【Native Speaker每日综合训练—44系列】【44-06】经管

小蘑菇开始打怪

内容：吐吐yeah  编辑：小蘑菇开始打怪

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Part I: Speaker

Disrupting TV’s Status Quo
By HBR IdeaCast | October 16, 2014

Source: HBR Ideacast
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/10/disrupting-tvs-status-quo/

[Rephrase 1, 9: 48]

小蘑菇开始打怪

Part II: Speed

Earning more? Thank immigrant STEM workers
BY SIMONE PATHE | October 23, 2014

[Time 2]
The effect of immigration on the wages and employment of native workers is a topic of perennial debate. According to “Foreign STEM Workers and Native Wages and Employment in U.S. Cities” (NBER Working Paper No. 20093), extending visas to more STEM workers increases the wages of native workers and does not affect the employment of other groups, although it does raise housing costs for college-educated workers.

“[A] rise in the growth of foreign STEM [workers] by one percentage point of total employment increases growth in the wages of native college educated workers by a statistically significant 7-8 percentage points,” write authors Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih and Chad Sparber.

“The same change had a smaller but usually statistically significant effect on the wages of native non-college educated workers equal to 3-4 percentage points…. The increased cost in non-tradable services (housing) absorbed about half of the increase in the purchasing power of college educated wages.”

The study concentrates on foreign workers in order to determine whether the increase in STEM workers causes wages to rise or whether other factors are at work. The authors compare the share of foreign STEM workers in each of the 219 metropolitan areas in 1980 with changes starting in 1990, when the government initiated the H-1B visa program, the main channel of entry of foreign STEM workers. By doing so, the authors are able to isolate a supply-driven change in STEM workers that is likely exogenous to other factors that might affect wages, employment and productivity across cities.

These foreign workers — unlike their innovations — did not spread evenly across the country. They were concentrated in certain cities in 1980, before the H-1B program, and the H-1B visa-holders tended to flow to those cities as well. This disparity among cities allows the authors to compare the local rise in wages, which boosts the wages even of native non-college graduates, although the effect is about half of what it is for native college graduates.
The authors also find that STEM workers have an effect on total factor productivity and skill-biased productivity: “…inflows of foreign STEM workers may explain between 30 and 50% of the aggregate productivity growth and 4 to 8% of the skill bias growth that took place in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010.”
[377 words]

Source: PBS
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/earning-thank-immigrant-stem-workers/

When refinancing helps the poor, and everyone else
BY SIMONE PATHE | October 27, 2014

[Time 3]
In “House Price Gains and U.S. Household Spending from 2002 to 2006” (NBER Working Paper No. 20152), Atif Mian and Amir Sufi find that rising housing values promote spending, especially for low-income households, if refinancing provides “cash on hand.” They also find that this spending has a significant impact on GDP.

The study finds that between 2002 and 2006, if one zip code experienced a rate of house price growth that was 20 percentage points greater than another, then it would also, on average, experience an annual rate of mortgage refinancing, with some cash withdrawn from the home, about 3 percent higher than the lower-appreciation zip code.

This effect was seen almost entirely in zip codes where the average 2002 income was less than $50,000 per household. Among zip codes with average income more than $100,000, cash-out refinancing was almost zero.

This confirms the conventional view that lower cash-on-hand households most commonly tap their home equity when home values rise. But do they also spend that money?

The results illustrate why the level of wealth held by those who experience financial shocks can matter for the economy.

In terms of new car purchases, Mian and Sufi find that the general propensity to spend on new cars is $0.02 per dollar of home-value increase. But this effect is $0.03 for zip codes where households have an average 2002 income of $35,000 or less and zero for households living in zip codes in which the average income is $100,000 or more. The researchers also find evidence that in the years after the housing boom, low-income zip codes customarily experienced a dramatic reduction in both income and auto purchases.
[276 words]

[Time 4]
Mian and Sufi say the results illustrate why the level of wealth held by those who experience financial shocks can matter for the economy. They note that the total housing market decline of 2007 to 2009 was similar in magnitude to the crash in equity values in 2001. Yet the macroeconomic effects were very different because most stock market wealth is held by the high end of the wealth-distribution spectrum, where there is a very low marginal propensity to consume.

