经济学家期刊文章精选一.docx

1、经济学家期刊文章精选一2011经济学家期刊文章精选一1、Education Snooty or what?Oct 14th 2004 From The Economist print editionInverted snobbery prevents good teachers going where theyre neededA clever man wants to do a good thing, but the wicked government stops him. That is the scandalous-sounding story of the difficulties e

2、ncountered by Tristram Jones-Parry, head of fee-paying Westminster School, one of the best in the country. He retires next year and wants to help teach maths in a state school.Was he welcomed with open arms? No. He was told, he complains, that he would need retraining for the state system. It was a

3、similar story for David Wolfe, a retired American physics professor who teaches in a British state school. He said this week that the authorities told him to sit the GCSEmaths exam normally taken by 16-year-olds if he wanted to continue.The system is not quite as insane as this might suggest. The ru

4、les that require state-school teachers to be formally qualified do have exceptions. The Teacher Training Agency insists that Mr Jones-Parry could gain his ticket in just a day, by having an assessor from the state system observe his work at Westminster (a requirement scarcely less ludicrous than the

5、 supposed demand for retraining). Mr Wolfes American PhD would count as an equivalent to the GCSE maths pass normally required. So he would scrape by as well. The General Teaching Council, another quango, has now apologised to Mr Jones-Parry for giving him the wrong information at first, and then le

6、aving his follow-up letter unanswered for six weeks.The real story is the gulf between the two kinds of school. Heads like Mr Jones-Parry hire teachers with good academic credentials but not necessarily with state qualifications. State-school hiring is closely regulated; their teachers need to be ex

7、pert form-fillers and jargon-wielders, and are much less likely to have good degrees: indeed only 38% of state-school maths teachers have a degree in the subject; in independent schools, 63% do.So its not surprising that private-school teachers think even the most nominal barriers to their teaching

8、in state schools are offensive and silly. The other side responds in kind: teaching unions this week said snidely that Mr Jones-Parry might be good at teaching advanced maths to well-behaved bright kids, but would not necessarily know how to teach simple sums to rowdy, dim ones. Perhaps. But many st

9、ate-school parents desperately seeking better maths teaching for their children might consider that risk rather small.1、聪明人要做件好事，可恶的政府却阻止他。这就是对Tristram Jones-Parry遭遇难题的经历进行的深入探究得出的结论。他是全国最好的学校之一、收费学校Westminster School的校长，将于明年退休，想要在一家公立学校帮忙教数学。他受到人们敞开怀抱的欢迎了吗?没有。他抱怨说，他被告知根据国家教育体制规定，他需要进行再培训。同样的事情也发生在英

10、国公立学校教书的一位退休的美国物理学教授David Wolfe的身上。他说，本周权威机构告诉他，如果他还想继续教书，就要参加一个通常由16岁的孩子们参加的、名为GCSE(General Certificate of Secondary Education)的数学考试这一制度也不像前面提到的这么愚蠢之至。要求公立学校老师要得到正式资格认定的有关条款也是有例外的。The Teacher Training Agency教师培训机构坚持认为，Mr. Jones-Parry只要一天就可以获得入场券，就是让一名评估人员依据国家制度来观察并评价他在Westminster学校的工作表现就可以了。(简直是和必须

11、要求再培训一样愚蠢可笑的一项要求)Mr.Wolfe的美国博士学位将会作为相当于GCSE数学考试通过的一般要求考虑在内。所以他倒是可以勉强通过。另一家半官方机构，The General Teaching Council，已经向Mr. Jones-Parry就最初向他提供了错误信息、以及尔后对他的后续信件置之不理达6周之久而道歉。真正的问题是两种学校之间的差异鸿沟。像Mr. Jones-Parry这样的校长们聘用教师时注重的是学术上的优良信誉、而不是必须要经过国家资格认证。公立学校雇佣教师几乎是被管着的;那里的老师们必须要做个专业填表人和行话专家，并且好像很少拥有较高的学位：实际上仅仅38%的公立

