经济学人双语精读：印度要如何成为亚洲之虎

2024年7月18日 文摘

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How India could become an Asian tiger
印度要如何成为亚洲之虎

The world’s most selective bureaucracy is struggling to make it happen
全球最挤破头的官僚系统正在艰难追寻这一目标

  • selective 认真挑选的；严格筛选的

IS INDIA ACHIEVING its potential? In the year to the third quarter of 2023, the country grew at a blistering rate of 8.4%. Over the next half-decade it is expected to expand at 6.5% a year, which would make it the world’s fastest-growing big economy. So far, so good. The problem, as critics point out, is that China, Japan and South Korea all expanded at 10% or so a year during their periods of rapid growth. Part of the reason for India’s less impressive figures is a slowdown in globalisation. But a new book by Karthik Muralidharan of the University of California, San Diego, called “Accelerating India’s Development”, argues that the crucial barrier to faster development is a lack of “state capacity”.
印度是否正在实现自身潜力？截至2023年第三季度的一年里，该国以8.4%的惊人速度增长。未来五年，其年增长率预计将达到6.5%，使其成为全球增长最快的大型经济体。目前为止，一切顺利。但批评者指出，中国、日本和韩国在它们的快速增长期内年增长率都达到了10%左右。印度的增长数字相比之下逊色了些，原因之一是如今全球化进程放缓了。但加州大学圣地亚哥分校的卡尔希克·穆拉里塔兰（Karthik Muralidharan）在他的新书《加速印度发展》（Accelerating India's Development）中指出，阻碍印度实现更快发展的关键是缺乏“国家能力”。

  • blister （使表皮等）涨破，爆裂

Mr Muralidharan describes this concept as the “effectiveness” of government. Throwing money at a state lacking capacity is like adding fuel to a car near a breakdown: it won’t get you very far. Currently, the Indian state succeeds when on “mission mode”, achieving clearly defined goals. In April it should pull off the largest democratic exercise in history, as voters pick a prime minister. At the same time, it struggles with mundane, everyday aspects of governance, such as education and health. Three in five rural children in the fifth year of school cannot read at a second-year level—and in the past five years the failure rate has only worsened.
穆拉里塔兰解释说，这一概念是指政府的“效能”。向一个能力不足的政府投入资金就像给一辆行将出故障的汽车加油：走不了多远。目前，印度政府在“任务模式”下最易成功，能够实现界定清楚的目标。4月，随着选民选出总理，印度将完成史上规模最大的民主选举。但同时，印度在教育和医疗等不那么起眼的日常治理上却举步维艰。在农村地区，五年级学生中有五分之三达不到二年级的阅读水平，过去五年里这个比例还在上升。