2023年考研經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人中英文對(duì)照思維機(jī)器出故障了嗎
Thegrowth in the number of people working in research and development might seemto contradict this picture of a less inventive economy: the share of theAmerican economy given over to R D has expanded by a third since 1975, toalmost 3%. But Pierre Azoulay of MIT and Benjamin Jones of NorthwesternUniversity find that, though there are more people in research, they are doingless good. They reckon that in 1950 an average R D worker in Americacontributed almost seven times more to total factor productivityessentially,the contribution of technology and innovation to growththat an R D worker in 2000 did. One factor in this may be the burden of knowledge: as ideas accumulate ittakes ever longer for new thinkers to catch up with the frontier of theirscientific or technical speciality. Mr Jones says that, from 1985 to 1997alone, the typical age at first innovation rose by about one year.
從事研究開發(fā)工作的人數(shù)的增長(zhǎng)似乎同這種缺少發(fā)明經(jīng)濟(jì)的圖景互相矛盾：美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)撥付給研究開發(fā)的份額自1975年以來(lái)增長(zhǎng)了1/3，接近3%。但是，麻省理工學(xué)院的皮埃爾阿祖萊和西北大學(xué)的本杰明瓊斯發(fā)現(xiàn)，盡管從事研究的人數(shù)增加了，但是他們的工作成就不如以前。他們推測(cè)，在1950年時(shí)，美國(guó)人均研發(fā)人員對(duì)全要素生產(chǎn)率從根本上來(lái)說(shuō)，就是技術(shù)與創(chuàng)新對(duì)增長(zhǎng)的貢獻(xiàn)做出的貢獻(xiàn)幾乎是2000年時(shí)的的7倍。這其中的一個(gè)因素可能是知識(shí)的負(fù)擔(dān)：隨著知識(shí)的累計(jì)，后人需要更長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間才能追趕上他們科研專業(yè)領(lǐng)域的前沿。瓊斯認(rèn)為，僅在1985年-1997年間，有代表性的首次發(fā)明年齡提高了將近一歲。
Afall of moondust
月塵降落
Thethird argument is the simplest: the evidence of your senses. The recent rate ofprogress seems slow compared with that of the early and mid-20th century. Takekitchens. In 1900 kitchens in even the poshest of households were primitivethings. Perishables were kept cool in ice boxes, fed by blocks of ice deliveredon horse-drawn wagons. Most households lacked electric lighting and runningwater. Fast forward to 1970 and middle-class kitchens in America and Europefeature gas and electric hobs and ovens, fridges, food processors, microwavesand dishwashers. Move forward another 40 years, though, and things scarcelychange. The gizmos are more numerous and digital displays ubiquitous, butcooking is done much as it was by grandma.
第三個(gè)方面的內(nèi)容最簡(jiǎn)單：感覺到的證據(jù)。同之前和20世紀(jì)中期相比，目前的發(fā)展速度似乎慢于它們。以廚房為例：在1900年的時(shí)候，即便在最時(shí)尚的房子里，廚房還是剛出現(xiàn)時(shí)的那個(gè)樣子。容易腐爛的食物被冷凍在冰盒中，這些盒子周圍放置著用馬車?yán)瓉?lái)的冰塊，大多數(shù)家庭沒(méi)有電燈和自來(lái)水。時(shí)間飛逝，到1970年時(shí)，美國(guó)和歐洲的中產(chǎn)階層家庭的廚房中用上了天然氣以及電熱爐、電烤箱、電冰箱、食品加工機(jī)、微波爐和洗碗機(jī)。再讓時(shí)間前進(jìn)40年，情況卻基本沒(méi)有變化。盡管各種小玩意越來(lái)越多，數(shù)字顯示器無(wú)所不在，但是，做飯的方式同爺爺那個(gè)時(shí)代沒(méi)有什么不同。
Ortake speed. In the 19th century horses and sailboats were replaced by railwaysand steamships. Internal-combustion engines and jet turbines made it possibleto move more and more things faster and faster. But since the 1970s humanityhas been coasting. Highway travel is little faster than it was 50 years ago;indeed, endemic congestion has many cities now investing in trams and bicyclelanes. Supersonic passenger travel has been abandoned. So, for the past 40years, has the moon.
