2023年经济学人 推特帖子是有力的经济衡量指标(2)

 

 

    The Fed papers also see a third use for tweets: as a bellwether¹ of sorts for monetary² policy.

    美联储的论文还论及了推特帖子的第三个用途：作为货币政策的风向标。

    Ms Vega and colleagues find that the social-media site fares better than changes in bond yields in predicting monetary-policy decisions on the day of their announcement.

    维加和她的同事们发现，在宣布货币政策决定的当天，推特比债券收益率的变化更好地预测了货币政策决定。

    The Twitter sentiment index, meanwhile, is good at anticipating shocks from tighter policy such as rate increases.

    与此同时，推特情绪指数很擅长预测加息等紧缩政策带来的冲击。

    Tweets tend to turn sour just ahead of these moves.

    推特帖子往往会在这些政策推出之前变得情绪低迷。

    (That the website wastes no time in turning bitter will come as scant³ surprise to regular users.)(推特能瞬间情绪消沉，这对经常使用该网站的用户来说并不令人惊讶。)No one is about to ascribe powers of causation to X.

    没有人会将因果关系的力量归于X。

    The social-media posts instead reflect broader feelings that are already coursing through financial markets.

    社交媒体帖子只是反映了已经在金融市场上蔓延的广泛情绪。

    Still, the cornucopia⁴ of tweets does provide an additional way of measuring such sentiment, which, if proved valid⁵ over time, would be highly valuable.

    尽管如此，大量的帖子确实提供了衡量这种情绪的另一种方式，如果时间证明这种衡量是正确的，那么帖子会是非常有价值的。

    Beyond the Fed, some analysts⁶ are also finding other potential applications.

    除了美联储，一些分析师还发现了其他潜在的应用。

    Agustín Indaco of Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar calculates that the volume of tweeting alone can account for about three-quarters of cross-country variation in GDP.

    卡塔尔卡内基梅隆大学的奥古斯丁·因达科计算出，仅推特帖子的发布量就可以解释大约四分之三的GDP跨国差异。

    Rather like satellite images of night lights, tweets may therefore be a way of observing economic health without relying so heavily on tardy⁷ official statistics.

    因此，与夜间灯光的卫星图像类似，推特帖子可能是观察经济健康状况的一种方式，不需要严重依赖迟缓的官方统计数据。

    This metric may work best in poorer countries, where heavy posting on social media would be a proxy⁸ for the state of telecommunications and use of smartphones.

    这一指标在较贫穷的国家可能效果最好，社交媒体上的大量帖子代表电信和智能手机的使用状况。

    If X is so economically useful, why is it not more lucrative⁹?

    如果X对于经济如此有用，为什么它不能赚更多钱呢？

    The various papers do not venture so far as to examine the gulf¹⁰ between Twitter’s struggle for profitability and its evident utility—not just as an economic tool but as a platform for sharing information, opinions, jokes and more.

    这些论文都没有继续探讨推特的盈利困难与其明显的效用之间的差距，它的作用不仅是一种经济工具，也是一个分享信息、观点、笑话等等的平台。

    Mr Musk¹¹ was onto something when he described the firm as a “common digital town square”.

    当马斯克将该公司描述为“一个共同的数字城市广场”时，他说得有道理。

    The problem in economic terms is that a town square falls into the category of public goods such as parks and clean water.

    用经济语言描述这个问题就是，城市广场属于公共财产的范畴，如公园和干净的水。

    Although public goods can be privately¹² owned, it is notoriously hard to extract profits from them given that, by definition, it is difficult to charge people for all the benefits they confer.

    尽管公共财产可以为私人所有，但从公共财产中获取利润是出了名的困难，因为从本质上讲，很难向人们收取享用公共财产的费用。

    Mr Musk is doing his darnedest to shift the economic equation at X by giving additional privileges to users who pay $8 a month for the site’s blue-check verification.

    马斯克正在尽最大努力改变X的盈利状况，向每月支付8美元进行了蓝标验证的用户提供额外的特权。

    Tweets by users who cough up now receive extra promotion¹³, among other benefits, appearing up more often in the feeds of other people on the site.

    除了其他好处，付费用户发的推文现在还会得到额外的流量推广，会更频繁地出现在其他推特用户的首页上。

    That, however, poses a trade-off.

    然而，这会导致得失的此消彼长。

    Paid-for tweets may start crowding out better-informed posts from users who would rather not subscribe¹⁴ to the site.

    付费推文可能会排挤掉那些不愿开通会员的用户所发布的消息更灵通的帖子。

    Over time, a social media site that prioritises payment over credibility will function less well as a town square and, by extension, as an economic indicator¹⁵.

    渐渐地，一个将付费视为比可信性更重要的社交媒体网站将不再发挥城市广场的作用，也进而不会发挥经济指标的作用。

    The gain to X’s finances would be a loss to the Fed’s economists¹⁶.

    X的财务收益将成为美联储经济学家的损失。

1 bellwether   

n.系铃的公羊，前导，领导者，群众的首领

参考例句：

• University campuses are often the bellwether of change.大学校园往往引领变革的新潮。
• For decades the company was the bellwether of the British economy.几十年来，这家公司一直是英国经济的晴雨表。

2 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

3 scant   

adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略

参考例句：

• Don't scant the butter when you make a cake.做糕饼时不要吝惜奶油。
• Many mothers pay scant attention to their own needs when their children are small.孩子们小的时候，许多母亲都忽视自己的需求。

4 cornucopia   

n.象征丰收的羊角

参考例句：

• The book is a cornucopia of information.书是知识的宝库。
• Our cornucopia is the human mind and heart.我们富足是由于人类的智慧和热情。

5 valid   

adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的

参考例句：

• His claim to own the house is valid.他主张对此屋的所有权有效。
• Do you have valid reasons for your absence?你的缺席有正当理由吗？

6 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。

7 tardy   

adj.缓慢的，迟缓的

参考例句：

• It's impolite to make a tardy appearance.晚到是不礼貌的。
• The boss is unsatisfied with the tardy tempo.老板不满于这种缓慢的进度。

8 proxy   

n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人

参考例句：

• You may appoint a proxy to vote for you.你可以委托他人代你投票。
• We enclose a form of proxy for use at the Annual General Meeting.我们附上委任年度大会代表的表格。

9 lucrative   

adj.赚钱的，可获利的

参考例句：

• He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
• It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。

10 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

11 musk   

n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫

参考例句：

• Musk is used for perfume and stimulant.麝香可以用作香料和兴奋剂。
• She scented her clothes with musk.她用麝香使衣服充满了香味。

12 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

13 promotion   

n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传

参考例句：

• The teacher conferred with the principal about Dick's promotion.教师与校长商谈了迪克的升级问题。
• The clerk was given a promotion and an increase in salary.那个职员升了级，加了薪。

14 subscribe   

vi.(to)订阅，订购；同意；vt.捐助，赞助

参考例句：

• I heartily subscribe to that sentiment.我十分赞同那个观点。
• The magazine is trying to get more readers to subscribe.该杂志正大力发展新订户。

15 indicator   

n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器

参考例句：

• Gold prices are often seen as an indicator of inflation.黃金价格常常被看作是通货膨胀的指标。
• His left-hand indicator is flashing.他左手边的转向灯正在闪亮。

16 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》