Downturn, start up -The effects of recessions onentrepreneurs and managers run deep

　　衰退與創業 經濟衰退對企業家和經理人的影響在加劇

　　THE list of famous companies founded duringeconomic downturns is long and varied. It includesGeneral Motors, AT T, Disney and MTV, allfounded during recessions. A 2009 study found thatover half of Fortune 500 companies got their startduring a downturn or a bear market. A recession, itseems, may not be an entirely bad time to start acompany. Indeed, busts cast a longer shadow on the business landscapethan is commonly realised, because they influence both the rate of business formation andhow existing firms are run.

　　在經濟衰退期間創辦的知名企業數量很多，且各式各樣的行業都有。通用汽車、美國電話電報公司、迪士尼和音樂電視等都是在經濟衰退時創建的。2009年有研究發現，超過一半的財富500強公司都是在衰退或熊市期間創設的。經濟衰退時期，看起來并非完全不適合創設新公司。事實上，蕭條對經濟的商業環境的影響遠比一般人意識到的要深遠，因為它們既影響新企業的設立速度又影響現有企業的運營狀況。

　　Some argue that recessions speed up the process of productive economic churnwhatJoseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. The destruction part is easy to see:downturns kill businesses, leaving boarded-up windows on the high street as theirgravestones. But recessions may also spur the creation of new businesses.

　　有些人認為，經濟衰退可以加快經濟結構的調整進程約瑟夫熊彼特稱這為創造性破壞。破壞那部分很容易理解：經濟衰退讓企業倒閉，大街上剩下的那些用木板釘牢的窗戶就如同他們的墓碑。然而，經濟衰退也可能刺激新行業的誕生。

　　When people suddenly have less money to spend, clever entrepreneurs may see anopportunity to set up businesses that give them what they want more cheaply orefficiently. Downturns may also swell the ranks of potential firm creators, because manywho might otherwise have sought a stable salary will reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs.A recent study by Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz found that theproportion of Americans who start a new business each month is on average about half ashigh again in metropolitan areas where unemployment is in double digits as in thosewhere it is under 2%.

　　當人們的可支配的收入突然減少，敏銳的企業家可能抓住這個機會去興辦企業，生產他們需要的更便宜且更有效的商品。經濟衰退也可能擴大潛在創業者的規模，因為很多原本要尋找一個穩定的工作的人，將會重塑自己為企業家。圣克魯茲的加利福尼亞大學的羅伯特費爾利最近的一項研究發現，在失業率高達兩位數的大城市，美國人的月均創業比率大約兩倍于那些失業率在2%以下的地區。

　　A recession is a difficult time to start a company, of course. Credit is scarce. Would-beentrepreneurs are further handicapped by falling asset prices, since they might want to usetheir homes as collateral for a start-up loan. Whether downturns on balance help or hurtentrepreneurs depends therefore on the relative strength of these opposing sets of forces.

　　當然，在經濟衰退期間創業總是相當艱難的。信用稀缺，且不斷下降的資產價格更成為未來的企業家們創業的進一步障礙，因此他們可能以房屋為抵押，從而獲得啟動資金。因此，資產負債表的惡化對企業家是有利還是有害，取決于他們的相對資本實力。

　　Mr Fairlie finds evidence that the spur to enterprise during the most recent recession inAmerica from a drying-up of other employment opportunities outweighed the drag onbusiness formation from a collapsing housing market. That said, a shrinking economy alsomakes it hard for young firms to take root and grow. A study commissioned by the KaufmannFoundation, an organisation devoted to entrepreneurs, suggests that young companies,typically responsible for the bulk of US job creation, added only 2.3m jobs in 2009, downfrom about 3m a year earlier.

　　費爾利在美國最近的經濟衰退中發現的證據表明，其他就業機會的枯竭對創業的刺激超過了崩潰的房地產市場的阻礙。也就是說，經濟萎縮也使得年輕企業難以扎根和成長。考夫曼基金會資助的一項研究表明，美國大多數就業機會的增加要歸功于新企業，在2009年僅增加了230萬就業，而在去年這數字是300萬左右。

　　Tough times do not suddenly prompt everyone to start a business. The vast majority ofpeople who reach working age during a downturn still look for a job. But research alsosuggests that recessions have lasting effects on how executives manage businesses. JohnGraham of Duke University and Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan of PIMCO, a bond manager,have found that chief executives who lived through the Depression tended to run companieswith lower debt levels . Ina new study, Antoinette Schoar and Luo Zuo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyshow that companies run many years later by people who cut their teeth during bleak times,when money was tight and customers harder to find, are systematically different from thoserun by managers whose formative experiences date back to expansionary times, whencredit and optimism were in ample supply.

