经济学人介绍

economist 经济学家简介经济学家是指研究经济学的专家，他们通过分析市场和经济数据，为决策者提供经济政策建议，并对经济开展趋势进行预测。

他们的研究范围包括宏观经济学、微观经济学、国际经济学、金融经济学等。

在现代社会中，经济学家在政府、金融机构、学术界都扮演着重要的角色。

经济学家的职责经济学家的职责主要包括以下几个方面：1. 经济数据分析经济学家需要收集和分析各种经济数据，例如国内生产总值〔GDP〕、通货膨胀率、失业率等。

通过对这些数据的分析，经济学家可以评估经济的健康状况，发现问题，并提供解决方案。

2. 经济政策研究经济学家对各种经济政策进行研究，包括财政政策、货币政策、税收政策等。

他们通过分析政策的影响和效果，为政府和决策者提供建议，帮助他们制定正确的经济政策。

3. 经济预测和预警经济学家通过分析市场和经济趋势，预测未来的经济开展走势，并提供预警和建议。

他们可以预测通货膨胀、经济增长，以及其他与经济相关的指标。

这些预测对于政府、企业和个人做出正确的决策非常重要。

4. 教育和研究经济学家在学术界发挥着重要的作用，他们进行经济学的教育和研究工作。

他们培养新一代的经济学家，推动经济学的开展，并发表各种经济学研究成果。

经济学家的重要性经济学家在现代社会中扮演着至关重要的角色。

他们的研究和分析对于决策者和各个领域的人士具有指导意义。

以下是经济学家的重要性的几个方面：1. 经济政策指导经济学家的研究成果和政策建议对于政府和决策者在制定和实施经济政策时具有重要指导作用。

通过经济学家的分析，政府可以制定出更为科学合理的政策，促进经济的稳定和开展。

2. 企业战略规划经济学家对市场和行业的研究可以帮助企业制定战略规划。

他们可以预测市场的需求和开展趋势，为企业提供决策依据，帮助企业降低风险，拓展市场。

3. 个人投资决策对于个人投资者来说，经济学家的研究和分析可以提供投资建议，帮助他们做出明智的投资决策。

个人投资者可以通过了解经济的开展趋势和市场的行情，躲避风险，获得更好的投资回报。

BusinessThe future of the FirmMcKinsey looks set to stay top of the heap in management consultingIT IS one of the engines of global capitalism. Not only does McKinsey provide advice to most of the world's leading companies. It also pioneered the idea that business is a profession rather than a mere trade—and a profession that thrives on raw brainpower more than specialist industry knowledge or plain old common sense. Yet McKinsey's name has suffered a succession of blows in the past 15 years.The Firm, as it calls itself, was deeply involved in the Enron debacle: the energy company's boss, Jeff Skilling, was a McKinsey veteran who praised the consultancy for doing God's work, and the McKinsey Quarterly published articles on Enron as enthusiastically as Hello! runs pieces about the Beckhams. In 2010 Anil Kumar, a McKinsey consultant, admitted passing inside information to Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon, a hedge fund. Last year Rajat Gupta, a former McKinsey managing partner, was also convicted of passing inside information to Mr Rajaratnam.Life is getting tougher for professional-services firms. Midsized consultancies are already suffering: Monitor Group went bankrupt last year—Deloitte later bought it for120m—and Booz & Co and Roland Berger are agonising about their futures. If the legal profession is anything to go by, worse is to come: Dewey & LeBoeuf collapsed last year after borrowing heavily in a dash for growth, and other elite law firms are struggling to win business.So, are McKinsey's best days behind it? Two new publications offer some interesting answers. The Firm, by Duff McDonald, is a generally admiring book that nevertheless asks hard questions about the organisation's future. Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption, by Clayton Christensen and two colleagues, is a penetrating article in the October Harvard Business Review, arguing that the comfortable world of the strategy consultancies is about to be turned upside down.McKinsey's success depends above all on an unimpeachable reputation for integrity. It cannot continue to serve most of the world's leading companies if its consultants are willing to spill secrets. Mr McDonald argues that the firm's size makes it impossible to avoid repeats of the Kumar problem. It is now a giant factory with 1,200 consultants rather than the cosy club of old. The firm has to keep growing, not least to provide itspartners with the 1.5mor so a year that they earn. But every time it grows it puts its most important asset at risk.McKinsey's success also depends on its ability to remain at the cutting edge of business. But in recent years it has seemed to be on the wrong cutting edge. Mr McDonald points out that whereas McKinsey has led the financialisation of basic industries such as oil and gas, it has had little if any role in shaping the giants of the internet economy, such as Apple and Google.The new lords of business are engineers in hoodies, not MBAs in pinstripes. Mr Christensen focuses on a bigger subject: how the forces that have disrupted so many other businesses, from steel to publishing, are disrupting consulting.The big three strategy consultants—the other two are the Boston Consulting Group and Bain—are masters of opacity. But Mr Christensen argues that light is being let in on the magic. Companies are getting better at measuring results and demanding value for money. They also have access to more business expertise than ever before: the big three have more than 50,000 living alumni.The big three have been masters at bundling lots of different services into a single, high-priced package. But clients no longer want to pay fat fees for a bit of strategic advice from a senior partner and a lot of humdrum work from neophytes. Mr Christensen says low-priced competitors are beginning to dismember the consultants' business. Eden McCallum cuts costs by deploying freelancers, most of whom once worked for the big three. BeyondCore replaces overpriced junior analysts with Big Data, crunching vast amounts of information to