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Economics Brief
經濟學簡介
Six Big Ideas
六大經濟理論
Human capital: The people's champion
人力資本：人的捍衛者
Gary Becker made humans the central focus of economics. The second in our series on big economic ideas.
貝克爾讓人成為了經濟學的中心焦點。我們六大經濟理論的第二篇。
WHY do families in rich countries have fewer children?
為什么富裕國家的家庭生育越來越少的孩子？
Why do companies in poor countries often provide meals for their workers?
為什么窮國的公司經常給工人提供飯菜？
Why has each new generation spent more time in school than the one that came before?
為什么每一個新生代都比前一代把更多的時間花在學校中？
Why have earnings of highly skilled workers risen even as their numbers have also increased?
為什么高級技工的收入甚至在人數增長的情況下也上升了？
Why should universities charge tuition fees?
為什么大學應當收取學費？
This is an incredibly diverse array of questions.
這是一組不可置信的多元問題陣列。
The answers to some might seem intuitive; others are more perplexing.
有的問題的答案似乎是憑直覺的；有的更加復雜。
For Gary Becker, an American economist who died in 2014, a common thread ran through them all: human capital.
對于加里·貝克爾，這位2014年去世的美國經濟學家來說，一條共同的線索把這些問題全都貫穿了起來：人力資本(human capital)。
Simply put, human capital refers to the abilities and qualities of people that make them productive.
簡單地說，人力資本指的是使之具有生產力的人的能力和素質。
Knowledge is the most important of these, but other factors, from a sense of punctuality to the state of someone's health, also matter.
知識是其中最重要的。但是，從守時觀念到健康狀況等其他要素也非常重要。
Investment in human capital thus mainly refers to education but it also includes other things—the inoculation of values by parents, say, or a healthy diet.
因而，人力資本的投資主要指向教育，但是也包括其他東西。如，來自父母的價值觀灌輸，或者是健康的飲食。
Just as investing in physical capital—whether building a new factory or upgrading computers—can pay off for a company, so investments in human capital also pay off for people.
如同投資于實體資本——不管是建造新工廠，還是更新計算機——能夠給公司有所回報一樣，人力資本的投資也能給人們帶來回報。
The earnings of well-educated individuals are generally higher than those of the wider population.
受過良好教育的個人的收入一般都高于普羅大眾。
All this might sound obvious.
這一切可能聽起來是顯而易見的。
As far back as Adam Smith in the 18th century, economists had noted that production depended not just on equipment or land but also on peoples' abilities.
遠在亞當·斯密的18世紀，經濟學家就已經指出，生產不僅取決于設備或土地，還取決于人的能力。
But before the 1950s, when Becker first examined links between education and incomes, little thought was given to how such abilities fit with economic theory or public policy.
但是，在上世紀50年代，即貝克爾首次考察教育與收入間的關系之前，少有對這類能力如何進入經濟理論或公共政策的思考。
Instead, economists' general practice was to treat labour as an undifferentiated mass of workers, lumping the skilled and unskilled together.
相反，經濟學家的慣例是把勞動力當作是一群無差別的工人來對待，把有技能的和無技能的混雜在一起。
To the extent that topics such as training were thought about, the view was pessimistic.
以至于培訓之類的話題一被想到，觀點就是悲觀的。
譯文來源考研英語時事閱讀
