标题： 美国的动物精神，2009年4月 显示英文标题

标题： Animal Spirits in America, April 2009

摘要： 适应水平和动物精神（Middleton 1996）提出了一种基于心理学中最古老且最广泛观察到的定律——对适应水平的敏感性的信心水平心理物理学理论。对于美国人来说，由于在没有欧洲式社会安全网的国家，他们对就业和生计的依赖往往较为脆弱，因此对失业率的敏感性决定了信心水平。在《动物精神与衰退预测》（Middleton 2001；另见 Ball 2001）中，动物精神的适应水平理论指标 A 与美国财政部收益率曲线的斜率结合在一个逻辑衰退预测模型中，该模型自那时以来正确预测了经济中的每一个转折点。目前该模型预测信心将增加，并于 2009 年中期结束衰退。鉴于当前全球衰退的严重性，问题是这一预测在可能出现宏观经济波动大幅上升的情况下是否合理。 显示英文摘要

摘要： Adaptation level and animal spirits (Middleton 1996) presented a psychophysical theory of confidence levels based on the oldest and probably most widely observed law in psychology, the sensitivity to adaptation level. For Americans, whose attachments to employment and livelihood are often tenuous in a country without a European-style social safety net, it is the sensitivity to the unemployment rate that drives confidence levels. In Animal spirits and recession forecasting (Middleton 2001; see also Ball 2001), the adaptation level theoretic metric of animal spirits, A, was combined with the slope of the U.S. Treasury yield curve in a logistic recession forecasting model that has correctly predicted every turning point in the economy since then. The model currently forecasts increasing confidence and an end to the recession in mid-2009. The question, given the severity of the current slump globally, is whether this forecast is plausible in the face of possibly very large increases in macroeconomic volatility.