本次高级口译阅读Section 2的第二篇文章，是一篇经济类文章，来自美国主流经济杂志Business Week(《商业周刊》) 2009年11月12号的一篇经济报道。文章题目为The Dark Side of Incentives(刺激因素的负面影响)。字数750个字。文章主要写到当前在美国经济领域通过“刺激因素(incentives)”来缓解美国存在的经济问题，对于当前使用的经济刺激因素，尤其是激励性的奖励体制(bonus)所带来的负面效应，尤其是社会道德问题进行了批判性的评论与报道。

　　这篇文章属于我们课堂上所反复操练过的题材为“经济类”，体裁为“社论”的(editorial)的文章，结构属于多角度论证。从题型的设计与解题的要点来看。

　　第六题，According to the passage, the incentive structures governing today’s executive pay in the corporate world ____________. 属于细节题，考生只要找到第一段第三句话，通过对这句话的理解即可解题。考的主要是在阅读中的细节定位的能力。

　　第七题，Paraphrase “Incentives don’t just fail, they often backfire” (para.3). 这道题属于句意理解题。句意理解题的做法，有典型的五种方法，在这道题中，我们回到第三段，找到这句话在该段第一句，然后通过例子法，发现第三段后面的内容，都是在举例子突出说明第一句的意思，即刺激因素不仅仅会失败，有时甚至会带来负面的效果与影响。

　　第八题， With the current incentive structure, the rising of sharing prices______.这道题属于细节题，考生需要通过关键词sharing prices 回到第二段，找到相关系的两句话，通过理解即可解题。

　　第九题，the author introduced the “dual masters of profitability and community service”of the traditional bankers这道题属于课堂中反复操练过的例子功能题。通过dual master这类关键词，回到原文定位，属于第五段内容，而这句明显是第五段supporting 类的句子，它出现的目的是为了论证第五段第一句，即“banking has no moral dimension”。

　　第十题，考the major conclusion of the author.典型的作者态度题，其实也是在考对于这篇文章main idea理解。即对于目前实行的经济激励机制所带来的社会道德的负面性影响。

　　第二篇文章：　　　 The Dark Side of Incentives

　　By Barry Schwartz

　　Right now, there’s little that makes a typical American taxpayer more resentful than the huge bonuses being dispersed at Wall Street firms. The feeling that something went terribly wrong in the way the financial sector is run—and paid—is widespread. It’s worth recalling that the incentive structures now governing executive pay in much of the corporate world were hailed as a miracle of human engineering a generation ago when they focused once-complacent CEOs with laser precision on steering companies toward the brightest possible futures.

　　So now there’s a lot of talk about making incentives smarter. That may improve the way companies or banks are run, but only temporarily. The inescapable flaw in incentives, as 35 years of research shows, is that they get you exactly what you pay for, but it never turns out to be what you want. The mechanics of why this happens are pretty simple: Out of necessity, incentives are often based on an index of the thing you care about—like sound corporate leadership—that is easily measured. Share price is such an index of performance. Before long, however, people whose livelihoods are based on an index will figure out how to manipulate it—which soon makes the index a much less reliable barometer. Once share price determines the pay of smart people, they’ll find a way to move it up without improving—and in some cases by jeopardizing—their company.

　　Incentives don’t just fail; they often backfire. Swiss economists Bruno Frey (University of Zurich) and Felix Oberholzer-Gee (Harvard Business School) have shown that when Swiss citizens are offered a substantial cash incentive for agreeing to have a toxic waste dump in their community, their willingness to accept the facility falls by half. Uri Gneezy (U.C. San Diego’s Rady School of Management) and Aldo Rustichini (University of Minnesota) observed that when Israeli day-care centers fine parents who pick up their kids late, lateness increases. And James Heyman (University of St. Thomas) and Dan Ariely (Duke’s Fuqua School of Business) showed that when people offer passers-by a token payment for help lifting a couch from a van, they are less likely to lend a hand than if they are offered nothing.

　　What these studies show is that incentives tend to remove the moral dimension from decision-making. The day-care parents know they ought to arrive on time, but they come to view the fines as a fee for a service. Once a payoff enters the picture, the Swiss citizens and passersby ask, "What’s in my best interest?" The question they ask themselves when money isn’t part of the equation is quite different: "What are my responsibilities to my country and to other people?" Despite our abiding faith in incentives as a way to influence behavior in a positive way, they consistently do the reverse.

　　Some might say banking has no moral dimension to take away. Bankers have always been interested in making money, and they probably always will be, but they’ve traditionally been well aware of their responsibilities, too. Bankers worried about helping farmers get this year’s seed into the ground. They worried about helping a new business get off to a strong start or a thriving one to expand. They worried about a couple in their 50s having enough to retire on, and about one in their 30s taking on too big a mortgage. These bankers weren’t saints, but they served the dual masters of profitability and community service.

　　In case you think this style of banking belongs to a horse-and-buggy past, consider credit unions and community development banks. Many have subprime mortgage portfolios that remain healthy to this day. In large part, that’s because they approve loans they intend to keep on their books rather than securitizing and selling them to drive up revenue, which would in turn boost annual bonuses. And help bring the world economy to its knees.

　　At the Group of 20 gathering in September, France and Germany proposed strict limits on executive pay. The U.S. now has a pay czar, who just knocked down by half the compensation of 136 executives. But the absolute amounts executives are paid may be inconsequential. Most people want to do right. They want their work to improve the lives of others. As Washington turns its sights on reforms for the financial sector, it just might consider nudging the industry’s major players away from the time-dishonored tradition of incentives and toward compensation structures that don’t strip the moral dimension away from the people making big decisions.

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