Ronald Coase, a British economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1991, argued that in some situations, and for some kinds of transactions, administrative decision-making within a single legal entity is more efficient than a straightforward market transaction. Mr. Coase’s arguments were influential and convinced economists that the internal workings of organisations were worth paying attention to explicitly. But it was left to Mr. Williamson to refine Mr. Coase’s theory and clarify what features of certain transactions made carrying them out more efficient within a firm rather than in the market.

Mr. Williamson showed that complex transactions involving investment decisions that are much more valuable within a relationship than to a third party are best done within a firm. Part of the problem, he argued, was that some economic transactions are so complicated, and involve so many things which could go wrong, that writing a legally enforceable contract that takes all possibilities into account is impossible. Simpler transactions are completed easily in markets; more complicated ones may demand firms. But in later work he also showed that organising matters within companies had costs: in particular, it relied on internal authority to get things done, and this could be abused.

Ms. Ostrom has concentrated on a different aspect of economic governance. She has spent her life studying how human societies manage common resources such as forests, rivers, pastures or wildlife. Just as with public goods, it is difficult to prevent people from using the commons. But unlike public goods, and like private ones, what one person takes leaves less for others. Economic theory then predicts that rational individuals will overuse these resources.

Economists have tended to emphasise property rights as a solution to the problem of managing common resources. But Ms. Ostrom spent much of her early career studying how communities managed such common resources. She found that groups of people tended to have complex sets of rules, norms and penalties to ensure that such resources were used sustainably. Such self-governance often worked well. Successful informal institutions, she found, have certain features in common, which sets them apart from institutions that fail. The principles of game theory, particularly the theory of repeated interactions, proved remarkably useful in formulating general principles of how common resources ought to be managed without necessarily resorting to private or state ownership.

Mr Williamson launched an entire branch of economic theorising which looks more deeply into firms than economists had tended to do previously. His theories have also helped with understanding the choice between equity and debt, and corporate finance more generally. Ms. Ostrom’s research has spawned many experiments about how people interact strategically. Some of these have influenced game theory, which originally provided Ms. Ostrom with her analytical tools.

注（1）：本文选自Economist；

注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象：第1~ 5题分别模仿2002年真题Text 4第1、2、4题和Text 3第3、5题。



1. From the first paragraph we learn that ______.

A) Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom were not considered candidates for the Noble Prize in Economics

B) the research focus of Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom touches upon a variety of fields

C) the works of Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom are irrelevant to the study of economics

D) Elinor Ostrom is known as the first female winner of the Nobel Prize since its establishment

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the text?

A) Williamson and Ostrom’s winning the prize mainly attributes to their cooperation in research.

B) Williamson has identified a series of factors which make the transactions in the market different from those within firms.

C) Both Williamson and Ostrom address the question of economic transactions.

D) It is commonly agreed among economists that transactions within firms tend to be more efficient.

3. Ostrom and Williamson’s researches show that ______.

A) it is universally true that complex transactions are more efficient in companies

B) to write a contract for complicated transactions is impossible

C) the prediction about rational individuals overusing common resources is incorrect

D) privatization is not necessarily the solution of problems about common resources

4. Which of the following best defines the word “self-governance” （Line 4, Paragraph 5）?

A) self-management.

B) self-control.

C) self-government.

D) self-manipulation.

5. We can draw a conclusion from the text that ______.

A) their researches shed light on the future of cross-disciplinary social studies

B) their researches help improve the research tools for economics

C) their researches have tremendously revolutionized the field of economics

D) their researches give people new insights into neglected problems





篇章剖析


文章介绍了2009年诺贝尔经济学奖获奖人威廉森和奥斯特罗姆的主要研究，突出了其研究跨学科性的重大意义。第一段指出了两位经济学家研究的独特之处，引出话题；第二、三段简要介绍了威廉森的研究内容及取得的成果；第四、五段描述了奥斯特罗姆的研究领域和成果；最后一段简要说明了这两人的跨学科研究对于经济学的重要意义。文章层次分明，结构清晰。





词汇注释


tip /tɪp/ v. 事先指出（优胜者）

boundary /ˈbaʊndrɪ/ n. 界线；边界

transaction /trænˈzækʃn/ n. 交易；业务

administrative /ədˈmɪnɪstrətɪv/ adj. 管理的；行政的

abuse /əˈbjuːz/ v. 滥用，妄用

governance /ˈgʌvənəns/ n. 统治；管理；支配

property right 产权

launch /lɔːntʃ/ v. 开始；积极投入





难句突破


Part of the problem, he argued, was that some economic transactions are so complicated, and involve so many things which could go wrong, that writing a legally enforceable contract that takes all possibilities into account is impossible.