再以速度為例：19世紀(jì)的時(shí)候，馬車和帆船被火車和蒸汽輪船取代，內(nèi)燃機(jī)和噴氣渦輪機(jī)讓越來(lái)越多的事物以越來(lái)越快的速度運(yùn)動(dòng)成為可能。不過(guò)，自20世紀(jì)70年代以來(lái)，人們就開始滑行了。在高速公路上旅行只比50年前快那么一點(diǎn);事實(shí)上，地方性的交通擁堵讓許多城市把資金投入到有軌電車和自行車道的建設(shè)上去。超音速的旅行方式已經(jīng)被禁止。因此，人類已經(jīng)40年沒(méi)有登上月球。
Medicineoffers another example. Life expectancy at birth in America soared from 49years at the turn of the 20th century to 74 years in 1980. Enormous technicaladvances have occurred since that time. Yet as of 2011 life expectancy restedat just 78.7 years. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent on research,people continue to fall to cancer, heart disease, stroke and organ failure.Molecular medicine has come nowhere close to matching the effects of improvedsanitation.
醫(yī)學(xué)提供了另一個(gè)例子。在美國(guó)，出生時(shí)的預(yù)期壽命從20世紀(jì)開始時(shí)的49歲飛速上漲到1980年的74歲。從那之后，科技發(fā)展取得了巨大的成果。然而，到2011年，美國(guó)人的預(yù)期壽命僅停留在78.7歲。盡管花在科研上的資金達(dá)數(shù)千億美元，但是人們依舊會(huì)得癌癥、心臟病、中風(fēng)和器官衰竭等疾病。分子醫(yī)學(xué)的成果根本沒(méi)法同改善衛(wèi)生設(shè)施的效果相提并論。
To those fortunate enough to benefit from the best that the worldhas to offer, the fact that it offers no more can disappoint. As Mr Thiel andhis colleagues at the Founders Fund, a venture-capital company, put it: We wantedflying cars, instead we got 140 characters. A world where allcan use Twitter but hardly any can commute by air is less impressive than thefutures dreamed of in the past.
對(duì)于那些足夠幸運(yùn)因而能從世界不得不提供的最好的事情中獲益的人來(lái)說(shuō)，世界再也不能提供什么的事實(shí)會(huì)讓他們大失所望。正如泰爾及其風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司創(chuàng)始人基金的伙伴所指出的那樣：我們想要會(huì)飛的汽車，卻得到了短短幾句話。如今，人人都能使用Twitter卻幾乎無(wú)人能夠乘飛機(jī)上下班，同過(guò)去所夢(mèng)想的未來(lái)相比，這樣的一個(gè)世界給人留不下什么印象。
The first thing to point out about this appeal to experience andexpectation is that the science fiction of the mid-20th century, important asit may have been to people who became entrepreneurs or economists with a tastefor the big picture, constituted neither serious technological forecasting nora binding commitment. It was a celebration through extrapolation of thencurrent progress in speed, power and distance. For cars read flying cars; forbattlecruisers read space cruisers.
首先需要指出的是，這種對(duì)經(jīng)歷和期望的訴求正是20世紀(jì)中期科幻小說(shuō)的訴求，因?yàn)檫@對(duì)于那些有志成為企業(yè)家或經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家的人來(lái)說(shuō)可能是重要的，這種訴求既不包括嚴(yán)肅的技術(shù)預(yù)測(cè)也沒(méi)有約束性的承諾，它就是一種通過(guò)對(duì)當(dāng)時(shí)在速度、力量和距離方面的進(jìn)步所做的推斷的慶祝。喜歡汽車的，從中發(fā)現(xiàn)了會(huì)飛的汽車;喜歡戰(zhàn)艦的，從中讀出了太空巡洋艦。
Technological progress does not require all technologies to moveforward in lock step, merely that some important technologies are always movingforward. Passenger aeroplanes have not improved much over the past 40 years interms of their speed. Computers have sped up immeasurably. Unless you can showthat planes matter more, to stress the stasis over the progress is simply amatter of taste.
技術(shù)進(jìn)步不要求所有的技術(shù)同步向前，它僅僅要求某些重要的技術(shù)總是向前發(fā)展。以速度而論，客運(yùn)飛機(jī)在過(guò)去40年中沒(méi)有多大改進(jìn)。計(jì)算機(jī)速度的提高無(wú)法衡量。除非你能夠向人們表明飛機(jī)更有用，不然的話，強(qiáng)調(diào)進(jìn)步的停滯只是人們的喜好而已。
Mr Gordon and Mr Cowen do think that now-mature technologies such asair transport have mattered more, and play down the economic importance ofrecent innovations. If computers and the internet mattered to the economyrather thanmerely as rich resources for intellectual and cultural exchange, as experiencedon Mr Cowen s popular blog, Marginal Revolutiontheir effect wouldbe seen in the figures. And it hasn t been.
