1、经济学人精选62013.03.07 Timed out 是时候和时代说分手了Time Warners spin out plans时代华纳的资产剥离方案Timed out挥别一个“时代”Mar 7th 2013, 8:33 by A.E.S.JEFF BEWKES, the boss of Time Warner, a largemedia conglomerate, rarely utters the word “magazine”. Before becoming boss ofTime Warner, he oversaw its highly profitable premium te
2、levision channel, HBO.His passion is TV, not text. Therefore few who know Mr Bewkes were surprisedwhen he announced on March 7th that Time Warner would spin off Time Inc, itsmagazine unit, by the end of 2013.传媒巨头时代华纳的掌门杰夫比克斯很少会提到“杂志”这个词。在接掌时代华纳之前，他负责的是该集团的利润大户 付费电视频道 HBO。他热衷的是电视，而不是文字。所以当他在3月7日宣布，时代
3、华纳将在年底之前剥离杂志部门时代公司时，了解他的人并没有几个感到意外。Magazines are not where money in media is today.Time Inc, which publishes magazines such as Time, People and Entertainment Weekly,is one of Americasoldest and most iconic magazine companies, but it has become a drag on TimeWarners bottom line. Last year revenue for
4、 Time Inc was $3.4 billion, down 7%from a year earlier and down more than 26% from 2008.杂志并非当今媒体行业的“金矿”。作为时代周刊 、 人物和娱乐周刊等杂志的出版商，时代公司是美国杂志行业中历史最悠久、最具标志性的企业。但在时代华纳的账簿上，它却成了一种累赘。去年，其收入为34亿美元，较之2011年下跌了7%，而较之2008年则下跌超过26%。Time Inc has been hit by a difficult economy,ailing advertising and uninspired lea
5、dership. Laura Lang, Time Incs boss whoformerly ran Digitas, a digital advertising agency, took over after JackGriffin was fired. Few felt Ms Lang ever had a real vision for what Time Incshould become. She will step down when Time Inc becomes its own public company.时代公司的苦难来自举步维艰的经济形势、每况愈下的广告业务和缺乏创见的
6、领导层。劳拉朗是在杰克格里芬被解雇之后接任掌门一职的，此前她管理的是数字广告公司迪吉特斯。绝大多数人都认为，对于时代公司的未来道路，她从来就没有真正的愿景。时代公司单独上市之后，她就将卸任。The decision to spin off Time Inc came afternegotiations with Meredith, another magazine publisher, which specialises inwomens magazines, collapsed. Time Warner originally wanted to keep control oftitles t
7、hat had synergies with its cable properties, such as Time and SportsIllustrated, but later rethought that strategy.剥离时代公司这一决定，是在与梅瑞狄斯公司的谈判破裂后做出的（后者是专注于女性杂志的出版商） 。时代华纳原本打算继续掌控与一些与有线电视资产“珠联璧合”的刊物，比如时代周刊和体育画报等，但后来对这一策略有了新的想法。A deal with Meredith would have been “an elegantsolution”, says Peter Kreisky,
8、 a media consultant and former advisor to TimeInc. Meredith had synergies with many of Time Incs titles. The combinedcompanies could have consolidated some of their magazines, editorial staffs andadvertising sales teams. Earlier this year Time Inc already announced it wouldlay off 6% of its work for
9、ce.时代公司前顾问、媒体咨询师皮特克莱斯基认为，与梅瑞狄斯公司的交易原本会是“一个很好的解决办法”。因为它与时代公司的许多刊物都相得益彰。两家公司合并后，还可以整合旗下部分杂志、编辑部门和销售团队。今年早些时候，时代公司已经宣布将会裁员6%。Now Time Inc must face the world, andshareholders, alone. Time Inc has been buttressed by Time Warners flush TVdivisions. That is not unlike what has happened at News Corporation
10、, a rivalmedia conglomerate that is controlled by Rupert Murdoch. In June News Corp willsplit into two companies and separate its publishing assets from its film andTV business. Other media companies are also looking to offload print. TheTribune Company is trying to sell its newspapers to focus on i
