The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality
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DOI：
10.1057/be.2014.12
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发表时间：
2014-04
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
William R. Keech-
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
William R. Keech-
137需要对媒体和政策制定者做出回应，告知公众舆论，并制定可能对公司利润产生重大影响的立法。如果你试图在辩论中加入更多的光而不是热，如果你希望增加自己对不平等的理解，那么《大逃亡》是一个很好的起点。迪顿所指的伟大逃生就是逃离死亡、疾病和贫穷。与片名出自的电影一样，这场大逃亡是一个非凡成就的故事--这个成就既不是不可避免的，也不是不可逆转的。迪顿提醒读者，虽然这部电影关注的是250名战俘从史塔拉格洛夫特三世手中逃脱的故事，但除了三人之外，所有人都被重新抓获。我发现这本书令人谦虚、令人不安，而且缺乏对复杂问题的简单答案--这正是我觉得它有思想和有用的原因。这本书的作者是普林斯顿大学著名的发展经济学家，曾任美国经济协会主席。不出所料，他的书是严谨的，并有很好的记录。也许没人预料到的是，这也是个人的，并从他的家人摆脱贫困和富裕的过程中获得了信息。迪顿自己关于这场大逃亡及其与不平等的关系的观点得到了有力的论证，但这些观点并没有强加给读者，从而排除了其他观点。他认为，专家的意见一般不应强加于那些作为我们协助进行大逃亡援助的预期受益者。这不利于阅读。往往在没有明确解决所提出的问题的情况下列出事实和考虑备选方案。我觉得这本书令人羞愧的原因之一是，它清楚地表明了“事实”本身在多大程度上不清楚。他带我们深入了解我们的贫困和收入指标的严重缺陷，以及提出更好的方案的实际和政治困难。即使我们在衡量收入的内容和方式上达成一致，我们应该相信官方统计数据准确地代表了印度和中国的增长率吗？他们离“真相”还有多远？举另一个例子，我们如何设定贫困线的微小差异可以极大地改变中国和美国被归类为贫困人口的人数。更根本的是，在中国和美国，贫穷意味着什么？如果每天1.5美元就足以让中国摆脱极端贫困，我们是否应该像北卡罗来纳州的一名议员最近所做的那样，在美国采用同样的标准？迪顿敦促我们思考关于我们所说的幸福、健康和贫困是什么的基本问题，但他并没有给出简单的答案。
137 need to respond to the media and for policymakers to inform public opinion and develop legislation that could have a significant impact on the firm’s bottom line. The Great Escape is a good place to start if you are looking to increase your own understanding of inequality as you attempt to add more light than heat to the debates. The great escape to which Deaton refers is the escape from death, disease, and poverty. As with the movie from which the title is taken, this great escape is the story of a remarkable achievement—an achievement that was neither inevitable nor is irreversible. Deaton reminds the reader that while the film focuses on the escape of 250 POWs from Stalag Luft III, all but three were recaptured. I found the book humbling, disquieting, and lacking in easy answers to complex questions—precisely why I also found it thoughtful and useful.The book’s author is a distinguished development economist at Princeton University and a past president of the American Economic Association. As might be expected, his book is rigorous and well documented. Perhaps less expected it is also personal and informed by his family’s escape from poverty and ascent to affluence. Deaton’s own views about this great escape and its relationship to inequality are ably argued, but they are not forced on the reader to the exclusion of other views. He believes that expert views generally should not be forced on those who are the intended beneficiaries of our assistance in making the great escape. This does not make for an easy read. Often the facts are laid out and options considered without a clear resolution of the issues raised. One of the reasons I found the book humbling is that it makes clear the extent to which the “facts” themselves are unclear. He takes us deep enough into the weeds to understand the serious shortcomings with our poverty and income measures and the practical and political difficulties of coming up with something better. Even if we agree on what and how to measure income, should we believe that official statistics accurately represent growth rates in India and China? And how far off are they from the “truth?” To cite another example, modest differences in how we set the poverty line can hugely change the number of people classified as poor in China and in the United States. More fundamentally, what does it mean to be poor in China and in the United States? If $1.50 a day would suffice to move out of extreme poverty in China, should we apply the same standard in the United States, as one North Carolina legislator did recently? Deaton prods us to consider the fundamental questions about what we mean by well-being, health, and poverty, but he does not hand out facile answers.