戈登和柯文確實(shí)認(rèn)為，像空中交通等成熟的技術(shù)更具影響力，但他們對(duì)近期創(chuàng)新的經(jīng)濟(jì)重要性并不看重。如果計(jì)算機(jī)和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)產(chǎn)生影響而不僅僅是像柯文廣受歡迎的博客邊際革命上進(jìn)行的那種有著豐富資源的知識(shí)和文化交流那么它們的影響力能從數(shù)據(jù)中得到驗(yàn)證。但是，事實(shí)并非如此。
As early as 1987 Robert Solow, a growth theorist, had been askingwhy you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivitystatistics. A surge in productivity growth that began in the mid-1990s wasseen as an encouraging sign that the computers were at last becoming visible;but it faltered, and some, such as Mr Gordon, reckon that the benefits ofinformation technology have largely run their course. He notes that, for allits inhabitants Googling and Skypeing, America s productivity performance since2004 has been worse than that of the doldrums from the early 1970s to the early1990s.
早在1987年，增長(zhǎng)理論家羅伯特索洛就發(fā)出了這樣的疑問(wèn)：為什么人們到處都能看到計(jì)算機(jī)時(shí)代，唯獨(dú)在生產(chǎn)力統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)中去看不到它?始于20世紀(jì)90年代的生產(chǎn)力增長(zhǎng)的迅速提高被認(rèn)為是一個(gè)令人鼓舞的信號(hào)，它表明計(jì)算機(jī)終于可見了;但是，這種結(jié)果遲遲沒(méi)有出現(xiàn)。因此戈登等人認(rèn)為，信息技術(shù)的效益尤其自身的規(guī)律。他指出，盡管人們?cè)谟肎oogle進(jìn)行搜索，用Skype打電話，但是美國(guó)的生產(chǎn)力表現(xiàn)自2004年以來(lái)不及20世紀(jì)70年代早期-90年代早期的低迷時(shí)期的水平。
The fountains of paradise
天堂的噴泉
Closer analysis of recent figures, though, suggests reason foroptimism. Across the economy as a whole productivity did slow in 2005 and 2006butproductivity growth in manufacturing fared better. The global financial crisisand its aftermath make more recent data hard to interpret. As for the strongproductivity growth in the late 1990s, it may have been premature to see it asthe effect of information technology making all sorts of sectors moreproductive. It now looks as though it was driven just by the industriesactually making the computers, mobile phones and the like. The effects on theproductivity of people and companies buying the new technology seem to havebegun appearing in the 2000s, but may not yet have come into their own.Research by Susanto Basu of Boston College and John Fernald of the SanFrancisco Federal Reserve suggests that the lag between investments ininformation-and-communication technologies and improvements in productivity isbetween five and 15 years. The drop in productivity in 2004, on that reckoning,reflected a state of technology definitely pre-Google, and quite possiblypre-web.
然而，對(duì)近期數(shù)據(jù)的仔細(xì)分析顯示出樂(lè)觀的理由。縱觀整個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)體，生產(chǎn)率在2005年和2006年確實(shí)放緩不過(guò)，制造業(yè)的生產(chǎn)率增長(zhǎng)表現(xiàn)較好。全球金融危機(jī)及其余波使得對(duì)更多近期數(shù)據(jù)的分析難以進(jìn)行。至于20世紀(jì)90年代出現(xiàn)的強(qiáng)勁的生產(chǎn)力增長(zhǎng)，把它看作是讓所有部門更具競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力的信息技術(shù)的影響還為時(shí)尚早。目前看來(lái)，這或許只是被生產(chǎn)計(jì)算機(jī)、手機(jī)以及與此相關(guān)產(chǎn)品的產(chǎn)業(yè)所帶動(dòng)的結(jié)果。個(gè)人和公司購(gòu)買新技術(shù)對(duì)生產(chǎn)率的影響似乎從21世紀(jì)開始就已經(jīng)開始，但是這種影響可能尚未進(jìn)入全盛時(shí)期。波士頓大學(xué)的 Susanto Basu和舊金山聯(lián)邦儲(chǔ)備銀行John Fernald認(rèn)為，信息通訊技術(shù)的投資與生產(chǎn)率的改進(jìn)之間存在著5-15年的滯后。據(jù)此推論，2004年的生產(chǎn)力下降反映出的狀況據(jù)對(duì)是谷歌出現(xiàn)之前，并且還很可能是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)出現(xiàn)之前的狀況。
Full exploitation of a technology can take far longer than that.Innovation and technology, though talked of almost interchangeably, are not thesame thing. Innovation is what people newly know how to do. Technology is whatthey are actually doing; and that is what matters to the economy. Steel boxesand diesel engines have been around since the 1900s, and their use together incontainerised shipping goes back to the 1950s. But their great impact as thebackbone of global trade did not come for decades after that.
