A recent online exchange between Steve Roth and my colleague Matthew Klein contains much food for thought. It started with a post by Roth titled “Why economists don’t know how to think about wealth”, which alleged, in simplified terms, that mainstream economists miss much of what goes on in the economy by focusing largely on flows of income, spending and saving rather than the stocks of wealth, assets and liabilities. Klein’s retort warned against “dangers in making capital gains and losses more central than they already are”. And Roth has replied to some of Klein’s comments.
史蒂夫?羅斯(Steve Roth)和我的同事馬修?克萊恩(Matthew Klein)最近在網上展開了一場十分引人深思的論戰。這場論戰始于羅斯的一篇題為《為什么經濟學家不懂如何看待財富》的文章，簡言之，這篇文章稱，主流經濟學家們由于側重于關注收入流動、支出和儲蓄，而不是財富存量、資產及債務，因而錯過了很大一部分經濟活動?？巳R恩在反駁中警告，要提防“把資本損益放在比它們現有的地位更為核心的位置的危險”。羅斯對克萊恩的一些評論做了回應。