諾貝爾經濟學獎得主托馬斯 薩金特 伯克利畢業演講

University of California at Berkeley graduation speech
托馬斯·薩金特加州大學伯克利分校畢業演講

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.
我現在依然記得許多年前我從伯克利畢業時自己開心的樣子。不過我覺得畢業演講都太過冗長，這次我會言簡意賅。

Economics is organized common sense. Here is a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches.
經濟學是常識的集合體。下面是這門美麗的學科教會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.
個人和集體會面臨權衡取捨。

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

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.
每個人都會對激勵做出反應（小編注：people respond to incentives 曼昆十大經濟學原理之四），包括你想幫助的人。這也是爲什麼社會保障體系最後沒能發揮預期的作用。

5. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.
平等和效率之間也面臨權衡取捨。

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.
在遊戲或者經濟的均衡狀態中，人們會滿意於自己的選擇，所以好心的局外人不管怎樣都很難改變事態的發展。

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.
在未來你也會對激勵做出反應，這也是爲什麼有些承諾你想遵守可是卻沒辦法做到。沒人會相信你的那些承諾，因爲人們都瞭解，以後履行這些承諾不會符合你的利益。我們要學會的是：在承諾別人之前，想想如果自己情況有所轉變，還會不會堅持承諾？這是你爲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.
政府和選舉人也會對激勵做出反應，所以政府有時候會拖欠債務或拖延履行承諾。

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).
一代人把開支費用轉嫁給下一代人，這個辦法是可行的，政府債務和美國社會保障體系就是這麼做的。（也有例外：新加坡的社會保障體系就非如此。）

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，現在和將來都是這樣，直接徵稅的方式也好，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爲公共事務或者政府轉移性支出買單（特別當這些轉移性支出的對象是他們自己時）。

12. Because market prices aggregate traders’ information, it is difficult to forecast stock prices and interest rates and exchange rates.
因爲市場價格集合了所有交易者的信息，所以很難預測股價、利率和匯率等。

托馬斯·薩金特：美國經濟學家，擅長於總體經濟學、貨幣經濟學、時間序列等領域。1943年生於美國加利福尼亞州帕薩迪納。現爲斯坦福大學胡佛研究所資深研究員。薩金特於1964年獲伯克利加州大學文學學位。1968年獲哈佛大學哲學博士學位。曾執教於明尼蘇達大學、芝加哥大學和哈佛大學，2003年任教於紐約大學至今。薩金特是理性預期學派的領袖人物，爲新古典宏觀經濟學體系的建立和發展作出了傑出貢獻，對宏觀經濟模型中預期的作用、動態經濟理論與時間序列分析的關係等方面作出了開創性的工作。