_美国经济评论_创刊100年来的20篇最佳文章

媒体：未来是消灭中产的时间不以人的意志为转移中产是如何消失的？未来，是消灭中产的时间，个人的观点是，这种消灭是不以任何人的意志为转移的。

其一，很多人都记得美国1929年大萧条。

虽然金融学家和经济学家们不断研究，但最终的结果还是莫重于是，现在看来，最靠谱的结论应该是贫富差距恶化的结果（这一点在“第二”中会更详细地说明）。

1929年美国大萧条爆发的时候，1%的人占有了23.9%的财富，2007年爆发次贷危机的时候，美国1%的人占有了23.5%的财富，相距只是咫尺之遥。

有资料显示，最近20多年美国人的实际收入并没有增长，这是特朗普可以强势崛起的根本原因，中下层人士在用选票表达他们的愤怒！可是，次贷危机后，美国社会并没有在税收调节等社会分配方面做出什么改变，美国的房价已经差不多达到了次贷危机前的水平，而股市已经远远越过2007年的高点，这意味着什么？资产价格继续膨胀意味着美国的贫富差距在继续恶化！当贫富差距继续恶化的时候，危机必定发生，终点就是要消灭中产，市场以自己的手段均贫富。

以现在的局势来看，次贷危机不过是为未来的危机铺垫而已。

以数据说话，按照世界银行公布的2014年全球155个国家的基尼指数（主要国家都在其中，有些国家没有数据，比如一些迷你国家），美国的基尼指数是45.0，排在第45位(排名越靠前，贫富差距越大)，再次回到次贷危机前的水平（次贷危机发生前的2007年的基尼指数是45.0，之后有所下滑，到2014年，又回升到45，这显然和美联储印钞有关），距离1929年大萧条的高点非常接近，这是大萧条诞生的基础条件。

其二，全球最重要的国家经济体中，除了美国就是中国。

中国的贫富差距如何哪？也按世界银行给出的2014年的数据，基尼指数是47，排在第39位（考虑到中国官场的腐败状况，一些灰色收入是很难准确计量的，这个排位实际可能还会提高，就不考虑了），这说明中国的贫富差距比美国更加严重，在亚洲排在第三位（第一位是香港，以53.3排在第十五位，第二名是新加坡，以48.1排在第34位）。

《大萧条时代》读后感《大萧条时代》这部著作共有十四章，从工业生产、男人、女人、小孩和黑人的生存状态、农村农业、文化艺术、电影娱乐、社会价值观等方面系统地阐述了美国在大萧条时代的社会全貌，再现了经济大危机对美国经济、社会生活、文化等各个层面所造成的巨大冲击和影响。

我读后印象很深，受到了很大的启发。

本文仅就“新时代和它的承担者”这一章节谈谈自己的看法。

20世纪20年代是美国资本主义相对稳定的时期，在大规模生产的推动下，美国汽车工业、建筑业、收音机与家具制造业、化学工业、石油工业、公用事业等飞跃发展，生产社会化程度、劳动生产率和国民生产总值急剧提高，美国进入了所谓的永久繁荣时代，即新时代，殊不知这种“虚假繁荣式”的泡沫经济已经孕育了引发经济大危机的诸多因子。

生产社会化与生产资料资本主义私人占有之间的矛盾是资本主义社会的基本矛盾，而这一时期美国社会的基本矛盾又有了新的发展，它已经达到了当时垄断资本主义生产关系所能允许的限度。

垄断资产阶级为高额利润所驱，进行大规模生产，而大规模生产是以大规模消费为前提的，且这种合伙式的联营常常将许多产品的价格稳定在高水平上，大量工农群众由于工资实在太低难以提供经济发展所需要的购买力而导致产品大量堆积在库房，这无疑进一步加剧了生产与消费之间的矛盾。

为售卖产品，商业资本家大力进行广告宣传，尤其是以分期付款的消费方式引诱消费者，这对提倡节约消费和避免负债的传统价值观发生激烈碰撞，促进了美国民众“花明天的钱，圆今天的梦”的新式的消费价值观的形成，一时美国赊购之风盛行，以致广告宣传和赊购成为20年代美国社会生活的主要特征。

商家新产品的不断出现，总是使消费者对当前处于不满的状态，刺激了消费者的购买欲望。

一位银行家在与查尔斯·凯特的谈话中提到消费者的烦恼就是一直不停地更换新汽车和抛弃旧汽车，尽管旧汽车的性能依然良好，其宁愿负债也要追随社会变化以改善自己的生活质量。

