01 1609 - Metrics on Well-being

Good morning. What I'd like to do in this short talk is to discuss some of the ways researchers try to measure quality of life or well-being and the difficulties with such measures. Of course the perception of high or low quality of life is subjective and may differ from individual to individual.

Traditionally, economists have used levels of standard of living as indicators of quality of life among countries or within countries. For most of the 20th century the only measurement used to compare the standards of living of citizens of different countries was national income -- this was often criticised for various reasons, the main one being that standard of living should not be analysed only in terms of economic growth. In the second half of the 20th century economists and other social scientists started to develop indices which included social as well as economic indicators. The aim of these indices was to give a more holistic picture of the living conditions of different populations.

The best-known of these indices is the United Nations Human Development Index, or HDI, which was first published in 1990. And I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about this particular index. The HDI is described in the UN Human Development Report for 2002 as a “simple summary measure of three dimensions of the human development concepts: living a long and healthy life, being educated and having a decent standard of living”. So there are three parts to this particular index: long and healthy life, education and standard of living. Now the concept of living a long and healthy life is captured by life expectancy at birth. Although life expectancy does measure length of life it doesn't necessarily reflect health status; in other words it isn't always true that individuals who live longer are also healthy, in particular in the last years of life.

Educational attainments is measured in the HDI by two indicators: by adult literacy rates, i.e., the proportion of people aged at least 15 years old who can read and write a short simple statement on their everyday life and also by the ratio of combined enrolments in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

The final element in the HDI is standard of living and that is measured in terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita, i.e. GDP divided by the total population.

It is widely recognised that measuring only those three dimensions leaves out other very important aspects of human development. And one of the criticisms of the UN index is that the number of factors included is too limited. There are some other difficulties with the index, um, I don't have time to discuss them all, but I will briefly mention some of them. Firstly there is the problem of what the index is actually measuring. For example, poverty is obviously a major contributor to poor quality of life, but the devastating consequences of absolute poverty are not transparent in measures like GDP per capita. Neither is the extent of income inequalities. Another important exclusion is the net effect of economic growth on the environment and its impact on quality of life. Secondly, there is the issue of the quality and quantity of the information collected. The same methodology for data collection is not strictly applied in all countries, and the gaps in the tables used for the calculation of the index show that some components of the index are actually based on guesstimates. A third question we should ask is how well the Western concepts used in social well-being indices reflect the way that individuals in non-Western cultures perceive their quality of life. This can be illustrated by a discussion in Schumacher's book Small Is Beautiful, when he compared modern economics by which he meant Western economics and Buddhist economics. He argued that Western economics measures standard of living by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a person who consumes more is better off than another who consumes less. On the other hand a Buddhist economist would see this as irrational. Since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. Therefore, higher GDP per capita would not be a meaningful indicator of greater human development in Buddhist economics.

翻译，以及部分知识点展开。听众可以依据需求跳过。

02 1609 - Translation of Sentences

Sentence-1: In order to be successful in this world, you must “get along” with people. This means you must learn to behave in such a way that you have the affection and respect of others.

Sentence-2: Neither letters, phone calls, nor emails or Wechat guarantee perfect communication. With all our sophisticated skills, we human beings sometimes communicate less effectively than some animals.

Sentence-3: There are two types of women who are now the breadwinners in their families. First, older and educated women who bring home bigger paychecks than their husbands. Second, poorer women who are single mothers and often without a college degree.

Sentence-4: Negotiations are a frequent part of international business. Parties involved in a negotiation face different problems in reaching a successful outcome. When the parties have different cultural backgrounds the faced problems become more complex.

Sentence-5: Demand for investment gold has surged 21% in the first quarter. Low oil prices and volatile stock markets have tipped gold into a bull market. Prices have soared 20% so far to $1,280 an ounce.

翻译

03 1609 - Translation of Passage

Passage - 1

According to the British magazine The Economist, land in Tokyo is so expensive that it would have cost more to buy Tokyo's city centre than to buy all the land in the United States, Japan's capital is also one of the world's most overcrowded cities. The city's commuter problem is so bad that people are employed just to push travelers onto the trains durring rush hour.

Therefore, there is serious talk of moving the capital city to a different place. The trouble with that idea, however, is that Tokyo is the headquarters of many multi-national companies, as well as home to the best universities. Most ambitious Japanese want to live there.

Passage-2

Americans care a great deal about their appearance. You'll see or hear advertisements from various kinds of media that tell people to lose weight, within their teeth, or have cosmetic surgery. These ads try to convince people to spare no efforts to improve their body image. In a survey of 432 Americans, over 50% of the women and 25% of the men wanted to have cosmetic surgery.

Research shows that for first impressions among people, 55% are based on appearance, 38% on body language and only 7% on what you say. People really are forming opinions by looking at your clothes, your hair, your skin, and your size, and they're doing it all in 30 seconds.

翻译