University of California at Berkeley graduation speech
托馬斯·薩金特加州大學(xué)伯克利分校畢業(yè)演講

I remember how happy I felt when I graduated from Berkeley many years ago. But I thought the graduation speeches were long. I will economize on words.
我現(xiàn)在依然記得許多年前我從伯克利畢業(yè)時(shí)自己開心的樣子。不過我覺得畢業(yè)演講都太過冗長(zhǎng)，這次我會(huì)言簡(jiǎn)意賅。

Economics is organized common sense. Here is a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches.
經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)是常識(shí)的集合體。下面是這門美麗的學(xué)科教會(huì)我們的一些珍貴課程：

1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.
許多事情可遇而不可求。

2. Individuals and communities face trade-offs.
個(gè)人和集體會(huì)面臨權(quán)衡取舍。

3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts, and their preferences than you do.
別人對(duì)自己的能力、努力和喜好比你了解的要多。

4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don’t always end up working as intended.
每個(gè)人都會(huì)對(duì)激勵(lì)做出反應(yīng)（小編注：people respond to incentives 曼昆十大經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)原理之四），包括你想幫助的人。這也是為什么社會(huì)保障體系最后沒能發(fā)揮預(yù)期的作用。

5. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.
平等和效率之間也面臨權(quán)衡取舍。

6. In an equilibrium of a game or an economy, people are satisfied with their choices. That is why it is difficult for well meaning outsiders to change things for better or worse.
在游戲或者經(jīng)濟(jì)的均衡狀態(tài)中，人們會(huì)滿意于自己的選擇，所以好心的局外人不管怎樣都很難改變事態(tài)的發(fā)展。

7. In the future, you too will respond to incentives. That is why there are some promises that you’d like to make but can’t. No one will believe those promises because they know that later it will not be in your interest to deliver. The lesson here is this: before you make a promise, think about whether you will want to keep it if and when your circumstances change. This is how you earn a reputation.
在未來你也會(huì)對(duì)激勵(lì)做出反應(yīng)，這也是為什么有些承諾你想遵守可是卻沒辦法做到。沒人會(huì)相信你的那些承諾，因?yàn)槿藗兌剂私?，以后履行這些承諾不會(huì)符合你的利益。我們要學(xué)會(huì)的是：在承諾別人之前，想想如果自己情況有所轉(zhuǎn)變，還會(huì)不會(huì)堅(jiān)持承諾？這是你為自己贏得好名聲的辦法。

8. Governments and voters respond to incentives too. That is why governments sometimes default on loans and other promises that they have made.
政府和選舉人也會(huì)對(duì)激勵(lì)做出反應(yīng)，所以政府有時(shí)候會(huì)拖欠債務(wù)或拖延履行承諾。

9. It is feasible for one generation to shift costs to subsequent ones. That is what national government debts and the U.S. social security system do (but not the social security system of Singapore).
一代人把開支費(fèi)用轉(zhuǎn)嫁給下一代人，這個(gè)辦法是可行的，政府債務(wù)和美國(guó)社會(huì)保障體系就是這么做的。（也有例外：新加坡的社會(huì)保障體系就非如此。）

10. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation.
政府花錢人民買單，現(xiàn)在和將來都是這樣，直接征稅的方式也好，通貨膨脹這樣的隱形方式也好，這是不變的慣例。

11. Most people want other people to pay for public goods and government transfers (especially transfers to themselves).
大部分人都想讓別人為公共事務(wù)或者政府轉(zhuǎn)移性支出買單（特別當(dāng)這些轉(zhuǎn)移性支出的對(duì)象是他們自己時(shí)）。

12. Because market prices aggregate traders’ information, it is difficult to forecast stock prices and interest rates and exchange rates.
因?yàn)槭袌?chǎng)價(jià)格集合了所有交易者的信息，所以很難預(yù)測(cè)股價(jià)、利率和匯率等。

托馬斯·薩金特：美國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家，擅長(zhǎng)于總體經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)、貨幣經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)、時(shí)間序列等領(lǐng)域。1943年生于美國(guó)加利福尼亞州帕薩迪納?，F(xiàn)為斯坦福大學(xué)胡佛研究所資深研究員。薩金特于1964年獲伯克利加州大學(xué)文學(xué)學(xué)位。1968年獲哈佛大學(xué)哲學(xué)博士學(xué)位。曾執(zhí)教于明尼蘇達(dá)大學(xué)、芝加哥大學(xué)和哈佛大學(xué)，2003年任教于紐約大學(xué)至今。薩金特是理性預(yù)期學(xué)派的領(lǐng)袖人物，為新古典宏觀經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)體系的建立和發(fā)展作出了杰出貢獻(xiàn)，對(duì)宏觀經(jīng)濟(jì)模型中預(yù)期的作用、動(dòng)態(tài)經(jīng)濟(jì)理論與時(shí)間序列分析的關(guān)系等方面作出了開創(chuàng)性的工作。

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