经济学人当中那些好的表达（1）
? 1. Pale into insignificance 变得微不足道，相形失色
?But such shortcomings-and South Africa’s failings since his retirement from active politics –pale into insignificance when set against the magnitude of his overall achievement.
?Set against 与……相比较时
?但是，当把他的这些缺点——以及南非在他退休之后的沉沦——置于他的全部光芒之下时，它们就显得黯然失色了。
?
?…pale into insignificance when set against…
? e.g. The shortcomings of self-driving car pale into insignificance when set against the great benefits it will bring to us --a plunge in road accidents and less pollution.
? 2. On an emotional roller-coaster心情就像过山车
?形容人情绪起伏：oscillate/fluctuate/seesaw/up and down
1).He oscillated between happiness and despair.
2).Her attitude towards me oscillated/fluctuated between friendship and hostility.
3).His mind seesawed between hope and despair all through those weeks.
4).She's been very up and down since her husband went into hospital.
?What makes being a founder stressful is being on an emotional roller-coaster all the time. ―In the morning you feel everything is on the right track and in the evening everything seems in the gutter,‖ says…
?心情像坐过山车，各种跌宕起伏
?on the right track 是指处在正确的路线上，in the gutter 则是指处于糟糕的状况中，两者刚好形成对应，很有对称感。
?We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
---- Oscar Wild
roller coaster 情况起伏不定
1）.Share prices have been on a roller coaster these last few days.
2）.Steve Jobs was revered by many not only because of his strategic vision and showmanship ,but because of the roller coaster life he experienced.
3. a mixed blessing 喜忧参半
如何表述一件事情既有优点也有缺点？the pros and cons (advantages and disadvantages) of something
Regional free-trade deals are a mixed blessing. Designed well, they can boost liberalization, both by cutting barriers in new areas and by spurring action n multilateral talks. Done badly, they may divert rather than expand trade.
e.g. He says that computers are a mixed blessing because sometimes they help and sometimes
they create problems.
? 1.Working in a big city is a mixed blessing.It is so convenient and comfortable there,but noise pollution and traffic congestion are two big headaches.
? 2.Many scientists said discovering the power of the atom was a mixed blessing as it led to nuclear power, but it also made nuclear weapons possible.
4. throw the baby out with the bathwater不分精华糟粕全盘否定
传说中在中世纪的欧洲，全家人很久才洗一次澡，首先是父亲洗，然后是母亲洗，最后是孩子洗，孩子洗的时候睡已经很脏了，家人有时候会直接把水倒掉而忘记了还在水中的孩子，所以有了上面的表达
eg. The authorities should not throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to launching campaign against pornography on the Internet.
5. power the engine & power the engineers
eg. Even in the ship’s bowels, the strongest odour is not the fuel oil used to power the engine but the coffee used to power the engineers.
即使是在船底，最浓重的气味不是来自驱动引擎的燃油，而是来自驱动工程师的咖啡。
（说明了工程师的重要性。）
2
Leopard seals share their suppers 豹海豹会分享它们的晚餐 Bad news if you are a penguin 假如你是一只企鹅，这真是个坏消息 Leopard seals resemble their terrestrial namesakes in two ways.They have polka-dot pelts.And they are powerful,generally solitary carnivores that are quite capable of killing a human being if they so choose—as has indeed happened once,in2003,when a British marine biologist was the victim. 豹海豹与生活在陆地上的同名动物（豹）有着两点相似之处。其一，它们的皮毛上都有着圆点花纹。其二，它们都是强大的独栖性食肉动物，只要它们愿意，是完全有能力杀死一个人的——正如2003年真实发生的那样，当时一位英国海洋生物学家就成了受害者。 Curiously,though,there have also been reports of leopard seals behaving in a friendly manner towards people—apparently trying to present gifts,in the form of prey,to divers. 但奇怪的是，也有报道称豹海豹对人类表现得十分友好——它们很显然把猎物作为礼物赠送给了潜水员。 Until now,there has been no explanation for this philanthropy.But work just published in Polar Biology by James Robbins of Plymouth University, in Britain,suggests that what the seals are actually looking for is a dining partner.