identify trends. McKinsey clearly faces a more difficult market than it is used to.But it has overcome serious challenges before—such as in the 1980s, when it lost the intellectual high ground to BCG and then Bain before regaining it. The firm is fixing some of the problems from the Gupta era. It has elected two successive managing directors, Ian Davis and Dominic Barton, who have worked hard to restore its professional ethos. Mr Barton urges companies to embrace long-term capitalism rather than quarterly capitalism and corporate responsibility rather than financial engineering: the very opposite of the Enron-era McKinsey's gospel.Old boys everywhereMcKinsey also has two huge assets: talent and knowledge. It retains an unrivalled ability to recruit hundreds of clever young people and turn them into an army ofproblem-solving worker ants. It also has an enviable network of alumni, many of whom are happy to hire their old employer: in 2011 more than 150 ex-McKinseyites were running companies with more than 1 billion in annual sales.The firm has also invested heavily in knowledge for decades: perhaps no other organisation has as much interesting data on global capitalism. Though lesser firms may be facing disruption, McKinsey dispenses a special sort of consultorial fairy-dust that is hard to replicate, and as much in demand as ever. The global ruling class is seized with a toxic combination of status-obsession and status-insecurity. Decision-makers also fear being swept away by one of Mr Christensen's disruptive forces. They seek constant reassurance and reaffirmation from prestigious institutions. McKinsey knows better than almost anyone how to exploit this peculiar mindset. That will guarantee the Firm a solid future, even if no one can prove that its advice actually does any good.BusinessCommercial aircraftBombardier lights a fuseCanada's new passenger jet threatens an old duopolySINCE the late 1990s airlines wanting to buy short-to-medium-haul narrowbody planes with 100-200 seats have had little choice but to pick either Boeing's 737 or Airbus's A320. As orders for such planes have boomed in recent years, aircraft-makers in China, Russia and Canada have been working on new contenders to break this American-European duopoly.On September 16th Canada's Bombardier got there first, launching the maiden flight of its CSeries plane. Bombardier is duelling the duopolists because the prospects for the planes it already makes—regional jets of under 100 seats and corporate jets—are not as juicy as those for mainstream commercial airliners.Global passenger traffic is set to grow by 5% a year for the next two decades, reckons Boeing, and airlines are seeking ones that seat 100-200 to fill much of the new demand. In regional jets Bombardier has enjoyed a near-duopoly of its own, with Embraer of Brazil. But Japanese, Russian and Chinese rivals are moving in to the market just as operators of regional jets are going for bigger planes.Corporate jets and their owners took a knock in the financial crisis, and their prospects still look weak. Although lots of new metro systems are being built worldwide, Bombardier's other main business, building trains does not look so strong. Abouttwo-thirds of the division's revenues come from Europe, where trains are largely bought with public purses drained by faltering economies.Bombardier is trying to slip in under the radar, not competing head-on with its rivals. The first two versions of the CSeries will have only 100-150 seats, whereas most 737s and A320s sold are 150-200 seaters. However, Bombardier hopes airlines will be attracted by its plane's low fuel consumption—20% less than its rivals',it claims—and 15% lower running costs.Much of that advantage comes from a new engine, the geared turbofan, made by Pratt & Whitney, an American firm. So far, though, airlines have held back and waited to see how the CSeries flies. Only 177 firm orders have been placed as yet.Some analysts wonder if starting out at the bottom end of the range was a good idea: Darryl Genovesi of UBS, a bank, reckons that there are 5,000 jets of 90-150 seats in operation and that only 2,000 are likely to be replaced over the next five to ten years, with another 1,000 on the borderline. Furthermore, Boeing and Airbus are not giving up without a dogfight.Both are working on completely new narrowbodies, to be launched in a decade or so, and in the mean time their existing models are being upgraded. The 737 MAX andA320neo, out in a couple of years, will get improved engines, narrowing the efficiency gap with the CSeries. Indeed, buyers of the A320neo will be able to choose the geared turbofan.And as Zafar Khan of Societe Generale, a bank, notes, the CSeries is a new airframe and a new engine, a double risk. No doubt Boeing and Airbus have been pointing this out to customers, as well as offering attractive prices to deter airlines from taking a punt on the CSeries. Both are bound to worry that