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http://xia2.kekenet.com/Sou…/2016/…/eco161125_4055514xvd.mp3
只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：
中英文稿：
Economics brief: Fiscal multipliers--Where does the buck stop?
經濟概要：財政乘數--責任到哪裡為止？
Fiscal stimulus, an idea championed by John Maynard Keynes, has gone in and out of fashion.
由凱恩斯首倡的財政刺激思想經歷了大起大落。
At the height of the euro crisis, with government-bond yields soaring in several southern European countries and defaults looming, the European Central Bank and the healthier members of the currency club fended off disaster by offering bail-outs.
在歐元危機高峰時，鑒於多個南歐國家的政府債券收益率瘋漲，違約近在眼前，歐洲央行和這個貨幣俱樂部中較為健康的幾個成員國通過提供救助的方式抵禦了災難。
But these came with conditions, most notably strict fiscal discipline, intended to put government finances back on a sustainable footing.
但是，這些救助是有條件的，最引人注目的是嚴格的財政紀律，意在讓政府財政回歸一種可持續的基礎。
Some economists argued that painful budget cuts were an unfortunate necessity.
有的經濟學家認為，痛苦的預算削減是一種不幸的必然。
Others said that the cuts might well prove counterproductive, by lowering growth and therefore government revenues, leaving the affected countries even poorer and more indebted.
有的則認為，預算削減極有可能被證明適得其反，因為它拉低了增長，進而減少了政府收入，使得受其影響的國家窮上加窮，債務越來越重。
In 2013 economists at the IMF rendered their verdict on these austerity programmes: they had done far more economic damage than had been initially predicted, including by the fund itself.
2013年，國際貨幣基金組織的經濟學家拿出了他們對這些緊縮計畫的看法：它們已經造成了遠遠高於最初預期——包括國際貨幣基金組織自己的最初預期——的經濟破壞。
What had the IMF got wrong when it made its earlier, more sanguine forecasts?
那麼，國際貨幣基金組織做出其較早的、更加樂觀的預期時錯在哪裡了呢？
It had dramatically underestimated the fiscal multiplier.
它大大低估了財政乘數。
The multiplier is a simple, powerful and hotly debated idea.
財政乘數是一種簡單、有力且爭論激烈的思想。
It is a critical element of Keynesian macroeconomics.
它是凱恩斯宏觀經濟學的一個重要組成部分。
Over the past 80 years the significance it has been accorded has fluctuated wildly.
在過去的80年中，它被賦予的重要性大起大落。
It was once seen as a matter of fundamental importance, then as a discredited notion.
它一度被視為一件具有根本重要性的事情，之後，又被看成是一種信譽掃地的觀念。
It is now back in vogue again.
如今，它再度風靡一時。
The idea of the multiplier emerged from the intense argument over how to respond to the Depression.
財政乘數的思想出自如何應對大蕭條的激烈爭論。
In the 1920s Britain had sunk into an economic slump.
上世紀20年代，英國陷入了一場經濟衰退。
The first world war had left prices higher and the pound weaker.
第一次世界大戰讓物價節節攀升，英鎊日漸疲軟。
The government was nonetheless determined to restore the pound to its pre-war value.
然而，政府仍然決心讓英鎊回到其戰前的價值。
In doing so, it kept monetary policy too tight, initiating a spell of prolonged deflation and economic weakness.
在做這件事的過程中，英國政府把貨幣政策收得太緊，引發了一場曠日持久的通縮和經濟疲軟。
The economists of the day debated what might be done to improve conditions for suffering workers.
當時的經濟學家曾就如何改善深受其苦的工人的狀況進行過一番討論。
Among the suggestions was a programme of public investment which, some thought, would put unemployed Britons to work.
在各種建議當中，其中就有一項有人認為會讓失業的英國人去工作的公共投資計畫。
The British government would countenance no such thing.
英國政府是不會贊成任何這種事情的。
It espoused the conventional wisdom of the day—what is often called the “Treasury view”.
它站在了當時的傳統智慧，也就是常說的“財政部觀點”一邊。
It believed that public spending, financed through borrowing, would not boost overall economic activity, because the supply of savings in the economy available for borrowing is fixed.
它堅信，由於經濟體中可用於舉債的儲蓄供給是固定的，透過舉債資助的公共開支不會推動整體經濟活動。
If the government commandeered capital to build new roads, for instance, it would simply be depriving private firms of the same amount of money.
例如，如果政府強制資本去建造新的道路，這只會搶走私人企業同等數量的錢。
Higher spending and employment in one part of the economy would come at the expense of lower spending and employment in another.
經濟體某一部分的更高的開支和就業的到來，會以另一部分的更低的開支和就業為代價。
As the world slipped into depression, however, and Britain's economic crisis deepened, the voices questioning this view grew louder.
然而，隨著世界滑入衰退，英國經濟危機日漸加深，質疑這一觀點的聲音越來越大。
In 1931 Baron Kahn, a British economist, published a paper espousing an alternative theory: that public spending would yield both the primary boost from the direct spending, but also “beneficial repercussions”.
1931年，英國經濟學家卡恩男爵發表了一篇支持某種替代理論的論文：公共開支除了會產生來自直接開支的主要推動之外，還會帶來“受益反應”。
If road-building, for instance, took workers off the dole and led them to increase their own spending, he argued, then there might be a sustained rise in total employment as a result.
他指出，例如，如果建造道路讓工人擺脫了失業救濟，進而又導致他們增加自身花銷，那麼，其結果可能是一種總就業的持續上升。
Kahn's paper was in line with the thinking of John Maynard Keynes, the leading British economist of the day, who was working on what would become his masterpiece, “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”.
卡恩的論文與當時正在撰寫會成為其代表作的《就業、利息和貨幣通論》的著名英國經濟學家約翰•梅納德•凱恩斯的思考一脈相承。
In it, Keynes gave a much more complete account of how the multiplier might work, and how it might enable a government to drag a slumping economy back to health.
《在通論》中，凱恩斯對財政乘數可能如何發揮作用以及它如何能讓政府把處於下滑中的經濟體回歸健康給出了一個遠為完整的描述。
Keynes was a singular character, and one of the great thinkers of the 20th century.
凱恩斯是一位非凡之人，是20世紀偉大思想家之一。
He looked every inch a patrician figure, with his tweed suits and walrus moustache.
從外表上看，他的花呢外套和海象式鬍子無不表明他是一位達官貴人。
Yet he was also a free spirit by the standards of the day, associating with the artists and writers of the Bloomsbury Group, whose members included Virginia Woolf and E.M.Forster.
然而，根據當時的標準，他還是一位思想開明的人，與成員包括維吉尼亞•伍爾夫和E•M•福斯特在內的布魯姆斯伯裡團體的作家和藝術家關係密切。
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