相比之下，技術(shù)的全面推廣可能要耗費(fèi)更多的時(shí)間。盡管在談到創(chuàng)新和技術(shù)時(shí)幾乎都是交替使用，但兩者不是一回事。創(chuàng)新是人們對(duì)怎樣去做的新想法，技術(shù)是人們實(shí)際上正在做什么;這正是技術(shù)對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)的影響所在。鋼制的盒子和柴油發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)在20世紀(jì)就已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)，把兩者共同應(yīng)用到集裝箱航運(yùn)是在20世紀(jì)50年代。但是，它們作為全球貿(mào)易支柱的影響力在此之后的幾十年才出現(xiàn)。
Roughly a century lapsed between the first commercial deployments ofJames Watt s steam engine and steam s peak contribution to British growth. Somefour decades separated the critical innovations in electrical engineering ofthe 1880s and the broad influence of electrification on economic growth. MrGordon himself notes that the innovations of the late 19th century droveproductivity growth until the early 1970s; it is rather uncharitable of him toassume that the post-2004 slump represents the full exhaustion of potentialgains from information technology.
從詹姆斯瓦特的蒸汽機(jī)的首次商業(yè)應(yīng)用到蒸汽機(jī)對(duì)英國(guó)生產(chǎn)率的貢獻(xiàn)達(dá)到巔峰，兩者的時(shí)間間隔大約是一個(gè)世紀(jì)。從19世紀(jì)80年代電器工程的關(guān)鍵創(chuàng)新到電氣化對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)的廣泛影響力之間的間隔大約是40年的時(shí)間。戈登本人指出，19世紀(jì)晚期的創(chuàng)新直到20世紀(jì)70年代才推動(dòng)生產(chǎn)率增長(zhǎng);生產(chǎn)率自2004年以后的下降代表了來(lái)自信息技術(shù)的潛力的全面枯竭，他的這種觀點(diǎn)相當(dāng)犀利。
And information innovation is still in its infancy. Ray Kurzweil, apioneer of computer science and a devotee of exponential technologicalextrapolation, likes to talk of the second half of the chess board. There is an oldfable in which a gullible king is tricked into paying an obligation in grainsof rice, one on the first square of a chessboard, two on the second, four onthe third, the payment doubling with every square. Along the first row, theobligation is minuscule. With half the chessboard covered, the king is out onlyabout 100 tonnes of rice. But a square before reaching the end of the seventhrow he has laid out 500m tonnes in totalthe whole world sannual rice production. He will have to put more or less the same amount againon the next square. And there will still be a row to go.
不過(guò)，信息創(chuàng)新尚處成長(zhǎng)期中。雷庫(kù)茲韋爾是計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)的一位先驅(qū)者，并且是函數(shù)技術(shù)推論法的信徒，他喜歡談?wù)摰脑掝}是棋盤的下半部分。這是一個(gè)古老的寓言：一位容易上當(dāng)受騙的國(guó)王被騙用大米來(lái)支付他的債務(wù)，在棋盤的第一個(gè)格子中放一粒大米，第二個(gè)格子中放兩粒大米，第三個(gè)格子中放四粒大米，隨著格子的增加他的付出也成倍地增加。沿著第一排格子擺放，他的債務(wù)只是一個(gè)小數(shù)目。當(dāng)上半個(gè)棋盤被擺滿后，國(guó)王拿出來(lái)的大米大約只有100噸。但是，當(dāng)擺到第七排最后一個(gè)格子之前，他拿出來(lái)得大米總數(shù)已經(jīng)達(dá)到50億噸相當(dāng)于全世界的大米年產(chǎn)量。他不得不在下一個(gè)格子中擺上差不多相同數(shù)量的大米，并且還有一排格子需要去擺。
Thegrowth in the number of people working in research and development might seemto contradict this picture of a less inventive economy: the share of theAmerican economy given over to R D has expanded by a third since 1975, toalmost 3%. But Pierre Azoulay of MIT and Benjamin Jones of NorthwesternUniversity find that, though there are more people in research, they are doingless good. They reckon that in 1950 an average R D worker in Americacontributed almost seven times more to total factor productivityessentially,the contribution of technology and innovation to growththat an R D worker in 2000 did. One factor in this may be the burden of knowledge: as ideas accumulate ittakes ever longer for new thinkers to catch up with the frontier of theirscientific or technical speciality. Mr Jones says that, from 1985 to 1997alone, the typical age at first innovation rose by about one year.
