Part A: Spot Dictation

Was it envisioned for the euro to eventually become such a strong currency that it could compete with the dollar on a global level? Or was that a dream then and is it still a dream now?

I think it was an attainable dream, and it is becoming actually, in some ways, less attainable right now.

You may ask why?

Well, the dream to give credit where credit is due was not only advocated by some European officials but by some American economists, including our Institute’s director, Fred Bergsten, who was way out in the front with that. Richard Portes, who teaches at London Business School, also was way out in front with that. And they were very much against the tide of people like Martin Feldstein and others in London and the United States who were very skeptical towards the euro.

At face value, the euro area is the same size in GDP as the United States, roughly speaking. The euro area does have very large and deep financial markets, although the more you look in detail, there are still some things there that differentiate it from the United States. And the euro area has delivered price stability. They have a very low rate of inflation pretty consistently. So you put those three things together, on paper it looks like the euro should be at least a very clear second to the dollar in investor’s portfolios, in government reserve holdings, in how much you invoice trade like oil or planes or things like that.

But what our research finds in this book -- in particular in good chapters by Kristin Forbes and Linda Goldberg -- is the fact that if you look under the hood a bit, there is a huge shortfall between what you would expect just based on size and how much the euro is used. So there’s an awful lot of trade that’s still invoiced in dollars, not in euros, even between countries that are not dollar countries. There are huge amounts of financial flows that come to the United States, and the depth of European assets and financial flows is not commensurate with the size.

【解析】

本文節(jié)選自Growing Pains for the Euro。在段落一開始，作者就拋出了一個(gè)問題：歐元最終成為一種能與美元相抗衡的國際貨幣是不是一場(chǎng)夢(mèng)？并指出這個(gè)期望相比曾經(jīng)，正變的越來越難以實(shí)現(xiàn)。

文中指出，雖然歐元的確有廣大的經(jīng)濟(jì)市場(chǎng)，而且通貨膨脹的概率也較小，但是通過研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果一旦深探，就會(huì)看到期望值與歐元的實(shí)際使用率之間存在著巨大差額，以致在一些非美元使用區(qū)中，流通的貨幣仍然為美元。

本文的題材雖然為考生比較懼怕的經(jīng)濟(jì)類，但是如果能夠聽懂首段作者的提問，以及之后作者的態(tài)度I think it was an attainable dream, and it is becoming actually, in some ways, less attainable right now，就不難馬上領(lǐng)悟全文的主旨。

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