金融英语阅读:金融世界第十八讲

    世界经济的全球化进程可以说每天都在悄悄地展开，使各国和各地区的经济越来越密切地结合在一起。那么，经济学家们对经济全球化有什么看法？全球化的进程是由什么力量推动的？它对各国经济的发展有什么积极和消极的影响呢？

    在这一讲和下一讲中我们就要对这些问题作一些初步的探讨。

    首先我们来听一段澳广金融节目主持人巴里克拉克关于全球化问题的谈话：

    few days go by without a mention of globalisation in the media. whilst we are all aware that globalisation is affecting our lives, our attitudes to it differ widely.

    for some, globalisation is the way to a better future, offering gains through specialisation according to comparative advantage and an opportunity for developing countries to raise their living standards.

    on the other hand, critics hold globalisation responsible for a variety of social problems: for high unemployment in the industrialised world, for pressure on wage levels and for the present instability in financial markets.

    巴里克拉克在谈话中提到这样一个词组：

    comparative advantage 相对优势 － 这是英国古典经济学家大卫李嘉图提出的国际分工原则中的一个概念，即各国出口生产成本比其它国家低的产品，因为他们在这些产品上拥有相对优势。

    巴里克拉克还使用了这样一些词汇：

    1 living standard 生活水平2 social problems 社会问题3 instability 不稳定，动荡

    下面我们分段听一遍巴里克拉克的这段谈话和中文翻译：（英文略）

    新闻媒介几乎每天都会提到“全球化”。尽管我们都意识到全球化影响了我们的生活，但我们对全球化的看法却相去甚远。

    有些人认为，全球化是通向更加美好未来的途径，通过“相对优势”论达成的专业化生产使各国获利，同时也为发展中国家提供了提高生活水平的机会。

    另一方面，持批评看法的人认为全球化造成了一系列的社会问题，如工业化各国的高失业率、工资水平受到的压力以及目前金融市场的不稳定等等。

    下面我们再完整听一遍巴里克拉克的这段谈话。（略）

    那么到底是什么因素推动了全球化进程的快速发展呢？澳大利亚墨尔本莫纳什大学市场学系主任菲茨罗伊教授认为，通讯和交通费用的降低是主要的因素：

    in 1945, if you had wanted to fly from melbourne to london it would have cost you something like two years average industrial wages. if you want to do that in the late 1990s, it will cost you about three weeks average industrial wage. so there's been an enormous decline in transport cost.

    what that means is that it maybe cheaper to produce a good in, let's say, the united kingdom and ship it to australia, rather than to produce it in australia. so it changes the fundamental economics of the industry.

    another development that facilitates globalisation is the rise of communications. historically again, distance has been a major impediment to the co-ordination and management of organisations. with the tremendous developments in both computing and communications, cost has really declined substantially. again, quoting some data, in 1930 a phone call from new york to london cost something of the order of $300, today it costs something like a dollar.