11、ts TV assets.Divorce is hard, especially when it is spelled out in print.现在，时代公司必须独自面对这个世界和公司股东。此前一直支持它的是时代华纳财力雄厚的电视部门。这一点很像竞争对手新闻集团的情况（后者是由鲁伯特默多克掌控的大型传媒集团） 。今年6月，新闻集团将把旗下的出版业务和影视业务分拆为两家公司。而其他的传媒企业也正打算剥离纸媒业务。比如，论坛报业集团就正试图出售旗下几家报纸，以便专注于电视业务。分手总是痛苦的，尤其是白纸黑字的分手。http:/ecocn.org/thread-181148-1-1.html 译者
12、：chengius2013.03.09Net benefits 网络净收益Free exchange自由交流Net benefits网络净收益How to quantify thegains that the internet has brought to consumers如何量化互联网给用户带来的收益？Mar 9th 2013 |From theprint editionWHEN her two-year-old daughter was diagnosedwith cancer in 1992, Judy Mollica spent hours in a nearby medical l
13、ibrary insouth Florida, combing through journals for information about her childs condition.Upon seeing an unfamiliar term she would stop and hunt down its meaningelsewhere in the library. It was, she says, like “walking in the dark”. Herdaughter recovered but in 2005 was diagnosed with a different
14、form of cancer.This time, Ms Mollica was able to stay by her side. She could read articlesonline, instantly look up medical and scientific terms on Wikipedia, and thenfollow footnotes to new sources. She could converse with her daughtersspecialists like a fellow doctor. Wikipedia, she says, not only
15、 saved her timebut gave her a greater sense of control. “You cant put aprice on that.”1992年茱迪莫莉卡（ Judy Mollica）两岁大的女儿被诊断出患上了癌症，她在南佛罗里达州一家离医院不远的医学图书馆中花费了大量的时间细致地查阅医学期刊了解女儿的病情。碰到一个陌生的术语时她便会停下来，接着在图书馆中四处搜寻术语的含义。她说那段时间“就像是在黑暗中摸索，毫无头绪。 ”她女儿后来康复了，但在2005年再次被诊断出患有另一种癌症。这次，莫莉卡不用再两头奔波寻找信息，而是能够陪在她的身边。她可以在线阅读文章
16、，能立刻在维基百科（Wikipedia）上查出医学和科学术语，而且还能根据脚注找到新的信息。她可以和主治医生交流女儿的病情，就像是医生的一位同事。莫莉卡说维基百科不仅仅为她节省了时间，还带给她一种更大的主动权。 “这是无法明码标价的。 ”Measuring the economic impact of all the waysthe internet has changed peoples lives is devilishly difficult because so muchof it has no price. It is easier to quantify the losses Wi
17、kipedia has inflictedon encyclopedia publishers than the benefits it has generated for users like MsMollica. This problem is an old one in economics. GDP measures monetarytransactions, not welfare. Consider someone who would pay $50 for the latest HarryPotter novel but only has to pay $20. The $30 d
18、ifference represents anon-monetary benefit called “consumer surplus”. The amount of internet activitythat actually shows up in GDPGoogles ad sales, for examplesignificantly understates its contribution to welfare by excluding the consumersurplus that accrues to Googles users. The hard question to an
19、swer is by howmuch.要想测算互联网给人们生活方方面面带来的改变所产生的经济影响难于上青天，因为这些影响没有价格。相比量化维基百科给莫莉卡这样的用户带来的益处而言，它给百科全书出版商造成的损失却要更容易计算一些。在经济学领域这是一个老生常谈的问题。国民生产总值（Gross Domestic Product，简称 GDP）以货币交易量为衡量标准，而非经济福利。有人愿意花50美元购买最新的哈利波特（Harry Potter）系列小说，但他只需付20美元就能买到。那这30美元的差额就可以算作非货币收益，经济学上称之为“消费者剩余(也称“消费者盈余”，译者注) ”。GDP 中由互联网活