Similarly, the house price recovery from 2011 onwards did not contribute as much to economic activity as the 2002 to 2006 housing gains. This was likely because the borrowing channel was effectively shut down for those most responsive to house price gains.

In short, low cash-on-hand households treated the rise in home values as a cash-on-hand shock. On average, homeowners borrowed $0.19 per $1 of home equity gains from 2002 to 2006. Furthermore, households living in low-income zip codes spent this extra cash. Mian and Sufi estimate that, under certain assumptions, rising home values raised aggregate consumer spending by 0.08 percent of GDP in 2003, 0.8 percent in 2004, and 1.3 percent in both 2005 and 2006.
[197words]

Source: PBS
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/why-refinancing-helps-the-poor-and-everyone-else/

This is why the recession still hurts
By SIMONE PATHE | October 24, 2014
[Time 5]
The financial crisis that began in 2008, and the ensuing Great Recession, cost the U.S. a substantial amount of output.

In 2013, output was 13 percent below its trend path from 1990 through 2007. In “Quantifying the Lasting Harm to the U.S. Economy from the Financial Crisis” (NBER Working Paper No. 20183), Stanford economics professor Robert E. Hall starts from the widely accepted proposition that the financial crisis was the cause of the collapse in product and labor demand.

He offers a complementary analysis of other aspects of the post-crisis economy, focusing on the durable effects of the crisis that a boost in product demand would not correct quickly. These effects are lost total factor productivity, lost investment resulting in a lower capital stock, and low labor force participation lingering after job-creation incentives have returned to normal.

The analysis suggests that out of the 13 point output shortfall, the largest contributor was the depletion of the stock of plant and equipment, which accounted for 3.9 percentage points. The second largest was a shortfall of 3.5 percentage points in total factor productivity. The third was a shortfall of 2.4 percentage points in labor force participation. Just 2.2 percentage points was the result of lingering slackness in the labor market in the form of abnormal unemployment and substandard weekly hours of work.
[220 words]

[Time 6]
Hall observes that while the capital stock is responsible for the largest part of the output shortfall, it cannot respond immediately to a boost to product demand. He suggests that a boost in demand would probably trigger an accelerator response that would close some part of the shortfall in capital. In the longer run, the strong mean reversion in the historical capital/output ratio should work to close the entire gap.

Unemployment has fallen slowly during the recovery, reaching 1.3 percentage points above normal in 2013, and contributing 0.9 percentage points to the shortfall in output in that year. The return to normal has been slower than in previous post-recession episodes because the crisis shifted the composition of job-seekers toward those with low job-finding rates. People who lost jobs without hope of returning to the lost job are the most important group with long spells of unemployment. Mean reversion of unemployment is a well-established feature of the U.S. economy and there seems little reason to think that the crisis would affect the unemployment rate in any highly persistent way.

Labor force participation fell substantially after the crisis, contributing 2.5 percentage points to the shortfall in output. The decline showed no sign of reverting as of 2013. The author believes that part of the participation decline is demographic and part reflects low job-finding rates, which had returned to close to normal in 2013. But an important part may be related to the large growth in beneficiaries of disability and food-stamp programs. Bulges in their enrollments appear to be persistent. Both programs place high taxes on earnings and so discourage labor force participation among beneficiaries.
[272 words]

Source: PBS
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/recession-still-hurts/

小蘑菇开始打怪

Part III: Obstacle

Monetary policy: Quite enough
Nov 3rd 2014, 13:00 by R.A. | LONDON

[Paraphrase 7]
ON WEDNESDAY of last week the Federal Reserve completed its taper of the programme popularly known as QE3. (This week's Free exchange column examines whether the programme worked as advertised.) And on the face of things, the move looks entirely justified. Last month America's unemployment rate fell to 5.9%, while in the year to September firms added 2.6m new jobs: the best 12-month performance of the recovery. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said last week that the American economy grew at a 3.5% annual pace in the third quarter, a second consecutive strong performance after growth at a 4.6% annual pace in the second quarter. Surveying the fundamentals, the Fed struck a rather hawkish tone in its statement:

Moreover, the Committee continues to see sufficient underlying strength in the broader economy to support ongoing progress toward maximum employment in a context of price stability.
Quite right, many observers argue. But the Fed's move looks shortsighted and dangerous to me. Why?

