商業報道
Business regulation
商業規程
Reform school
改革流派
The big emerging markets are still much in need of reforms
巨大的新興市場仍亟需改革
REFORM is a universal medicine urged upon struggling economies by liberal institutions.
改革是自由派的市場體制敦促掙扎中的經濟體所服下的一劑萬靈藥。
When a country has been messed up long enough, reform becomes much needed.
當一個國家長時間處于混亂狀態,那么改革就成為了亟需之物。
Reform means many things, of course, from cutting budget deficits to improving education.
當然,改革意味著很多事情,比如削減預算赤字和提高教育水平。
But a big part of it concerns business regulation, which reflects how much a country encourages companies and how much microeconomic distortion there is to economic activity.
但是改革的很重要的一部分涉及到商業規程,它反映了國家如何鼓勵企業發展以及經濟活動中有多少畸形微觀經濟。
Such regulation is also measurable across boundaries, so one country can be compared with another.
這種規程同樣適用于所有國家,所以各國之間可以相互比較。
So what does this year's survey of global business regulation by the World Bank reveal about which countries most need much needed reform—and which might not?
所以,世界銀行今年關于全球商業規程的縱覽透露了關于哪些國家最需要必要的改革以及哪些國家會不需要的什么信息呢?
Italy and Greece are high on everyone's list of places that need to change a lot, and the World Bank's list confirms it.
意大利和希臘高居所有關于需要改變國家的名單之中,而世界銀行列出的榜單也確認了這一點。
They come a lowly 65th and 72nd respectively, out of 189 countries.
在189個國家中,他們分別位于第65和第72的較低位置。
The same is true, more or less, of France and Spain, two fellow euro-sufferers.
這種情況對于法國和西班牙這兩個同為歐債受害國的也幾乎如此。
Germany, on the other hand, might not be in such urgent need of change, to judge by this measure.
根據這個標準來判斷,德國卻可能并不如此緊迫的需要改變。
It comes 21st on the World Bank's list, immediately after the small Asian, Nordic and English-speaking countries that are always found at the top of the table.
在世界銀行的這項榜單中,德國位列21名,緊跟一些亞洲,北歐和以英語為母語的國家。這些國家總是位于榜單的較高位置。
This puts Germany above such paragons of business-friendliness as Estonia and Chile.
這使得德國領先于愛沙尼亞和智利這些作為友好型商業模范的國家。
Japan does not score too badly either, coming 27th, above the Netherlands.
日本排名為27,也獲得了并不遜色的名次,位于荷蘭之前。
This does not mean these countries can rest on their laurels, but the doing-business scores might suggest why they do a bit better than their distorted macroeconomic indicators might lead you to expect.
這并不意味著這些國家就可以居功自傲,止步不前。但是商業經營方面的分數可能暗示了為什么這些國家會比你根據他們本國畸形的宏觀經濟指標給出的期望值做的稍好的原因。
The biggest emerging markets, on the other hand, do surprisingly badly.
從另一方面看,這些最大的新興市場的情況卻是出人意料的糟糕。
Russia comes in at number 92, China is 96th, Brazil 116th and India a deplorable 134th—below Yemen.
俄羅斯位列92,中國96,巴西116,而印度則不幸被排在134名,位于也門之后。
Yet until recently, these BRICs were exemplars of economic growth.
然而直到前段時間,這些金磚國家還是經濟快速增長的楷模。
Two possible conclusions might be hazarded: either they would have done even better had their business regulations been reformed; or, because they were growing so fast for other reasons, they shrugged off bad regulation that would have crippled less buoyant countries.
兩種可能的結果都會十分危險:他們要么改革商業規程以期做得更好,要么對于損害那些發展勢頭并不良好國家的惡劣規程表示不屑一顧,因為他們一度由于其他原因發展迅速,比如農民逐漸遷入城市從事生產率更高的工作。
Or, probably, both.
或者可能兩種結果都會出現。