　　艱難的日子并非突然促使每個人去創業。在衰退時期，絕大多數處于工作年齡的人仍然會去尋找工作。但是有研究表明，衰退對管理層管理企業的方式有著持續的影響。杜克大學的約翰葛拉漢和太平洋投資管理公司的債券經理 Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan發現蕭條期間的首席執行官傾向于以更低的債務水平運營公司。在一項新研究中，麻省理工學院的安托瓦內特肖爾和佐羅發現，那些曾在黑暗時期創業的企業家管理多年的公司，與僅經歷擴張時期的企業家的公司有系統性的差別。

　　By carefully dissecting the careers of over 5,700 bosses of companies that have been on theS P 1500 list, Ms Schoar and Mr Zuo found that those who began their managementcareers during a bust were substantially more risk-averse, took on less debt and generallywere more conservative managers than the rest of the sample, even many decades later.That will strike critics of the over-leveraged company as thoroughly good news, but it is hardto say whether this effect is entirely benign.

　　通過詳細分析那些公司曾入標普1500的公司的 5700多名老板的職業生涯，肖爾女士和佐先生發現，那些在蕭條時期開始管理生涯的人更不愿意冒險，公司的負債更少。此外，即使幾十年之后，相對于樣本中的其他老板，他們亦更保守。這對于那些指責公司過度負債的批評家來說，應該是徹底的好消息。然而，很難判斷這樣的效應是否是完全良性的。

　　Bosses whose careers began in a recession also tend to be so concerned about cost-effectiveness that the companies they go on to run spend less on research and development.They may thus be too conservative: firms with bosses whose professional baptism camein a weak economy have lower returns on assets than those run by other managers.

　　那些在衰退時期開始管理者生涯的人，傾向于過多地關注企業的成本效益，以致他們研發的投入較少。他們也可能因此變得過于保守：對于那些職業生涯受過經濟低迷的嚴峻考驗的老板，他們的企業的資產回報率相比其他老板的要低。

　　Why should this be? One plausible explanation is that recessions affect the way peopletake decisions. Management styles are surely in part the result of the kinds of problems aperson has had to grapple with. Even a risk-lover may end up taking more conservativefinancial decisions in a weak economy. If these decisions serve him well in lean times, thenhe may conclude that fiscal prudence is a stance worth sticking with in years of plenty.

　　這是為什么呢?一個合理的解釋是經濟衰退影響人們的決策方式。企業家的管理風格在一定程度上取決于他們過去所應對的各種難題。即使一個風險愛好者也可能在經濟不景氣的時候最終選擇保守的融資決策。如果那些決策在拮據時期給他帶來了好處，那么他可能得出這樣的結論，即使在經濟繁榮的時候，審慎的投融資仍是值得我們持續堅持的立場。

　　Downturns also funnel people into different jobs from those they might otherwise haveentered. A 2008 study by Paul Oyer of Stanford University found that Stanford MBAsdisproportionately shunned Wall Street during a bear market. This may seem unsurprisingwho wants a job in finance when the market is tanking? But there are reasons to believethat these choices make a difference well into the future. Those who begin their careers in abust are less footloose than their boom-time equivalents. Ms Schoar and Mr Zuo find thatthe average recession-scarred chief executive is more likely to have risen through the ranksof a firm than the norm, and is less likely to have switched employers or jumped from oneindustry to another.

　　若不存在經濟下滑，人們可能會選擇不同的工作。2008年，斯坦福大學的保羅奧耶研究發現，斯坦福的工商管理碩士在熊市時都或多或少地避免在華爾街就業。這看起來不足為奇在股市大滑坡之際，又有誰愿意在金融領域工作呢?但是我們有理由相信，這些選擇的影響將會波及未來。相比那些在經濟繁榮期間開始工作的同行，在蕭條期間開創職業生涯的人顯得更穩定。肖爾女士和 佐先生發現一般經歷過經濟衰退的首席執行官有更大的可能是從公司的底層一步步爬上來的，也不大可能跳槽或變換所從事的行業。

　　The pool of candidates for top jobs in a particular industry reflects the choices that peoplemake early on in their working lives. Yet these choices are the result not only of managerspreferences and abilities, as you might expect, but also of the economic circumstances thatprevailed at the time they began working. Whether they were set up during a boom or abust, todays firms are deeply affected by the economic fluctuations of the past.