Bombardier will add a larger model carrying up to 200 passengers. Such concerns would intensify if Bombardier makes progress on its partnership with COMAC, a Chinese state firm strongly backed by its home government, which is also building a narrowbody plane.The market for the current CSeries models may be only around 100 planes a year. That may not deliver a decent return on its 4 billion development costs. But it will keep Bombardier in the skies, circling for a more vigorous counter-attack on the duopoly.BusinessSelling art onlineEnter AmazonThe internet giant's fine-art venture is unlikely to sell many masterpieces WITH a mouse click you can add Norman Rockwell's Willie Gillis: Package from Home to your Amazon shopping cart. But you will need boldness and a bulging bank account to proceed to checkout: it costs 4.85m.The oil painting went on sale in August, when Amazon splashily announced that it would add fine art to earth's biggest selection of consumables. But it will not be easy to sell art alongside books and barbecues. Amazon's arty initiative is not revolutionary. Hundreds of dealers already sell art online, swarming into every niche and bristling with gimmicks.Sedition sells digital works, some by famous artists. Artsy figures out buyers' tastes from their browsing activity. Artnet, the self-proclaimed market leader, auctioned15m-worth of art last year and provides online exhibition space to 1,700 galleries. Christie's and Sotheby's, the best-known auction houses, have long accepted online bids as an extension of their traditional sales. So far, all this has made little impression.Online art sales were 870m in 2012, less than 2% of the 56 billion global art market, according to a report published by Hiscox, an insurer. Assuming that art will progress online at the same rate as luxury goods, the report predicts that sales will more than double to 2.1 billion by 2017. Even then, online's share will still be modest.Pure online art sales, in which anyone can buy and deals are struck on a website, happen mainly on the blurry boundaries between art, craft and mass production. Jonas Almgren, the boss of London-based Artfinder, sees his site as a painterly version of Etsy, a successful American portal for selling handmade wares. Both cater to a popular craving for one-of-a-kind goods. Artspace sells mainly limited-edition prints and photographs.The lower end of the art market will largely shift online, predicts Skate's, anart-market research firm. Higher up, things get more complicated. Artists yearn to exhibit in real galleries; collectors want to experience first-hand a work's scale and texture. In the secondary market the spectre of forgery makes them wary of dealing with virtual vendors.When the price of an artwork tops 5,000, you want a relationship with a client, says Steve Lazarides, a specialist in urban art who runs both physical galleries and an online shop. The priciest bargains are struck between dealers and coteries of collectors they know well. The terms are almost always secret.With living artists, relationships matter even more. Dealers are expected to nurture their careers, which means managing prices, too. It is an unwritten law that they must never fall, says Friederike Hauffe, who teaches a course in art marketing atBerlin's Free University. Some dealers discourage collectors from selling the work of an artist they represent; if one comes up for auction they might bid up prices. To fail to sell an item at auction is to burn it.That does not mean that online marketing plays no role at the top end. Swanky galleries have long e-mailed images to potential buyers. Many exhibit art online to attract global interest but conduct transactions in cosier settings.Nearly four-fifths of galleries insist on some direct contact with buyers, according to the Hiscox report. Most online sales above 100,000 happen via the electronic bidding channels of auction houses such as Christie's. But this may be changing. The prices collectors are willing to pay online are creeping up. Friendships with dealers are beginning to seem less vital.Christie's launched online-only sales in 2011 with an auction of Elizabeth Taylor memorabilia. Saatchi Online thrusts itself into the heart of the new-art nexus: it represents artists directly, bypassing galleries, and is happy to sell to all kinds of people, says its chief curator, Rebecca Wilson.Amazon is not in the business of managing artists' careers. You can buy a Jeff Koons print on the site for 33,750 but are unlikely to find his giant steel Tulips. Mr Almgren thinks Amazon will struggle to sell even more modest works. There is an enormous mismatch between Amazon's utilitarian website and the inspirational approach you need to sell art, he thinks. Perhaps that is why, as late as September 18th, Willie Gillis was still for sale.E commerceTencent's worthA Chinese internet firm finds a better way to make moneyIS TENCENT one of the world's greatest