经济学人:六大经济学原理:失业的自然比率(1)

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　　Six Big Ideas: The natural rate of unemployment 六大经济学原理：失业的自然比率

　　Central bankers' holy grail 央行银行家的圣杯

　　Policymakers have spent half a century in search of the natural rate of unemployment. The fifth in our series big economic ideas. 决策者为寻找失业的自然比率花了半个世纪。重大经济思想系列之第五篇。

　　Why does unemployment exist? 失业为什么存在？

　　If there is a central question in macroeconomics, this is it. 如果说宏观经济学有一个中心问题，这个问题就是。

　　There are few bigger wastes than the loss to idleness of hours, days and years by people who would rather be working. 很少有比宁愿工作的人几个小时、几天乃至经年累月年地无所事事的损失更大的浪费了。

　　Unemployment can ruin lives, sink budgets and topple governments. 失业能够毁灭人生，埋葬预算、掀翻政府。

　　Yet policymakers do not wage all-out war on joblessness. 然而，决策者并不对失业全面开战。

　　Most, like the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, target what is known as unemployment's “natural” rate, at which inflation is stable. 它们大都是像美国央行——美联储那样，把目标锁定在所谓的失业的“自然”比率(unemployment's “natural” rate)，即通胀在其上是稳定的那个比率上面。

　　The importance of this concept is hard to overstate. 这一概念的重要性怎么强调都不为过。

　　The Fed's argument for its recent interest-rate rises, for example, hinges on stopping unemployment from falling too far beneath the natural rate. 例如，美联储支持其近期加息的论据就是围绕着阻止失业率降到自然比率之下太远的地方而展开的。

　　Yet the natural rate is in many respects an article of faith, always sought but never seen. 然而，这种自然比率在很多方面就像是一种信念，总是被苦苦寻求，却从未被一睹其真面目。

　　Where does it come from? 它来自何方？

　　There are several reasons why unemployment cannot simply be eradicated¹ fully². 有多个为什么失业不能被简单地一笔勾销的原因。

　　It takes time for people to move from one job to another: this is said to cause “frictional” unemployment. 人们变换工作需要时间：据称，这引发“摩擦性”失业(frictional unemployment)。

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