考研同源外刊《经济学人》最常用600个词汇（下） 401、Final goods最终产品 旨在最终使用而非转卖或进一步加工的商品。(参见"中间产品"，intermediate goods) 402、Financial economics金融经济学 经济学的一个分支。分析理性投资者如何通过最有效的方式使用资金和进行投资以期达到目标。 403、Financial intermediary金融中介 接受储蓄存款并将其出借给借款者的机构。包括存款机构(如商业银行和储蓄银行)和非存款机构(如货币市场共同基金、经纪人商行、保险公司或养老基金)。 404、Firm(business firm)厂商 (企业)经济体系中基本的私人生产单位。它雇用劳动，购买其他投入品，以制造和销售商品。 405、Fiscal-monetary mix财政-货币政策组合 用以干预宏观经济活动的财政政策和货币政策的组合。紧缩的货币政策和宽松的财政政策，倾向于鼓励消费和抑制投资。而宽松的货币政策和紧缩的财政政策，则具有相反的功效。 406、Fiscal policy财政政策 一种政府计划。内容包括：(1)商品和服务的购买及转移支付等支出；(2)税收的数量和种类。 407、Fiscal cost固定成本 见固定成本(cost，fixed)。 408、Fixed exchange rate固定汇率
见外汇汇率(foreign exchangs rate)。 409、Flexible exchange rates弹性汇率制 一种国际汇率制度。在该制度条件下，汇率主要由市场力量(即供给和需求)决定，政府不设定及维持某种特定的汇率。有时也称作"浮动汇率制"(floating exchange rates)。当政府对外汇市场不加干预时，该制度称为纯粹的浮动汇率制。 410、Floating exchange rates浮动汇率制 见弹性汇率制(flexible exchange rates)。 411、Flow vs stock流量与存量 流量是指，带有时间跨度或曰在一个时段上所累积变动的量(好比通过一个河段的水流)。存量则指，在某一个时点上某一变量的量值(如同湖中所盛的水)。收人代表每一年的美元流入数，因此是一个流量。而到1998年12月为止某人的财富则是一个存量。 412、Foreign exchange外汇 各国用以偿付对他国所欠债务的通货(或其他金融票据)。 413、Foreign exchange market外汇市场 不同国家的通货进行交易的市场。 414、Foreign exchange rate外汇汇率 一国通货与他国通货的交换比率或曰价格。例如，如果你可以用1美元购买19德国马克，那么马克的汇率就是19。如果一国通货钉住某一汇率水平，并准备随时捍卫这一汇率，则称该国实行的是固定汇率制(fixed ex-change rate)。而由市场供求力量来决定的汇率称为弹性汇率制(flexible exchange rates)。 415、Fourfirm concentration rate四企业集中度 见集中度(concentration ratio)。 416、Fractional-reserve banking部分准备金 银行制度现代银行体系的一种管制形式。依法要求有关金融机构将其所吸收的存款
The Brain Activity Map 绘制大脑活动地图 Hard cell 棘手的细胞 An ambitious project to map the brain is in the works. Possibly too ambitious 一个绘制大脑活动地图的宏伟计划正在准备当中，或许有些太宏伟了 NEWS of what protagonists hope will be America’s next big science project continues to dribble out. 有关其发起人心中下一个科学大工程的新闻报道层出不穷。 A leak to the New York Times, published on February 17th, let the cat out of the bag, with a report that Barack Obama’s administration is thinking of sponsoring what will be known as the Brain Activity Map. 2月17日，《纽约时报》刊登的一位线人报告终于泄露了秘密，报告称奥巴马政府正在考虑赞助将被称为“大脑活动地图”的计划。 And on March 7th several of those protagonists published a manifesto for the project in Science. 3月7日，部分发起人在《科学》杂志上发表声明证实了这一计划。 The purpose of BAM is to change the scale at which the brain is understood. “大脑活动地图”计划的目标是改变人们在认知大脑时采用的度量方法。 At the moment, neuroscience operates at two disconnected levels. 眼下，神经学的研究处在两个断开的层次。 The higher one, where the dimensions of features are measured in centimetres, has many techniques at its disposal, notably functional magnetic-res onance imaging, which measures changes in tissues’ fuel consumption. 在相对宏观的层次当中各个特征的规模用厘米来衡量，有很多技术可以使用，尤其是用来测量组织中能量消耗变动情况的核磁共振成像技术。 This lets researchers see which bits of the brain are active in particular tasks—as long as those tasks can be performed by a person lying down inside a scanner. 该技术可使研究人员找出在完成具体的任务时，大脑的哪些部分处于活跃状态。At the other end of the scale, where features are measured in microns, lots of research has been done on how individual nerve cells work, how messages are sent from one to another, and how the connections between cells strengthen and weaken as memories are formed. 而另一个度量的层次则要求用微米来测量各种特征，这一层次的研究很多都是关于单个神经细胞是如何工作的、信息在神经细胞之间是如何传递的以及当产生记忆的时候神经细胞之间的联系是如何得到加强和减弱的。 Between these two, though, all is darkness. 然而，位于这两个层次之间的研究还处于一片漆黑当中。 It is like trying to navigate America with an atlas that shows the states, the big cities and the main highways, and has a few street maps of local neighbourhoods, but displays nothing in between.
