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  3. Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago? In their thirst for evidence on this i

Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago? In their thirst for evidence on this i

admin2021-01-08  101
问题    Economically speaking, are we better off than we were ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
   In their thirst for evidence on this issue, commentators seized on the recent report by the Census Bureau, which found that average household income rose by 5.2% in 2015. Unfortunately, that conclusion puts too much weight on a useful, but flawed and incomplete, statistic. Among the more significant problems with the Census’ s measure are that: 1) it excludes taxes, transfers, and compensation like employer-provided health insurance; and 2) it is based on surveys rather than data. Even if precisely measured, income data exclude important determinants of economic well-being, such as the hours of work needed to earn that income.
   While thinking about the question, we came across a recently published article by Charles Jones and Peter Klenow, which proposes an interesting new measure of economic welfare. While by no means perfect, it is considerably more comprehensive than average income, taking into account not only growth in consumption per person but also changes in working time, life expectancy, and inequality. Moreover, it can be used to assess economic performance both across countries and over time.
   The Jones-Klenow method can be illustrated by a cross-country example. Suppose we want to compare the economic welfare of citizens of the U. S. and France in 2005.
   In 2005, as the authors observe, real consumption per person in France was only 60% as high as the U. S. , making it appear that Americans were economically much better off than the French on average. However, that comparison omits other relevant factors: leisure time, life expectancy, and economic inequality. The French take longer vacations and retire earlier, so typically work fewer hours; they enjoy a higher life expectancy, presumably reflecting advantages with respect to health care, diet, lifestyle, and the like; and income and consumption are somewhat more equally distributed there than in the U. S. Because of these differences, comparing France’ s consumption with the U. S. ’ s overstates the gap in economic welfare.
   Similar calculations can be used to compare the U. S. and other countries. For example, this calculation puts economic welfare in the United Kingdom at 97% of U. S. levels, but estimates Mexican well-being at 22%.
   The Jones-Klenow measure can also assess an economy’ s performance over time. According to this measure, as of the early-to-mid-2000s, the U. S. had the highest economic welfare of any large country. Since 2007, economic welfare in the U. S. has continued to improve. However, the pace of improvement has slowed markedly.
   Methodologically, the lesson from the Jones-Klenow research is that economic welfare is multidimensional. Their approach is flexible enough that in principle other important quality-of-life changes could be incorporated—for example, decreases in total emissions of pollutants and declines in crime rates.
What do Jones and Klenow think of the comparison between France and the U. S. in terms of real consumption per person?
选项 A、It reflected the existing big gap between the two economies.
B、It neglected many important indicators of people’ s welfare.
C、It covered up the differences between individual citizens.
D、It failed to count in their difference in natural resources.
答案B
解析 细节题。原文第五段第二句话指出，然而，这个对比忽略了其他一些相关的因素：业余时间、平均寿命和贫富差距。业余时间、平均寿命和贫富差距，这些都属于民生指标。由此可知，法国和美国人均实际消费的比较忽略了很多的指标，故答案为B。A项与原文不符，原文第五段指的是两国人均消费方面的差距，并不是说两国经济之间有很大的差距，属于无中生有，故排除。C、D两项原文均未提及，故排除。
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