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  3. For the average American living in the United States is like having more than half a million dollars in wealth. So says a new st

For the average American living in the United States is like having more than half a million dollars in wealth. So says a new st

admin2015-09-30  69
问题     For the average American living in the United States is like having more than half a million dollars in wealth. So says a new study from the World Bank, Where is the Wealth of Nations?: Measuring Capital for the 21st Century, which makes estimates of the contribution of natural, produced, and intangible capital to the aggregate wealth of 120 countries.
    Why are Americans so well off? It’s not just because of America’s fruited plains and its alabaster cities. In fact, it turns out that such natural and man-made resources comprise a relatively small percentage of our wealth.
    The World Bank study begins by defining natural capital as the sum of nonrenewable resources(including oil, natural gas, coal, and mineral resources), cropland, pastureland, forested areas, and protected areas. Produced capital is what many of us think of when we think of capital. It is the sum of machinery, equipment, and structures(including infrastructure)and urban land. The Bank then identifies intangible capital as the difference between total wealth and all produced and natural capital. Intangible capital encompasses raw labor; human capital, which includes the sum of the knowledge, skills, and know-how possessed by population; as well as the level of trust in a society and the quality of its formal and informal social institutions.
    Once the analytical framework is set up, what the researchers at the World Bank find is fascinating. "The most striking aspect of the wealth estimates is the high values for intangible capital. Nearly 85 percent of the countries in our sample have an intangible capital share of total wealth greater than 50 percent," write the researchers. They further note that years of schooling and a rule-of-law index can account for 90 percent of the variation in intangible capital. In other words, the more highly educated a country’s people are and the more honest and fair its legal system is, the wealthier it is.
    Let’s consider a few cases. The country with the highest per capita wealth is Switzerland at $ 648,000. The United States is fourth at $ 513,000.
    So if every American has $ 513,000 in capital, where is it? The vast majority of it is amassed in our political and economic institutions and our educations. The natural wealth in rich countries like the U. S. is a tiny proportion of their overall wealth—typically 1 to 3 percent—yet they have higher amounts of natural capital than poor countries. Cropland, pastures and forests are more valuable in rich countries because they can be combined with other capital like machinery and strong property rights to produce more value. Machinery, buildings, roads, and so forth account for 17 percent of the rich countries’ total wealth. And 80 percent of the wealth of rich countries consists of intangible capital. "Rich countries are largely rich because of the skills of their populations and the quality of the institutions supporting economic activity," argues the World Bank study.
Americans are rich because______.
选项 A、each American has more than half a million dollars in wealth
B、they are the most creative and productive people in the world
C、what the capital contributes to the wealth in America is tremendous
D、natural resources comprise a small percentage of the wealth in America
答案C
解析 根据第一段第二句可知，一个国家财富的多少取决于各类资产对财富所做出的贡献。所以，C应为答案。
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