internet firms? There are grounds for scepticism. The Chinese gaming and social media firm started in the same way many local internet firms have: by copying Western success. QQ, its instant messaging service, was a clone of ICQ, an Israeli invention acquired by AOL of America. And unlike global internet giants such as Google and Twitter, Tencent still makes its money in its protected home market.Yet the Chinese firm's stockmarket valuation briefly crossed the $100 billion mark this week for the first time. Given that the valuation of Facebook, the world's leading social media firm, itself crossed that threshold only a few weeks ago, it is reasonable to wonder whether Tencent is worth so much. However, Tencent now has bigger revenues and profits than Facebook. In the first half of this year Tencent enjoyed revenues of $4.5 billion and gross profits of $2.5 billion, whereas Facebook saw revenues of $3.3 billion and gross profits of $935m.The Chinese firm's market value reflects the phenomenal rise in its share price. A study out this week from the Boston Consulting Group found that Tencent had the highest shareholder total return( share price appreciation plus dividends) of any large firm globally from 2008 to 2012 -topping Amazon and even Apple.Tencent has created a better business model than its Western peers. Many internet firms build a customer base by giving things away, be they search results or social networking tools. They then seek to monetise their users, usually turning to online advertising. Google is a glorious example. Other firms try to make e commerce work. But as the case of revenue rich but profit poor Amazon suggests, this can also be a hard slog.Tencent does give its services away: QQ is used by 800m people, and its WeChat social networking app( which initially resembled's America WhatsApp) has several hundred million users. What makes it different from Western rivals is the way it uses these to peddle online games and other revenue raising offerings.Once users are hooked on a popular game, Tencent then persuades them to pay for" value added services" such as fancy weapons, snazzy costumes for their avatars and online VIP rooms. Whereas its peers are still making most of their money from advertising, Fathom China, a research firm, reckons Tencent gets 80% of its revenues from suchkit( see chart).This year China has overtaken America to become the world's biggest e commerce market, in terms of sales. It is also now the biggest market for smartphones. This means it may soon have the world's dominant market in" m commerce", purchases on mobile devices.Tencent's main rivals in Chinese m commerce are Baidu, which dominates search on desktop computers( helped by the government's suppression of Google) and Alibaba, an e commerce giant now preparing for a huge share offering. All three have gone on acquisition sprees, in an attempt to lead the market. The big worry for investors is the cost of this arms race.Alibaba recently invested $300m in AutoNavi, an online mapping firm, and nearly $600m in Sina Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter. Baidu has been even more ambitious, spending $1.85 billion to buy 91 Wireless, the country's biggest third party store for smartphone apps, and $370m for PPS, an online video firm.Tencent may have an edge over its two rivals in m commerce because of the wild popularity of WeChat, which is used on mobile phones. But to ensure it stays in the race, it is also spending heavily. On September 16th it said it will spend $448m to acquire a big stake in Sogou, an online search firm; it plans to merge its own flagging searchengine( aptly named Soso) into the venture. It had previously invested in Didi Dache, China's largest taxi hailing app, and is rumoured to be interested in online travel and dating firms too.The three Goliaths are buying up innovative firms because they are too big and bureaucratic to create things themselves, mutter some entrepreneurs( presumably not those being bought out handsomely). A more pressing worry for Tencent's shareholders is that its lavish spending, on top of heavy investment in improving its unimpressive e commerce offerings, will eat into profits. Worse, the m commerce arms race risks distracting it from gaming and value added services, the cash cows that are paying for everything else. A $100 billion valuation might then seem too rich.Business this weekVerizon issued $49 billion in bonds, smashing the record for a sale of corporate debt. The telecoms company will use the proceeds to fund its $130 billion purchase of Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless, their joint venture. Pension funds and insurance companies flocked to the sale, tempted by the higher yields Verizon offered compared with other, similar quality bonds.Apple brought out two new iPhones, the 5C and the 5S. The 5S is the top-of-the range iPhone, with fingerprint ID replacing the traditional numerical locking code. The 