There are any number of reasons one might want the Fed to continue forward with its asset purchases. There is little sign that labour markets are running out of slack. There are lots of downside risks abroad. The Fed should be trying to overshoot its target in order to build up more of a cushion against low inflation and interest rates, and so on. But convinced as I am of the sense in doing more on these grounds, not everyone buys that these are good reasons to maintain asset purchases. So let's stick with the most basic argument of all: the Fed is taking a serious risk in undermining the credibility of its nominal anchor.

In the 1970s and 1980s, as independent central banks were grappling with high inflation on the one hand and a dawning awareness of the importance of expectations on the other, the economics profession emphasised the importance of establishing a credible nominal anchor: a variable entirely under the central bank's control that it would use as the basis for policy and against which its performance could be measured. Strong anchors were critical in reining in inflation. Setting one, it was thought, should help coordinate public expectations around the desired, lower inflation rate. And setting a public target carries significant reputational risk for a central bank, since any failure is there for all to see. It should therefore be easier for the central bank to credibly commit itself to hitting the target.

Once inflation was whipped, the nominal anchor took on a new, or more generalised role as a stabilising force. If the public found the target credible, then the central bank would not need to work as hard to offset shocks in either direction. Firms and workers would be less inclined to react to temporary divergences from the target by adjusting prices or demanding offsetting wage changes. That, in turn, should tend to push the target variable back toward the desired level—and the economy with it.

The choice of anchor varies by countries and has changed over time. The Fed long operated with an informal inflation target as anchor until January of 2012, when it declared:

The inflation rate over the longer run is primarily determined by monetary policy, and hence the Committee has the ability to specify a longer-run goal for inflation. The Committee judges that inflation at the rate of 2 percent, as measured by the annual change in the price index for personal consumption expenditures, is most consistent over the longer run with the Federal Reserve's statutory mandate. Communicating this inflation goal clearly to the public helps keep longer-term inflation expectations firmly anchored, thereby fostering price stability and moderate long-term interest rates and enhancing the Committee's ability to promote maximum employment in the face of significant economic disturbances.

The Fed's mandates are maximum employment and stable prices (with sub-mandates for moderate interest rates and financial stability). The best way to deliver on those mandates, it reckons, is by targeting a rate of inflation of 2%, as measured by the price index for personal consumption expenditures. This is monetary orthodoxy of the highest order, delivered directly from the Fed. It could not be clearer.

Here is what has happened to the price index for personal consumption expenditures since that time:

As you can see, inflation has been below the desired level for all but a handful of months since the target was announced. In the nearly three years since the Fed has operated under an explict 2% inflation targeting regime, annual inflation has been 1.5% on average. In the two most recent months, year-on-year inflation has been 1.4%, below both the target and the average for the period under which the target has been in place. Market-based measures of inflation expectations are not perfect, but for most of the last few years they have indicated that inflation is likely to be below target on average over the next five years. It would be shocking if that were not the case, given that the most recent Fed projections also indicate that inflation will be below target for the foreseeable future.

We can debate whether the Fed has the right target or not; that's an open and interesting question on which there are plenty of views worth considering. Do you know what's not up for debate? Whether what we have experienced in America over the last few years represents good monetary policy making. It doesn't. Setting a public target, consistently missing that target, projecting that the target will be consistently missed in future, and conducting policy so as to make sure the target is in fact missed: that is lousy monetary policy making. And I cannot understand why the Fed does not see this record as detrimental to the recovery and highly corrosive of the Fed's credibility.

The Fed needs a change in behaviour, a change in target, or a change in personnel.

Now the typical response to criticisms of this sort is that the Fed has done what it can do and shouldn't be bothered to do more. Monetary policy has done its part some reckon, while others insist monetary policy can't do anymore. This newspaper has joined many others in arguing that more of the burden of stimulus should fall on fiscal authorities.