12、学校数学教师拥有专业学位;而在自主的私立学校，则有63%。因此，不足为奇，私立学校的教师们会认为他们到公立学校教书的那些即使是最表面的阻碍也是讨厌而又愚蠢的。还有类似的其他片面回应：教学协会本周就虚伪地声称，Mr. Jones-Parry可能很擅长教授表现好的聪明孩子高等数学，不过不一定知道怎么给粗鲁的笨蛋们讲讲简单的加法。或许是吧。但是很多公立学校的学生家长们拼命给孩子寻求更好的数学教育时，可能认为那种风险是相当小的。 2011经济学家期刊文章精选二Parents and children Family valuesSep 30th 2004 From The Economist print

13、 editionRich kids have little time for their elderly parents. The ingratitude!WHY was King Lear treated so cruelly by his daughters? Until recently, most of the answers have come from scholars with scant knowledge of economic theory. Fortunately, John Ermisch, an Essex economist, is working to remed

14、y this deficiency. His research proves what many parents have long suspectedthat increased wealth goes along with filial ingratitude. Topic sentenceUsing data from the British Household Panel Survey, Mr Ermisch shows that affluent parents are slightly more likely to supply offspring with money and h

15、elp with child-rearing than poor parents. But success seems to have precisely the opposite effect on children. The mere possession of a university degree makes children 20% less likely to phone their mothers regularly, and more than 50% less likely to pay them a visit.This is puzzling because self-i

16、nterested children might be expected to behave in precisely the opposite way. Most wealthy people are descended from wealthy parents, which means they have a lot of patrimony to lose by cutting back on the fawning. “Nothing will come of nothing,” as a pre-retirement and still sane King Lear put it w

17、hen his youngest daughter dared to withhold her affections.So why are rich kids such brats? There are two likely explanations. The first is that, as their income rises, the marginal cost of providing services goes up. It simply isnt worth their while to help with the shopping, particularly since aff

18、luence tends to increase distances between parents and children. And, since personal contact correlates with telephone contact, they are less likely to phone, too. Out of sight, out of mind.Another answer comes from an obscure branch of economics known as strategic bequest theory. This predicts that

19、 children will provide only enough services to ensure they get a reasonable share of the inheritance. But that point is reached sooner by those who have only one sibling rival, or none at all. Wealthier families, which tend to be smaller, simply fail to ensure the optimum amount of competition.Given

20、 these iron laws, what are parents supposed to do? Good results might be achieved by having more children, or expressing a sudden interest in the local cats home. But Mr Ermisch is not optimistic. “The only thing they can do is follow their children around,” he says. And dont make King Lears mistake

21、 by handing over the cash first.为什么李尔王遭到了女儿们的残忍虐待?直到最近为止，大多的答案还都是来自于那些缺乏经济理论知识的学者们。幸运的是，埃塞克斯(Essex)的一位经济学家，John Ermisch，正在尽力解决这一问题。他的研究表明，财富越多，随之而来，子女就越不孝顺这正是长久以来许多为人父母者将信将疑的。依照英国皇家陪审团调查委员会的数据，Mr. Ermisch指出，和穷人比起来，有钱人在养育孩子时往往给子女提供更多的金钱和帮助。然而在孩子身上所起的作用却好像正好相反。仅以拥有大学学位这一项为例，有大学学历的人通常给妈妈打电话的次数要少20%，去看看

22、妈妈的次数就要少50%以上了。这实在是令人困惑，因为我们通常都认为自私的孩子可能会表现得正好相反。大多数有钱人都是从有钱的父母那里继承到财富的，这也就意味着他们如果不是阿谀奉承就会失去大笔财产。“无风不起浪”，就像依然健壮时却提前退休的李尔王，在他最小的女儿敢于拒绝花言巧语表达她对父亲的爱时的处理方式是一样的。那么为什么富人的孩子如此讨人厌?有两个可能的解释。第一个是，由于收入的增长，他们尽孝道义务的边际成本也就同样提高。陪人购物好像就变得很不值了，所以富裕往往会显著拉大父母和子女之间的距离。并且，既然亲自看望都可以以电话问候代替，他们好像连电话都懒得打了。眼不见，心不烦。另一个答案来自于一个

