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这是一篇讨论美国经济复苏的文章

Robert Rubin
百分数和年份用阿拉伯数字表示

Well, no gain without pain, they say. But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are presiding over is for real. The official statistics are mildly discouraging. They show that, if you lump manufacturing and services together, productivity has grown on average by 1.2% since 1987. That is somewhat faster than the average during the previous decade. And since 1991, productivity has increased by about 2% a year, which is more than twice the 1978-1987 average. The trouble is that part of the recent acceleration is due to the usual rebound that occurs at this point in a business cycle, and so is not conclusive evidence of a revival in the underlying trend. There is, as Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, says, a 'disjunction' between the mass of business anecdote that points to a leap in productivity and the picture reflected by the statistics.
人们说，不劳不获。但是，如果付出了却没有收获会怎样呢？在美国，无论你走到哪里都会听到企业复苏的故事。但难以确定的是商业人士自认为领导的这场生产力革命是否确有其事。 官方的统计数据却有些让人沮丧。这些数据表明，如果把制造业和服务业合起来算，1987年以来生产力平均增长1.2%，这比上一个十年的平均增长速度略快。自1991年来，生产力每年约增长2%。这比1978至1987年的平均增长速度高两倍多。问题在于，近年发生的生产力快速增长现象部分是由于商业周期到了这时候通常会出现的反弹造成的，因而它不是经济复苏已经是潜在趋势的确凿证据。正如财政部长罗伯特•鲁宾所说的，大量有关生产力飞跃增长的商业传奇与统计数据所反映的情况之间存在着"出入"。