1 . The Nobel prize for economics is awarded for work on the climate and economic growth
From The Economist; Oct 8th 2018
WHY do economies grow, and why might growth outdo the natural world’s capacity to sustain it? For years, economists have failed to find the answers to such questions. But the profession’s progress towards cracking them is in large part because of this year’s winners of the Nobel prize for economic sciences, Paul Romer and William Nordhaus.
Mr. Romer’s attention has ranged widely over the course of his career.
Mr. Romer searched for answers by investigating the “non-rivalrous” nature of new knowledge: the fact that ideas can be exploited endlessly. The firms or people who come up with new ideas can only capture a small share of the benefits arising from them; before long, competitors copy the clever idea and decrease gradually the innovators’ profits. In Mr. Romer’s models of growth, the market generates new ideas. But the pace at which they are generated, and the way in which they are translated into growth, depend on other factors.
Mr. Nordhaus’s work tackles the interplay of several different complex systems. Awareness of the dangers of environmental damage, and of the threat from climate change, has grown over the past half-century. Understanding the economic costs such damage imposes is essential to answering the question of how much society should be willing to pay to prevent environmental destruction. Mr. Nordhaus has applied himself to this daunting problem. His most significant work models the economic harms from carbon emissions. To do so, he combined mathematical descriptions of how emissions affect atmospheric carbon concentrations with those of how atmospheric carbon affects global temperature.
| A．The two economists have been cooperating closely for many years. |
| B．At first glance, the two scholars might not seem a natural pairing. |
| C．He also studied how changes in temperature interact with economic activity. |
| D．They include state support for research and development or intellectual-property protections. |
| E．Mr. Romer has been conducting researches in various economic fields. |
| F．Nevertheless, his focus has never departed far from the nature of economic growth. |
2 . Twilight of the Brands
It's a truism of business-book thinking that a company's brand is its "most important asset," more valuable than technology or patents or manufacturing prowess．But brands have never been more fragile．The reason is simple: consumers are supremely well informed and far more likely to investigate the real value of products than to rely on logos．
Absolute Value, a new book by Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen shows that, historically, the rise of brands was a response to an information-poor environment．
Today, consumers can read much research about whatever they want to buy．This started back with Consumer Reports, which did objective studies of products．
A recent study found that eighty per cent of consumers look at online reviews before making major purchases, and a host of studies have logged the strong influence those reviews have on the decisions people make．
It's been argued that in a world where consumers are overwhelmed with information, the information will actually make brands more valuable．Indeed, the role a brand plays in people's lives has become all the more important, But information overload is largely a myth．
| A．But what really weakened the power of brands is the Internet． |
| B．For consumers this is ideal: heightened competition has raised quality and held down prices． |
| C．When consumers had to rely on advertisements and their past experience with a company, brands served as a guarantee for quality． |
| D．A large quantity of consumers fail to get a great deal of information efficiently and effectively． |
| E．The rise of social media has sped up the trend to an astonishing degree． |
| F．Most consumers figure out how to find what they're looking for without spending huge amounts of time online． |
