the knowledge that what is false in what he says will soon be exposed, he noted²⁷ in his speech.
他在他的演讲中提到：一个学者应该有他话语里的错误会很快被揭露的意识，并且要对此感到满意，
As for what is true, he can count on ultimately seeing it accepted, if only he lives long enough.
因为只要他活得够长，他就能寄希望于看见那些正确的道理被人们接受。
1.sum up 合计；总结，概括
Let us sum up the recent news.
然我们总结下最近的新闻。
The words of the novelist e. m. forster sum up globalisation.
小说家e.m.forster的这句话可以用来总结全球化。
2.tend to 朝某方向；趋向
Smaller laptops also tend to have longer battery life.
小巧的电脑也趋向更长的电池持续时间。
I tend to prefer light colors.
我往往更喜欢淡颜色。
3.working-class 工人阶级的
A flat in working-class east london can still be had for$ 230 dollars a night.
东伦敦工人阶级的公寓一晚上只是每晚239美元。
Something similar happened to english football, which went from a solidly working-class affair to a playground for billionaire owners.
类似的情况在英格兰也发生过，在哪里足球是从一项团结的工人阶级的运动发展到百万富翁也参与其中。
4.fall for 上当，听信；爱上
In short, we fall for and pursue those people who most clearly fit our love map.
总之，我们爱上并追求的那个人显然是符合我们爱情地图上条件的人。
French first lady carla bruni has revealed what made her fall for husband nicolas sarkozy: his knowledge of flowers.
法国第一夫人卡拉布吕尼透露，让她爱上丈夫尼古拉斯萨科奇的是他对花卉的精通。

1 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

2 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

3 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

4 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

5 dismal   

adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的

参考例句：

• That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
• My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。

6 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 enthralled   

迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快

参考例句：

• The child watched, enthralled by the bright moving images. 这孩子看着那明亮的移动的影像，被迷住了。
• The children listened enthralled as the storyteller unfolded her tale. 讲故事的人一步步展开故事情节，孩子们都听得入迷了。

8 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

9 allocate   

vt.分配，分派；把…拨给；把…划归

参考例句：

• You must allocate the money carefully.你们必须谨慎地分配钱。
• They will allocate fund for housing.他们将拨出经费建房。

10 doled   

救济物( dole的过去式和过去分词 )； 失业救济金

参考例句：

• The food was doled out to the poor. 食品分发给了穷人。
• Sisco briskly doled out the United States positions on the key issues. 西斯科轻快地把美国在重大问题上的立场放了出去。

11 fiat   

n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布

参考例句：

• The opening of a market stall is governed by municipal fiat.开设市场摊位受市政法令管制。
• He has tried to impose solutions to the country's problems by fiat.他试图下令强行解决该国的问题。

12 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

13 compensated   

补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款）

参考例句：

• The marvelous acting compensated for the play's weak script. 本剧的精彩表演弥补了剧本的不足。
• I compensated his loss with money. 我赔偿他经济损失。

14 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

15 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

16 organisation   

n.组织，安排，团体，有机休

参考例句：

• The method of his organisation work is worth commending.他的组织工作的方法值得称道。
• His application for membership of the organisation was rejected.他想要加入该组织的申请遭到了拒绝。

17 garnered   

v.收集并（通常）贮藏（某物），取得，获得( garner的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Mr. Smith gradually garnered a national reputation as a financial expert. 史密斯先生逐渐赢得全国金融专家的声誉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals. 他的提议得到了广泛的支持。 来自辞典例句

18 scant   

adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略

参考例句：

• Don't scant the butter when you make a cake.做糕饼时不要吝惜奶油。
• Many mothers pay scant attention to their own needs when their children are small.孩子们小的时候，许多母亲都忽视自己的需求。

19 itinerant   

adj.巡回的；流动的

参考例句：

• He is starting itinerant performance all over the world.他正在世界各地巡回演出。
• There is a general debate nowadays about the problem of itinerant workers.目前，针对流动工人的问题展开了普遍的争论。

20 landmark   

n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标

参考例句：

• The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
• The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。

21 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

22 spouting   

n.水落管系统v.（指液体）喷出( spout的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水

参考例句：

• He's always spouting off about the behaviour of young people today. 他总是没完没了地数落如今年轻人的行为。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Blood was spouting from the deep cut in his arm. 血从他胳膊上深深的伤口里涌出来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

23 optimal   

adj.最适宜的；最理想的；最令人满意的

参考例句：

• What is the optimal mix of private and public property rights in natural resources?私人和国家的自然资源产权的最适宜的组合是什么？
• Optimal path planning is a key link for the sailing contest.帆船最优行驶路径规划是帆船比赛取胜的关键环节。

24 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

25 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

26 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

27 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。