　　某一特定行業最高職位可供選擇的人才反映了他們在工作初期所做的選擇。然而，這些選擇不僅僅依賴經理的偏好和工作能力，正如你所預料的，也取決于他們開始工作時所處的經濟環境。不管企業是在衰退又或者在繁榮時期創設的，現在的企業都深受過去經濟波動的影響。

　　Downturn, start up -The effects of recessions onentrepreneurs and managers run deep

　　衰退與創業 經濟衰退對企業家和經理人的影響在加劇

　　THE list of famous companies founded duringeconomic downturns is long and varied. It includesGeneral Motors, AT T, Disney and MTV, allfounded during recessions. A 2009 study found thatover half of Fortune 500 companies got their startduring a downturn or a bear market. A recession, itseems, may not be an entirely bad time to start acompany. Indeed, busts cast a longer shadow on the business landscapethan is commonly realised, because they influence both the rate of business formation andhow existing firms are run.

　　在經濟衰退期間創辦的知名企業數量很多，且各式各樣的行業都有。通用汽車、美國電話電報公司、迪士尼和音樂電視等都是在經濟衰退時創建的。2009年有研究發現，超過一半的財富500強公司都是在衰退或熊市期間創設的。經濟衰退時期，看起來并非完全不適合創設新公司。事實上，蕭條對經濟的商業環境的影響遠比一般人意識到的要深遠，因為它們既影響新企業的設立速度又影響現有企業的運營狀況。

　　Some argue that recessions speed up the process of productive economic churnwhatJoseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. The destruction part is easy to see:downturns kill businesses, leaving boarded-up windows on the high street as theirgravestones. But recessions may also spur the creation of new businesses.

　　有些人認為，經濟衰退可以加快經濟結構的調整進程約瑟夫熊彼特稱這為創造性破壞。破壞那部分很容易理解：經濟衰退讓企業倒閉，大街上剩下的那些用木板釘牢的窗戶就如同他們的墓碑。然而，經濟衰退也可能刺激新行業的誕生。

　　When people suddenly have less money to spend, clever entrepreneurs may see anopportunity to set up businesses that give them what they want more cheaply orefficiently. Downturns may also swell the ranks of potential firm creators, because manywho might otherwise have sought a stable salary will reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs.A recent study by Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz found that theproportion of Americans who start a new business each month is on average about half ashigh again in metropolitan areas where unemployment is in double digits as in thosewhere it is under 2%.

　　當人們的可支配的收入突然減少，敏銳的企業家可能抓住這個機會去興辦企業，生產他們需要的更便宜且更有效的商品。經濟衰退也可能擴大潛在創業者的規模，因為很多原本要尋找一個穩定的工作的人，將會重塑自己為企業家。圣克魯茲的加利福尼亞大學的羅伯特費爾利最近的一項研究發現，在失業率高達兩位數的大城市，美國人的月均創業比率大約兩倍于那些失業率在2%以下的地區。

　　A recession is a difficult time to start a company, of course. Credit is scarce. Would-beentrepreneurs are further handicapped by falling asset prices, since they might want to usetheir homes as collateral for a start-up loan. Whether downturns on balance help or hurtentrepreneurs depends therefore on the relative strength of these opposing sets of forces.

　　當然，在經濟衰退期間創業總是相當艱難的。信用稀缺，且不斷下降的資產價格更成為未來的企業家們創業的進一步障礙，因此他們可能以房屋為抵押，從而獲得啟動資金。因此，資產負債表的惡化對企業家是有利還是有害，取決于他們的相對資本實力。

　　Mr Fairlie finds evidence that the spur to enterprise during the most recent recession inAmerica from a drying-up of other employment opportunities outweighed the drag onbusiness formation from a collapsing housing market. That said, a shrinking economy alsomakes it hard for young firms to take root and grow. A study commissioned by the KaufmannFoundation, an organisation devoted to entrepreneurs, suggests that young companies,typically responsible for the bulk of US job creation, added only 2.3m jobs in 2009, downfrom about 3m a year earlier.

　　費爾利在美國最近的經濟衰退中發現的證據表明，其他就業機會的枯竭對創業的刺激超過了崩潰的房地產市場的阻礙。也就是說，經濟萎縮也使得年輕企業難以扎根和成長。考夫曼基金會資助的一項研究表明，美國大多數就業機會的增加要歸功于新企業，在2009年僅增加了230萬就業，而在去年這數字是300萬左右。

　　Tough times do not suddenly prompt everyone to start a business. The vast majority ofpeople who reach working age during a downturn still look for a job. But research alsosuggests that recessions have lasting effects on how executives manage businesses. JohnGraham of Duke University and Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan of PIMCO, a bond manager,have found that chief executives who lived through the Depression tended to run companieswith lower debt levels . Ina new study, Antoinette Schoar and Luo Zuo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyshow that companies run many years later by people who cut their teeth during bleak times,when money was tight and customers harder to find, are systematically different from thoserun by managers whose formative experiences date back to expansionary times, whencredit and optimism were in ample supply.

