2016考研英语最新时文精读精析：股市泡沫

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本文来自2015年7月18日的《经济学人》，本季度的中国股市经历了大起大落，作为全球经济的重要分子，中国股市的震荡自然会对全球经济产生重大影响。老师提醒大家，这也是我们复习考研英语需要重点了解的话题，有了对背景知识的了解，之后再读类似题材的文章就会顺利很多。

对此次股市暴跌，政府采取了财政措施试图控制其杀伤力(the government tried frantically to limit the damage)。但我们并不是第一个由于担心崩盘可能对经济造成伤害而试图去提振股价的国家。格林斯潘在担任美联储主席期间，就曾经通过给予投资者他会降息来阻止股市溃败的印象这种方式，创造出了著名的“格林斯潘对策”。China was hardly the first country to try to bolster stock prices for fear of the economic harm a crash could bring. Alan Greenspan, as chairman of the Federal Reserve, famously created the “Greenspan put” by giving investors the impression he would cut interest rates to stop stockmarket routs.

殊不知，这些介入背后的原理是一种直到最近都很少受到关注的思想，即股市泡沫对经济有着极大的杀伤力。其实，好像并不是所有的泡沫都一样坏。The underlying rationale for these interventions is an idea that until recently received surprisingly little scrutiny—namely, that stockmarket busts are very damaging for the economy. Not all bubbles, it would appear, are equally bad.

据两份最新论文，区分相对无害的疯狂与灾难性疯狂的关键变量是债务。在许多案例中，股市狂热属于较不令人担忧的一类。According to two new papers, the crucial variable that separates relatively harmless frenzies from disastrous ones is debt. In many cases, stockmarket manias fall into the less worrying category.

在为国民经济调查局撰写的论文中，经济学家梳理了过去140年里的房地产和股票市场的泡沫。他们的结论是，最危险的是由信贷繁荣催生的房地产泡沫，最不令人烦恼的是不依赖于债务的股市泡沫。Writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research, scientists examine bubbles in housing and equity markets over the past 140 years. The most dangerous, they conclude, are housing bubbles fuelled by credit booms. The least troublesome are equity bubbles that do not rely on debt.

那么，股市暴跌Stockmarket routs到底是如何影响经济的呢?股市暴跌一般是通过“财富效应”来伤害经济的。在人们看到自己资产比以前大幅减少时，他们会减少开支，导致需求走软，最终引发投资疲软。债务能够使这种情况变得更坏。Stockmarket routs typically harm the economy via the “wealth effect”. When people see that their assets are worth substantially less than before, they spend less, leading to weaker demand and, ultimately, weaker investment. Debt can make this worse.

这次中国的股市泡沫正是伴随着大量债务而来(accompanied by lots of debt)，并会对经济造成严重的破坏(can cause severe economic damage)，如果任其破裂而不施以任何援手也是一个不好的选项，所以政府的救市还是及时并且是必要的。提醒广大考生，在研究考研英语真题的基础上，也要同步做一些泛读，丰富文化背景知识储备。祝大家考研英语复习顺利，为梦想加油!