VOA慢速英语:Two American Professors Win Nobel for Studies on Effects of Economic Policy

Two American professors will share the twenty eleven Nobel Prize in economics.  Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced the winners this week.
两位美国教授将分享2011年诺贝尔经济学奖。瑞典皇家科学院常任秘书长Staffan Normark这个星期宣布了获奖者。

STAFFAN NORMARK: "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, 2011, to Professor Thomas J. Sargent at New York University, New York, USA and Professor Christopher A. Sims at Princeton University, Princeton, USA."
STAFFAN NORMARK：“瑞典皇家科学院已决定将2011年纪念阿尔弗雷德诺贝尔2011年瑞典银行经济学奖颁发给美国纽约大学的Thomas J Sargent教授和美国普林斯顿大学的Christopher A. Sims教授。”

Professors Sims and Sargent are both sixty-eight years old.  They are being honored for work they did in the nineteen seventies and eighties.  But their research has been and remains important to economic policy in many countries.  This is especially true in a time when debt in Europe and other problems around the world have hurt economic growth.
Sims教授和Sargent教授都是68岁，他们被授予该奖是因为他们20世纪七八十年代的研究工作，但他们的研究一直以来对许多国家的经济政策都很重要，尤其是在欧洲债务和世界各地的其它问题伤害到经济增长的时期。

The Nobel committee recognized the two professors for their work in showing how policy decisions can affect the health of economies.  Both men have studied how actions, like raising interest rates or cutting taxes, affect things like economic growth and inflation.
诺贝尔委员会认可这两名教授的工作，他们的研究展示了政策决定如何影响经济的健康。两人都研究了像提高利率或削减税收等行为会如何影响经济增长和通货膨胀的。

Professor Sargent studied periods of high inflation in several European countries in the nineteen hundreds.  His work suggested that it was important for governments and central banks to keep inflation low and interest rates stable.
Sargent教授研究了20世纪几个欧洲国家的高通胀时期。他的研究结果表明，政府和央行保持低通货膨胀率和利率的稳定非常重要。

Professor Sims suggested a new way of studying economic information over time.  He has used a tool of economic analysis, called a vector auto-regression model. Such models provide ways to examine issues like whether growth in the money supply helps to predict inflation.
Sims教授提出了一种研究临时性经济信息的新方法。他使用了一个被称为“向量自回归模型”的经济分析工具。该模型提供了检查像是否货币供应量增长有助于预测通胀问题的方法。

Christopher Sims told reporters by telephone why his work and the work of Thomas Sargent was so important today.
Christopher Sims通过电话告诉记者，为什么他和萨金特的研究结果在今天如此重要。

CHRISTOPHER SIMS: "I think the methods that I have used and Tom has developed are central to finding our way out of this mess. I think they point to a way to try to unravel why our serious problems develop and new research using these methods may help us lead us out of it."
CHRISTOPHER SIMS：“我认为，我所使用的和Tom研究的方法都集中于为烂摊子寻找出路。我觉得这些方法为试图解答为什么我们面临的严重问题会扩大的问题指明了道路。而使用这些方法的新研究可能有助于带领我们走出困境。”

Professors Sargent and Sims will share prize money worth about one point five million dollars.  The prize is officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.  It was first given in nineteen sixty-nine and is the only Nobel Prize not established by Alfred Nobel.
Sargent教授和Sims教授将分享约150万美元的奖金。该奖项的官方称谓是“纪念阿尔弗雷德诺贝尔瑞典银行经济学奖”，它于1969年首次颁发，是唯一一项非阿尔弗雷德诺贝尔设立的奖项。