從事研究開發(fā)工作的人數(shù)的增長(zhǎng)似乎同這種缺少發(fā)明經(jīng)濟(jì)的圖景互相矛盾：美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)撥付給研究開發(fā)的份額自1975年以來(lái)增長(zhǎng)了1/3，接近3%。但是，麻省理工學(xué)院的皮埃爾阿祖萊和西北大學(xué)的本杰明瓊斯發(fā)現(xiàn)，盡管從事研究的人數(shù)增加了，但是他們的工作成就不如以前。他們推測(cè)，在1950年時(shí)，美國(guó)人均研發(fā)人員對(duì)全要素生產(chǎn)率從根本上來(lái)說(shuō)，就是技術(shù)與創(chuàng)新對(duì)增長(zhǎng)的貢獻(xiàn)做出的貢獻(xiàn)幾乎是2000年時(shí)的的7倍。這其中的一個(gè)因素可能是知識(shí)的負(fù)擔(dān)：隨著知識(shí)的累計(jì)，后人需要更長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間才能追趕上他們科研專業(yè)領(lǐng)域的前沿。瓊斯認(rèn)為，僅在1985年-1997年間，有代表性的首次發(fā)明年齡提高了將近一歲。
Afall of moondust
月塵降落
Thethird argument is the simplest: the evidence of your senses. The recent rate ofprogress seems slow compared with that of the early and mid-20th century. Takekitchens. In 1900 kitchens in even the poshest of households were primitivethings. Perishables were kept cool in ice boxes, fed by blocks of ice deliveredon horse-drawn wagons. Most households lacked electric lighting and runningwater. Fast forward to 1970 and middle-class kitchens in America and Europefeature gas and electric hobs and ovens, fridges, food processors, microwavesand dishwashers. Move forward another 40 years, though, and things scarcelychange. The gizmos are more numerous and digital displays ubiquitous, butcooking is done much as it was by grandma.
第三個(gè)方面的內(nèi)容最簡(jiǎn)單：感覺到的證據(jù)。同之前和20世紀(jì)中期相比，目前的發(fā)展速度似乎慢于它們。以廚房為例：在1900年的時(shí)候，即便在最時(shí)尚的房子里，廚房還是剛出現(xiàn)時(shí)的那個(gè)樣子。容易腐爛的食物被冷凍在冰盒中，這些盒子周圍放置著用馬車?yán)瓉?lái)的冰塊，大多數(shù)家庭沒(méi)有電燈和自來(lái)水。時(shí)間飛逝，到1970年時(shí)，美國(guó)和歐洲的中產(chǎn)階層家庭的廚房中用上了天然氣以及電熱爐、電烤箱、電冰箱、食品加工機(jī)、微波爐和洗碗機(jī)。再讓時(shí)間前進(jìn)40年，情況卻基本沒(méi)有變化。盡管各種小玩意越來(lái)越多，數(shù)字顯示器無(wú)所不在，但是，做飯的方式同爺爺那個(gè)時(shí)代沒(méi)有什么不同。
Ortake speed. In the 19th century horses and sailboats were replaced by railwaysand steamships. Internal-combustion engines and jet turbines made it possibleto move more and more things faster and faster. But since the 1970s humanityhas been coasting. Highway travel is little faster than it was 50 years ago;indeed, endemic congestion has many cities now investing in trams and bicyclelanes. Supersonic passenger travel has been abandoned. So, for the past 40years, has the moon.
