7篇學術論文讓你了解真實的耶倫

2013年10月15日 15:31
來源：鳳凰黃金綜合

人參與條評論

2013 年10 月10 日，奧巴馬正式提名耶倫擔任美聯儲下任主席。很多人都著重關注了耶倫在美聯儲和白宮工作的政治經歷，忽略了耶倫其實在學術上也有非常高的造詣。耶倫最早在哈佛大學任職助理教授，之后來到倫敦政治經濟學院，最后在滿負盛譽的哈斯商學院加州大學伯克利分校任教。耶倫寫過的很多文章都被學術界廣泛引用并且影響深遠。她常常和自己的丈夫，伯克利教授喬治阿克爾洛夫一起合著寫作。本文列舉了耶倫17 篇非常有價值的文章，并分別對這些文章進行了簡單的概括和總結。

1-3. "The fair wage-effort hypothesis and unemployment"(1990) /"Fairness and Unemploy- ment" (1988) / "Efficiency wage models of unemployment" (1984)

“公平工資努力程度假設和失業”（1990）／“公平和失業”（1988）／“失業的效率工資

模型”（1984）

These papers— all but the last co-authored by Akerlof — address what's known in the economics literature as "efficiency wage theory." That's the idea that paying workers more than the market wage boosts productivity and ends up being worth it for the employer. The famous example is Henry Ford's decision to pay workers enough to afford a Model T for themselves. However, efficiency wages can also result in involuntary unemployment, since they move wages away from the market equilibrium.

除了最后一個與阿克爾洛夫一起寫的文章之外，這些文章都強調了一個在經濟學學術術語里稱之為“效率工資學說”的概念。其想法是付給勞動者高于市場工資會激發生產率，對于雇者來說最后結果是值得的。最有名的例子是亨利福特關于支付工人足夠的工資讓他們能自己買得起一輛Model T 的決定.然而，效率工資也會導致一些非自愿性失業，因為它從平衡的市場中移走了一部分工資。

4. "Commodity bundling and the burden of monopoly"(1976)

“商品搭售和壟斷的負擔”（1976）

"Firms often sell their goods in packages," Yellen and her co-author, William James Adams (now at Michigan, and of no apparent relation to his musical namesake), write. "Sporting and cultural organizations offer season tickets, restaurants provide complete diners, banks offer checking, safe deposit, and travelers' check services for a single fee, and garment manufacturers sell their retailers clothing grab bags comprised of assorted styles, sizes, and colors."

“商家們經常以打包形式出售他們的商品”耶倫和她的合著者威廉(現在在密歇根州,與和他同名的音樂家沒有明顯的聯系)寫到。“運動和文化性組織提供季節性門票；餐館提供完整的餐飲；銀行提供支票，存款和旅行支票服務并只收取一個單一費用還有服裝生產商賣給他們的零售商們林林總總的混合了各種款式，尺碼和顏色的商品。”

5. "Stabilization Policy: A Reconsideration"(2004)

“對穩定政策的一個反思”（2004）

Co-authored with Akerlof, this is perhaps the most relevant paper Yellen wrote for understanding what she's likely to do at the Fed, not least because it's so recent. The paper is a critique of an argument made by Robert Lucas, the Nobellaureate who turned macroeconomics on its head with his mid-1970s critique of Keynesianism.

這篇與阿克洛夫合著的文章，可能是耶倫寫過的對于理解她想在聯儲做什么事最有關聯的文章，不僅僅因為它比較近期。這篇文章是一個對于羅伯特盧卡斯的一個論點的評論，這位諾貝爾獲獎者以它在20 實際70 年代中期對于凱恩斯理論的評論顛覆了整個宏觀經濟學。

6-8. "Can Small Deviations from Rationality Make Significant Differences to Economic Equilibria?" (1985) / "A Near-Rational Model of the Business Cycle, With Wage and Price Inertia" (1985) / "Rational Models of Irrational Behavior" (1987)

“ 一個小的理性偏離會對經濟平衡造成巨大變化嗎？”（1985）／“一個帶有收入和價格慣性的近理性的商業周期模型”（1985）／“理性的非理性行為模型”（1987）

These three papers, all co-authored with Akerlof, represent the couple's contribution to the development of what's now known as "New Keynesian" economics. After Lucas faulted Keynesianism for not connecting the ups and downs of the macroeconomy to individual-level economic behavior, Keynesians like Stan Fischer, Olivier Blanchard, Greg Mankiw, and David and Christina Romer started to try to bridge the gap by adding complications at the individual level that could add up to the big economic swings that Keynesian theory predicts.