5C is being billed as a cheaper handset, though at $549 in America and $733 in China, a market that Apple is keen to crack, it is still more expensive than many Android alternatives. Apple's share price fell by 5%.Koch Industries, a conglomerate, forked out $7.2 billion to buy Molex, which is based in Illinois and makes a wide range of electrical components and connectors used in industrial and consumer products, including the iPhone.Carl Icahn conceded defeat in his attempt to block the $24.8 billion buy-out of Dell by the computer-maker's founder, Michael Dell, days before a shareholder vote on the issue. Mr Icahn, a legendary activist investor, had proposed an alternative plan to Mr Dell's buy-out, which he thinks is undervalued. Mr Dell raised his offer to win over sceptics, leading Mr Icahn to claim that "shareholders would have gotten a lot less if I hadn't shown up."Meanwhile, Southeastern Asset Management, Mr Icahn's ally in his fight with Dell, revealed that it had built a 12% voting stake in News Corporation, making it the publishing group's second-biggest investor after Rupert Murdoch. Its regulatory filing suggests the investment is "passive".The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which assesses the risks to national security from foreign takeovers, gave its approval to the $4.7 billion offer for Smithfield Foods from China's Shuanghui. When approved by shareholders it will be the biggest acquisition of an American company by a Chinese one, and create a global beast in pork products. Some American politicians had raised concerns about Chinesefood-safety standards.An investigation into allegations of corruption in the office that handles compensation claims for the 2010 BP oil spill found no wrongdoing among its senior management, and concluded that the processing of "honest" claims should continue. But the report, written by Louis Freeh, a former director of the FBI, also described the co-operation between some staff in the office and lawyers for the victims of the spill as "problematic", and possibly causing a "conflict of interest".TSB returned to the British high street as a stand-alone bank, 18 years after being merged with Lloyds. Following its bail-out by the British government Lloyds was ordered by the European competition authority in 2009 to sell off assets in retail banking. TSB hasbeen rebranded and is handling the accounts of 5m customers moved over from Lloyds. Lloyds will float TSB on the stockmarket next year.An ongoing study of income distribution found that the richest 1% in America took 19% of national income last year, their biggest share since 1928. The top 10% of earners held a record 48.2%. During the recovery between 2009 and 2012 real family incomes rose by an average of 4.6%, though this was skewed by a 31.4% increase for the top 1%. For the other 99% incomes rose by just 0.4%.Three companies are to be chucked out of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and three companies are joining, in the biggest shake-up of the stockmarket index in a decade. Alcoa, Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard are leaving, to be replaced by Goldman Sachs, Nike and Visa. The DJIA is composed of just 30 stocks and isprice-weighted, so dearer shares count for more. The share prices of Alcoa, BofA and HP have tumbled over the past five years.Japan's economy grew at a much faster rate in the second quarter than had been thought, because of more corporate and public investment. A revised estimate put the pace of growth at 3.8% at an annual rate, up from the 2.6% initially reported.Suntory, a Japanese company that sells a range of alcoholic and soft drinks, agreed to buy the Lucozade energy-drink and Ribena fruit-juice brands from GlaxoSmithKline, a British drugs company, for £1.35 billion ($2.1 billion). Both beverages are popular in Britain and elsewhere, and were marketed from the 1920s to the 1980s as aids to boosting health (Ribena) or recovery from sickness (Lucozade).bond marketsA big number from VerizonCompanies are still taking advantage of low yields to raise debt.DEBT crisis? What debt crisis? The biggest corporate bond issue ever was completed this week. Verizon Communications, an American telecoms group, issued a whopping $49 billion of bonds in order to finance the buy out of Vodafone's stake in its wireless operations. That shattered the previous record, Apple's paltry $17 billion issue earlier this year.The scale of Verizon's offering may be unprecedented, but its foray into the bond markets is anything but. In the first eight months of this year $1.4 trillion of corporatebonds were issued worldwide, according to Dealogic, a data provider, compared with $1.3 trillion in the same period of 2012. Firms have been keen to lock in long term financing at low yields, particularly since borrowing costs started rising after the Federal Reserve hinted in May at slowing its asset purchases.Oil and gas companies have been