再以速度為例：19世紀(jì)的時(shí)候，馬車和帆船被火車和蒸汽輪船取代，內(nèi)燃機(jī)和噴氣渦輪機(jī)讓越來(lái)越多的事物以越來(lái)越快的速度運(yùn)動(dòng)成為可能。不過(guò)，自20世紀(jì)70年代以來(lái)，人們就開始滑行了。在高速公路上旅行只比50年前快那么一點(diǎn);事實(shí)上，地方性的交通擁堵讓許多城市把資金投入到有軌電車和自行車道的建設(shè)上去。超音速的旅行方式已經(jīng)被禁止。因此，人類已經(jīng)40年沒(méi)有登上月球。
Medicineoffers another example. Life expectancy at birth in America soared from 49years at the turn of the 20th century to 74 years in 1980. Enormous technicaladvances have occurred since that time. Yet as of 2011 life expectancy restedat just 78.7 years. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent on research,people continue to fall to cancer, heart disease, stroke and organ failure.Molecular medicine has come nowhere close to matching the effects of improvedsanitation.
醫(yī)學(xué)提供了另一個(gè)例子。在美國(guó)，出生時(shí)的預(yù)期壽命從20世紀(jì)開始時(shí)的49歲飛速上漲到1980年的74歲。從那之后，科技發(fā)展取得了巨大的成果。然而，到2011年，美國(guó)人的預(yù)期壽命僅停留在78.7歲。盡管花在科研上的資金達(dá)數(shù)千億美元，但是人們依舊會(huì)得癌癥、心臟病、中風(fēng)和器官衰竭等疾病。分子醫(yī)學(xué)的成果根本沒(méi)法同改善衛(wèi)生設(shè)施的效果相提并論。
To those fortunate enough to benefit from the best that the worldhas to offer, the fact that it offers no more can disappoint. As Mr Thiel andhis colleagues at the Founders Fund, a venture-capital company, put it: We wantedflying cars, instead we got 140 characters. A world where allcan use Twitter but hardly any can commute by air is less impressive than thefutures dreamed of in the past.
對(duì)于那些足夠幸運(yùn)因而能從世界不得不提供的最好的事情中獲益的人來(lái)說(shuō)，世界再也不能提供什么的事實(shí)會(huì)讓他們大失所望。正如泰爾及其風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司創(chuàng)始人基金的伙伴所指出的那樣：我們想要會(huì)飛的汽車，卻得到了短短幾句話。如今，人人都能使用Twitter卻幾乎無(wú)人能夠乘飛機(jī)上下班，同過(guò)去所夢(mèng)想的未來(lái)相比，這樣的一個(gè)世界給人留不下什么印象。
The first thing to point out about this appeal to experience andexpectation is that the science fiction of the mid-20th century, important asit may have been to people who became entrepreneurs or economists with a tastefor the big picture, constituted neither serious technological forecasting nora binding commitment. It was a celebration through extrapolation of thencurrent progress in speed, power and distance. For cars read flying cars; forbattlecruisers read space cruisers.
首先需要指出的是，這種對(duì)經(jīng)歷和期望的訴求正是20世紀(jì)中期科幻小說(shuō)的訴求，因?yàn)檫@對(duì)于那些有志成為企業(yè)家或經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家的人來(lái)說(shuō)可能是重要的，這種訴求既不包括嚴(yán)肅的技術(shù)預(yù)測(cè)也沒(méi)有約束性的承諾，它就是一種通過(guò)對(duì)當(dāng)時(shí)在速度、力量和距離方面的進(jìn)步所做的推斷的慶祝。喜歡汽車的，從中發(fā)現(xiàn)了會(huì)飛的汽車;喜歡戰(zhàn)艦的，從中讀出了太空巡洋艦。
Technological progress does not require all technologies to moveforward in lock step, merely that some important technologies are always movingforward. Passenger aeroplanes have not improved much over the past 40 years interms of their speed. Computers have sped up immeasurably. Unless you can showthat planes matter more, to stress the stasis over the progress is simply amatter of taste.
技術(shù)進(jìn)步不要求所有的技術(shù)同步向前，它僅僅要求某些重要的技術(shù)總是向前發(fā)展。以速度而論，客運(yùn)飛機(jī)在過(guò)去40年中沒(méi)有多大改進(jìn)。計(jì)算機(jī)速度的提高無(wú)法衡量。除非你能夠向人們表明飛機(jī)更有用，不然的話，強(qiáng)調(diào)進(jìn)步的停滯只是人們的喜好而已。
Mr Gordon and Mr Cowen do think that now-mature technologies such asair transport have mattered more, and play down the economic importance ofrecent innovations. If computers and the internet mattered to the economyrather thanmerely as rich resources for intellectual and cultural exchange, as experiencedon Mr Cowen s popular blog, Marginal Revolutiontheir effect wouldbe seen in the figures. And it hasn t been.