而这位银行家终究经不起新汽车的诱惑而买了一辆以改变观念。

卷首语随着具有158年历史的雷曼兄弟递交破产申请，美国次贷危机引发的金融危机达到了新一轮的高潮。

格林斯潘认为美国将遭遇百年不遇的金融危机。

全球最大债券基金经理格罗斯则说，雷曼的破产将引发金融海啸。

这场风暴会发展到何种程度，对美国中国、世界的经济发展的影响如何？时隔几月。

演变为全球金融危机的“癌细胞”继续扩散至中国实体经济，严重依赖外贸的中小企业雪上加霜。

如今让我们“追根溯源”通过20篇文章来重“看”美国金融危机。

从20篇文章看美金融危机上部：金融危机的起源与发展1. 困境中的资本主义过去的一个半世纪里，资本主义制度向数十亿人证明了它的价值所在。

资本主义盛行之处皆繁荣昌盛；衰落之处无不落后萧条。

资本主义制度总是导致各种危机，这也将一直持续下去。

尽管最近的这次危机极具破坏性，但是世界应该利用这次危机学会如何更好地驾驭和控制它。

全文查看>>2. 探究美国金融危机的真相华尔街的金融帝国为何如此脆弱？―次贷‖是怎样一回事？这场席卷全球的经济危机将如何收场？《资本战争：金钱游戏与投机泡沫的历史》告诉我们，金融史本来就是一个个泡沫破灭的历史。

全文查看>>3. 投行精品店涌现：金融危机前兆？伴随着国际VC大踏步进入中国的脚步声，从2003年开始，汉能投资、华兴资本、绿桥资本等一批瞄准中国创业投资市场的投行相继诞生中国投行金字塔当中正在生长出类似Greenhill这样的精品店，但是两者存在的理由却是如此的不同。

全文查看>>4.美国金融海啸的真正元凶（1）在一片金融混乱和极度迷茫当中，美国人开始迁怒于华尔街，说华尔街是目前―百年一遇‖金融海啸的元凶。

这种判断似乎太简单了。

深入分析，本次金融危机，可能跟2001年互联网破灭、房地产泡沫、金融产品创新都有很大关系。

全文查看>>5. 贪婪的代价：华尔街危机释因从2000年到2006年，美国房地产的价格升高了80%。

在房地产狂欢中，当房地产市场不断上涨的音乐停止时，狂欢结束。

《美国经济评论》20篇百年经典经济论文导读2014-09-13经济学茶座由美国经济学联合会主办的《美国经济评论》创刊于1911年，是在美国影响最大，也是世界知名遐迩的经济学期刊之一。

为纪念创刊100周年，期刊特邀了阿罗（K.J.Arrow）、伯恩黑姆（D.Bernheim）、费尔德斯坦（M.S.Feldstein）、麦克法登（D.L.McFadden）、波特巴（J.M.Poterba）与索洛（R.M.Solow）等六位著名经济学家，成立了“20篇最佳论文”评选委员会，在该刊100年来刊登的数千篇文章中，甄选出对经济学发展与实践产生深远、重大影响，且富有创造性的20篇最佳论文。

2011年第1期《美国经济评论》出版了百年纪念特刊，开辟了百年论坛专栏，并公布了中选结果。

膺选论文都名重一时，代表了每一时期经济学的最高学术水平,同时整体再现了百年来在经济学领域艰辛跋涉、不断探索的历史发展轨迹，反映了美国主流经济学的基本走向。

为了提选最具开创意义和积厚流广的论文，评委会首先使用了JSTOR （JournalStorage）系统的论文引用和查询数量作为参考指标进行初选。

其后，为避免因论文引用与查询数量指标的内在缺陷可能导致早期刊发的经济学家的文章被漏选或误选，评委会对若干著名经济学家的相关文章也给予了重点关注。

最后，评委会每个人以自己对于质量和重要性的判断为标准，从已选论文中再作遴选，授予20篇论文为百年最佳论文。

其中，12篇论文为诺贝尔经济学奖得主独著或合著的经典论文。

现给出这20篇膺选最佳论文的导读，以飨读者，让读者感受这些经济学经典文献所蕴含的内在价值。

论文导读按文章发表先后顺序排列：《生产理论》（1982）C.W.柯布与P.H.道格拉斯著本文研究了1899-1922年间美国制造业的资本、劳动与产出的关系，分析了这一时期劳动与资本两类要素对产出的影响，首次提出并使用了此后以其名字命名的不变弹性柯布－道格拉斯（Cobb－Douglas）生产函数，其一般形式为：P＝ALαKβ,式中，P、L、K分别为产量、劳动、资本，A、α、β为三个参数。

