University of California at Berkeley graduation speech
加州大学伯克利分校毕业致辞

Thomas J. Sargent_
托马斯·J·撒金特

May 16, 2007
2007年5月16日

I remember how happy I felt when I graduated from Berkeley many years ago. But I thought the graduation speeches were long. I will economize on words. Economics is organized common sense. Here is a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches.
我记得，许多年前当我从伯克利毕业时是多么的高兴！但我认为当时的毕业演讲太冗长了。我会长话短说。经济学不过是有条理的常识。下面所列的几条就是这门学问所教给我们的宝贵经验。

1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.

许多事情可欲而不可求。

2. Individuals and communities face trade-offs.

个人与社区都面对权衡取舍。

3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts, and their preferences than you do.

别人拥有的关于其自身的能力、努力及偏好的信息比你要多。

4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don’t always end up working as intended.

每个人都会回应激励，包括你想帮助的人。这就是为什么社交安全网（？）不会永远按设想的方式运转。

5. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.

公平与效率之间存在权衡取舍。

6. In an equilibrium of a game or an economy, people are satisfied with their choices. That is why it is difficult for well meaning outsiders to change things for better or worse.

在一个均衡的博弈或经济中，每个人都对自己的选择很满意。这就是为什么好心的外人想要做出更好或更坏的改变时是很难的。

7. In the future, you too will respond to incentives. That is why there are some promises that you’d like to make but can’t. No one will believe those promises because they know that later it will not be in your interest to deliver. The lesson here is this: before you make a promise, think about whether you will want to keep it if and when your circumstances change. This is how you earn a reputation.

未来你也会对回应激励。这就是为什么你不能做出一些你愿意做出的承诺。没人会相信这些承诺，因为他们知道实现这些承诺会对你不利。这里的教训是：在你做出承诺之前考虑一下，如果当环境发生改变，你是否还愿意信守承诺。这是你赢得声誉的方式。

8. Governments and voters respond to incentives too. That is why governments sometimes default on loans and other promises that they have made.

ZF与选民也会回应激励。这就是ZF有时债务违约和违反它做出的其它承诺的原因。

9. It is feasible for one generation to shift costs to subsequent ones. That is what national government debts and the U.S. social security system do (but not the social security system of Singapore).

一代人讲成本转移由下一代人来承担是可能的。这正是国家ZF债务和美国社会保障体系所做的（但新加坡的社会保障体系不是这样的）。

10. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation.

当一个ZF支出时，最终付账的是它的公民，在今天或明天，通过显性的税收或隐性的手段，比如通货膨胀。

11. Most people want other people to pay for public goods and government transfers (especially transfers to themselves).

大多数人希望其他人为公共物品和ZF支付（尤其是向自己的支付）买单。

12. Because market prices aggregate traders’ information, it is difficult to forecast stock prices and interest rates and exchange rates.

因为市场价格是交易者信息的总和，所以对股票价格、利率和汇率的预测是很难的。