20、动产生的那部分经济总量 例如，谷歌的广告销售额 严重低估了互联网对经济福利做出的贡献，谷歌用户不断累积的消费者剩余就未计算在内。可难题在于：这部分被低估了的贡献量究竟有多大呢？Shane Greenstein of NorthwesternUniversity and Ryan McDevitt of the University of Rochester calculated the consumersurplus generated by the spread of broadband access (which ought to include thesurplus generated
21、by internet services, since that is why consumers pay for broadband).They did so by constructing a demand curve. Say that in 1999 a person pays $20a month for internet access. By 2006 the spread of broadband has lowered thereal price to $17. That subscriber now enjoys consumer surplus of $3 per year
22、,even as the lower price lures more subscribers. The authors reckon that by 2006broadband was generating $39 billion in revenue and $5 billion-$7 billion inconsumer surplus a year. Based on its share of online viewing, Mr Greensteinthinks Wikipedia accounted for up to $50m of that surplus.美国西北大学(Nor
23、thwestern University)教授肖恩格林斯坦（Shane Greenstein）和罗切斯特大学(University of Rochester)教授瑞恩麦克德维克（Ryan McDevitt）计算了网络宽带连接的普及所带来的消费者剩余总值（这部分也应当算如互联网服务所带来的剩余，因为消费者必须先能联网才会购买宽带服务） 。他们通过构建需求曲线来计算。1999年每人每月为互联网连接服务花费20美元。到了 2006年，宽带的普及将网络连接费用的实际价格降到17美元。正如价格的降低吸引了更多的用户，该用户现在享有的消费者剩余为每年3美元。 他们计算出到2006年宽带每年产生390亿美元
24、的收入和50亿至70亿美元的消费者剩余。以维基百科所占在线浏览量的份额为基础，格林斯坦教授认为维基百科在上述的消费者盈余中的份额高达5,000万美元。Such numbers probably understate things. Theauthors calculations assume internet access meant the same thing in 2006 as itdid in 1999. But the advent of new services such as Google and Facebook meantinternet access in 2006 wa
25、s worth much more than in 1999. So the surplus wouldhave been bigger, too.这些数字或许只代表了冰山的一角。他们的计算是以2006年的网络连接与1999 年完全相同这一假设为前提。但是新兴网络服务的出现，比如说谷歌和脸谱，意味着2006年的网络连接比1999的具有更高的价值。因此，消费者剩余实际值同样应该会 更大。More important, consumers may not incorporatethe value of free internet services when deciding what to pay
26、 for internetaccess. Another approach is simply to ask consumers what they would pay if theyhad to. In a study commissioned by IAB Europe, a web-advertising industrygroup, McKinsey, a consultancy, asked 3,360 consumers in six countries whatthey would pay for 16 internet services that are now largely
27、 financed by ads.On average, households would pay 38 ($50) a month each for services they nowget free. After subtracting the costs associated with intrusive ads and forgoneprivacy, McKinsey reckoned free ad-supported internet services generated 32billion of consumer surplus in Americaand 69 billion
28、in Europe. E-mail accountedfor 16% of the total surplus across Americaand Europe, search 15% and social networks11%.更为重要的是，在决定购买何种网络连接服务时，消费者也许没有将免费的网络内容服务计算在内。还有一个简易的办法就是问问消费者他们愿意承担多高的费用来购买网络服务。在线广告集团欧洲 IAB（Interactive Advertising Bureau）委托麦卡锡（McKinsey）咨询公司开展了一项研究，来自6个国家共3,360位消费者被问道：在目前由广告收入来维系运营的
29、16项互联网服务中，消费者愿意出多少钱来购买。家庭用户愿意为每一项他们现在免费享有的互联网服务支付月平均38欧元（合 50美元）的费用。除去与侵入式广告和忽略消费者隐私所带来的成本，麦卡锡算出免费向消费者提供而且是由广告收入支持运营的互联网服务在美国创造出320 亿美元的消费者剩余，而在欧洲是690亿欧元。电子邮件服务大约占美国和欧洲总消费者剩余的16%，搜索服务占15% ，而社交网络服务占11%。Another way to infer consumer surplus is fromthe time saved using the internet. In a paper partly f