23、叫做策略遗产理论的经济学模糊分支。据预测，孩子们只会付出足以确保获得一份合理比例的遗产所必需的孝顺。可是那些只有一个或根本没有同胞兄弟姐妹与之竞争财产的人会更容易达成目的。越有钱的家庭，往往也是越小的家庭，就越难以确保适宜的总量用于竞争。既然有这么多铁定的规律，父母们又应该做些什么呢?可能多生些孩子会得到好的结果，或者突然对当地的宠物机构表示浓厚兴趣。不过Mr. Ermisch却并不乐观。他说，“他们唯一所能做的就是围着孩子转。”并且不要犯李尔王那样的错误，先把钱交出去了。Note: 李尔王是莎士比亚四大悲剧中最成熟的作品，讲述年老的李尔把国土分给三个女儿，但恩赐之前先要女儿声言多么爱他。大女

24、儿二女儿都讲出一番动听言词，小女儿则不愿花言巧语，结果应得的国土被两个姊姊分去，在毫无嫁妆的情况下嫁给赏识她的法国皇帝。李尔逊位之后受到大女儿二女儿虐待，最后在暴风雨中发疯。小女儿听到父王受虐，领兵入侵欲救李尔，最后兵败遭擒被害死，李尔王也在忧伤中死去。 2011经济学家期刊文章精选三The internet Alive and kicking Sep 23rd 2004 From The Economist print editionCompetition still exists on the webJUST when you thought you knew the web, along

25、 come new competitors to keep things interesting. On September 15th, a new search engine called A was unveiled by Amazon, the giant internet retailer. It repackages Googles search results, but with useful tweaks. Searches not only call up websites and images on the same page, but other references, s

26、uch as Amazons book search, the Internet Movie Database, and encyclopaedia and dictionary references. Moreover, it keeps track of users search historiesan important innovation as search becomes more personalised.Many had assumed the market was stitched up by Google and Yahoo! (who account for over 9

27、0% of searches), barring the expected entrance of Microsoft. Likewise, the market for online music seemed settled: Apples iTunes is the leader, its main rivals being RealNetworks and Microsofts MSN Music. Yet this, too, understates the potential for battle. Last week, Yahoo! bought Musicmatch, an on

28、line music retailer and software firm, for $160m. Music downloads are now worth roughly $310m annually but are forecast to grow to $4.6 billion by 2008, according to Forrester Research, so there is room for new firms to sprout.Meanwhile, the most surprising new competition is in web browsers. Micros

29、oft was the undisputed champ( Informal：=A champion), after bundling Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system in the 1990s and destroying Netscape. However, Microsofts browser is so vulnerable to attacks by online crooks and various troublemakers that the American and German governments ha

30、ve recommended that users consider alternatives. This has been a boon to two small browser-makers, Opera, a Norwegian software company, and Mozilla, which developed the Firefox browser based on an open-source version of Netscape. Firefox boasted 1m downloads within 100 hours of its release on Septem

31、ber 14th.Security has become the main competitive difference. The software of both Opera and Mozilla is considered safer (partly because they have fewer users and so are a less attractive target for hackers). Microsofts share of the browser market has actually shrunk over the past three months from

32、around 96% to 94%. It is a highly symbolic phenomenon, albeit a modest decrease. Even Google is thought to be toying with the idea of launching its own browser.Underlying this ripple of competition is the ability of large companies that already benefit from economies of scale to extend into new areas, says Hal Varian, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. That explains Amazons A9 search service and Yahoo!s move into music. As for browsers, “Microsoft had a lock on the market and just dropped the