It is true that governments have been foolish in cutting budgets and refusing to take advantage of cheap financing to invest in badly needed public infrastructure. But that failure does not absolve the Fed. To assign responsibility for countercyclical policy—or indeed, for hitting the nominal anchor—to the legislature would represent a truly radical change.

Economists reckoned that business cycle management should fall to the central bank for good reasons. The short-run reasons—that fiscal stimulus will often fail to meet the conditions for appropriate countercyclical policy, that it be timely, targeted, and temporary—are not particularly relevant now (but would be if ever the economy escaped this mess). But what is relevant is the fact that governments are really bad at providing sufficient fiscal stimulus to boost the economy (at least when the threat of massive global conflict is not providing the necessary incentive). The rich-world record on this score over the last few years is simply abysmal. Counting on elected governments to do better in future is a recipe for deeper recessions and more volatile business cycles. Neither are the cases where fiscal stimulus has worked particularly encouraging. In China, fiscal spending has been an instrument of corruption, and the spigot has been difficult to turn off despite the fact that the growth returns to marginal debt appear to be diminishing rapidly.

Monetary policy is not a switch you turn on when the economy is rocky then turn off again when things improve. So long as the economy relies on money there is a monetary policy, and its stance is too loose, too tight, or about right. Measuring the stance of policy isn't a cut and dry matter, but a pretty sensible place to start is by comparing the state of the economy against the central bank's public, self-chosen target. On that simple basis policy is too tight, has been so for some time, and is very likely to be so in future. It strikes me as much more likely that PCE inflation will centre on 1.5% over the next few years than on 2%. That's Fed credibility eroding. It may find itself wishing it had a bit more of the stuff if a nasty shock comes along.

I understand why so many people are uncomfortable with QE. It would be much more satisfying if the Fed could stimulate the economy by printing money to give to orphanages; sadly it is not allowed to do so. But the central bank's job is not to give us all the warm fuzzies. We should not let distaste with the means to drift into tolerance for a failure to achieve the Fed's self-adopted ends. So, QE critics, what should the Fed do?
[1492 words]

Source: Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/11/monetary-policy

越狱LV

Hard to summerize...: (

Speaker
The renowned television producer tells about his work in the back stage, the influence from his father, and most importantly, his understanding of life.

2.04:10.19
The rise in the growth of foreign STEM has impacts on the growth in the wages of native college and non-college educated workers, and also on total factor productivity and skill-biased productivity.
3. 01:54.66
When the house prices increase, the low-income families spend more on purchases then the high-income families.

4. 02:19.94
The reason is that the low-income families treat the rise in the home values as on-the-hand stock.

5. 01:59.54
The financial crisis from 2008 has a consisting impact on the economy, which was the cause of the collapse in product and labour market. In 2013, the output was 13% below the trend path.

6. 03:45.86
The stock market cannot respond to a boost in product demand. The crisis impacted the unemployment rate in a little persistent way. Labour force participation fell also significantly.

HaiqingYU

Thanks for sharing!
3:09->inflow of immigrate workers improve the local wage, but less for college graduate
2:03->rising house value promotes the spending and AOTO selling, especially for the poor.
2:07->why rise in house value is related to economy?
02:15->the financial crisis is the cause of the collapse in product and labor, there are 3 factors to explain
03:06->Problem such as output shortfall, unemployment and low force participation still exists after crisis.
Obstacles:09:01