戈登和柯文確實(shí)認(rèn)為，像空中交通等成熟的技術(shù)更具影響力，但他們對(duì)近期創(chuàng)新的經(jīng)濟(jì)重要性并不看重。如果計(jì)算機(jī)和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)產(chǎn)生影響而不僅僅是像柯文廣受歡迎的博客邊際革命上進(jìn)行的那種有著豐富資源的知識(shí)和文化交流那么它們的影響力能從數(shù)據(jù)中得到驗(yàn)證。但是，事實(shí)并非如此。
As early as 1987 Robert Solow, a growth theorist, had been askingwhy you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivitystatistics. A surge in productivity growth that began in the mid-1990s wasseen as an encouraging sign that the computers were at last becoming visible;but it faltered, and some, such as Mr Gordon, reckon that the benefits ofinformation technology have largely run their course. He notes that, for allits inhabitants Googling and Skypeing, America s productivity performance since2004 has been worse than that of the doldrums from the early 1970s to the early1990s.
早在1987年，增長(zhǎng)理論家羅伯特索洛就發(fā)出了這樣的疑問(wèn)：為什么人們到處都能看到計(jì)算機(jī)時(shí)代，唯獨(dú)在生產(chǎn)力統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)中去看不到它?始于20世紀(jì)90年代的生產(chǎn)力增長(zhǎng)的迅速提高被認(rèn)為是一個(gè)令人鼓舞的信號(hào)，它表明計(jì)算機(jī)終于可見了;但是，這種結(jié)果遲遲沒(méi)有出現(xiàn)。因此戈登等人認(rèn)為，信息技術(shù)的效益尤其自身的規(guī)律。他指出，盡管人們?cè)谟肎oogle進(jìn)行搜索，用Skype打電話，但是美國(guó)的生產(chǎn)力表現(xiàn)自2004年以來(lái)不及20世紀(jì)70年代早期-90年代早期的低迷時(shí)期的水平。
The fountains of paradise
天堂的噴泉
Closer analysis of recent figures, though, suggests reason foroptimism. Across the economy as a whole productivity did slow in 2005 and 2006butproductivity growth in manufacturing fared better. The global financial crisisand its aftermath make more recent data hard to interpret. As for the strongproductivity growth in the late 1990s, it may have been premature to see it asthe effect of information technology making all sorts of sectors moreproductive. It now looks as though it was driven just by the industriesactually making the computers, mobile phones and the like. The effects on theproductivity of people and companies buying the new technology seem to havebegun appearing in the 2000s, but may not yet have come into their own.Research by Susanto Basu of Boston College and John Fernald of the SanFrancisco Federal Reserve suggests that the lag between investments ininformation-and-communication technologies and improvements in productivity isbetween five and 15 years. The drop in productivity in 2004, on that reckoning,reflected a state of technology definitely pre-Google, and quite possiblypre-web.
然而，對(duì)近期數(shù)據(jù)的仔細(xì)分析顯示出樂(lè)觀的理由。縱觀整個(gè)經(jīng)濟(jì)體，生產(chǎn)率在2005年和2006年確實(shí)放緩不過(guò)，制造業(yè)的生產(chǎn)率增長(zhǎng)表現(xiàn)較好。全球金融危機(jī)及其余波使得對(duì)更多近期數(shù)據(jù)的分析難以進(jìn)行。至于20世紀(jì)90年代出現(xiàn)的強(qiáng)勁的生產(chǎn)力增長(zhǎng)，把它看作是讓所有部門更具競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力的信息技術(shù)的影響還為時(shí)尚早。目前看來(lái)，這或許只是被生產(chǎn)計(jì)算機(jī)、手機(jī)以及與此相關(guān)產(chǎn)品的產(chǎn)業(yè)所帶動(dòng)的結(jié)果。個(gè)人和公司購(gòu)買新技術(shù)對(duì)生產(chǎn)率的影響似乎從21世紀(jì)開始就已經(jīng)開始，但是這種影響可能尚未進(jìn)入全盛時(shí)期。波士頓大學(xué)的 Susanto Basu和舊金山聯(lián)邦儲(chǔ)備銀行John Fernald認(rèn)為，信息通訊技術(shù)的投資與生產(chǎn)率的改進(jìn)之間存在著5-15年的滯后。據(jù)此推論，2004年的生產(chǎn)力下降反映出的狀況據(jù)對(duì)是谷歌出現(xiàn)之前，并且還很可能是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)出現(xiàn)之前的狀況。
Full exploitation of a technology can take far longer than that.Innovation and technology, though talked of almost interchangeably, are not thesame thing. Innovation is what people newly know how to do. Technology is whatthey are actually doing; and that is what matters to the economy. Steel boxesand diesel engines have been around since the 1900s, and their use together incontainerised shipping goes back to the 1950s. But their great impact as thebackbone of global trade did not come for decades after that.
