DAY 89 Two leading economists di

DAY 89 Two leading economists disagree about the flagging American Dream

leading  /ˈliːdɪŋ/  a  领导的；主要的
most important or most successful
economist /ɪˈkɒnəmɪst/
a person who studies or writes about economics
economics /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/

disagree about  在…方面意见不统一；对…意见不一

Flag /flæɡ/
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) 标记；引起注意(某物)  ;衰退；枯萎；插旗
n. (flag) 标志；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. 社会流动

empirical heft   经验的重要性
empirical /ɪmˈpɪrɪkl/
based on experiments or experience rather than ideas or theories
adj. 经验主义的，完全根据经验的；实证的

heft  /heft/  v
n  [U]  n. 重量；重要性vt. 举起；举起试重量vi. 称重量
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.   [məˈleɪz]   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 [rɪˈtɜːn]纳税申报单
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. 纳税申报表 [商业]
报税表是一种正式的表格，你要填写详细的收入和个人情况，这样才能计算出你所欠的税款。

file  vt. 提出；锉；琢磨；把…归档vi. 列队行进；用锉刀锉
 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 /piːs/   拼凑
to understand a story, situation, etc. by taking all the facts and details about it and putting them together = assemble

series/ˈsɪəriːz/

 go on  继续；过去；继续下去；发生  
certainty[ˈsɜːtnti]   n. 必然；确实

toss  /tɒs/ 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[ˈlaɪf ɪkspektənsi]  预期寿命

社会流动（social mobility），个人或群体社会地位的变化，即从某一社会阶层到另一社会阶层的变化。按不同标准可分为多种形式：（1）根据方向，可分为垂直流动和水平流动；（2）根据范围，可分为代际流动和代内流动；（3）根据规模，可分为个体社会流动和团体社会流动；（4）根据原因，可分为结构性流动和自由流动；（5）根据方式，可分为竞争性流动和赞助性流动。

西方社会学家视其为现代工业社会的重要特征，认为其有利于人尽其才，并认为社会越开放，阶层的流动率越高，流动所需的时间越短， 流动的幅度也越大。

1967 年，美国社会学家布劳和邓肯的一项大规模调查确认，个体的教育水平、第一职业及父亲的职业与文化程度是影响流动的决定因素，其中的关键是个人的教育水平。

upward mobility[ˈʌpwəd]上升流动性  往上晋升

astonishing/əˈstɒnɪʃɪŋ/
neighbourhood [ˈneɪbəhʊd]  
n. 邻近；周围；邻居关系；附近一带

steeper/stiːp/ =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.

绝对流动性是衡量一个社会中的生活水平是否提高了(以及提高了多少)；这通常是以收入高于其父母的百分比来衡量。相对流动性指的是子女从父母在社会等级中的位置上迁移的可能性。

纳税申报表，是税务机关指定，由纳税人填写，以完成纳税申报程序的一种税收文书。一般应包括纳税人名称、税种、税目、应纳税项目、适用税率或单位税额、计税依据、应纳税款、税款属期等内容。增值税申报表还有进项税额、销项税额；所得税申报表还有销售收入、销售利润、应纳税所得额、应纳所得税额等。

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 [kəmˈpaɪl]   搜集证据
vt. 编译；编制；编辑；[图情] 汇编
When you compile something such as a report, book, or programme, you produce it by collecting and putting together many pieces of information. 汇编; 汇集

很大程度上取决于

Moving to Opportunity 给穷人家的孩子提供更好的机会

voucher  /ˈvaʊtʃə(r)/
n 优惠券——>补贴 津贴 资助
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   /kənˈsɔːtiəm/
财团，联合的组织——>研究联合会，联合小组
​a group of people, countries, companies, etc. who are working together on a particular project

Atlas  /ˈætləs/  n
​a book of maps  地图册，地图集。

dynamics   动态
in real time 实时

dynamic   /daɪˈnæmɪk/
dynamics [plural] the way in which people or things behave and react to each other in a particular situation  动态
eg: The interchange of ideas aids an understanding of family dynamics. 思想的交流有助于理解家庭动态。

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  随机波动

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——>数值，对应上面的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   根本性的驱动力

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 /ˈpʌndɪt/  n 专家
​a person who knows a lot about a particular subject and who often talks about it in public

zipcode is destiny  邮政编码就是命运
zipcode  美国的邮政编码

bristle 猪的鬓毛
bristle at 怒发冲冠

diverts attention away  from 把注意力转移
plausible explanations  看似合理的解释
plausible/ˈplɔːzəbl/
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 把歧视公开放在桌子上。
on the table ​(of a plan, suggestion, etc.) offered to people so that they can consider or discuss it

off the table   不予讨论；离开台面 
​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 恶化
personal culpability  个人有罪论
/ˌkʌlpəˈbɪləti/
​the fact of being responsible and deserving blame for having done something wrong
spat  /spæt/  n  口角 ；争吵
​(informal) a short argument about something unimportant
ward off   避开，避免——>敬而远之
​to protect or defend yourself against danger, illness, attack, etc.

-ward  /wəd/   in the direction of

yearn for
yearn  /jɜːn/  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.  稳定长期的同居关系

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   [ˈpraɪməsi]  n. 首位；卓越；大主教的职位 
1> ​[u] the fact of being the most important person or thing
2> [countable] the position of an archbishop

plainly  /ˈpleɪnli/  
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；朴素地

scaling question 样本量大小的问题

The ones  (receiving the program)

proceed[prəˈsiːd] 
vi. 开始；继续进行；发生；行进
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