particularly enthusiastic issuers, according to Marcus Hiseman of Morgan Stanley, especially in the" Yankee" market where foreign businesses sell bonds, priced in dollars, mainly to American investors. Previously many foreign firms would issue debt in euros and swap the proceeds into dollars, but regulatory restrictions on banks make that much more expensive these days. This year 72% of investment grade issuance has been in dollars, compared with 58% in 2009, according to Morgan Stanley.If companies fear that bond yields are set to rise( meaning that bond prices will fall), why are investors so keen to buy? There was plenty of demand to absorb the Verizon issue, for instance: orders reportedly reached $100 billion. One reason is that corporate bonds offer a spread( excess interest rate) over government bonds that is still attractive in historical terms. The average yield on ten year investment grade debt is 3.5%, compared with just 2.95% on Treasury bonds of the same maturity. The sheer size of the Verizon issue required it to be more generous towards investors, as did its BBB + rating from Standard & Poor's, towards the bottom end of the investment grade category. The firm offered a yield of over 5% on its ten year bonds, for example, more than two percentage points above the equivalent Treasury issue.Many central banks, which hold a large part of their reserves in dollars, remain enthusiastic buyers of corporate debt. In addition, many investors in corporate debt are specialist fund managers who aim to beat the benchmark specific to their asset class, points out Paul Young of Citigroup; they care more about whether they pick the right bonds, as they are able to hedge the underlying interest rate risk.The influx of money nonetheless causes some to worry. The corporate bond market is a lot less liquid than it used to be, thanks largely to the effect of regulations on the willingness of banks to hold large inventories of corporate debt. This could cause a problem should bond investors want to sell their holdings in a rush. For the moment, however, that does not seem likely. Corporate balance sheets look strong and the default rate over the past 12 months, even on speculative debt, was just 2.9%, according to Moody's, another ratings agency.Smartphones in ChinaTaking a bite out of AppleXiaomi, often described as China's answer to Apple, is actually quite differentIT FEELS more like a rock concert than a press conference as the casually dressed chief executive takes to a darkened stage to unveil his firm's sleek new smartphone to an adoring crowd. Yet this was not the launch of the new iPhone by Apple on September 10th, but of the Mi - 3 handset by Xiaomi, a Chinese firm, in Beijing on September 5th. With its emphasis on snazzy design, glitzy launches and the cult like fervour it inspires in its users, no wonder Xiaomi is often compared to its giant American rival, both by admirers and by critics who call it a copycat. Xiaomi's boss, Lei Jun( pictured), even wears jeans and a black shirt, Steve Jobs style. Is Xiaomi really China's answer to Apple?Xiaomi sold 7.2m handsets last year, in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, earning revenues of 12.6 billion yuan( $2.1 billion). Apple sold 125m smartphones globally, earning about $80 billion of its $157 billion sales. But since it was founded in 2010, Xiaomi has grown fast. A recent funding round valued it at $10 billion, more than Microsoft just paid for Nokia's handset unit. That made Xiaomi one of the 15 most heavily venture backed mobile start ups ever, says Rajeev Chand of Rutberg, an investment bank. In the second quarter of 2013 Xiaomi's market share in China was 5%, says Canalys, a research firm -- more than Apple's( 4.8%) for the first time.Yet" we have never compared ourselves to Apple -- we are more like Amazon," says Lin Bin, Xiaomi's co founder, who once worked for the Chinese arms of Microsoft and Google. Apple sells its iPhone 5 for around $860 in China and has the industry's highest margins. Xiaomi offers its handsets at or near cost: the Mi - 3, its new flagship, costs 2,000 yuan( $330). Xiaomi sells direct to customers online, rather than via network operators or retail stores, which also keeps prices down. Crucially, its business depends on selling services to its users, just as Amazon provides its Kindle readers at low prices and makes its money on the sale of e books. The idea is to make a profit from customers as they use the handset, rather than from the sale of the hardware, says Mr Lin.Xiaomi's services revenues were 20m yuan in August, up from 10m yuan in April. It is a classic internet business model: build an audience then monetise it later, as Google and Facebook did, notes Mr Lin. Selling games, custom wallpapers and virtual gifts may not sound very lucrative, but China's internet giants have found a huge market for virtual goods: the biggest, Tencent, sold $ 5 billion worth of them last year.。

