纽约时报——什么是富裕国家？

原作者：
来源The Haves and the Have-Nots - NYTimescom
译者草白

I had a review this weekend about “ The Haves and the Have-Nots,” a new book by the World Bank economist  Branko Milanovic about inequality around the world. My favorite part of the book was this graph, next to which I actually wrote “awesome chart” in the margin:

这个周末我写了一篇关于《穷人与富人》的书评，这是一本新书，作者是世界银行经济学家布兰科·米兰诺维克(Branko Milanovic)，内容为世界范围内的不平衡现象。在这本书当中，最让我欣赏的部分是这张图表，事实上我还在书本的 页边空白处写上了“史上最牛逼，最给力图表”的评语。

The graph shows inequality within a country, in the context of inequality around the world. It can take a few minutes to get your bearings with this chart, but trust me, it’s worth it.

图表显示的是全球发展不平衡背景下的各国内部的不平衡现象。图表理解上有点头疼，可能需要花上几分钟时间，但请相信我，花这几分钟不冤。

Here the population of each country is divided into 20 equally-sized income groups, ranked by their household per-capita income. These are called “ventiles,” as you can see on the horizontal axis, and each “ventile” translates to a cluster of five percentiles.

图表横坐标根据家庭人均收入进行排列，将每一个国家的人口分割为二十个同等大小的收入群体，命名为“泛汰尔”（Ventile），每一泛汰尔代表某国百分之五人口的集合。

The household income numbers are all converted into  international dollars adjusted for equal purchasing power, since the cost of goods varies from country to country. In other words, the chart adjusts for the cost of living in different countries, so we are looking at consistent living standards worldwide.

由于各国产品价格水平不同，家庭收入数字全部转换为同等购买力的国际货币美元。换句话说，这张图表当中的数字根据各国生活成本进行调整，所以我们现在看到的是全球一致的生活标准。

Now on the vertical axis, you can see where any given ventile from any country falls when compared to the entire population of the world.

现在将目光转向纵坐标，我们可以在纵坐标上了解到任一国家任一泛汰尔，在全球收入梯队当中处于何种位置。

For example, trace the line for Brazil, a country with extreme income inequality.

比方说，我们可以拿收入极端不平衡的巴西的曲线进行说明。

Brazil’s bottom ventile — that is, the poorest 5 percent of the Brazilian population, shown as the left-most point on the line — is about as poor as anyone in the entire world, registering a percentile in the single digits when compared to the income distribution worldwide. Meanwhile, Brazil also has some of the world’s richest, as you can see by how high up on the chart Brazil’s top ventile reaches. In other words, this one country covers a very broad span of income groups.

巴西的底层泛汰尔，也就是巴西人口当中最贫穷的百分之五，位于线条的最左端，与全球最低收入群体处于同一水平，也就是全球收入分配当中表示为一个百分点的收入水平。同时，巴西也拥有世界上最富裕的收入群体，正如图表所见巴西的顶层泛汰尔所达到的高度与世界最高水平不相上下。换句话说，巴西这个国家的收入群体在全世界收入水平的纵坐标上跨越的幅度相当之“辽阔高远”。

Now take a look at America.

再来看看美国的情况。

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

你注意到美国的整个曲线都处于图表的高层部位么？这是因为美国整个国家相对富裕。让人羡慕嫉妒恨的是，美国的底层泛汰尔要比世界上大部分人都要富裕：也就是说，美国收入分配曲线当中位于底部的百分之五的人口，其代表的收入水平仍要比同样蓝天白云底下一同生活的世界上百分之六十八的人口更有钱。

Now check out the line for India. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.

再来看看印度。印度最穷的泛汰尔收入水平对应的世界水平在第四个百分点上，最富裕的的呢？处于第六十八个百分点上。对，你没有看错：美国的穷鬼，从一个群体来看跟印度的富翁也没啥差别。

Kind of blows your mind, right?

受打击了？心绞痛，胃溃疡，心理不平衡了？

Now you might be wondering: How can there be so many people in the world who make less than America’s poorest, many of whom make nothing each year? Remember that were looking at the entire bottom chunk of Americans, some of whom make as much as $6,700; that may be extremely poor by American standards, but that amounts to a relatively good standard of living in India, where about a quarter of the population lives on $1 a day.

当然或许你疑惑了：不会滴吧，大哥你搞错了吧！世界上怎么会有这么多人会比美国的穷鬼（有的甚至一年到头什么事也没干）还穷，但我还要很残忍地告诉你：当我们看着美国底层最穷的一批穷鬼时要明白，他们中有的人每年收入六千七百美元，按美国标准这就是赤贫，拿到印度这就是小康了。要知道，印度几乎还有四分之一的人口每天的生活水平就只有一美元。

As Mr. Brankovic writes:

正如布拉科维奇(Brankovic)在书中所写：

One’s income thus crucially depends on citizenship, which in turn means (in a world of rather low international migration) place of birth. All people born in rich countries thus receive a location premium or a location rent; all those born in poor countries get a location penalty.

       如此一个人的收入很悲剧地就取决于国籍，转而（在一个国际迁移水平相当低的全球现状下）就意味着是取决于出生地：所有出生于富裕国家的人们因而获得了地区津贴或地区租金，而出生于贫穷国家的人们则得到的是地区罚金。

It is easy to see that in such a world, most of one’s lifetime income will be determined at birth.

       在这样一个世界我们不难得出，一个人一生的收入基本上在出生的那一刻就决定的了。

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