30、unded by Google, YanChen, Grace YoungJoo Jeon and Yong-Mi Kim, all of the University of Michigan,asked a team of researchers to answer questions culled from web searches. Thequestions included teasers like: “In making cookies, does the use of butter ormargarine affect the size of the cookie?” On ave
31、rage, it took participantsseven minutes to answer the questions using a search engine, and 22 minutesusing the University of Michigans library.Hal Varian, Googles chief economist, then calculated that those savings workedout to 3.75 minutes per day for the typical user. Assigning that time a valueof
32、 $22 per hour (the average wage in America), he reckons searchgenerates $500 of consumer surplus per user annually, or $65 billion-$150billion nationally.另一个方法是通过计算使用互联网所节省的时间来推算消费者剩余。在一篇在部分由谷歌出资赞助发表的论文中，密歇根大学研究员陈燕（Yan Chen） ，郑英珠（Grace YoungJoo Jeon）和金永美（Yong-Mi Kim）让一组研究员回答了一些从互联网上搜集来的问题。问题中包括一些棘手的
33、问题，比如：“烘制饼干时，加入黄油或奶油会影响饼干的大小吗？”参与者用搜索引擎花费了平均7分钟的时间来回答这些问题，而在密歇根大学图书馆寻找答案则花费了他们平均22分钟的时间。谷歌首席经济学家哈尔瓦里安（Hal Varian）接着计算出搜索服务每天能够为一般用户节省3.75分钟。如果这些节省下来的时间的价值为每小时22美元（美国平均时薪） ，他推算搜索服务每年为每个用户创造的消费者剩余为500 美元，或者说全国范围内总计650 亿-1500亿美元。Twitter: the defence推特：逆道而行Yet another technique is to assign a value toth
34、e leisure time spent on the web. Erik Brynjolfsson and Joo Hee Oh of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology note that between 2002 and 2011, theamount of leisure time Americans spent on the internet rose from 3 to 5.8 hoursper week. The authors conclude that in so far as consumers must have valued
35、their time on the internet more than the alternatives, this increase mustreflect a growing consumer surplus from the internet, which they value at $564billion in 2011, or $2,600 per user. Had this growth in surplus been includedin GDP, it would have raised economic growth since 2002 by 0.39 percenta
36、gepoints on average.另一种估算方法是赋予人们花费在网络上的闲暇时间以价值。麻省理工学院（Massachusetts Institute of Technology，简称 MIT）埃里克 布林约尔松（Erik Brynjolfsson）教授和何珠熙（Joo Hee Oh）教授指出2002 年至2011年间，美国人每周花费在网络上的闲暇时间从3小时上升到了5.8 小时。研究者据此得出结论：目前看来，消费者一定更加珍惜他们花费在互联网上的时间而非其他活动，时间的增加必定反映出由互联网带来不断增长的消费者剩余，2011年价值约5,640 亿美元，即每位用户2,600美元。如果消费者
37、剩余的增长率也算入 GDP，那么自2002以来经济增长率还要再增加平均0.39个百分点。These are impressive figures, but they alsomerit scepticism. Would consumers really pay $2,600 for the internet? Shouldntother free leisure activities, such as watching television orheavenforbidplaying with your children, have just as much value? And in ot
38、her waysthe internet subtracts value: the productivity destroyed by incessant checkingof Twitter, the human interactions replaced by e-mail. Ms Mollica says peoplein hospital waiting rooms used to develop a camaraderie rooted in their sharedexperiences. “But now everyone stares into their phone because theyre textingor e-mailing.”数字虽令人惊叹的，却也值得人们去质疑。消费者是否真的愿意为互联网服务支付2,600美元是个问题。难道其他免费的休闲活动，比如说看电视或者 但愿是 和孩子们嬉戏不值这个价格吗？而互联网亦有减损价值的一面：无休止刷推特(Twitter)降低了工作效率，电子邮件取代了人与人之间的交流。莫莉卡说过去候诊室里的人们会在他们共同的经历中找到一种战友般的情谊。 “可是现在，每个人都盯着自己手机的屏幕，因为他们在发短信或是电子邮件。 ”