1、绝对优势（Absolute advantage）如果一个国家用一单位资源生产的某种产品比另一个国家多，那么，这个国家在这种产品的生产上与另一国相比就具有绝对优势。

2、逆向选择（Adverse choice）在此状况下，保险公司发现它们的客户中有太大的一部分来自高风险群体。

3、选择成本（Alternative cost）如果以最好的另一种方式使用的某种资源，它所能生产的价值就是选择成本，也可以称之为机会成本。

4、需求的弧弹性（Arc elasticity of demand）如果P1和Q1分别是价格和需求量的初始值，P2 和Q2 为第二组值，那么，弧弹性就等于-（Q1-Q2）（P1＋P2）/（P1-P2）（Q1＋Q2）5、非对称的信息（Asymmetric information）在某些市场中，每个参与者拥有的信息并不相同。

例如，在旧车市场上，有关旧车质量的信息，卖者通常要比潜在的买者知道得多。

6、平均成本（Average cost）平均成本是总成本除以产量。

也称为平均总成本。

7、平均固定成本( Average fixed cost）平均固定成本是总固定成本除以产量。

8、平均产品（Average product）平均产品是总产量除以投入品的数量。

9、平均可变成本（Average variable cost）平均可变成本是总可变成本除以产量。

10、投资的β(Beta）β度量的是与投资相联的不可分散的风险。

对于一种股票而言，它表示所有现行股票的收益发生变化时，一种股票的收益会如何敏感地变化。

11、债券收益(Bond yield）债券收益是债券所获得的利率。

12、收支平衡图（Break－even chart）收支平衡图表示一种产品所出售的总数量改变时总收益和总成本是如何变化的。

收支平衡点是为避免损失而必须卖出的最小数量。

13、预算线(Budget line）预算线表示消费者所能购买的商品X和商品Y的数量的全部组合。

Finance and EconomicsOffshore private banking离岸私人银行业Bourne to survive伯恩的幸存Aug 6th 2009From The Economist print editionDespite the woes of UBS, Swiss private banking remains in reasonable shape尽管瑞银处境不佳，瑞士的私人银行业仍保有相当规模Illustration by S. KambayashiA FTER visiting his bank in Zurich, Jason Bourne, an amnesic assassin, wonders: “Who has a safety-deposit box full of money and six passports and a gun?” In the popular imagination as well as Hollywood films the answer is clear: customers of Swiss banks do.当失忆的杀手詹森•伯恩(Jason Bourne)从其位于苏黎世的银行走出后，自问到：”什么样的人会有一个装满了钱、6本护照还有一把枪的银行保险箱？”在大众的想像与好莱坞的电影中，这个答案是明确的：瑞士银行的客户就是这样的人。

If this reputation for skulduggery is right, Switzerland, home to about one-quarter of the world’s offshore money, is in big trouble. After nearly going bust, UBS, its biggest bank, is now being pistol-whipped by America’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which wants it to hand over the names of tens of thousands of alleged tax dodgers. A preliminary settlement between the two was agreed on July 31st, although its details have yet to be made public. In March Switzerland agreed to comply with an OECD tax code that will oblige it to reveal information on clients that other governments say they need to enforce their laws. Where will crooks, despots and war criminals go now? And what will Swiss private banks do when they leave?如果这种隐秘而无原则的名声不是空穴来风的话，瑞士，这个坐拥世界四分之一离岸资金的国家将会有大麻烦。

IN THE search for the villain behind the global financial crisis, some have pointed to inequality as a culprit. In his 2010 book “Fault Lines”, Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago argued that inequality was a cause of the crisis, and that the American government served as a willing accomplice. From the early 1980s the wages of working Americans with little or no university education fell ever farther behind those with university qualifications, he pointed out. Under pressure to respond to the problem of stagnating incomes, successive presidents and Congresses opened a flood of mortgage credit.全球金融危机的幕后黑手究竟是谁。

各方对此问题的调查从未停止过，其中就有一种观点认为，收入不平等是造成危机的罪魁祸首。

芝加哥大学的拉古拉迈•拉詹教授在他2010年出版的《断层线》一书中说，引发危机的主犯是收入不平等，而政府则充当了心甘情愿的帮凶角色。

他指出，自1980年代初起，美国劳动者的收入出现了两极分化，未受过高等教育的人的工资远低于拥有大学学历者，而且二者的差距还在扩大。

民众收入停滞不前成了历任政府和国会都头痛不已的老大难问题，迫于现实压力，他们作出了放开抵押贷款限制的决定。

功能对等理论视角下财经新闻英汉翻译研究——以《经济学人》为例一、引言当今世界，经济全球化不断深入，各国在政治、经济等领域交流日益密切，了解国际市场、掌握国际经济形势成为广大群众一大诉求，因此英语财经类新闻的翻译显得尤为重要。