美国经济英语作文【篇一：英语小短文经济篇】英语小短文1经济篇背景导读美国商务部2009 年4 月29 日表示，美国第一季度gdp 季度调整后年降6.1%，经济学家预期值为下降4.6%。

美国第一季度经济下滑几乎没有改善，企业削减开支和库存，表明衰退并未如预期那样放缓。

indications that unemployment continues to rise is grim news for leaders heading to the g-20 summit（20 国集团峰会）in the united states next week. the paris-based organization for economic cooperation and development（经济合作与发展组织）reports unemployment reached its highest level among industrialized nations of 8.5 percent in july. oecd unemployment division chief stephan scarpetta says the number of jobless among the oecd’s 30 member countries is expected to climb even higher next year, to nearly 10 percent. that translates into 57 million people out of work. the united states, spain and ireland are among those countries with the fastest rising unemployment. allthree were affected by the collapse of high housing prices. the damage spread to other sectors of the economy. scarpettasays young people are among the hardest hit. in spain, for example, more than one in three young workers are unemployed.背景导读经济合作与发展组织2009 年9 月份报告说，工业化国家的失业率仍在增加，而且有可能在明年达到近10%的历史最高水平，尽管不断有报道说，很多工业化国家正在走出几十年来最严重的经济危机。

American Economic Review 101 (February 2011): 1–8/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.1100 Y ears of the American Economic Review:The T op 20 ArticlesBy Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein,Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow* The Top 20 Committee, consisting of Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert M. Solow, was appointed by Robert Moffitt with the task of selecting the “Top 20” articles pub-lished in the American Economic Review during its first hundred years. We decided against trying to define formally the criteria for inclusion: they surely comprise sheer intellectual quality, influence on the ideas and practices of economists, and general significance or breadth; but it would be fruitless to try to specify the marginal rates of substitution among these and other qualities. We were looking for 20 admirable and important articles.As a starting point we used citation counts and numbers of searches in JSTOR.This is obviously important and relevant information, but not decisive on its own.Citation counts are biased in favor of subfields of economics with the largest popu-lations. There is also a bias in favor of moderately recent articles, if only because the number of potential readers and writers has been increasing in time; very recent articles suffer from the fact that citations build up over time. In any case we were expected to use our judgment about quality and significance. So we used the citation and JSTOR data only to give us a large group of eligibles. We worried especially about overlooking articles in the very early days of the AER, some by great names in the history of economics. But we found, just to take one striking example, that although Irving Fisher published several articles in the journal, they were all minor or ephemeral pieces.In the event, our early ballots showed an encouraging unanimity or near-unanim-ity, especially about the leading candidates. We very quickly converged on the Top15 articles. There were occasional differences of opinion, only to be expected from agroup with diverse interests, as we filled in the remaining three to five places. Here is our final list, arranged alphabetically, along with a brief reminder about each. There are few, if any, surprises.* Arrow: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Stanford, CA 94305; Bernheim: Stanford University Department of Economics, Economics Building, 247 Stanford, California 94305; Feldstein: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138; McFadden: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Economics, 508-1 Evans Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720; Poterba: MIT Department of Economics, 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52, Room 350, Cambridge MA 02142; Solow: MIT Department of Economics, 50 Memorial Drive, Building E52, Cambridge MA 02142. We thank Jeffrey Hovis and Andrew McLetchie of JSTOR for their assistance. The 20 articles featured in this paper are available in the online version at /articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.1.1that approach creates the appropriate incentives for management. Many implica-tions of this hypothesis are developed.Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.” American Economic Review, 53(5): 941–73.This paper provided a framework for thinking about the economics of the market for medical care using the language and tools of modern microeconomics. It argued that the aforementioned market is beset by market failures because consumers are exposed to risks that are not fully insurable (in large part due to problems of moral hazard), and because they lack the information and expertise required to assess risks and treatments. It hypothesized that various salient features of the institutions governing the provision of medical care are best understood as social adaptations aimed at redressing the resulting inefficiencies. It also noted that in some cases those institutional adaptations undermine competition and perversely contribute to ineffi-ciency. Though written well prior to the emergence of the formal literature on asym-metric information, the paper anticipated many of the central issues that continue to occupy health economists today.Cobb, Charles W., and Paul H. Douglas. 1928. “A Theory of Production.” American Economic Review, 18(1): 139–65.The cliché surely applies here: this paper needs no introduction. The convenience and success of the constant-elasticity Cobb-Douglas function has spread its use from representing production possibilities, which was of course its original use, to representing utility functions and to much else throughout empirical and theoretical economics. Cobb and Douglas explored the elementary properties and implications of the functional form, and pointed to the approximate constancy of the relative shares of labor and capital in total income as the validating empirical fact.Deaton, Angus S., and John Muellbauer. 1980. “An Almost Ideal Demand System.” American Economic Review, 70(3): 312–26.A vast industry in applied econometrics analyzes the demand for specific prod-ucts, and the impact on consumers of public and private policies that alter market equilibrium. This paper, building on the traditions of Cobb-Douglas, Stone, and Gorman, introduces a practical system of demand equations that are consistent with preference maximization and have sufficient flexibility to support full welfare analy-sis of policies that have an impact on consumers. The Deaton-Muellbauer system is now the standard for empirical analysis of consumer demand.3 VOl. 101 NO. 1ARROW ET Al.:THE TOP 20 ARTIClES OF THE AERDiamond, Peter A.1965. “National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model.” American Economic Review, 55(5): 1126–50.Building on Paul Samuelson’s seminal work concerning consumption loans between individuals of different generations, this paper pioneered the analysis of overlapping generations (OLG) models with durable capital goods. It illumi-nated the properties of such models through two fundamental contributions. First, it demonstrated that the competitive equilibria of infinite horizon OLG models can be inefficient, even in the absence of conventional market failures. Second, it identified the mechanisms through which both external and internal debt can potentially reduce the capital stock. In clarifying the general equilibrium effects of displacing physical capital with government debt in individuals’ portfolios, it resolved a long-standing debate concerning the feasibility of using internal debt to shift the burden of paying for public expenditures to future generations.Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Production Efficiency.” American Economic Review, 61(1): 8–27. Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules.” American Economic Review, 61(3): 261–78.This paper, in two parts, is the foundation of the theory of optimal taxation and public production in the presence of second-best limitations on redistribution and private production. Diamond and Mirrlees show how the tax system can be tuned to minimize distortions and disincentives, and eliminate production inef-ficiencies. By subjecting tax systems to rigorous microeconomic analysis, this paper opened research on tax mechanism design and minimization of the burden of taxes.Dixit, Avinash K., and Joseph E. Stiglitz.1977. “Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity.” American Economic Review, 67(3): 297–308. Under monopolistic competition with differentiated goods and increasing returns to scale in each good, is there too much or too little product differentiation? This paper uses classical tools of microeconomics to answer this question, and in doing so, provides the foundation for an entire literature in which products are endogenous in number and attributes, and general equilibrium welfare analysis can be used to examine the consequences of tastes for variety.Friedman, Milton.1968. “The Role of Monetary Policy.” American Economic Review, 58(1): 1–17.This presidential address is the origin of the “vertical long-run Phillips curve,” along with a contemporary paper by Edmund S. Phelps. It introduced the idea of a “natural” rate of unemployment as the only rate compatible with the sustained coin-cidence of actual and expected rates of inflation. This is the basis of the conclusion that the Phillips curve is vertical in the long run, allowing only a temporary trade-off between unemployment and inflation. From this followed possible implications for4THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW FEBRuARy 2011 the conduct of macro-policy, especially monetary policy. An enormous amount of research and discussion followed.Grossman, Sanford J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz.1980. “On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets.” American Economic Review, 70(3): 393–408. As pointed out by a number of scholars, in a world of dispersed information, the equilibrium price will itself in general be a source of information to participants, since it incorporates whatever information other participants have. Grossman and Stiglitz examine the implication for the case where information can be acquired at a cost. If there is an equilibrium, some will choose to get informed and others not; the two courses of action must be indifferent. (Very special assumptions are made about the risk aversion characteristics of the population and about its heterogeneity.) In particular, if some individuals can acquire perfect information at a finite cost, then no equilibrium exists, since, if information is acquired by some, it will be reflected in the price and so can be acquired costlessly by others, while if no one acquires information, it will pay any individual to acquire it.Harris, John R., and Michael P. Todaro.1970. “Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis.” American Economic Review, 60(1): 126–42. This widely cited paper starts with the puzzle that in poor developing countries one observes individuals migrating from agricultural areas to urban areas, even though they would have positive marginal product in agriculture but face a substan-tial probability of unemployment in the urban area. The first step in the explanation is to note that there are politically determined minimum wages in the urban areas that prevent wages from adjusting to achieve full employment for all those who come to the urban areas. The equilibrium distribution of potential workers between the rural and urban areas equates the marginal product of labor in agriculture to the expected wage in the urban area, i.e., the product of the wage and the probability of employment.Hayek, F. A. 1945.“The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review, 35(4): 519–30.The author addresses the fundamental question of the nature of the economic system and, in particular, its role in dealing with resource allocation when a fun-damental knowledge base is distributed in small bits among a large population. The knowledge needed includes consumer valuations, production relations, and resource availabilities. In particular, general scientific principles, where expert opinion might be best, are only a small part of the knowledge base. The author argues for the importance of a price system in achieving coordination and effi-ciency in resource use without implying an impossible aggregation of information in a central place.Jorgenson, Dale W. 1963. “Capital Theory and Investment Behavior.” American Economic Review, 53(2): 247–59.5 VOl. 101 NO. 1ARROW ET Al.:THE TOP 20 ARTIClES OF THE AERThis paper provided a theoretical framework for investment behavior based on a neoclassical theory of optimal capital accumulation. The paper introduced the user cost of capital as the key variable that combines the cost of finance (interest rates and equity yields) and tax rules (tax rates, depreciation schedules) and combined this user cost measure with the Cobb-Douglas production technology to obtain a desired stock of capital. Jorgenson then used the resulting implied optimal capi-tal stock to derive an econometric equation for investment. Generalizations of the Jorgenson framework (e.g., to allow for more general production functions) made this the standard approach to the empirical study of the determinants of investment. The user cost of capital also became the key concept for the theoretical study of the effects of alternative tax rules.Krueger, Anne O. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society.” American Economic Review, 64(3): 291–303.Many government policies, such as import licenses in developing nations, create rents for some market participants. While the presence of such rents and the distortions that they create have long been noted, this paper recognized the importance of “rent-seeking behavior” and explored its welfare implications. The paper’s central finding is that competitive rent-seeking increases the welfare costs of policies such as trade restrictions. In the context of import restrictions, this result strengthens the case for the use of tariffs rather than import quotas, since quotas create the possibility of rent-seeking behavior. By identifying the impor-tance of rent-seeking activities and providing a framework for analyzing their welfare costs, this paper expanded the economic analysis of the government’s choice of policy instrument to achieve particular goals. It also helped to launch a voluminous literature on the role of corruption and governance in the process of economic development.Krugman, Paul. 1980. “Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade.” American Economic Review, 70(5): 950–59.The classical theory that foreign trade is determined by comparative advantage fails to explain some important observations, for example, that there is consider-able trade in both directions within what is usually regarded as a single indus-try, and that countries tend to export goods for which the domestic demand is higher. Krugman investigates the determination of foreign trade under increasing returns; he assumes no difference in production conditions between countries. Prices are determined by imperfect competition with costless product differentia-tion. Using simple models, he formalizes foreign trade. When transport costs are introduced, he shows that each country will specialize, so no two will produce the same goods. The larger country will have terms of trade turned in its favor, and wages will be higher there. Some extensions of the model allow varieties within a single industry. It can then be shown that intra-industry trade can emerge and that countries will tend to export those commodities for which the domestic demand is highest.6THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW FEBRuARy 2011 Kuznets, Simon.1955. “Economic Growth and Income Inequality.” American Economic Review, 45(1): 1–28.Data from developing economies indicate that the earlier phases of economic development tend to be characterized by increasing income inequality, as those engaged in the small but growing modern sector of the economy pull away