國際經(jīng)貿(mào)高級英語精讀第4單元課文翻譯及答案

1、Unit FourUnited We Stand?S. Eric WangTEXT IN DECEMBER 1991, 12 EUROPEAN nations signed the historic Maastricht Treaty and, in so doing, created the single currency trading region now known as the European Monetary Union (EMU). The Maastricht Treaty outlines the process by which the EMU nations will

2、replace their individual currencies with a single currency, the euro, that will be controlled by a single European central bank. In January of 1999, exchange rates between national currencies and the euro are supposed to be irrevocably fixed, and by January 2002, national currencies are supposed to

3、be phased out entirely. However, while Germany, France, and a few other EMU nations are in position to meet this timeline, many other nations have been delayed by difficulties concerning Maastricht Treaty requirements and may not be able to fix exchange rates on time. Though the majority of European

4、 government officials are currently optimistic, the difficulties that have been experienced do not bode well for the future of the EMU in its present form. While current problems center on controlling government deficits to meet Maastricht conditions, the exchange rate crises of the recent past call

5、 into question the basic desirability of the project. Until these issues are addressed, national economies should not be forced to fit Maastricht conditions and arbitrary deadlines, as such action will only create unnecessary economic turmoil. The current delays in monetary unification are necessary

6、; more caution would be in the best interest of the people of Europe. Why Monetary UnionWhy Monetary Union In order to properly evaluate the dilemmas facing the EMU, the current system must be carefully analyzed with particular attention to its economic costs and benefits. Presently each nation has

7、a different currency, and relative currency values tend to fluctuate unless constrained by artificial international agreements. Currency fluctuations occur for a number of reasons, the most important being that nations often expand or reduce the amount of currency in circulation. An increase in the

8、money supply forces a devaluation of the currency, and the lower exchange rate increases exports, raising the economys total output. A monetary reduction would result in an opposite effect that also tends to lower inflation. Therefore, the central banks of Europe currently use control of the money s

9、upply to keep national inflation rates low and to expand national economies in recession. The benefits of EMU come from eliminating the economic costs associated with having multiple currencies. The most apparent cost of different currencies involves the resources that must be spent converting from

10、one currency to another. For example, if a German firms earnings are in French francs, it must exchange the francs for German marks in order to pay its employees. Employee time, and therefore the firms money, must be spent making this exchange. However, the European Commission estimates currency exc

11、hange costs to be, on average, only 0.4 percent of the GDP of the European Union. A second cost of numerous currencies comes about when nations allow the relative values of their currencies to fluctuate freely. The uncertainty created by varying exchange rates creates a barrier to trade because the

12、value of the money that people will receive changes when exchange rates change. For instance, a German company expecting payment in French francs will see the value of that payment fall if the franc depreciates against the German mark. The volatility of exchange rates is, in effect, a cost that inte

13、rnational firms must take into account when estimating profits. However, under the system in place before the beginning of the present monetary unification process, this cost was also quite small. Under that system, nations set the exchange rates that their central banks used for conversion between

14、currencies. Then, whenever a nation increased the money supply, the market exchange rate would fall a bit, but the banks exchange rate would remain stable. Arbitraguers would not take advantage of small differences between the central banks pegged rates and market rates because regulations on capita

15、l flow made such moves very costly. Only when the difference became very large did arbitrage activity become significant, forcing the central bank to revise its exchange rate. With small exchange rate fluctuations and only occasional exchange rate realignments, firms were able to use futures and swa

16、ps, among other financial instruments, to hedge against the risk. This system, however, also created an economic cost because regulations on capital flow made capital markets inefficient. However, removal of regulations would have resulted in intolerably volatile exchange rates. The best solution to

17、 this dilemma appeared to be the adoption of a single European currency. Maastricht and Modifications Maastricht and Modifications The Maastricht Treaty, in detailing the path towards monetary unification, included an important exchange rate condition which takes advantage of the European Exchange R

18、ate Mechanism (ERM). This mechanism stated that exchange rates between participating currencies would not be allowed to fluctuate beyond plus or minus 2.25 percent of certain set rates. The Maastricht Treaty nations agreed to stay within this band without utilizing devaluations for the two years bef

19、ore joining the EMU. However, a number of crises soon forced the ERM to change. In 1992, Germany was in an economic boom with an inflation rate of four percent. Accordingly, Germany was very cautious about increasing its money supply, and the other EMU nations, which were in recession, were forced t

20、o follow with stringent monetary policies of their own. According to a study by Paul De Grauwe, the other nations of the EMU, on average, should have increased their money supply by five percent more than they actually did. However, these tight monetary policies were apparently not tight enough; the

21、 British pound and the Italian lira both plummeted against the German mark. In September 1992, pressure from speculators forced both the United Kingdom and Italy to devalue their currencies, and the two nations temporarily left the EMU. In August of 1993, the ERM of the Maastricht Treaty had to be c

22、hanged as another currency crisis hit. A number of currencies, most notably the French franc, were severely overvalued, and speculators were putting tremendous pressure on the exchange rate. Germany attempted to alleviate the pressure by buying several billion dollars worth of francs, but the effort