《经济学人》作为一本财经类杂志，具有较高的国际知名度，其新闻报道兼具权威性与实效性，该杂志的准确翻译可成为了解国际金融信息的高质量渠道之一。

奈达的功能对等理论强调信息的准确传递和强调读者反应，即在准确传递信息的基础上，原文读者与译文读者应有一致的阅读体验。

文章以功能对等理论为基础，试图探讨财经类新闻在翻译中如何实现原文与译文读者取得一致的阅读体验。

二、功能对等理论动态对等的概念是尤金•奈达于20 世纪60 年代在《翻译科学探索》一书中提出的。

动态对等指出，译者不能仅仅关注源语与目的语间的对应关系，而该关注一种动态的关系，即目的语读者和目的语信息间的关系应与源语读者和源语信息间的关系保持一致[1]。

后来，为避免公众对“动态”一词的误解，在《从一种语言到另一种语言》一书中，奈达将动态对等替换为功能对等，进一步完善了理论内容[2]。

功能对等理论强调读者反应，即目的语读者对译文的阅读反应需与源语读者对源语的阅读反应保持基本一致，这就要求译文与原文在功能上达到最贴近的对等。

然而，在翻译实践中译者不可避免地会遇到无法跨越的障碍，例如源语中的文化表述、语言形式等很难再现，根据功能对等理论，这时应首先保证信息的准确传递，即最自然的对等。

可见，功能对等理论的两大核心即是信息的准确传递与读者反应[3]。

国内对功能对等理论的研究与应用涉及广泛，包括新闻、广告、文学、影视字幕等诸多翻译领域。

而新闻具有面向大众、真实准确、及时简明的特点，因此新闻翻译应具有更高的可读性与交际性。

财经类新闻同时具有专业性与民生性，二者的对立统一关系需要译者在翻译中更需要坚持功能对等，以最大限度让目的语读者获得与源语读者相同的阅读体验。

两种变量系统地相互联系在一起的程度。

307、Cost ，average 平均成本等于总成本（参见 "总成本" ， cost ，total ）除以产出的单位数。

The Economist 《经济学人》常用词汇总结 我眼泪都流出来了 太珍The Economist 《经济学人》常用词汇总结 我眼泪都流出来了 太珍贵了 !! 16 小时前 301、Consumption function 消费函数 总消费与个人可支配收人（ PDI ） 认为会对消费产生影响。

的数值对应关系。

总财富和其他变量也常被 302、Consumption-possibility line 消费可能线 见预算线（ budget line ）。

303、Cooperative equilibrium合作性均衡 博弈论中，指各方协调行动，以求共同的支付（ joint pay － offs ）最优化的 策略而达到的结果。

304、Corporate income tax 公司所得税对公司年净收入课征的税收。

305、Corporation 公司 现代资本主义经济中企业组织的主要形式。

它是由个人或其他公司所拥有的 企业，具有与个人一样的购买、销售和签订合同的权利。

公司和对公司负 责任" 的所有人二者，在法律上是不同的概念。

"有限306、Correlation相关308、Cost ，average fixed 平均固定成本等于固定成本除以产出的单位数。

309、Cost，average variable 平均可变成本等于可变成本（参见" 可变成本" ，cost ，variable ）除以产出的单位数。

310、Cost ，fixed 固定成本一企业在某时段即使在产量为零时也会发生的成本。

总固定成本由诸如利息支出、抵押支出、管理者费用等契约性开支所组成。

311、Cost ，marginal 边际成本多生产1 单位产品所增加的成本（或总成本的增加额），或少生产1 单位产品总成本的减少额。

Wynne Godley 韦恩•戈德利Wynne Godley, British economist, died on May 13th, aged 83 英国经济学家韦恩•戈德利于五月十三日辞世，终年83岁May 27th 2010 | From The Economist print edition 源自《经济学人》印刷版，2010年5月27日A CERTAIN ambiguity marked Wynne Godley. Was he at heart an aesthete, happiest making music in beautiful buildings among works of art? Or was he more naturally one of the sophisters, economists and calculators whose rise marked, for Edmund Burke, the passing of the age of chivalry? Was he by temperament a dissenter? Or just a typical scion of the British upper classes, an establishment man who played at being a rebel? Was he a determined pessimist, who took some pleasure in his reputation as the Cassandra of the Fens? Or a convivial, witty friend, who entertained with style and had a taste for gambling? Was he a shy violet, trembling before an audience? Or a controversialist who was hardly publicity-averse? 韦恩•戈利这个人的特点带有几分模棱两可。

Whopper to go至尊汉堡，打包带走Will Burger King be gobbled up by private equity?汉堡王是否会被私人股本吞并？Sep 2nd 2010 | NEW YORKSHARES in Burger King (BK) soared on September 1st on reports that the fast-food company was talking to several private-equity firms interested in buying it. How much beef was behind these stories was unclear. But lately the company famous for the slogan “Have It Your Way” has certainly not been having it its own way. There may be arguments about whether BK or McDonald’s serves the best fries, but there is no doubt which is more popular with stockmarket investors: the maker of the Big Mac has supersized its lead in the past two years.有报道披露，快餐企业汉堡王（BK）正在与数个有收购意向的私人股本接洽，9月1日，汉堡王的股值随之飙升。

这些报道究竟有多少真材实料不得而知。

汉堡王的著名口号是“我选我味”，但如今显然它身不由己，心中五味杂陈。

汉堡王和麦当劳哪家薯条最好吃，食客们一直争论不休，但股票投资人更喜欢哪家股票，却一目了然：过去两年里，巨无霸麦当劳一直在扩大自己的优势。