Autism? 自闭症 Why it's not “Rain Woman”? 为什么它不是“雨女” Women have fewer cognitive disorders than men do because their bodies are better at ignoring the mutations which cause them? 与男性相比，患有认知障碍的女性较少，因为她们自身的身体能更好的忽略导致认知障碍的基因突变 AUTISM is a strange condition. Sometimes its symptoms of “social blindness”(an inability to read or comprehend the emotions of others) occur alone. This is dubbed high-functioning autism, or Asperger's syndrome. Though their fellow men and women may regard them as a bit odd, high-functioning autists are often successful (sometimes very successful) members of society. On other occasions, though, autism manifests as part of a range of cognitive problems. Then, the condition is debilitating. What is common to those on all parts of the so-called autistic spectrum is that they are more often men than women —so much more often that one school of thought suggests autism is an extreme manifestation of what it means, mentally, to be male. Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls are. For high-functioning autism, the ratio is seven to one.?
Free exchange 自由交易 The digital proletariat 数字无产阶级（无产阶级，不占有生产资料的阶级，这里意思我们产生数据，却无偿的交由互联网公司使用） 导读： Economists propose a radical solution to the problems posed byartificial intelligence 经济学家提出了一个彻底解决人工智能相关问题的方法。 正文： YOUhave multiple jobs, whetheryouknowitornot. 不管你有没有意识到，你身上都有多种生意。 Most begin first thing in the morning, when you pick up your phoneand begin generatingthe data thatmake up Silicon Valley’smost importantresource. 大多数生意在早晨开始，你拿起手机时就开始产生了数据。这些数据组成了硅谷最重要的资源 That, atleast, ishowwe oughtto think aboutthe role ofdata-creation in the economy, according to a fascinating new economics paper. 至少，这就是我们应该思考的：数据创造在经济里扮演怎样的角色，这是根据一篇很有吸引力的新经济文章提到的。
We are all digital labourers, helpingmake possible the fortunes generated by firms like Google andFacebook, the authors argue. 其中作者认为，我们就是所有数字的劳工，帮助像谷歌和脸书这样的公司创造财富。（fortunes命运，幸运，富有）Ifthe economy is to function properlyin the future—and ifa crisisoftechnological unemployment isto be avoided—we musttake accountofthis, and change the relationship between biginternetcompaniesand theirusers. 在未来经济运转良好的情况下，如果想要避免工业发展带来的失业危机，我们必须着眼于这件事情，并且改变大型互联网公司和他们用户之间的关系。 Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting better all the time, and stands poised totransform a host of industries, say the authors 作者说，人工智能势头一直越来越好，势必（准备）改变一大批工业。 But, in orderto learn to drive a carorrecognize a face, the algorithmsthatmake clever machines tick（滴答，拟声词，表示机器运作）mustusuallybe trained on massive amountsofdata. 但是，为了做到自动驾驶和人脸识别（主语是AI），使智能机器运作的法则必须经常用非常大量的数据进行测试。Internetfirms gather these data from users every time they click on aGoogle search result, say, orissue a command to Alexa.