23、 was not enough. Instead of forcing France out of the ERM, the ERM itself was revised. The band was widened from 2.25 percent to 15 percent. The French franc devalued immediately, and the pressure from speculators was alleviated. However, these crises raise questions as to how a monetarily integrate

24、d Europe would function. Clearly, nations currently rely tremendously on monetary flexibility to reign in inflation and to boost sagging economies. Unification and the United StatesUnification and the United States The troubles that the EMU has experienced up to now are perhaps merely a glimpse of w

25、hat lies in the future of a single currency Europe. A single European currency means a single European central bank, carrying out a centralized European monetary policy. Individual nations will no longer be able to use monetary policy for their own national economic needs. Furthermore, government sp

26、ending will be similarly constrained. Maastricht rules limit a nations budget deficit to three percent of its GDP. With limited fiscal freedom, the lack of national monetary policy will create enormous dissent and controversy within the Union at times of asymmetric recession. For example, the United

27、 Kingdom could go into a recession and want to expand its money supply at a time when the rest of Europe is in an economic boom, which requires a decrease in the money supply to keep inflation down. If the European central bank were to decrease the money supply, then the United Kingdom would plunge

28、into an even deeper recession. However, if the central bank were to cater to the United Kingdoms needs, the rest of Europe would experience high inflation. The economic consequences of such a situation have already been demonstrated in the crises of 1992 and 1993. The political ramifications of such

29、 a situation after unification are clearly disturbing. To add to the potential for trouble, Europe may see an increase in economic specialization along geographic and political boundaries, a phenomenon that would make Europe even more at risk for asymmetric recessions. Single currency states tend to

30、 become much more economically specialized due to the reduced costs of transportation and communication that a single currency brings. The United States, for example, is more specialized by region than the nations of Europe currently are; there are clusters of high technology firms in the Boston are

31、a and in Silicon Valley, but very few such firms settle anywhere in between.Unit FourUnited We Stand?S. Eric Wang Similar specialization can occur in Europe as well. It may be, for example, that the biggest automotive manufacturers will congregate in a region of Germany, while most gas companies flo

32、ck to the United Kingdom. In such a situation, if oil prices skyrocket, then the United Kingdom would enter into an economic boom while Germany goes into a severe recession. To prevent such harmful specialization, European nations may choose to erect artificial barriers through tariffs and regulatio

33、ns. However, such a move would be in direct contradiction to the goals of monetary unification. The full effects of an asymmetric recession on a specialized Europe would be quite complicated. A rough estimate of the economic ramifications can be done, though, using the United States economy as an ex

34、ample. When a recession hits a region in the United States, the afflicted states cannot exercise monetary policy, and therefore the effects of recessions on specific regions in the United States should be very similar to the effects of recessions on nations in Europe after monetary integration. Acco

35、rding to economist Paul Krugman, US regions in recession tend to lose labor population; wages tend not to fall and few new industries are attracted to the depressed area. This means that a post-recession region in the United States may have lower total output than it did before it went into recessio

36、n, even though the unemployment rate of the region may be back at the natural rate. This boosts the case against deficit spending as a way to end recessions because, at the end of the recession, many of the people who took unemployment benefits will have found work and be paying taxes in a different

37、 region. The debt from their unemployment benefits will either accumulate or be paid off by a smaller population at higher tax rates. For Europe, this implies that once a nation goes into a recession, it should refrain from deficit spending because its GDP may stay low even after its unemployment ra

38、te is back to its natural level. However, the population loss problem is mitigated by the fact that European labor mobility is much lower than US labor mobility. Therefore, European nations in a regional recession will be able to regain higher levels of output at the end of the recession than simila

39、r United States regions. This maintenance of output means a higher level of deficit spending can be used, raising severe questions of fiscal discipline within the EMU that have yet to be resolved. Unfortunately, low labor mobility also means that the amount of time nations will spend at recessionary

40、 levels of unemployment will also be longer than the time spent by a similar US region. There is another crucial difference between the United States single currency area and the EMU. Though individual states cannot exercise much fiscal policy, the United States federal government can and does do so

41、 in the form of social insurance and national taxes. At the federal level, the government can pay out unemployment benefits and then get the money back in the form of taxes when people find work in another part of the nation. However, Europe does not have a continental fiscal policy, and therefore c

42、osts of a national recession will have to be borne by the individual nation. National governments, facing longer recessions than the United States, may not be able to recoup all the unemployment benefits paid out because the unemployed may eventually find work in another part of Europe and emigrate.