from those still left in agriculture and other subsistence activities. The degree of inequal-ity reaches a peak, however, and then diminishes with further development, as the modern sector comes to dominate the economy and perhaps more so if it creates room for redistributive activity. The resulting “Kuznets curve” has been the subject of much empirical research and discussion within development economics.Lucas, Robert E., Jr.1973. “Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs.” American Economic Review, 63(3): 326–34.This article introduces a tight but stylized model in which market participants must make decisions without knowing whether local changes in price signal changes in relative price or merely reflect changes in the general price level; they do, however, know the statistical properties of both processes. From this basis emerges a natural-rate model in which the ratio of real-output change to price-level change in response to exogenous shifts in aggregate expenditure depends on the relative variance of those processes. Time-series cross-section data for a number of countries provide some weak evidence consistent with the basic conclusion. The underlying assump-tion has gone out of favor, but the modeling technique has been very influential.Modigliani, Franco, and Merton H. Miller. 1958. “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment.” American Economic Review, 48(3): 261–97.A central question in corporate finance is how a firm’s financial choices, such as its use of debt rather than equity financing, affect its cost of capital and conse-quently its investment behavior. This paper developed a new framework for address-ing this question by asking how different debt-equity choices would affect the total market value of all of the cash flows that the firm provided to its investors, both bond-holders and stock-holders. The paper’s central result is that, in a setting with complete capital markets and in the absence of tax-induced distortions, a firm’s total market value is invariant to its borrowing behavior. This powerful result can be demonstrated constructively, by developing a straightforward set of borrowing or lending transactions that an equity investor can undertake to offset the consequences of changes in corporate borrowing. The analytical approach in this paper is one of the key foundations for the modern field of financial economics.Mundell, Robert A.1961. “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas.” American Economic Review, 51(4): 657–65.This paper explains that selecting the optimal geographic area for a single cur-rency involves balancing two considerations. Macroeconomic stability is enhanced if the currency area has a high degree of internal factor mobility relative to the cross-border factor mobility. Taken by itself, this could lead to an excessively large7 VOl. 101 NO. 1ARROW ET Al.:THE TOP 20 ARTIClES OF THE AERnumber of currency areas, in the sense that there would be substantial transaction costs and valuation costs involved in making cross-area purchases. The optimal size of a currency area involves balancing these two considerations. Mundell discussed the potential application of this to the European countries some 30 years before the euro was introduced.Ross, Stephen A.1973. “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem.” American Economic Review, 63(2): 134–39.This paper was the first to describe and analyze the canonical principal-agent problem with moral hazard, which has since become a cornerstone of microeco-nomic theory. It solved for the optimal compensation scheme using the first-order approach, and compared the solution to the first-best arrangement, noting that the two generally diverge due to the principal’s need to motivate the agent. It charac-terized the class of utility functions for which the principal’s solution is first-best optimal regardless of the payoff structure, as well as the class of payoff structures for which the solution is first-best optimal regardless of the utility functions. In only a handful of terse pages, it anticipated many of the central issues with which the subsequent literature was concerned.Shiller, Robert J.1981. “Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” American Economic Review, 71(3): 421–36. Standard models of asset market equilibrium imply that the value of a share of corporate stock equals the present discounted value of that stock’s expected future payouts. This paper applied an ingenious test of this present value relationship, which compared the variance of annual stock price movements with the variance in corporate dividend payouts, to the US equity market for the period 1870–1979. The results suggested that historical stock price volatility was much greater than the volatility of dividend payouts would appear to warrant. This empirical finding stimulated a wide range of follow-on research exploring various aspects of the effi-cient markets hypothesis, testing for time-varying discount rates in capital markets, and investigating the econometric properties of stock market returns and corporate payouts.REFERENCESAlchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. 1972. “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Orga-nization.” American Economic Review, 62(5): 777–95.Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.” American Eco-nomic Review, 53(5): 941–73.Cobb, Charles W., and Paul H. Douglas. 1928. “A Theory of Production.” American Economic Review, 18(1): 139–65.Deaton, Angus S., and John Muellbauer. 1980. “An Almost Ideal Demand System.” American Eco-nomic Review, 70(3): 312–26.Diamond, Peter A. 1965. “National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model.” American Economic Review, 55(5): 1126–50.Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: Produc-tion Efficiency.” American Economic Review, 61(1): 8–27.8THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW FEBRuARy 2011 Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules.” American Economic Review, 61(3): 261–78.Dixit, Avinash K., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1977. “Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity.” American Economic Review, 67(3): 297–308.Friedman, Milton. 1968. “The Role of Monetary Policy.” American Economic Review, 58(1): 1–17. Grossman, Sanford J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1980. “On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets.” American Economic Review, 70(3): 393–408.Harris, John R., and Michael P. Todaro. 1970. “Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis.” American Economic Review, 60(1): 126–42.Hayek, F. A. 1945. “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review, 35(4): 519–30. Jorgenson, Dale W. 1963. “Capital Theory and Investment Behavior.” American Economic Review, 53(2): 247–59.Krueger, Anne O. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society.” American Economic Review, 64(3): 291–303.Krugman, Paul. 1980. “Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade.” American Economic Review, 70(5): 950–59.Kuznets, Simon. 1955. “Economic Growth and Income Inequality.” American Economic Review, 45(1): 1–28.Lucas, Robert E., Jr. 1973. “Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs.” American Economic Review, 63(3): 326–34.Modigliani, Franco, and Merton H. Miller. 1958. “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment.” American Economic Review, 48(3): 261–97.Mundell, Robert A. 1961. “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas.” American Economic Review, 51(4): 657–65.Ross, Stephen A. 1973. “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem.” American Eco-nomic Review, 63(2): 134–39.Shiller, Robert J. 1981. “Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?” American Economic Review, 71(3): 421–36.This article has been cited by:1.David N. Laband, Suman Majumdar. 2012. Who Are the Giants on Whose Shoulders We Stand?.Kyklos65:2, 236-244. [CrossRef]2.JERRY EVENSKY. 2011. HES PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: WHAT’S WRONG WITHECONOMICS?. Journal of the History of Economic Thought34:01, 1-20. [CrossRef]。

