DAY 89 Two leading economists disagree about the flagging American Dream

leading? /?li?d??/? a? 領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的；主要的
most important or most successful
economist?/??k?n?m?st/
a person who studies or writes about?economics
economics?/?i?k??n?m?ks/

disagree about??在…方面意見不統(tǒng)一；對…意見不一

Flag?/fl?ɡ/
1>?to draw attention to information that you think is important, especially by putting a special mark next to it
2>?to become tired, weaker or less enthusiastic
v. (flag) 標記；引起注意(某物)? ;衰退；枯萎；插旗
n. (flag) 標志；旗子

flagging? a 衰弱的

1 Most Americans worry that they live in an age of reduced social mobility. Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist, has done as much as anyone to provide empirical heft for that malaise. Armed with data from nearly all the tax returns filed in America for decades, he and his co-authors have pieced together an astonishing series of findings: that absolute mobility (the chance that a child will go on to earn more than their parents) has dropped from 90%, a near certainty, to 50%, a coin-toss; that the gap in life-expectancy between rich and poor has widened even as that between blacks and whites has narrowed; and that although the chances of upward mobility differ greatly from one neighbourhood to the next, in nearly every part of America the path for black boys is steeper.

social mobility.?社會流動

empirical heft? ?經(jīng)驗的重要性
empirical?/?m?p?r?kl/
based on experiments or experience rather than ideas or theories
adj. 經(jīng)驗主義的，完全根據(jù)經(jīng)驗的；實證的

heft? /heft/? v
n? [U]? n. 重量；重要性vt. 舉起；舉起試重量vi. 稱重量
1>??the weight of somebody/something
2>?ability or influence
v
?heft something (+ adv./prep.) to lift or carry something heavy from one position to another

malaise.???[m??le?z]? ?n. 不舒服；心神不安
a general feeling of being ill, unhappy or not satisfied, or that something is wrong in society, without being able to explain or identify what is wrong? =unease

tax return?[r??t??n]納稅申報單
A?tax return?is an official form that you fill in with details about your income and personal situation, so that the tax you owe can be calculated. 納稅申報表?[商業(yè)]
報稅表是一種正式的表格，你要填寫詳細的收入和個人情況，這樣才能計算出你所欠的稅款。

file??vt. 提出；銼；琢磨；把…歸檔vi. 列隊行進；用銼刀銼
?to put and keep paper documents in a particular place and in a particular order so that you can find them easily; to put a paper document in a box, file, etc.

piece together?/pi?s/???拼湊
to understand a story, situation, etc. by taking all the facts and details about it and putting them together =?assemble

series/?s??ri?z/

?go on??繼續(xù)；過去；繼續(xù)下去；發(fā)生??
certainty[?s??tnti]? ?n. 必然；確實

toss? /t?s/?v
?to throw a coin in the air in order to decide something, especially by guessing which side is facing upwards when it lands =flip

?life-expectancy[?la?f ?kspekt?nsi]??預(yù)期壽命

社會流動（social mobility），個人或群體社會地位的變化，即從某一社會階層到另一社會階層的變化。按不同標準可分為多種形式：（1）根據(jù)方向，可分為垂直流動和水平流動；（2）根據(jù)范圍，可分為代際流動和代內(nèi)流動；（3）根據(jù)規(guī)模，可分為個體社會流動和團體社會流動；（4）根據(jù)原因，可分為結(jié)構(gòu)性流動和自由流動；（5）根據(jù)方式，可分為競爭性流動和贊助性流動。

西方社會學(xué)家視其為現(xiàn)代工業(yè)社會的重要特征，認為其有利于人盡其才，并認為社會越開放，階層的流動率越高，流動所需的時間越短， 流動的幅度也越大。

1967 年，美國社會學(xué)家布勞和鄧肯的一項大規(guī)模調(diào)查確認，個體的教育水平、第一職業(yè)及父親的職業(yè)與文化程度是影響流動的決定因素，其中的關(guān)鍵是個人的教育水平。

upward mobility[??pw?d]上升流動性??往上晉升

astonishing/??st?n????/
neighbourhood?[?ne?b?h?d]??
n. 鄰近；周圍；鄰居關(guān)系；附近一帶

steeper/sti?p/ =sharp
(of a slope, hill, etc.)?rising or falling quickly, not gradually??

absolute mobility
Absolute mobility?measures whether (and by how much) living standards in a society have increased; this is often measured by what percentage of people have higher incomes than their parents. Relative?mobility?refers to how likely children are to move from their parents' place in the social hierarchy.