Iran’s election and the internet 伊朗总统选举与互联网 Behind a thick curtain 重重幕帘后的伊朗总统选举 In the run-up to the presidential poll, the authorities are blocking the web 总统选举民意测验姗姗走来，互联网转身离开 Jun 15th 2013| TEHRAN |From the print edition AFTER a string of strong performances on the world stage in recent years, Iran’s national kick-boxing team has had to drop out of an international championship in Greece this month. The Greek embassy in Tehran, citing “communications disruptions in Iran”, said that poor internet c onnectivity, which has drastically slowed down in the run-up to the presidential election on June 14th, was to blame. Apparently the Greeks could not get onto an essential server to process the fighters’ visas. “When the elections come, the internet goes,”explains a 31-year-old Iranian teacher. “We are behind a thick curtain at the moment. It happens at every election, even the parliamentary ones.” 这个月，曾经叱咤风云几度春秋的伊朗国家跆拳道队不得不黯然离开希腊国际大奖赛的舞台。希腊驻德黑兰大使馆指责伊朗境内几乎停滞的缓慢网速是罪魁祸首。6月14日，总统选举前夕，“伊朗出现了‘沟通混乱’”。慢得掉渣的网速使希腊大使馆完全无法展开正常工作，更别提给这些跆拳道选手们发放Visa了。“大选迎面走来，但是互联网离我们远去”，一个31岁的伊朗教师解释道，“一块深深幕帘遮挡住了我们。这种‘遮挡’发生在每次选举的前夕，即便是国会选举也是如此。” Wary of the role social networks and videos played in fomenting massive street protests after the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinej ad as president in 2009, the state’s cyber sleuths are taking no chances this time. Since March, virtual private networks (VPNs), the chief means whereby many of Iran’s 43m internet users evade censorship filters, have been blocked. This is the first time the authorities have managed so protracted and comprehensive a blockage of the VPNs, which means that thousands of foreign websites, including The Economist’s, are blocked, along with Twitter and Facebook. Users trying to get access to such sites are redirected to a slide-show of flowers and mosques. 2009年，内贾德几经波折，终于再次当选总统之后，席卷而来的社交网络与宣传短片煽动了规模庞大的街头抗议。这次教训使得今年的网络侦探们格外谨慎行事。早在三月份，虚拟的私营网络（VPNs）——这个曾经帮助43，000，000伊朗网民摆脱网络监视的“法宝”，就被政府封锁了。这是有史以来伊朗权威部门如此兴师动众地大规模封锁VPNs，这一举动意味着包括经济学人、推特、脸书等在内的成千上万的国外网站一同从伊朗网络上消失。那些仍不死心的网民打开输入这些网址时，发现进入的是一些满是鲜花与清真寺的幻灯片。 The only way netizens can reach censored sites is by using an array of “proxy” applications that work only sporadically and are considered less safe from the Revolutionary Guard’s snooping internet police. Speeds on these proxies are often intolerably slow, uploading virtually impossible. An owner of an engineering firm in Tehran says he has stopped sending technical drawings to clients over the net and uses an expensive private courier instead. 唯一的能打开这些“禁网”的方法就要靠一系列“代理软件”了。即便如此，这些软件也动不动就“罢工”。伊朗革命自卫队的网络警察眼里，这些网站极不安全。经过代理软件处理的网速通常是极其缓慢，想要下载任何东西几乎也是天方夜谭。德黑兰的一位工程公司的老板无奈地表示，形势逼迫他放弃了用网络给客户发技术草图，转
GMAT备考：《经济学人》The Economist 常用词汇总结(8) 141、富有价格弹性(Price elastic) 如果需求的价格弹性大于1，那么商品的需求就是富有价格弹性。 142、需求的价格弹性(Price elasticity of demand) 需求的价格弹性是指价格变化1%导致的需求量变化的百分比(习惯上通常以正数表示)。 143、供给的价格弹性(Price elasticity of supply) 供给的价格弹性是指价格变化1%导致的供给量变化的百分比。 144、最低限价(Price floor) 最低限价是指政府对某种商品所规定的。例如，联邦农业计划规定了小麦和玉米的。 145、缺乏价格弹性(Price inelastic) 如果需求的价格弹性小于1，那么商品的需求就是缺乏价格弹性。 146、价格( Price leader) 价格是指在寡头垄断的行业中制定价格并且其他厂商愿意
跟随的厂商。 147、价格系统(Price system) 在价格系统下，商品和服务都有一个价格，在纯粹的资本主义经济中价格执行一个经济系统的基本职能(决定生产什么、怎样生产、每个人应该得到多少以及一个国家的增长率应该是多少)。 148、委托--代理问题(Principal-agent problem) 由于经理或工人可能会追求自己的目标，即便这样做会减少企业所有者的利润，从而导致了委托--代理问题。经理或工人是为所有者工作的代理人，所有者是委托人。 149、囚犯困境(Prisoner`s dilemma) 囚犯困境是指这样一种情形，此时两个人(或厂商)合作要比不合作好，但是每个人都觉得不合作符合他的利益，因此每个人的状况都要坏于如果他们合作时的境况。 150、私人成本(Private cost) 私人成本是指单个使用者为了能够使用某一资源而带来的费用。
Disney Star Wars, Disney and myth-making How one company came to master the business of storytelling FROM a galaxy far, far away to a cinema just down the road: “The Force Awakens”, the newest instalment of the Star Wars saga, is inescapable this Christmas. The first Star Wars title since Lucasfilm, the owner of the franchise, was acquired by Disney in 2012 for $4.1 billion, it represents more than just the revival of a beloved science-fiction series. It is the latest example of the way Disney has prospered over the past decade from a series of shrewd acquisitions (see article). Having bought Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, Disney has skilfullycapitalised on their intellectual property—and in so doing, cemented its position as the market leader in the industrialisation of mythology. Its success rests on its mastery of the three elements of modern myth-making: tropes, technology and toys. From Homer to Han Solo Start with the tropes. Disney properties, which include everything from “Thor” to “Toy Story”, draw on well-worn devices of mythic structure to give their stories cultural resonance. Walt Disney himself had an intuitive grasp of the power of fables. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, is an avid student of the work of Joseph Campbell, an American comparative mythologist who outlined the “monomyth” structure in which a hero answers a call, is assisted by a mentor figure, voyages to another world, survives various trials and emerges triumphant. Both film-makers merrily plundered ancient mythology and folklore. The Marvel universe goes even further, directly appropriating chunks of Greco-Roman and Norse mythology. (This makes Disney's enthusiasm for fierce enforcement of intellectual-property laws, and the seemingly perpetual extension of copyright, somewhat ironic.) The internal mechanics of myths may not have changed much over the ages, but the technology used to impart them certainly has. That highlights Disney's second area of expertise. In Homer's day, legends were passed on in the form of dactylic hexameters; modern myth-makers prefer computer graphics, special effects, 3D projection, surround sound and internet video distribution,
15年每周经济学人报刊中英文对照
空气污染英国需要采取更多措施来净化污浊的空气 Air pollution空气污染The big smoke雾都 Britain needs to do more to clean up its dirty air 英国需要采取更多措施来净化污浊的空气VISITING Oxford Street, a road teeming with tatty shops and overcrowded with people, is plainly a trial. Less plainly, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a noxious gas, have been found to be around three times higher there than the legal limit. In 2013 the annual mean concentration of NO2 on the street was one of the highest levels found anywhere in Europe. 来到牛津街，你会看到街道两边布满了各式杂乱的商店，而道路上人满为患。行走在这条街上，很明显是个磨练。不为人觉察的是，这里有毒气体二氧化氮(NO2)测出含量超出法定水平的约三倍以上。２０１３年，这条街的NO2年均浓度是欧洲最高之一。 British air is far cleaner than it was a few decades ago. Fewer people use coal-burning stoves; old industrial plants have been decommissioned. But since 2009 levels of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, coarse or fine particles that are linked to lung cancer and asthma, have fallen more slowly. The exact number of deaths caused by dirty air is unknown. But in 2010 a government advisory group estimated that removing man-made fine particulate matter from the atmosphere would increase life expectancy for those born in 2008 by an average of six months. 英国的空气比几十年前干净多了。使用燃煤炉灶的人越来越少；老工业厂已经停产。但自2009年起，氧 化氮、微粒物质、以及与肺癌和哮喘相关的粗、细颗粒含量的下降速度减慢了。因污浊空气所引发的死亡人数是未知的。但2010年，一个政府顾问组估算如果将大气中人为造成的微粒物质除去的话，2008年的出生人口人均寿命将增加六个月。 Much of the slowdown is the result of fumes from diesel cars, which were championed by successive governments because they use less fuel and thus produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars. In 2001 only 14% of all cars ran on diesel; by 2013 the proportion had increased to 35%. (Greener “hybrid” and electric cars have increased ninefold since 2006, but account for just 0.5% of the entire fleet.) Second-hand cars are particularly noxious, but even newer ones have not been as clean as hoped. Many cars that belched out few pollutants in tests produced more when on the roads. 下降速度放缓的大部分原因在于柴油汽车排放的尾气—这为历任政府所支持，因为柴油汽车耗用更少的能源，比汽油汽车排放更少的二氧化碳。2001年，仅14%的汽车使用柴油。2013年，这个比例上涨到了35%。（更绿色的“混合动力”和电瓶车自2006年以来增加了九倍，但仅占汽车总量的0.5%。）二手汽 车尤其有害，但新车也没所期望的那样清洁。很多车在污染物排放测试中排放量低，车在上路时却排放了更多。 Climate change and geoengineering气候变化与地质工程学Fears of a bright planet 地球发光，令人担心Experiments designed to learn more about ways of geoengineering the climate should be allowed to proceed为更好地利用工程学手段研究气候问题所设计的实验应该获准进行下去。SHINY things absorb less heat when left in the sun. This means that if the Earth could be made a little shinier it would be less susceptible to global warming. Ways to brighten it, such as adding nanoscale specks of salt to low clouds, making them whiter, or putting a thin haze of particles into the stratosphere, are the province of “geoengineering”. The small band of scientists which have been studying this subject over the past decade or so have mostly been using computer models. Some of them are now proposing outdoor experiments—using seawater-fed sprayers to churn out particles of the exact size needed to brighten clouds, or spewing sulphur particles from underneath a large balloon 20km up in the sky.发光的物体放在太阳下面会吸收较少的热量。这就意味着如果让地球发一点光的话，受到全球变暖的影响就会小一些。让地球发光的方式，比方说在低空云层上添加纳米级的盐微粒，让云变得更白，或者是将一层薄的雾状物洒向平流层，这些都属于地质工程学的范畴。过去十年左右研究这一领域的一小批科学家主要使用计算机模型，其中一些人现在提出要做室外实验――就是用装有