Alchian, Armen A., and Harold Demsetz. 1972. “Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization.”American Economic Review, 62(5): 777–95.Arrow, Kenneth J. 1963. “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care.”American EconomicReview, 53(5): 941–73.Cobb, Charles W., and Paul H. Douglas. 1928. “A Theory of Production.” American Economic Review,18(1): 139–65.Deaton, Angus S., and John Muellbauer. 1980. “An Almost Ideal Demand System.”American EconomicReview, 70(3): 312–26.Diamond, Peter A. 1965. “National Debt in a Neoclassical Growth Model.”American EconomicReview, 55(5): 1126–50.Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production I: ProductionEfficiency.”American Economic Review, 61(1): 8–27.8 THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW febr uar y 2011Diamond, Peter A., and James A. Mirrlees. 1971. “Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: TaxRules.”American Economic Review, 61(3): 261–78.Dixit, Avinash K., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1977. “Monopolistic Co mpetition and Optimum ProductDiversity.”American Economic Review, 67(3): 297–308.Friedman, Milton. 1968. “The Role of Monetary Policy.”American Economic Review, 58(1): 1–17.Grossman, Sanford J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 1980. “On the Impossibility of Informationally EfficientMarkets.”American Economic Review, 70(3): 393–408.Harris, John R., and Michael P. Todaro. 1970. “Migration, Unemployment and Development: A Two-Sector Analysis.”American Economic Review, 60(1): 126–42.Hayek, F. A. 1945. “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”American Economic Review, 35(4): 519–30.Jorgenson, Dale W. 1963. “Capital Theory and Investment Behavior.”American Economic Review,53(2): 247–59.Krueger, Anne O. 1974. “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society.”American EconomicReview, 64(3): 291–303.Krugman, Paul. 1980. “Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade.”AmericanEconomic Review, 70(5): 950–59.Kuznets, Simon. 1955. “Economic Growth and Income Inequality.”American Economic Review,45(1): 1–28.Lucas, Robert E., Jr. 1973. “Some International Evidence on Output-Inflation Tradeoffs.”AmericanEconomic Review, 63(3): 326–34.Modigliani, Franco, and Merton H. Miller. 1958. “The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and theTheory of Investment.”American Economic Review, 48(3): 261–97.Mundell, Robert A. 1961. “A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas.”American Economic Review,51(4): 657–65.Ross, Stephen A. 1973. “The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal’s Problem.”American EconomicReview, 63(2): 134–39.Shiller, Robert J. 1981. “Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to Be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?”American Economic Review, 71(3): 421–36.向这些为经济学的发展做出巨大贡献的经济学家致敬！。