絕對流動性是衡量一個社會中的生活水平是否提高了(以及提高了多少)；這通常是以收入高于其父母的百分比來衡量。相對流動性指的是子女從父母在社會等級中的位置上遷移的可能性。

納稅申報表，是稅務(wù)機關(guān)指定，由納稅人填寫，以完成納稅申報程序的一種稅收文書。一般應(yīng)包括納稅人名稱、稅種、稅目、應(yīng)納稅項目、適用稅率或單位稅額、計稅依據(jù)、應(yīng)納稅款、稅款屬期等內(nèi)容。增值稅申報表還有進項稅額、銷項稅額；所得稅申報表還有銷售收入、銷售利潤、應(yīng)納稅所得額、應(yīng)納所得稅額等。

2 Mr Chetty has also compiled evidence that mobility (or immobility) depends a lot on the types of neighbourhood that Americans grow up in. Re-analysing the Moving to Opportunity (mto) experiment, which randomly assigned vouchers to poor families in five American cities to live in less poor places, he and his colleagues found dramatic effects for children who moved while young: a 32% higher chance of attending college and 31% higher earnings. His research consortium has ranked neighbourhoods according to their chances of propelling poor children upwards, publishing an online Opportunity Atlas. A new mto-style experiment in Seattle is investigating these dynamics in real time.

compile?[k?m?pa?l]? ?搜集證據(jù)
vt. 編譯；編制；編輯；[圖情] 匯編
When you?compile?something such as a report, book, or programme, you produce it by collecting and putting together many pieces of information. 匯編; 匯集

很大程度上取決于

Moving to Opportunity 給窮人家的孩子提供更好的機會

voucher? /?va?t??(r)/
n 優(yōu)惠券——>補貼 津貼 資助
a printed piece of paper that can be used instead of money to pay for something, or that allows you to pay less than the usual price of something

consortium? ?/k?n?s??ti?m/
財團，聯(lián)合的組織——>研究聯(lián)合會，聯(lián)合小組
?a group of people, countries, companies, etc. who are working together on a particular project

Atlas? /??tl?s/? n
?a book of maps? 地圖冊，地圖集。

dynamics? ?動態(tài)
in real time 實時

dynamic? ?/da??n?m?k/
dynamics?[plural]?the way in which people or things behave and react to each other in a particular situation? 動態(tài)
eg:?The interchange of ideas aids an understanding of family?dynamics. 思想的交流有助于理解家庭動態(tài)。

3 “It’s like Rousseau [in ‘The Social Contract’]: ‘Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.’ We just remove the chain of neighbourhood. And it’s not that simple,” says James Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago, who has grown critical of the research and the implications drawn from it. Mr Heckman, who won a Nobel prize for work on teasing out cause and effect from messy, real-world data, thinks there is more statistical uncertainty in the neighbourhood-mobility findings than is widely recognised. A working paper by Magne Mogstad, another economist at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues argues that the “noise”, or random fluctuation, in Mr Chetty’s data means “it is not possible to draw firm conclusions about which counties in the United States have high or low values” of upward mobility from the poorest 25% of households.

tease out? 梳理
1>??to remove?knots?from hair, wool, etc. by gently pulling or brushing it
2>?to spend time trying to find out information or the meaning of something, especially when this is complicated or difficult

?random?fluctuation? 隨機波動

which counties in the United States have high or low values” of upward mobility from the poorest 25% of households.

