就业、利息和货币通论,中英文对照,共24份

就业、利息和货币通论

CHAPTER 16

SUNDRY OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURE OF CAPITAL

第十六章：关于资本性质的几点考察

I

AN act of individual saving means--so to speak—－ a decision not to have dinner to-day. But it does not necessitate a decision to have dinner or to buy a pair of boots a week hence or a year hence or to consume any specified thing at any specified date. Thus it depresses the business of preparing to-day's dinner without stimulating the business of making ready for some future act of consumption. It is not a substitution of future consumption-demand for present consumption-demand;--it is a net diminution of such demand. Moreover, the expectation of future consumption is so largely based on current experience of present consumption that a reduction in the latter is likely to depress the former, with the result that the act of saving will not merely depress the price of consumption-goods and leave the marginal efficiency of existing capital unaffected, but may actually tend to depress the latter also. In this event it may reduce present investment-demand as well as present consumption-demand.

个人的储蓄行为——可以说是——今天不用餐的决策。但这并非需要决策在一周或者一年之后用餐或买双皮鞋，或者在任何特定的日期消费特定的东西。因此，它抑制了供应今天用餐的商业活动，同时又没有刺激准备未来消费行为的商业活动。它不是用将来的消费需求代替现在的消费需求——它是这种需求的一种净减少。此外，人们对未来消费的期望如此依赖当期消费的经验，以致当期消费的减少可能抑制未来的消费。结果，储蓄行为不只会压低消费品的价格，从而使当期的资本边际效率不变；而且还会在压低消费品价格的同时，降低资本边际效率。这样，储蓄行为除了会减少当期消费需求之外，还会减少当期的投资需求。

If saving consisted not merely in abstaining from present consumption but in placing simultaneously a specific order for future consumption, the effect might indeed be different. For in that case the expectation of some future yield from investment would be improved, and the resources released from preparing for present consumption could be turned over to preparing for the future consumption. Not that they necessarily would be, even in