美国的发展历程西奥多罗斯福以洛克菲勒石油大亨为首的各个行业的垄断财团,富可敌国,全国60%的财富掌握在2%的富人手中,两极分化严重;无序的垄断自由竞争显现各种欺诈,罪恶,就像脱缰的野马的肆意奔跑着,人们丧失了平等的就业机会,还要每天工作12----16个小时,一天工资2美元,雇佣童工,工作环境极其恶劣,矿难火灾经常发生,劳动人民的生命受到极大威胁,城市的繁荣就是用空气中灰尘的浓度去衡量的,<雾都孤儿>就充分的表现了这一点。

这就是西奥多罗斯福就任时的经济发展模式和状态,这时各种社会运动风起云涌,被称为美国的进步运动,以塔贝尔为首的很多”扒粪者”,新闻上专门揭丑,把各大托拉斯的丑恶,揭露出来,人们了解了真想,迫于公众的巨大压力,西奥多罗斯福颁布了<谢尔曼反托拉斯法>等一系列措施,经济才取得了飞速的发展。

以及一战对经济的拉动。

各种科技发明的涌现,例如莱特兄弟的飞机,福特汽车等等。

经济大萧条胡佛自由竞争的支持者当选总统空前的繁荣演变成空前的危机,,这辆极速奔跑的战车戛然而止。

1929年10月24日,纽约证券交易所,人们疯狂抛售股票,导致一天之内股市崩盘,市场失灵,就如刹车失灵一般,14万个企业倒闭 ,800个银行破产,1700万人失业,300亿市值瞬间蒸发殆尽,人们多年积攒的财富,瞬间化为乌有。