43、 The Need for CautionThe Need for Caution The experience of large, monetarily unified economies, such as that of the United States, and the obstacles that have intervened in Europes monetary unification process to date present a strong argument for caution. The goal of the European Union should be t

44、hat of bettering the lives of Europeans. A single currency Europe may not be in the best interests of the people of Europe. Certainly, capital flow would be less restricted, allowing the economy to become more efficient. Total economic output should rise, and Europe should become more prosperous. Ho

45、wever, with limited labor mobility and an increasing degree of specialization, certain regions may be left behind. Capital may pour into economically expanding regions with specialized labor and technologies as investors see the potential for profit. Other regions, though, would be left in poverty u

46、ntil the wage differential was great enough to warrant Unit FourUnited We Stand?S. Eric Wang expensive relocations on the part of firms and investors. The current disputes over fiscal discipline merely serve to emphasize the differences in the economic needs of different European nations. This does

47、not mean that Europe should not eventually have a single currency. It is merely an indication that the process towards unification, and indeed the characteristics of the unified Europe, need to be revised. The United States has successfully utilized a single currency, so it is clear that large regio

48、ns can share a currency system; the solutions to Europes dilemmas just need time to be found. Without these solutions, though, the current move towards unification appears to be unnecessarily rushed and could potentially harm the European economy and people. (from Harvard International Review, Winte

49、r 1996/1997)Exercises. Translate the following into English, using the words or phrases in the text:1. 嚴(yán)重依賴貨幣彈性來控制通貨膨脹to rely heavily on monetary flexibility to put inflation under control2. 實行緊縮的貨幣政策to execute tight monetary policy3. 以社會保險和國家稅收的形式實行財政政策to implement fiscal policy in the form of soci

50、al insurance and national taxes4. 涌入經(jīng)濟上擴張的地區(qū)5. 用單一貨幣取代它們各自的貨幣to replace their individual currencies with a single currency6. 預(yù)示歐洲貨幣聯(lián)盟的美好未來 to bode well for the future of the EMU7. 控制政府赤字以滿足馬斯特里赫特條約to control government deficits to meet Maastricht conditionsto pour into economically expanding regions

51、8. 成為出口主要障礙的幣值高估9. 制止向外國傾銷過剩貨物to refrain from dumping surplus goods abroad10. 一體化的經(jīng)濟對資本流動的影響 the influence of integrated economy on capital flow11. 使貨幣當(dāng)局有理由采取貶值政策的國際收支逆差the balance ofpayments deficit warranting the devaluation policy adopted by the monetary authoritythe overvalued currency as a main

52、 barrier to export12. 消除伴隨有多種貨幣而來的各種經(jīng)濟成本13. 在估計利潤時必須被考慮的成本costs that must be taken into account when estimating profits14. 利用中央銀行固定匯率與市場匯率之間的微小差異 to take advantage of the small difference between the central banks fixed (exchange) rates and market (exchange) rates15. 規(guī)避來自多變的匯率的風(fēng)險to hedge against ris

53、ks coming from volatile exchange ratesto eliminate the economic costs associated with holding multiple currencies. Translate the following sentences into English:1. 具有諷刺意味的是，伴隨著歐洲的一體化進程，歐洲將經(jīng)歷經(jīng)濟專業(yè)化的增多。(see) Ironically, Europe will see an increase in economic specialization along with the European uni

54、fication process.2. 當(dāng)兩個成員國都強烈需要某種貨幣政策來調(diào)整其經(jīng)濟，而其需要的政策方向又相反時，歐洲中央銀行就面臨著一個兩難的困境。(dilemma) The European Central Bank will face a dilemma when two member countries both badly need certain monetary policies to regulate their economies but the policies they need are of opposite directions.3. 如果一個人利用不同市場上或同一

55、市場上不同時間點上的不同匯率來獲利，他就會被稱作“套匯掮客”。(take advantage of) A person will be called an “arbitrageur“ if he takes advantage of the different exchange rates on different markets, or at different times on a same market, to gain profits.4. 近來，許多歐洲國家的國民經(jīng)濟被強制要求符合馬斯特里赫特條件和人為的截止日期，而這些行為已產(chǎn)生了不必要的經(jīng)濟混亂。(fit) The nationa

56、l economies of many European countries have recently been forced to fit Maastricht conditions and arbitrary deadlines, and such actions have created unnecessary economic turmoils.5. 作為中央銀行，聯(lián)邦儲備體系目前利用對貨幣供應(yīng)量的控制來保持低的國家通貨膨脹率并在衰退時擴張國民經(jīng)濟。(keep sth.+adj.) As a central bank, the Federal Reserve System curre

57、ntly uses its control over the money supply to keep the national inflation rates low and to expand national economy in recession. Put the following passage into English: 甚至在歐元的建設(shè)尚未完成之前，各國政府就能指出它的一個令人注目的成功。在過去的一年中，全球金融市場經(jīng)歷了不同尋常的混亂。富國的證券市場和貨幣也未能幸免。但是，相比較而言，歐洲一直是一個安全的避風(fēng)港。歐洲內(nèi)部各國的匯率變動極小。這正是歐元在11國政府在過去一直努力要做到的，但是，一年以前，他們的成功卻不可能是一件理所當(dāng)然的事。事實是，在一個發(fā)生史無前例的金融風(fēng)暴的時期，外匯市場認(rèn)為其穩(wěn)定歐洲各國內(nèi)部匯率的承諾是可信的。歐洲各國的貨幣一直保持穩(wěn)定，各國的利率趨于一致：它預(yù)示著向新體系的順利過渡。 Even before construction of