這三篇文章都與阿克洛夫一起合著，它們代表了這對夫婦對于現在大家知道的“新凱恩斯學說”的發展的貢獻。在盧卡斯在凱恩斯學說中犯下沒有把宏觀經濟的起伏與個體層面的經濟行為相連的錯誤后，凱恩斯學者們像Stan Fischer, Olivier Blanchard, Greg Mankiw,和David 還有Christina Romer 開始嘗試加上在個體層面上的那些凱恩斯學中預測的可能會加大經濟振幅的錯綜復雜的事務來彌補這一空白。

9. “What Makes Advertising Profitable?” (1977)

“什么讓廣告賺錢？”（1977）

Co-authored with Adams, this is a pretty stirring indictment of advertising. They argue that advertising can be profitable if (a) a company is a monopoly or has some market power, and can use it to boost surplus or (b) if it shifts some surplus from consumers to the business,which can happen even without a monopolies. Neither monopoly nor shirking consumers is a particularly attractive mechanism. Yellen and Adams are hardly alone in indicting advertising for bad consequences.

這篇與亞當一起合著的文章，是一篇令人激動的對于廣告的控訴。他們認為廣告在以下情形是可以賺錢的，如果（a)一家公司是壟斷企業或者有市場影響力，可用其促進盈余或者（b)如果它從消費者轉移一部分盈余到業務上來，它連壟斷都不需要就可以發生。壟斷或者逃避消費者都不是特別有吸引力的的機制。耶倫和亞當在控訴廣告所造成的壞影響上很少不一致。

10. “Job Switching and Job Satisfaction in the U.S. Labor Market.”(1988)

“在美國勞工市場的工作變動和工作滿意程度”（1988）

"As man does not live by bread alone, people do not quit only for wages." That line, the concluding one of this paper co-authored by Akerlof and Andrew Rose, is a great summation of the underlying thesis: if you take into account that some people get non-monetary benefits and costs from their jobs, a lot about the labor market (unemployment being mainly involuntary, quit rates being higher when unemployment is low, quit rates falling with job tenure, etc.) starts to make more sense. Akerlof, Rose, and Yellen build a model to illustrate this and check it against empirical evidence.

“因為人們不僅僅通過面包而存活，人們不會只因為收入而辭去工作。”這句話是一篇與阿克洛夫和安卓羅斯合著的文章的總結，是對于一個潛在理論的很好總結：如果考慮到一些人從工作中得到非金錢的好處和成本，那么很多關于勞工市場（失業主要是非自愿性的，當失業率低時辭職率升高，辭職率隨著工作任期而降低等現象）開始更能讓人理解。阿克洛夫,羅斯和耶倫建立了一個闡述這個理論的模型并且用已觀察和試

驗為依據的證據來驗證此方法。

11. "An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Child bearing in the United States"(1996)

“美國婚外孩子所受影響的分析”（1996）

Co-written with Akerlof and Michael Katz and published in the midst of the welfare reform debate in the United States (and when Yellen was a Fed Governor), the paper aims to explain why out of wedlock births had grown considerably in previous decades. Neither of the two main theories advanced to explain it held up. Charles Murray's idea that generous welfare benefits to mothers caused the increase didn't hold up to even the lightest empirical scrutiny,and William Julius Wilson's theory that a decline in male employment (particularly black male employment) reduced the pool of marriageable men, causing the increase, didn't fare much better.

與阿克洛夫和邁克爾卡茲合著，在美國福利改革辯論當中（當耶倫還是美聯儲理事時）發表，這篇文章目的是解釋為什么非婚生孩子在近幾十年增長非常巨大。主要的兩個學說都沒有被推舉為更能解釋此現象。查爾斯穆雷的理解是慷慨的福利對母親們大有好處并導致了增長，這個理論并沒有通過最基本的實驗檢查。而威廉母威爾森的理論是男性雇員的減少（特別是黑人男性雇員）減少了可結婚男性的數量，這個理論也沒有更有說服力。

12. "East Germany in from the Cold: The Economic Aftermath of Currency Union"(1991)

“東德擺脫孤立：貨幣統一后的經濟結果”（1991）

Co-written with Akerlof, Rose, and Helga Hessenius, this paper tackles the question of how to reverse the severe depression that German reunification caused in the East. East German customers started buying Western products rather than domestic ones, and foreign buyers weren't purchasing East German goods either. The solution, they argued, was a big infrastructure spending program, to boost employment as well as attract private investment, as well as work subsidies.

