首页
登录
职称英语
Listen to the following passage. Write in English a short summary of around 150-
Listen to the following passage. Write in English a short summary of around 150-
游客
2023-12-24
66
管理
问题
Listen to the following passage. Write in English a short summary of around 150-200 words of what you have heard. You will hear the passage only once and then you will have 25 minutes to finish your summary. This part of the test carries 20 points. You may need to scribble a few notes to write your summary.
Most economic forecasts are wrong. And governments usually fail when they try to fine-tune the economics in the short term. That’s not surprising, argues Paul Ormerod in his book Butterfly Economics, because few underlying economic theories and models come anywhere near real life. Ormerod, an economist and director of the London Think Tank, has dumped on the blinkered world of mainstream economic thought before, in his book, The Death of Economics. This time, he argues that his colleagues with the dismal science should instead view "society as a living creature, which adapts and learns. "
Ormerod calls his approach butterfly economics, in part to stress its link to biology. But it also reflects a principle advanced, by chaos theorists that the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can set off a tornado in another part of the globe. Modern economics, he says, are "complex systems which hover on the brink of chaos. " But Ormerod could just as easily have titled it Ant Model Economics, because his theories derive from entomologists’ experiments with ants in the mid-1980s. Two equal-sized food sources were set equidistant from an ant’s nest. How did the colony divide itself between the sources? As it turned out, the proportion of ants visiting one site or the other changed constantly. Sometimes changes were small. Other times, shifts were dramatic and swift. None was predictable. Why? Basically, a foraging ant has three choices: returning to the food source it successfully visited before; being persuaded by other ants, via a scent, to try the other pile; or turning to the humans. People can stick with a previous decision, change their minds on their own accord, or be persuaded by the actions of others.
That people are often influenced by others, the author says, goes a long way toward explaining why some inferior technologies squeeze out superior ones, like VHS videocassette recorders upstaging Betamax VCRS, or why traders continue to buy currencies they know to be overvalued. Popularity breeds popularity. This may all seem obvious. But for economists, it’s a revelation. Standard economic theories nearly always assume that people’s behavior and tastes never change — which helps explain why most theories can’t pass a reality check. In real life, chaos — in the form of human decision making — reigns.
The ant model shows that accurate short-term predictions of ant behavior are impossible. But in long term, there is a pattern to the ants’ randomness. And, Ormerod says, so it is with economics, too. Short-term governmental forecasts usually miss the mark. And the abilities of politicians to alter the cycles of business are " largely illusory," he insists. But in the long term, there is some structure. The business cycle, with all its constant ebbing and flowing, may be uncontrollable and defiant of near-term forecasts. But despite its fluctuations, capitalist economies have grown slowly and steadily over time. That means, he says, mat policymakers should adopt a less-is-more approach. "The role of governments should be confined to trying to mitigate the consequences of a cycle rather than trying to eliminate it. "
Ormerod’s effort to persuade orthodox economists to take human behavior into account more often — regardless of its unpredictability — is a worthy goal. Still, it’s a bit dispiriting that his foraging ants, like Pavlvov’s salivating dogs, depict our behavior so accurately.
选项
答案
Most economic forecasts are wrong. And governments usually fail when they try to fine-tune the economics in the short term. That’s not surprising, argues Paul Ormerod in his book Butterfly Economics, because few underlying economic theories and models come anywhere near real life. Ormerod, an economist and director of the London Think Tank, has dumped on the blinkered world of mainstream economic thought before, in his book, The Death of Economics. This time, he argues that his colleagues with the dismal science should instead view " society as a living creature, which adapts and learns. "
Ormerod calls his approach butterfly economics, in part to stress its link to biology. But it also reflects a principle advanced by chaos theorists that the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can set off a tornado in another part of the globe. Modern economics, he says, are "complex systems which hover on the brink of chaos. " But Ormerod could just as easily have titled it Ant Model Economics, because his theories derive from entomologists’ experiments with ants in the mid-1980s. Two equal-sized food sources were set equidistant from an ant’s nest. How did the colony divide itself between the sources? As it turned out, the proportion of ants visiting one site or the other changed constantly. Sometimes changes were small. Other times, shifts were dramatic and swift. None was predictable. Why? Basically, a foraging ant has three choices: returning to the food source it successfully visited before; being persuaded by other ants, via a scent, to try the other pile; or turning to the humans. People can stick with a previous decision, change their minds on their own accord, or be persuaded by the actions of others.