主体句式：Part of the problem was that ...

结构分析：尽管主语和系动词之间有一个插入语，本句的主干还是比较简单的。本句的难点在于that引导的宾语从句，要理解这个从句重点要抓住so... that... 结构。与一般情况相比，本句中两个并列的so...进一步增加了句子的复杂性，而这两个so... 都是用来描述economic transaction并引出下面的that从句的。最后，that从句的主干是writing a legally enforceable contract is impossible，其中又包含了一个that引导的定语从句来修饰contract。

句子译文：但他指出，这里的问题在于，某些经济交易如此复杂，牵涉到的容易出错的东西又如此之多，以至于要把所有的可能性都写进具有法律效力的合同是不可能的。





题目分析


1. B 推理题。第一段说明了威廉森和奥斯特罗姆不是2009年诺贝尔经济学奖的热门人选，并简单介绍了他们的研究特点。虽然该段第一句话提到两人并不是获奖的热门人选，但是他们既然获奖了，那么他们一定都获得了提名，因此A项是错误的。该段第二句话表明两人都以跨学科研究而著称，但他们的研究必然涉及经济学，所以B项正确而C项不正确。D项的信息文中没有提及，也不正确。

2. C 细节题。文中第一段最后一句话提到，这两个人虽然是各自独立进行研究，但都主要研究哪类组织更适合哪类经济交易，因此C项正确，而因为两者没有合作，因此A项不正确。第二段最后一句话指出，威廉森的研究发现了某些交易的哪些特征会导致其在公司内部运作比在市场上更有效率，而B项是说他发现了一系列使得在公司内部交易与在市场上交易有所不同的因素，不够准确。第二段指出很多经济学家们都受科斯的理论影响，相信应该把注意力转到组织内部的运作，但并不是说经济学家普遍认同公司内部交易更有效，所以D项也不正确。

3. D 推理题。文章第二段至第五段分别写了两位经济学家的具体研究成果。虽然文章第三段指出威廉森的研究说明复杂的交易在公司内部进行更有效，但也指出威廉森后期提出了修正，即公司内部交易也是有成本的，故A是错误的。第三段中说要把所有的可能性都写进合同是不可能的，而不是说写合同是不可能的，所以B项不正确。第三段的最后一句话提出了该预期，但是文章中并没有详细说明这一预期是否正确，所以C项也不正确。文章第五段最后一句话指出，解决公共资源的问题不一定要采取私有化或者国有化的办法，因此D项正确。

4. A 语义题。从构词法和上下文可以推知self-governance是“自我管理”的意思，故A选项正确。

5. A 推理题。文章第一段指出，两人做的都是跨学科研究，本来不是获奖的热门人选但最终却获得了诺贝尔经济学奖，由此可见，威廉森和奥斯特罗姆的研究预示了社会科学跨学科研究的未来，故A项正确。最后一段指出，奥斯特罗姆的理论影响了博弈论这一经济学的重要研究工具，但这个情况并不适用于威廉森，因此B项错误。C项所述有些夸张，文中没有说两人的研究带来了革命性的影响。最后一段提到，威廉森关注前人忽略的问题，但奥斯特罗姆是否属于这种情况文中没有具体说明，所以D项也不正确。





参考译文


美国加州大学伯克利分校的奥利弗·威廉森和印第安纳大学布鲁明顿校区的埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆并不是今年诺贝尔经济学奖的热门人选。或许这是因为他们主要从事经济学、法学和政治学的跨学科研究，其研究问题与经济学家研究的传统问题不太一样。威廉森和奥斯特罗姆虽各自独立进行研究，但他们都对加深经济学家对于哪类组织——公司、市场、政府或者其他社会规范体系，更适合进行哪类经济交易的了解做出了很大贡献。

