Borrowing and Consumption over the Life Cycle
生命周期上的借贷与消费
原文地址：
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2008/06/borrowing_and_c.html
作者：Becker
翻译：fenglf
The types of loans available to consumers have grown at unprecedented rates during the past 40 years. These include credit card debt, expanded availability of mortgages, student loans, payday loans, reverse mortgages, and many other types. The provocative social commentator and columnist David Brooks, in the article referred to by Posner, laments this development- he calls his column "The Great Seduction". He believes that one of its main consequences is that individuals use credit to consume too much when they are younger instead of saving at these ages so that they can consume more at later ages.
在过去40年中，消费者可用的贷款类型空前增加。这其中包括信用卡贷款、适用性更广的抵押贷款、学生贷款、发薪日贷款、反向抵押贷款以及许多其它的类型。尖锐的社会评论员及专栏作家大卫·布鲁克斯给他的专栏取名叫作“巨大的诱惑”，他在文章中哀叹信贷业的如此发展，他相信这样的结果之一便是使人们在年轻时消费过多储蓄较少，以至于年老了后消费不得不大减。
Obviously, some individuals borrow too much, and get caught in a spiral of high interest rate payments, bankruptcy, and insufficient assets as they age. Nevertheless, on the whole the growth of credit instruments available to consumers has been a positive development that helps finance investments in education and other human capital, and produces a more optimal consumption profile over the lifecycle.
显然，一些人借钱过多，陷入高息支付的漩涡、破产或者年老后资产不足。不过总体上来说，信贷工具的发展更具积极意义，它帮助人们投资于教育和其它人力资本的提升，并且使生命周期上的消费更加合理。
In the earlier times mentioned by Brooks, many families were farmers with incomes that fluctuated greatly because of changes in the weather, and because of pests and diseases. Urban workers also faced severe risks due to the threat of unemployment and other difficulties in labor markets. Families had little opportunity to get commercial credit to help tide them over the bad times. They had either to borrow from relatives, accumulate assets that could protect them against future risks, or suffer much during the bad times. They would have saved less and welcomed credit cards, mortgages, and harvest loans as more effective ways to adjust to these risks.
如布鲁克林提到的，在早期，许多家庭从事农业生产，受天气、害虫和疾病的影响，他们的收入波动很大。城市工人由于解雇的威胁和其它劳动力市场里的困难，也面临许多风险。人们几乎没有机会去获得商业信贷以克服困难时期。他们要么向亲戚借钱，储备资产以便抵御未来的风险，要么就只能在困难时遭受巨大的损失。他们愿意储蓄更少并欢迎信用卡、抵押贷款、收割贷款等有效途径以便能抵御风险。
Until the past 50 years, children from well off families had a large advantage in going to college because their studies were in large measure financed by their parents. The great boom in college education (that we wrote about last week) has seen many more students from modest income backgrounds entering and often completing college. They typically finance their education by working while in school and by borrowing with student loans and credit card debt, or their parents borrow in various ways to help them out. Without such credit, many of these students would be unable to get the college education that is so crucial to success in modern economies.
直到过去50年，富裕家庭的孩子在上大学方面有很大的优势，因为这大部分要靠他们家长的资金支持。我们看到，更多的来自低收入家庭的学生进入大学并完成学业，大学入学率急速增长。他们上学的费用主要来自以下几方面，在学校里勤工俭学、通过学生贷款或信用卡借钱，或者其父母通过各种途径借钱帮助他们。没有这些信贷方式，这些学生将无法接受大学教育，而大学教育对在现代社会中取得成功至关重要。
The debt of college students does not simply pay for tuition, but also helps cover living expenses while in school. College students earn little then and in the first decade or so after they enter the labor force, while they earn much more when they are older. For this reason, the most forward looking and least impulsive college educated individuals want to borrow, not save, when they are young in order to raise their consumption then, and thereby help smooth out their consumption as they age. In addition, most men and women have greater consumption pressures when they are in their thirties and early forties because they raise their children then, and often provide financial support to elderly parents. Most young people who do not go to college are high school graduates, and they too have lower earnings and greater family responsibilities during their thirties and forties. They also would like to borrow at younger ages to raise their consumption at these ages to more appropriate levels compared to their consumption when they are older.
大学生的借款不单是用于支付学费，还包括在校时的生活费用。大学生在校期间、刚参加工作及之后十年间，一般赚钱都比较少，当他们更老些时赚得会更多些。因为这个原因，那些有远见理智的毕业生希望在他们年轻的借钱增加消费，而不是存钱，这有助于他们平衡现在与年老后的消费额。另外，大多数男女在三四十岁时都面临着特别大的开销
压力，他们要抚养小孩，常常也需要赡养父母。大部分高中毕业的人在其三四十岁面临更大的家庭责任，而他们收入还更低。这些人也愿意在年轻时借钱以增加消费，使之对比其年老后的消费水平相对合适。
Studies by my colleague Erik Hurst show that consumption of Americans beyond age 65 is generally not low relative to consumption at younger ages; apparently, they save enough when younger to enable them to consume generously when retired. In earlier time, families had to save to provide for their old age consumption since social security and company pensions were non-existent.
我的同事Erik Hurst的研究显示，65岁以上的
美国人的消费水平相对于其年轻时的消费水平并不低；显然，他们在年轻时储蓄了足够钱以保证退休后的开销。在过去，由于还没有社会保障和公司养老金体系，人们必须储蓄以备年老后的开销。
A few other factors have contributed to the borrowing boom in recent decades. The decline in family stability has reduced the access to credit from relatives during bad times. Commercial credit has substituted for the family credit that was formerly available. Improvements in the capacity of lenders to track and monitor their loans, and to compensate restaurants and other businesses for their short term loans to credit card users, has reduced effective interest rates to consumers on small loans much below what they were in the past. Household Finance and other lenders of small amounts to consumers used to charge over 30 percent annual interest, and more when that was legal. In a rational world, much lower interest rates on consumer debt would induce considerable additional borrowing, and it has.
近几十年借贷业的高速发展还有一些其它的因素。家庭稳定性的下降使在困难时期向亲戚借款的行为减少，商业信贷取代了家庭信用。放贷人在跟踪监督其贷款的能力方面的提高，以及在支持其信用卡用户刷卡消费技术上的进步，都使得顾客在小额贷款上的有效利率比过去降低了很多很多。在过去，家庭
金融公司和其它小额放贷者对顾客收取的年利息率高达30%以上，法定的还更高。在一个理性的世界，贷款上更低的利率将引发更多的借款行为，事实也确实如此。
Every new form of credit brings with it abuse from some borrowers and lenders. This has clearly been the case with the expansion in consumer credit instruments, but the benefits from this expansion seem to have far outweighed the costs.
信贷上的每一次创新都将遭到一些借贷人的恶评。这毫无疑问会伴随着消费信贷工具的扩张而出现，但是，扩张带来的好处貌似要远胜于其负面影响。