相比之下，技術(shù)的全面推廣可能要耗費(fèi)更多的時(shí)間。盡管在談到創(chuàng)新和技術(shù)時(shí)幾乎都是交替使用，但兩者不是一回事。創(chuàng)新是人們對(duì)怎樣去做的新想法，技術(shù)是人們實(shí)際上正在做什么;這正是技術(shù)對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)的影響所在。鋼制的盒子和柴油發(fā)動(dòng)機(jī)在20世紀(jì)就已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)，把兩者共同應(yīng)用到集裝箱航運(yùn)是在20世紀(jì)50年代。但是，它們作為全球貿(mào)易支柱的影響力在此之后的幾十年才出現(xiàn)。
Roughly a century lapsed between the first commercial deployments ofJames Watt s steam engine and steam s peak contribution to British growth. Somefour decades separated the critical innovations in electrical engineering ofthe 1880s and the broad influence of electrification on economic growth. MrGordon himself notes that the innovations of the late 19th century droveproductivity growth until the early 1970s; it is rather uncharitable of him toassume that the post-2004 slump represents the full exhaustion of potentialgains from information technology.
從詹姆斯瓦特的蒸汽機(jī)的首次商業(yè)應(yīng)用到蒸汽機(jī)對(duì)英國(guó)生產(chǎn)率的貢獻(xiàn)達(dá)到巔峰，兩者的時(shí)間間隔大約是一個(gè)世紀(jì)。從19世紀(jì)80年代電器工程的關(guān)鍵創(chuàng)新到電氣化對(duì)經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)的廣泛影響力之間的間隔大約是40年的時(shí)間。戈登本人指出，19世紀(jì)晚期的創(chuàng)新直到20世紀(jì)70年代才推動(dòng)生產(chǎn)率增長(zhǎng);生產(chǎn)率自2004年以后的下降代表了來(lái)自信息技術(shù)的潛力的全面枯竭，他的這種觀點(diǎn)相當(dāng)犀利。
And information innovation is still in its infancy. Ray Kurzweil, apioneer of computer science and a devotee of exponential technologicalextrapolation, likes to talk of the second half of the chess board. There is an oldfable in which a gullible king is tricked into paying an obligation in grainsof rice, one on the first square of a chessboard, two on the second, four onthe third, the payment doubling with every square. Along the first row, theobligation is minuscule. With half the chessboard covered, the king is out onlyabout 100 tonnes of rice. But a square before reaching the end of the seventhrow he has laid out 500m tonnes in totalthe whole world sannual rice production. He will have to put more or less the same amount againon the next square. And there will still be a row to go.
不過(guò)，信息創(chuàng)新尚處成長(zhǎng)期中。雷庫(kù)茲韋爾是計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)的一位先驅(qū)者，并且是函數(shù)技術(shù)推論法的信徒，他喜歡談?wù)摰脑掝}是棋盤的下半部分。這是一個(gè)古老的寓言：一位容易上當(dāng)受騙的國(guó)王被騙用大米來(lái)支付他的債務(wù)，在棋盤的第一個(gè)格子中放一粒大米，第二個(gè)格子中放兩粒大米，第三個(gè)格子中放四粒大米，隨著格子的增加他的付出也成倍地增加。沿著第一排格子擺放，他的債務(wù)只是一個(gè)小數(shù)目。當(dāng)上半個(gè)棋盤被擺滿后，國(guó)王拿出來(lái)的大米大約只有100噸。但是，當(dāng)擺到第七排最后一個(gè)格子之前，他拿出來(lái)得大米總數(shù)已經(jīng)達(dá)到50億噸相當(dāng)于全世界的大米年產(chǎn)量。他不得不在下一個(gè)格子中擺上差不多相同數(shù)量的大米，并且還有一排格子需要去擺。