That people are often influenced by others, the author says, goes a long way toward explaining why some inferior technologies squeeze out superior ones, like VHS videocassette recorders upstaging Betamax VCRS, or why traders continue to buy currencies they know to be overvalued. Popularity breeds popularity. This may all seem obvious. But for economists, it’s a revelation. Standard economic theories nearly always assume that people’s behavior and tastes never change — which helps explain why most theories can’t pass a reality check. In real life, chaos — in the form of human decision-making — reigns.
The ant model shows that accurate short-term predictions of ant behavior are impossible. But in long term, there is a pattern to the ants’ randomness. And, Ormerod says, so it is with economics, too. Short-term governmental forecasts usually miss the mark. And the abilities of politicians to alter the cycles of business are "largely illusory," he insists. But in the long term, there is some structure. The business cycle, with all its constant ebbing and flowing, may be uncontrollable and defiant of near-term forecasts. But despite its fluctuations, capitalist economies have grown slowly and steadily over time. That means, he says, that policymakers should adopt a less-is-more approach. " The role of governments should be confined to trying to mitigate the consequences of a cycle rather than trying to eliminate it. "
Ormerod’s effort to persuade orthodox economists to take human behavior into account more often — regardless of its unpredictability — is a worthy goal. Still, it’s a bit dispiriting that his foraging ants, like Pavlvov’s salivating dogs, depict our behavior so accurately.
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3302565.html
相关试题推荐
JohnSmithhasablogatTheLonelyPlanetTimes,andyoucanlistentoalivea
JohnSmithhasablogatTheLonelyPlanetTimes,andyoucanlistentoalivea
AsanEnglishmajorstudentatoneofthemostfamousuniversitiesinChina,Is
AsanEnglishmajorstudent,IthinkbusinessEnglishismorepracticalthanoth
Followingayearoffastdevelopment,bythefirstquarterofthisyear,Chinah
TheEnglishlanguagehasalwayschanged,buttherateofchangehasbeenuneven.
AsanEnglishmajorstudentatoneofthemostfamousuniversitiesinChina,Is
JohnSmithhasablogatTheLonelyPlanetTimes,andyoucanlistentoalivea
Thelittlegirlisignorant______thebasicrulesofEnglishgrammar.A、forB、ofC
Itisreportedthattheworstpedestrianjaminthiscityoccursaroundthiscro
随机试题
Whydoesthewomanneedthejob?[br][originaltext]M:So,you’veappliedfort
Fromthehealthpointofviewwearelivinginamarvelousage.Weareimmuni
TheUnitedStatescourtsystem,aspartofthefederalsystemofgovernment,
下表为某公司四个部门2009年全年的营销总费用,以及营销总费用占总销售额的比例。
城市道路横断面规划设计的主要任务是在满足管线敷设以及()等要求的前提下,经
特征性效标考量员工是怎样一个人。其侧重点是( )。A.员工如何工作 B.个人
根据《招标投标法》的相关规定,()可以作为履约保证金。A、现金支票B、银行汇票
对于质押担保贷款,出质人应向商业银行提交的材料有()。A.担保意向书 B.出
三型卡环的特点是A.固位好,稳定和支持作用稍差 B.固位和稳定好,支持作用稍差
某知名啤酒生产企业,为满足市场需求,不断开发啤酒新品种,开发适合不同顾客群体的啤
最新回复
(
0
)