與阿克洛夫，羅斯和海格赫森合著,這篇文章著重關注了如何挽救德國合并后在東德所帶來的嚴重的大蕭條這一問題。東德的消費者們開始買西部的產品而不是國內的，而外國的消費者也不買東德的產品。解決方法，他們指出應該是一個龐大的基礎建設開銷計劃來刺激就業和吸引私人投資和工作津貼。

13. "Unemployment Through the Filter of Memory"(1985)

“從記憶中過濾出來的失業”（1985）

Here, Akerlof and Yellen construct a measure of the psychological painfulness of unemployment by comparing peoples' recollections of unemployment to their actual experience of it. If people are unemployed but don't recall or mention it when surveyed later on, that's a sign the period of unemployment wasn't that psychological harsh. If, however,they recall it, that suggests that it's been at the front of their mind for an extended period. The authors find that the salience of unemployment had fallen for younger and older workers in recent years, suggesting that it had become less painful.

在這篇文章里，阿克洛夫和耶倫建立了一個用比較人們記憶中的失業和實際感受來衡量人們對失業的心理痛苦的方法。如果人們失業后在之后的調查中并不重提這件事，那么這就是一個信號，表示在失業期間，心理并沒有非常不適。如果相反的情形，他們重提這件時，那么表示這件事在相當一段時間內在他們的腦海中揮之不去。作者們發現對于年輕的或者上年紀的工作者來說，失業的顯著性在近幾年正在下降，表明失業正變得不那么痛苦了。

14-5. "Factor Mobility, Regional Development, and the Distribution of Income"(1977) and "Consequences of a Tax on the Brain Drain for Unemployment and Income Inequality in Less Developed Countries"(1975)

“要素流動，區域發展和收入分配”（1977）和“在相對落后國家因失業和收入不公而造成的稅收流失的后果”（1975）

Both co-authored with Rachel McCulloch (now at Brandeis), these papers concern developing countries and their attitudes toward the migration of residents to more developed countries.They argue that the main consequence of barriers to such migration is to benefit skilled workers in developing countries at the expense of unskilled ones. "The opposition of less developed countries to relaxation of immigration controls by advanced countries may be rationalized in terms of the redistribution of income from unskilled to skilled labor which would result from such a change," they write in the former paper. In the latter, they are explicit that taxing or otherwise deterring migration will likely result in increased income inequality in the developing country in question. Taken together, the papers are a powerful argument against the "brain drain" argument for preventing skilled immigration from developing to developed countries. For more on this topic, see Lant Pritchett and Michael Clemens.

這兩篇文章都是與雷切爾(現在在Brandeis)合著的，它們都關注發展中國家和它們對于本國公民移民到發展更好的國家的態度。他們指出阻礙此類移民最主要的后果是在發展中國家中以缺乏技術的工人為代價而給有技術的工人帶來好處。不發達國家對于移民政策的松懈管理是被發達國家控制著的，這種對立可以在非技能勞動力與技能勞動力的收入重新分配來實現合理化，從而產生一種變化。”他們在以前的文章中寫道。在后面，他們明確說明給移民上稅或阻止移民會導致在發展中國家的收入不均情況加劇。

總結來說，這些文章有力的反對了“人才流失”論點中反對有技能的移民從發展中國家到發達國家來的觀點。

16. "On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of the Post-Keynesians" (1988)

“凱恩斯主義經濟學和后凱恩斯主義經濟學”（1988）

This paper is way, way above my pay grade math-wise, but it's evidence that Yellen was very familiar with the arguments of the so-called "post-Keynesians," a left-wing heterodox economics movement that emphasizes the role or risk and irrationality in the economy, and tends to view financial instability as inherent to capitalism. For more on this topic, see my profiles of the Modern Monetary Theory movement and the UMass Amherst economics department.

這篇文章是表明耶倫對后凱恩斯主義很熟悉的證據，它是一個左翼異端的經濟運動，它強調了風險和非理性事件在經濟中扮演的角色，趨向把金融中的不穩定性看成是資本主義的產物。

17. "Waiting for Work"(1990)

“等待著工作”（1990）

Here, Yellen, Akerlof, and Rose look at the phenomenon known as "lock-in." Normally, when unemployment falls, the wages offered by firms increases, to reflect the decline in the supply of available workers. That means that those who take jobs in recession get lower wages. What's more, their wages later on don't rise as the economy starts to boom again — they're "locked in." Meanwhile, those who get jobs in booms are able to "lock in" higher wages. The authors model the phenomenon and then demonstrate that empirical evidence matches the theory.

在這篇文章中，耶倫, 阿克洛夫和羅斯關注一個被大家以名字為“鎖住”所知道的現象。正常的來說，當失業率降低時，公司給的工資會上漲，反映了可工作的人數量下降。這意味著那些在經濟蕭條中參加工作的人拿著較低的工資。更嚴重的是，他們的工資在以后經濟開始復蘇后也不會上漲——他們被“鎖住”了。與此同時，那些在經濟好轉期間參加工作的人能“鎖住”更高的工資。這文章中的作者模擬了此現象然后闡述了很多實驗證據都符合這個理論。

文章來源：華盛頓郵報國泰基金編譯