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通过阅读学词汇CET-632

时间:2022-02-06 17:54:32 大学英语 我要投稿

通过阅读学词汇CET-6(32)

Unit thirty-two

通过阅读学词汇CET-6(32)

A Stunning Advance in Third World Productivity?

  Two weeks ago, China had the 10th largest economy in the world. This week it jumps to third, behind the U.S. and Japan. India, formerly No.11, leaps to No.6. Mexico climbs from No.12 to No.10.

  what has been going on? A stunning advance in Third World productivity? No, something more mundane but almost as far-reaching is taking place as the Washington-based International Monetary Fund switches to a different system for estimating the size of each country’s economy. Those most affected are rapidly industrializing nations such as Mexico, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Thailand, and their upgraded status, is likely to change perceptions of the world’s economic balance of power. Says Robert Hormats: “This new accounting underscores in quantitative terms just how powerful China, India and other developing countries are today, both as markets and as competitors.”

   The IMF’s latest calculations replace an accounting technique that valued in the U.S. dollars the output of goods and services in every nation. That system, still widely used by economists as well as by multilateral lenders like the world Bank, produces swings in a country’s gross national product, its total output of goods and services, every time the value of its currency shifts in relation to the U.S. dollar. The IMF’s new gauge relies on “purchasing-power parity,” a means of calculating national income that many economists believe should have been put into practice long ago. Rather than GNP being measured in dollars, a national basket of goods and services encompassing the likes of transport, food, clothing and shelter is tallied in local currency and compared with purchasing power of similar goods and servi