1991年获诺贝尔奖的英国经济学家科斯认为：在某些情况下，就某种类型的交易而言，在单独的法人实体内部做出的行政决策比在市场上的直接交易更有效率。科斯的理论影响巨大，他使经济学家确信，直截了当地把注意力转到组织内部的运作才是值得他们做的事情。不过，是威廉森真正地将科斯的理论进行了细化发展，他进一步指出了某些交易的哪些特征会导致其在公司内部运作的效率优于在市场上的效率。

威廉森证明了如果一些复杂的交易牵涉到投资决策，这种投资决策相比第三方来说对关联方具有更大的价值，此时该交易最好是内部进行。但他指出，这里的问题在于，某些经济交易如此复杂，牵涉到的容易出错的东西又如此之多，以至于要把所有的可能性都写进具有法律效力的合同是不可能的。简单一些的交易可在市场上轻松完成，而较为复杂的交易也许就需要公司的参与。不过，在其后期著作中，他也证明在公司内部组织交易是有成本的：特别是做事需要依靠内部权威，但权威有可能被滥用。

奥斯特罗姆则主要研究经济治理的另一个方面。她毕生致力于研究人类社会如何管理诸如森林、河流、牧场或野生动植物等的公共资源。就像公共物品那样，要想阻止人们使用公共资源是很困难的。但是，与公共物品不一样而与私人物品一样的是，当有人使用公共资源时，留给其他人的资源就相应地减少了。经济理论由此预言，在这种情况下理性的个人会过度地使用这些共同资源。

经济学家们一直倾向于强调用产权来解决公共资源的管理问题。但是奥斯特罗姆将其职业生涯早期的大部分时间用来研究某些团体会如何管理这些公共资源。她发现，这些团体倾向于建立一些系统的规矩、准则和处罚条例以保证这些资源能被可持续地使用，这种治理方法通常很奏效。她还发现，成功的非正式团体有一定的共性，这使其区别于那些不成功的团体。在这里博弈论的原则，特别是重复互动的博弈论被证明相当有用，有助于制定一些管理公共资源的通用规则而不是必须采取私有化或者国有化。

威廉森创立了经济理论化的一整个分支，与此前的经济学家所做的研究相比，该分支更深入地考察了公司的内部运作。他的理论对我们更广泛地理解公司关于筹股还是借债的选择，以及公司金融也很有助益。同时，奥斯特罗姆的研究还引发了许多探讨人们如何战略性地互动的实验。有些实验还对最初给奥斯特罗姆提供分析工具的博弈论产生了影响。





Unit 96


Some people, notably Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist at Oxford University, regard religion as a disease. It spreads, they suggest, like a virus, except that the “viruses” are similar to those infecting computers—bits of cultural software that take over the hardware of the brain and make it do irrational things.

Corey Fincher, of the University of New Mexico, has a different hypothesis for the origin of religious diversity. He thinks not that religions are like disease but that they are responses to disease—or, rather, to the threat of disease. If he is right, then people who believe that their religion protects them from harm may be correct, although the protection is of a different sort from the supernatural one they perceive.

Mr. Fincher is not arguing that disease-protection is religion’s main function. Biologists have different hypotheses for that. Not all follow Dr Dawkins in thinking it pathological. Some see it either as a way of promoting group solidarity in a hostile world, or as an accidental consequence of the predisposition to such solidarity. This solidarity-promotion is one of Mr. Fincher’s starting points. The other is that bacteria, viruses and other parasites are powerful drivers of evolution. Many biologists think that sex, for example, is a response to parasitism. The continual mixing of genes that it promotes means that at least some offspring of any pair of parents are likely to be immune to a given disease.

Mr. Fincher and his colleague Randy Thornhill wondered if disease might be driving important aspects of human social behaviour, too. Their hypothesis is that in places where disease is rampant, it behoves groups not to mix with one another more than is strictly necessary, in order to reduce the risk of contagion. They therefore predict that patterns of behaviour which promote group exclusivity will be stronger in disease-ridden areas. Since religious differences are certainly in that category, they specifically predict that the number of different religions in a place will vary with the disease load.

Proving the point involved collating a lot of previous research. Even defining what constitutes a religion is fraught with difficulty. But using accepted definitions of uniqueness, exclusivity, autonomy and superiority to other religions they calculated that the average number of religions per country is 31. The range, though, is enormous—from 3 to 643. C觝te d’lvoire, for example, has 76 while Norway has 13, and Brazil has 159 while Canada has 15. They then did the same thing for the number of parasitic diseases found in each country. The average here was 200, with a range from 178 to 248.