有人从刚刚建好的华盛顿大桥跳下去了。

人们失去了投资的信心。

这样的浩劫在美国历史上是绝无仅有的。

绝望和恐惧这样的阴霾密布了美国的上空,之后漫延到了整个西方世界。

虽然胡佛颁布了一系列刺激经济的政策,但都是通过削减政府开支,调整预算,经济形势完全没有好转,这也导致了他的连任失败。

富兰克林罗斯福赢得战争的总统,因为二战结束前五个月他才去世,并且是唯一连任了四届的总统,拥有极高的威望,可以说是他挽救了市场经济,通过”炉边谈话”重塑了人们的信心,最著名的一句话:the only thing we have to fear is fear itself。

美国百年经济奇迹（三）——农业革命奠定美国20世纪2009-09-24(湖北日报) 农业往往是现代化的拖累产业。

但美国却相反，农业是现代工业的孕育、生长之母，奠定了美国20世纪的文明。

美国农业的特例具有重要的历史参考价值。

美国农业机械化比世界所有国家超前半个世纪以上美国农业的生产效率在1840年～1900年始终高居于世界第一的水平，并且与占第二位的英国农业生产效率的绝对水平拉开了距离。

在1840年～1900年，美国农业生产效率提高了 44.19%，而英国则只提高了28.57%。

1840年～1900年，美国小麦生产效率提高了133.3%，玉米生产效率提高了87.76%，棉花生产效率提高了56.79%。

而在1856年～1914年，包括工业在内的整个美国经济的生产率（每小时劳动的产量）总共只增长了大约20%。

美国农业生产效率的进步速度不仅明显高于当时美国经济的平均水平，也明显高于世界上任何一个国家的农业生产效率水平，包括已经实现了工业化的英国。

如果从技术进步史看，在19世纪50年代，美国的农业机器是世界上最先进的。

在1855年，巴黎国际博览会的比赛中，美国的收割机获得第1名，它割1英亩燕麦只有22分钟，而英国的同类机器要多花两倍的时间。

从技术效率看，当时美国的一台打谷机就有替代120个劳动力的工作能力。

美国农业的机械化要比世界上所有国家超前半个世纪以上。

1860年以后的半个世纪内，美国即完成了农业机械化过程。

其中尤其以装倒刺铁丝网、自动双线收割扎束机、联合收割机、利用硝酸盐作肥料、挤奶器和汽油拖拉机等最为著名。

农业优势渗透到美国整个经济体系，孕育现代工业在整个19世纪中后期，美国农业作为主导产业引发和带动了一系列制造部门的产生与发展。

这一时期，许多主要制成品依存于农业成为美国经济的一个重要特色。

在1880年的美国制造业总产出中，由农业发展（前向关联效应）所产生的制造业部门所占比重高达56.8%（其中食品工业占26%，纺织及皮革、制鞋工业占30.6%），如果加上林木产品加工业（19.3%），则高达75.1%。

经济资料译丛2011年第3期《美国经济评论》创刊100年来的20篇最佳文章 Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein,Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba, Robert M. Solow①著，吴春雷、马林梅 译原载：American Economic Review 101 (February 2011): 1–8/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.1由Kenneth J. Arrow, B. Douglas Bernheim, Martin S. Feldstein, Daniel L. McFadden, James M. Poterba 和 Robert M. Solow组成的20佳文章评选委员会，受Robert Moffitt的委命，负责评选《美国经济评论》创刊100年以来所刊发的最优秀的20篇文章。

这些文章必定思想深刻、对经济学家的思想和实践产生了影响、具有普遍意义、得到应用广泛。

尽管我们并不打算将以上这些作为正式的评选标准，但是，我们无法找到更好的评判标准。

我们正在寻找的是20篇令人敬佩的、重要的文章。

一开始，我们考察了文章的引用次数和在JSTOR（过刊数据库）里的搜索量。

这样做无疑是重要的，从中可以得到相关的信息，但是这本身并不具有决定性。

越多人青睐的经济学分支，该领域的文章被引用的次数就会越多，这是一个偏向。

还有一个偏向是，发表时间适度靠近的文章被引用的次数较多，因为随着时间的推移，潜在读者和作者的数量不断增加，而非常新的文章由于发表时间较短，引用次数就会较少。

无论如何，我们都要对文章的质量和意义做出自己的判断。

因此，我们仅仅依靠引用次数和JSTOR数据库给出一组符合条件的备选文章。

我们特别担心的一点是：这样做会忽略了《美国经济评论》曾经发表过的、非常老的文章，其中的一些文章是经济学历史上的一些大师写的。