　　艱難的日子并非突然促使每個人去創業。在衰退時期，絕大多數處于工作年齡的人仍然會去尋找工作。但是有研究表明，衰退對管理層管理企業的方式有著持續的影響。杜克大學的約翰葛拉漢和太平洋投資管理公司的債券經理 Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan發現蕭條期間的首席執行官傾向于以更低的債務水平運營公司。在一項新研究中，麻省理工學院的安托瓦內特肖爾和佐羅發現，那些曾在黑暗時期創業的企業家管理多年的公司，與僅經歷擴張時期的企業家的公司有系統性的差別。

　　By carefully dissecting the careers of over 5,700 bosses of companies that have been on theS P 1500 list, Ms Schoar and Mr Zuo found that those who began their managementcareers during a bust were substantially more risk-averse, took on less debt and generallywere more conservative managers than the rest of the sample, even many decades later.That will strike critics of the over-leveraged company as thoroughly good news, but it is hardto say whether this effect is entirely benign.

　　通過詳細分析那些公司曾入標普1500的公司的 5700多名老板的職業生涯，肖爾女士和佐先生發現，那些在蕭條時期開始管理生涯的人更不愿意冒險，公司的負債更少。此外，即使幾十年之后，相對于樣本中的其他老板，他們亦更保守。這對于那些指責公司過度負債的批評家來說，應該是徹底的好消息。然而，很難判斷這樣的效應是否是完全良性的。

　　Bosses whose careers began in a recession also tend to be so concerned about cost-effectiveness that the companies they go on to run spend less on research and development.They may thus be too conservative: firms with bosses whose professional baptism camein a weak economy have lower returns on assets than those run by other managers.

　　那些在衰退時期開始管理者生涯的人，傾向于過多地關注企業的成本效益，以致他們研發的投入較少。他們也可能因此變得過于保守：對于那些職業生涯受過經濟低迷的嚴峻考驗的老板，他們的企業的資產回報率相比其他老板的要低。

　　Why should this be? One plausible explanation is that recessions affect the way peopletake decisions. Management styles are surely in part the result of the kinds of problems aperson has had to grapple with. Even a risk-lover may end up taking more conservativefinancial decisions in a weak economy. If these decisions serve him well in lean times, thenhe may conclude that fiscal prudence is a stance worth sticking with in years of plenty.

　　這是為什么呢?一個合理的解釋是經濟衰退影響人們的決策方式。企業家的管理風格在一定程度上取決于他們過去所應對的各種難題。即使一個風險愛好者也可能在經濟不景氣的時候最終選擇保守的融資決策。如果那些決策在拮據時期給他帶來了好處，那么他可能得出這樣的結論，即使在經濟繁榮的時候，審慎的投融資仍是值得我們持續堅持的立場。

　　Downturns also funnel people into different jobs from those they might otherwise haveentered. A 2008 study by Paul Oyer of Stanford University found that Stanford MBAsdisproportionately shunned Wall Street during a bear market. This may seem unsurprisingwho wants a job in finance when the market is tanking? But there are reasons to believethat these choices make a difference well into the future. Those who begin their careers in abust are less footloose than their boom-time equivalents. Ms Schoar and Mr Zuo find thatthe average recession-scarred chief executive is more likely to have risen through the ranksof a firm than the norm, and is less likely to have switched employers or jumped from oneindustry to another.

　　若不存在經濟下滑，人們可能會選擇不同的工作。2008年，斯坦福大學的保羅奧耶研究發現，斯坦福的工商管理碩士在熊市時都或多或少地避免在華爾街就業。這看起來不足為奇在股市大滑坡之際，又有誰愿意在金融領域工作呢?但是我們有理由相信，這些選擇的影響將會波及未來。相比那些在經濟繁榮期間開始工作的同行，在蕭條期間開創職業生涯的人顯得更穩定。肖爾女士和 佐先生發現一般經歷過經濟衰退的首席執行官有更大的可能是從公司的底層一步步爬上來的，也不大可能跳槽或變換所從事的行業。

　　The pool of candidates for top jobs in a particular industry reflects the choices that peoplemake early on in their working lives. Yet these choices are the result not only of managerspreferences and abilities, as you might expect, but also of the economic circumstances thatprevailed at the time they began working. Whether they were set up during a boom or abust, todays firms are deeply affected by the economic fluctuations of the past.

　　某一特定行業最高職位可供選擇的人才反映了他們在工作初期所做的選擇。然而，這些選擇不僅僅依賴經理的偏好和工作能力，正如你所預料的，也取決于他們開始工作時所處的經濟環境。不管企業是在衰退又或者在繁榮時期創設的，現在的企業都深受過去經濟波動的影響。