What went wrong IN RECENT months many economists and policymakers, including such unlikely bedfellows as Paul Krugman, an economist and New York Times columnist, and Hank Paulson, a former American treasury secretary, have put “global imbalances”—the huge current-account surpluses run by countries like China, alongside America’s huge deficit—at the root of the financial crisis. But the IMF disagrees. It argues, in new papers released on Friday March 6th, that the “main culprit” was deficient regulation of t he financial system, together with a failure of market discipline. Olivier Blanchard, the IMF's chief economist, said this week that global imbalances contributed only “indirectly” to the crisis. This may sound like buck-passing by the world’s main interna tional macroeconomic organisation. But the distinction has important consequences for whether macroeconomic policy or more regulation of financial markets will provide the solutions to the mess. In broad strokes, the global imbalances view of the crisis argues that a glut of money from countries with high savings rates, such as China and the oil-producing states, came flooding into America. This kept interest rates low and fuelled the credit boom and the related boom in the prices of assets, such as houses and equity, whose collapse precipitated the financial crisis. A workable long-term fix for the problems of the world economy would, therefore, involve figuring out what to do about these imbalances. But the IMF argues that imbalances could not have caused the crisis without the creative ability of financial institutions to develop new structures and instruments to cater to investors’ demand for higher yields. These instruments turned out to be more risky than they appeared. Investors, overly optimistic about continued rises in asset prices, did not look closely into the nature of the assets that they bought, preferring to rely on the analysis of credit-rating agencies which were, in some cases, also selling advice on how to game the ratings system. This “failure of market discipline”, the fund argues, played a big role in the crisis. As big a problem, according to the IMF, was that financial regulation was flawed, ineffective and too limited in scope. What it calls the “shadow banking system”—the loosely regulated but highly interconnected network of investment banks, hedge funds, mortgage originators, and the like—was not subject to the sorts of prudential regulation (capital-adequacy norms, for example) that applied to banks. In part, the fund argues, this was because they were not thought to be systemically important, in the sense that banks were understood to be. But their being unregulated made it more attractive for banks (whose affiliates the non-banks often were) to evade capital requirements by pushing risk into these entities. In time, this network of institutions grew so large that they were indeed systemically important: in the now-familiar phrase, they were “too big” or “too interconnected” to fail. By late 2007, some estimates of the assets of the bank-like institutions in America outside the scope of existing prudential regulation, was around $10 trillion, as large as the assets of the regulated American banking system itself. Given this interpretation, it is not surprising that the IMF has thrown its weight strongly behind an enormous increase in the scale and scope of financial regulation in a series of papers leading up to the G20 meetings. Among many other proposals, it wants the shadow banking system to be subjected to the same sorts of prudential requirements that banks must follow. Sensibly, it is calling for regulation to concentrate on what an institution does, not what it is called (that is, the basis of regulation should be activities, not entities). It also wants regulators to focus more broadly on