Obviously, some of the differences between countries are caused by differences in their areas and populations. But these can be accounted for statistically. When they have been, the correlation between the number of religions in a place and how disease-ridden it is looks impressive. There is less than one chance in 10,000 that it has come about accidentally.

The two researchers also looked at anthropological data on how much people in “traditional”（i.e., non-urban）societies move around in different parts of the world. They found that in more religiously diverse（and more disease-ridden）places people move shorter distances than in healthier, religiously monotonous societies. The implication is that religious diversity causes people to keep themselves to themselves, and thus makes it harder for them to catch germs from infidels.

Of course, correlation is not causation. But religion is not the only cultural phenomenon that stops groups of people from mixing. Language has the same effect, and in another, as yet unpublished study Mr. Fincher and Dr Thornhill found a similar relationship there too. Moreover, their search of the literature turned up work which suggests that xenophobia is linked psychologically with fear of disease （the dirty foreigner...）. Perhaps, then, the underlying reason why there is so much hostility between ethnic groups is nothing to do with the groups themselves, but instead with the diseases they may bring.

注（1）：本文选自Economist；

注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象：第1、2题分别模仿1998年真题Text 5第1题和Text 4第2题；第3题模仿1993年真题Text 2第1题；第4题模仿1999年真题Text 1第3题；第5题模仿1997年真题Text 4第4题。



1. What can we know about the views of Richard Dawkins and Corey Fincher from the first two paragraphs?

A) They disagree on which kind of mental disease religion belongs to.

B) Fincher hypothesizes that religion results from how people react to disease.

C) Fincher thinks it is inappropriate to compare religion with computer virus.

D) Dawkins opposes the viewpoint that religion is a response to disease.

2. Which of the following best describes the two starting points of Mr. Fincher’s hypothesis?

A) Group survival and immunity.

B) Group solidarity and genetic mutation.

C) Group connection and parasitism drive.

D) Group hostility and parenting.

3. By saying the areas are “disease-ridden”（Line 5, Paragraph 4）, the author means those areas are ______.

A) driven by diseases

B) with relatively fewer diseases

C) rife with various diseases

D) featured with incurable diseases

4. The anthropological data that they studied demonstrates that ______.

A) the sanitation of an area is closely relevant to the number of its religions

B) it is strongly convincing that religious diversity restricts people from traveling

C) people who live in healthier areas are aware that religious diversity brings disease

D) religious and language work together to cause xenophobia

5. The best title for this passage could be ______.

A) Religion as a Response to Disease

B) Religion as a Disease

C) Religion Diversity and Disease

D) Religion and Biological Research





篇章剖析


本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了新墨西哥大学的科里·芬彻提出的新假设，即宗教是人类对疾病，或者说是对疾病威胁的反应。第一段首先简单介绍了前人（理查德·道金斯）的观点，引出文章话题；第二段进入正题，说明芬彻提出的观点；第三段介绍了生物学上的相关假设和解释；第四至七段具体介绍了芬彻及其同事有关宗教与疾病关系的研究；第八段则提出，除了宗教之外，语言也是阻止人们接触的一个文化现象。





词汇注释


irrational /ɪˈræʃənl/ adj. 非理性的

hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθəsɪs/ n. 假说；前提

pathological /ˌpæθəˈlɒdʒɪkl/ adj. 病理上的；疾病的，病态的

solidarity /ˌsɒlɪˈdærəti/ n. 团结

predisposition /ˈpriːdɪspəˈzɪʃn/ n. 倾向；素质

parasite /ˈpærəsaɪt/ n. 寄生生物

parasitism /ˈpærəsaɪtɪzəm/ n. 寄生状态

collate /kəˈleɪt/ v. 校对，核对；对照

constitute /ˈkɒnstɪtjuːt/ v. 构成，组成

fraught /frɔːt/ adj. 充满…的；伴随…的

anthropological /ˌænθrəpəˈlɒdʒɪkl/ adj. 人类学的

xenophobia /ˌzenəˈfəʊbɪə/ n. 对外国（人）的无理仇视（或畏惧）





难句突破


But using accepted definitions of uniqueness, exclusivity, autonomy and superiority to other religions they calculated that the average number of religions per country is 31.