【英语生活】比一比生活成本

I remember, said a Christmas bore, when it was possible to take a friend to the cinema, buy a round of drinks, take a taxi home and still have change from £5. Those good old days are not so distant. In the early 1970s it would have been possible to do precisely that. Today a similar evening would leave some change from £50 but not much. Such an increase is in line with official statistics of inflation, which suggest that prices in Britain have risen eightfold over the period

The aggregate disguises the variability of the individual components. Cinema charges have increased by less than prices generally, a round of drinks by more, taxi fares by much more.

Theatre once cost little more than cinema but no longer. In 1970 the best seats to London's West End shows were about £2; the same ticket today will set you back between £40 and £50. But if you prefer to stay at home and watch television, you can get a better picture and a more reliable appliance for the £200 a set would have cost 35 years ago.

The Asian effect has driven down even the relative price of simple manufactures: a chisel that cost £3 in 1970 has risen, but to £10 not £25. Where global competition interacts with technological change, as with televisions, results are often dramatic.

A transatlantic telephone call in 1970 was about £1 per minute, so a 15-minute call once a week for a year would have cost more than a small car. If you shop around today – and you are able to shop around today – you can buy that service for much less than the price of a tank of fuel.

If you prefer to fly to New York, the cost in the early 1970s was about £200 return. Today there is a much wider choice of airlines and fares and, if you pick your way among them, you can make the same trip for about the same price – so long as you fly economy. In those days, a first-class fare was less than twice the cost of an economy ticket. No one imagined that you could charge some passengers more than 20 times as much as others for seats on the same plane.

A first-class seat is a positional good: it is available only in limited supply, is bought only by the affluent and serves as a symbol of their affluence. The price of positional goods has risen sharply, reflecting rising incomes and greater inequality. A two-bedroom cottage in the heart of Notting Hill, on the market for £32,000 in 1972, would now fetch £1.5 million.

Technology, globalisation and competition drive prices down. The status of positional goods, the rising cost of domestically produced labour-intensive services and the absence of vigorous competition push prices up.

As with London theatres, so with restaurants. In 1970 you could have dined at a top London restaurant for less than £3 per head. But a top London restaurant then would seem pedestrian in 2007 and a Gordon Ramsay menu leaves little change from £100.

Economic growth in advanced societies largely takes the form of quality change and new goods. An entry-level car has risen in price from about £750 to something like £8,000. But comfort, performance and reliability are incomparably superior and that 1970 car would simply be unmarketable today. The desktop calculator has gone; desktop personal computers have arrived; the iPod has taken over from the gramophone. Video cassette recorders came and went in a single generation.

No one experiences averages, and that explains why many people – even Christmas bores – are sceptical about price indices. The variability of individual prices is so great that it is easy to think of items whose price has risen far more than inflation. Changes in product quality and the arrival of new goods confuse both consumers and official statisticians. The longer the period of price comparison, the more strained such comparison becomes.

David Landes, the New York-born economist, famously described how Nathan Rothschild – possibly the richest man in the world in 1836 – died, in spite of the costliest medical attention available, from an illness that could today be cured by antibiotics costing a few pence. What does that tell us about the cost of living?

一个过腻了圣诞节的人表示，他还记得，从前带个朋友去看电影、买一轮酒，最后乘出租车回家，可能也花不了5英镑。以往那些好日子并不那么遥远。就在70年代初期，上述的一切还是可能的。而今天，一个类似的夜晚可能花不了50英镑，但也剩不下很多。

这种增长符合官方的通胀统计，统计表明，这段时期内英国的物价涨了8倍。



这个总数掩盖了不同价格的变化程度。与总体价格相比，电影票价格的增幅偏低，酒价增幅偏高，而出租车费的增幅则更高。

在剧院的花费曾比电影院高一些，但现在已经不是了。在1970年，伦敦西区(London's West End)位置最好的的演出票大约2英镑；而同样的一张票，今天要花上40英镑至50英镑。但是，如果你更喜欢呆在家里看电视，你可以看到更好的图像，拥有更可靠的设备，而这在35年前要花200英镑。



亚洲的影响，甚至压低了简单的制造业产品的相对价格：1970年售价3英镑的凿子，价格涨到了10英镑，而非25英镑。全球竞争与技术进步相结合——正如在电视机方面——的结果通常是引人瞩目的。



在1970年，跨大西洋电话每分钟的收费是1英镑，那么，每周打15分钟电话，一年下来的花费将超过一辆小型汽车。今天，如果你去选购——你的确能够去选购——你能以远低于一箱燃油的价格买到。

如果你更喜欢乘飞机去纽约，70年代初期的往返票价大约是200英镑。今天，可供选择的航班和票价范围要大得多，如果你仔细挑选，几乎可以花同样的钱飞同样的旅程——只要你乘的是经济舱。当年，头等舱的票价不及经济舱的2倍。当时没人想得到，在同一架飞机上，一些乘客的票价是其他人的20倍以上。



头等舱位是一种显示身份的商品：它只在限量供应，只有富人才会购买，用于彰显其财富。显示身份的商品价格增长迅速，反映出收入的日益增长以及不平等的加剧。在诺丁山(Notting Hill)的中心地带，1972年市价3.2万英镑的一套双卧小别墅，现在要卖到150万英镑。







科技、全球化和竞争，推动价格下跌。显示地位商品的状况、本土劳动密集型服务成本不断上升，以及缺乏有力竞争，则导致价格上涨。



餐厅的情形与伦敦的剧院一样。在1970年，在伦敦顶级餐厅进餐，人均花销低于3英镑。而在2007年，当年的顶级餐厅可能看上去已是普普通通，而在Gordon Ramsay的一顿饭，几乎要花掉100英镑。

在发达社会中，经济增长主要体现在质量变化和新产品方面。一辆入门级汽车的价格，已从750英镑左右，增至约8000英镑，但其舒适程度、性能和安全性已不可同日而语，而1970年的汽车如今将根本卖不动了。台式计算器已见不到了；个人台式电脑已经问世；iPoD取代了留声机。就在一代人的时间里，录像机出现又消失了。







没人体验过平均数，这正是许多人——包括过腻了圣诞节的人——之所以对价格指数持怀疑态度的原因。单个价格的可变性非常大，以至于很容易想到价格涨幅远超过通胀率的东西。产品质量的变化，以及新产品的出现，把消费者和官方统计人员都弄糊涂了。价格对比的周期越长，这种比较也就越牵强。



纽约出生的经济学家大卫•兰德斯(David Landes)极其出色地描述了内森•罗思柴尔德(Nathan Rothschild)——他或许是1836年全世界最富有的人——如何死于一种疾病，尽管他使用了当时最昂贵的医疗手段。而在今天，花几便士购买的抗生素便可治愈这种疾病。就生活成本而言，这又向我们说明了什么问题？



译者/ 陈家易