[转帖] [2011.08.06] The revenge of Malthus 马尔萨斯的复仇

showcraft

http://www.ecocn.org/bbs.php?mod=viewthread&tid=56860
Raw materials

原材料

The revenge of Malthus

马尔萨斯的复仇

A famous bet recalculated

著名赌局现新论

Aug 6th 2011 | from the print edition

THE surge in commodity prices over the past decade has revived an old debate. Will mankind’s insatiable demands exhaust the planet’s finite resources? Or will human ingenuity lead to the more efficient use of existing raw materials and the discovery of new sources of supply?

过去十几年里急剧上涨的物价让人们想起一个旧争议。人类无尽的需求是否会将地球上有限的资源耗尽？又或者人类是否拥有能够更有效利用现有原材料，并发现新材料供给源的智慧？

The last, big commodity boom occurred in the 1970s. That coincided with the rise of the ecological movement, many of whose members saw the rise in prices as a sign that growth in the developed world was unsustainable. This led in 1980 to a bet between a prominent ecologist, Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb”, and Julian Simon, an economist at the Cato Institute, a free market think-tank. The two camps were dubbed the Malthusians (after a British economist who forecast that population would outstrip food supply) and the Cornucopians, thanks to their belief in endless abundance.

上一次的大型商品热潮发生在70年代。巧合的是，当时正逢生态运动的兴起，许多发达国家那时都把物价上涨看作是经济增长缺乏持续性的标志。这导致了1980年《人口爆炸论》的作者著名生态学家Paul Ehrlich和信奉市场经济的智囊机构——凯托研究所的经济学家Julian Simon之间的打赌。双方阵营分别被称为“马尔萨斯派”（从英国经济学家马尔萨斯预测食物供应跟不上人口增长的典故而来）和“聚宝盆派”（这是因为这一方相信商业繁荣无上限）。

Faced with a challenge from Mr Simon, Mr Ehrlich selected five metals—copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten—whose prices he thought would rise in real terms over the following ten years. Mr Simon bet that prices would fall. It is clear in retrospect that Mr Ehrlich showed bad timing, since the late 1970s saw a cyclical zenith for commodity prices. But Mr Simon also had history on his side: real commodity prices fell steadily throughout the 20th century.

针对Simon的质疑，Ehrlich选定了五种金属——铜，铬，镍，锡和钨，并坚信这些金属的真实价格会在接下去十年里上涨。Simon赌它们的真实价格会下降。站在今天的角度回顾往事，显然Ehrlish赶上了个坏时机，因为70年代末正好是商品价格的一个周期性顶点。但Simon的胜利也已经成为历史，商品真实价格只是一路跌至20世界末。

Mr Simon duly won the bet. The economic boom of the 1980s and 1990s also contradicted Mr Ehrlich’s wilder claims—that a billion people would starve to death and that, by 1985, America would be trapped in an “age of scarcity”.

Simon当时打赌获胜赶上了合适的时机。经济繁荣的80年代和90年代印证了Ehrlich的观点乃一派胡言：什么100万人将死于饥荒，什么到了1985年，美国将陷入“资源稀缺时代”的困境。

But what if Mr Ehrlich had taken up Mr Simon’s 1990 offer to go “double or quits” for any future date? All five have risen in price since the rematch was proposed. Furthermore, Jeremy Grantham of GMO, a fund-management group, points out that Mr Ehrlich would have won the original bet were it recalculated today (he is still alive; Mr Simon died in 1998). An equally weighted portfolio of the five commodities is now higher in real terms than the average of their prices back in 1980 (see chart).

但假设Ehrlich在1990年接受了Simon提出的“赢双倍还是输精光” 预计未来行情的挑战，结局又会怎样呢？从下定这个挑战之后，上述五种金属的价格全部都已经看涨。另外，GMO基金管理集团的Jeremy Grantham指出，如果现在重新计算结果的话，1980年那场赌局的赢家会是Ehrlich。（Ehrlich仍然健在，Simon逝于1998年）。这五种金属今天的等加权投资组合真实价格比1980年的平均价格要高。

重金属

美国市场铬，铜，镍，锡，钨的平均真实价格，以1980年数据为基数



The Cornucopians might argue that today’s metals prices are due to the buoyancy of demand in the developing world rather than any cataclysmic shortages in supply. But the Malthusians might retort that man’s famed ingenuity has not stopped prices from rising in real terms over an extended period. Place your bets.

聚宝盆派也许会争辩，今天的金属价格居高是因为发展中国家的需求上涨而非严重的供给短缺。但马尔萨斯派可能会反驳道，人类引以为荣的智慧并没能阻止长期以来的商品真实价格上涨。读者们不妨赌赌看他们会怎么说。

from the print edition | Finance and Economics