high or low values
value——>數(shù)值，對應(yīng)上面的data

4 Mr Heckman acknowledges that there are clear differences in mobility according to neighbourhood. But the ultimate drivers could lie in family structure, parenting habits, exposure to crime or the quality of schooling. All these are difficult to derive from American tax-return data.

ultimate drivers? ?根本性的驅(qū)動力

5 Pundits take the research on “neighbourhood effects” as evidence that “zipcode is destiny”. Mr Heckman bristles at that. It overlooks the fact that Asians and black women do fairly well in mobility relative to whites. “It diverts attention away from other plausible explanations for why African-Americans are not doing well. Put discrimination on the table…but family structure is the one thing that is just off the table in American society,” he says.

Pundit?/?p?nd?t/? n 專家
?a person who knows a lot about a particular subject and who often talks about it in public

zipcode?is destiny? 郵政編碼就是命運
zipcode? 美國的郵政編碼

bristle 豬的鬢毛
bristle at 怒發(fā)沖冠

diverts?attention away? from 把注意力轉(zhuǎn)移
plausible?explanations? 看似合理的解釋
plausible/?pl??z?bl/
1> ?(of an excuse or explanation)?reasonable and likely to be true
2>??(disapproving)?(of a person)?good at sounding honest and sincere, especially when trying to trick people

?Put discrimination on the table 把歧視公開放在桌子上。
on the table??(of a plan, suggestion, etc.)?offered to people so that they can consider or discuss it

off the table? ?不予討論；離開臺面?
?if a topic is?off the table?at a formal discussion, people are not willing or allowed to discuss it?

6 That topic has a history of descending into ugly spats about the personal culpability of the poor, which may ward off social scientists. Mr Heckman sees his own research—tracking long-term outcomes for children and parents randomly assigned to a high-quality early-learning scheme—as strong evidence that families can become more stable and that disadvantaged children can be helped without having to move. The point is not to yearn for a return to “shotgun marriages”, he says, but to encourage stable cohabiting relationships.

【中心句】
Mr Heckman sees his own researchas strong evidence that families can become more stable and that disadvantaged children can be helped without having to move.? （第二句）

? descending into 惡化
personal?culpability? 個人有罪論
/?k?lp??b?l?ti/
?the fact of being responsible and deserving blame for having done something wrong
spat? /sp?t/? n ?口角 ；爭吵
?(informal)?a short argument about something unimportant
ward off? ?避開，避免——>敬而遠之
?to protect or defend yourself against danger, illness, attack, etc.

-ward? /w?d/? ?in the direction of

yearn for
yearn? /j??n/? v
?to want something very much, especially when it is very difficult to get

shotgun marriages? 奉子成婚
an enforced or hurried wedding, especially because the bride is pregnant.

stable cohabiting relationships.? 穩(wěn)定長期的同居關(guān)系

7 This debate matters not just because two prominent economists disagree, but because they suggest different methods for tackling the urgent problem of intergenerational immobility. Mr Chetty’s experimental work on the primacy of place will be an important test of his theories, yet it also has a limit on its scale: every disadvantaged American plainly cannot be moved to opportunity. Mr Heckman’s project of encouraging early-childhood education has some scaling questions, too: could every child in America receive a programme as intensive as the ones he studies? For now, the answer, as with all messy scientific debates, is to let the experiments proceed. ■

?【中心句】
but because they suggest different methods for tackling the urgent problem of intergenerational immobility?

primacy???[?pra?m?si]??n. 首位；卓越；大主教的職位?
1> ?[u]?the fact of being the most important person or thing
2>?[countable]?the position of an?archbishop

plainly??/?ple?nli/??
1>??in a way that is easy to see, hear, understand or believe? = clearly
2>??using simple words to say something in a direct and honest way
adv. 明白地；坦率地；平坦地；樸素地

scaling question 樣本量大小的問題

The ones? (receiving the program)

proceed[pr??si?d]?
vi. 開始；繼續(xù)進行；發(fā)生；行進
1> proceed (with something)?to continue doing something that has already been started; to continue being done
2>??proceed to do something?to do something next, after having done something else first