【正文】 The trilemma of international finance forces countries to choose among three basic exchange regimes: a floating exchange regime, which allows plete freedom of international transactions and lets the government use moary policy to fight recessions at the cost of erratic fluctuations。 if only Herbert Hoover had followed an expansionary fiscal policy instead of trying to balance the budget, if only policy in general had not been governed by a “l(fā)iquidationist” philosophy that saw shortrun economic pain as a necessary purgative for previous excesses—then the catastrophe could easily have been avoided. And since we know better now, it cannot happen again. Unit Six The Return of Depression Economics — Paul Krugman Or can it? As little as two years ago I and most of my colleagues were quite confident that although the world would continue to suffer economic difficulties, those problems would not bear much resemblance to the crisis of the 1930s—because economists and policymakers had learned the lessons of that decade and would never again perversely tighten moary and fiscal policy in the face of recession. True, Mexico suffered a severe slump in 1995 and Japan’s economy had stagnated since 1991, but these appeared to be special cases, easily rationalized as the result of exceptionally misguided policy. Perhaps we should have known better and realized, for example, that the dilemma Austria faced in 1931 could just as easily arise in the modern world, and that now as then there are no good answers. In any case, there is no mistaking the lesson of the terrifying economic and financial events of the last two years: Unit Six The Return of Depression Economics — Paul Krugman the economic crisis in Asia, its spread to Latin America, the deepening slump in Japan, and the brief but ominous panic that swept bond markets last autumn. The truth is that the world economy poses more dangers than we had imagined. Problems we thought we knew how to cure have once again bee intractable, like temporarily suppressed bacteria that eventually evolve a resistance to antibiotics. More specifically, the problem of aggregate demand—of getting people to spend enough to employ the economy’s productive capacity—is not, as we might have thought, always a problem with an easy solution. While it may often be possible for countries, especially large, stable, selfsufficient economies like the United States, to handle recessions simply by printing more money, we are finding an increasing number of cases in which countries find either that they cannot apply that same medicine or that the medicine is ineffectual. There is, in short, a definite whiff of the 1930s in the air. Unit Six The Return of Depression Economics — Paul Krugman The point is not that all of the current economic difficulties will necessarily get worse. There is a reasonable chance that 1999 will see some economic recovery in Asia, if not the beginning of a real climb back to economic health. Through prompt Federal Reserve action (and luck), the United States managed to avoid a financial panic last fall. Even Japan could do better in 1999 than it did in 1998. But even if all the current crises are weathered, the mere fact that they could happen—and that conventional policy responses have turned out to be either ineffectual or unavailable—is an ominous warning. The problems of the 1990s have distinct similarities with the problems of the 1930s。 (take...to task) The economic turmoil in that country made the central bank and the treasury department take each other to task, which reflected the importance of the collaboration of a country’ s moary and fiscal policies. Unit Six The Return of Depression Economics — Paul Krugman 2. 如今，政府陷入了這樣的兩難境地： 要改善國際收支就要降低匯率，而匯率的降低又會導(dǎo)致國內(nèi)的通貨臌脹。 (in the short/long run) The increase of foreigncurrencydenominated debt is not necessarily the indispensable cost of economic development. Because, although it may promote economic growth in the short run, it will increase the burden of domestic enterprises and lead to imbalanced balance of payments in the long run. Unit Six The Return of Depression Economics — Paul Krugman 5. 主要資本主義國家曾一直將金本位視作經(jīng)濟(jì)實力強大的象征，但在大蕭條時期，他們都被迫徹底放棄了金本位。很難說 90年代亞洲的政策比過去幾十年更糟糕，那么最近為何會出現(xiàn)如此糟糕的情況呢 ? 答案是，世界在目前的危機面前變得如此脆弱并非因為經(jīng)濟(jì)政策沒有得到改進(jìn)，而是因為已經(jīng)得到了改