洋芋1109

11.7
2'55
time 2: The growth of the foreign STEM workers increases the growth of the native college-graduated workers' wages greatly and the growth of the non-college-graduated workers slightly. Besides, because the invention of the H-B1 visas, researchers are more likely to analyze the effect of the growth of the foreign STEM workers without being disturbed by other factors.
2'50
time 3: The recent researcher have concluded that the low-income people are more likely to withdraw the money from their houses when the house price goes up. What's more, citing the data on purchasing automobiles, scientists also find that low-income are more likely to spend the money which is refinanced from the house.
1'39
time 4: The researchers believe that spending of the money which is refinanced from the house by the low-income people can matter for the whole economy.
2'05
time 5: H believes that the financial crisis was the cause of the collapse in product and labor demand and that this crisis still has some negative influence on the economy, including lost total factor productivity, lost investment and low labor force participation.
2'57
time 6: H contends that while the capital stock may be responsible for the output shortfall, it cannot respond immediately to the boost of the product demand. He also draw the conclusions that the return of the unemployment rate, which is resulted from the shifted of the composition of the job-seekers, and the labor force participation to normal has been slower this year and that some beneficiaries programs seem to have some negative effect on the labor force participation.
12'27
time 7: Citing some data concerning with the inflation, the author contends that the move proposed by Fed have some negative on the economy and he certainly disagrees with this new monetary policy.


最后一篇难cry，表示最后还是木有读懂啊。。。。

画画2013

Speaker

我听了两遍，都没hold住他的重点是什么。。。。是不是该有个background啥的。。。
Time2 2'22
According to the research, the rise of immigrants has promoted the increase of the wages of native workers, especailly the college-educated workers.
Before 1980, immigrants worked concentrated on some metropolitians, and those who got the H1-B visas still tent to work there, giving researchers a chance to figure whether workers causes wages to rise or whether other factors are at work.
Time3 1'57
lower cash-on-hand households most commonly tap their home equity when home values rise.
However, those who are low-income zip codes do not spend that money, they reduct more when the home value rise more.
Time4 1'19
The rise of home value began at 2011 did not contribute too much to GDP, because the borrow channel was limited.
Conclusion: Under certain assumptions, rising home value raised aggregate consumer spending more and more at each year.
Time5 1'24
The financial crisis was the cause of the collapse in product and labor demand.
Time6 1'46
Umemployment has fallen slowly during the recovery, and labor force participation fell substantially after the crisis.
Obstacle 8'57
main idea: the unemployment rate in America has decreased, and more jobs are created recently. Fed announced that was a good phenomenon, but the fact is not that optmistic.

cencen1992

2‘21’‘  
according to the research, extending more Visas to workers from foreign country could raise wages of native workers and does not affect other groups
Also, We found that it could improve the productivity within the country.   
2'07''
Research founds that when people experience the rise of housing price, they also experience mortgage refinancing.   
This confims the conventional theory that people usually tap their home equity when poeple have low cash in hand and home euqity rise.     
1'30''
the house recovery from 2011 did not contribute to the economy very well becasue the morgage did not lend money money to poeple.   
1'38''  
原谅我木有读完，今天状态不佳   

灵韵

2， 2：51
A rise of Foreign STEM worker number will increase native workers' wage significantly, it benefits college workers more than non-college workers. The housing cost is just  slightly affected
3, 2:13
the house price gain has an impact on spending. during the house boom from 2002 to 2006, houses which have higher rate of price growth experienced higher refinancing than the lower-appreciation houses..
4 1:09
Low cash-on-hand households treated the rise in home values as a cash-on-hand shock
The level of household wealth matter for the economy.
5: 1"13
The financial crisis  can cost the U.S. a substantial amount of output. The post crisis boost in product demand would not correct the economic growth quickly.
6: 2:35
Hall expects a long run for crisis reversion.

heavensky

Speaker:
only some...    every Americans live with            the iusse around
took me three years ABC first              how did you complain
running for my father             have many good... how relationship keep well partenship
Speed:
Time 2:   2'59.41
S:More immigrant STEM worker increases the wages of native workers and has no impact on the employment of other groups. When refinancing helps the poor, and everyone else.
Time 3:   2'56.78
S:The rising house values promote spending, which has a significant impact on GDP.
Time 4:   1'50.80
Sow cash-on-hand households treated the rise in home values as a crash-on-hand shock.This is why the recession still hurts.
Time 5:   1'50.01
S:The financial crisis was the cause of the collapse in product and labor demand.
Time 6:   2'29.88
S:How the crisis influence the unemployment and labor force.
Obstacle
Time:   9'21.71
S:The Federal Reserve completed QE3 last week. Fed's move looks shortsighted and dangerous. THe Fed needs a change inbehaviour, a change in target, or a change in personnel.