Borella, De Nardi, and Yang (2019) tackle an important question. They consider two cohorts of white, non-college-educated Americans: (i) those born between 1936 and 1945 (referred to as the 1940s cohort), and (ii) those born between 1956 and 1965 (referred to as the 1960s cohort). They consider three differences in the opportunities afforded to these cohorts: (i) potential wages, (ii) life expectancy, and (iii) out-of-pocket medical expenses. And they ask how these three differences in opportunities affected three differences in outcomes across the two cohorts: (i) labor supply, (ii) savings, and (iii) welfare. The authors reach a provocative conclusion. They write: “Our results thus indicate that the group of white, non-college-educated people born in the 1960s cohort, which comprises about 60% of the population of the same age, experienced large negative changes in wages, large increases in medical expenses, and large decreases in life expectancy and would have been much better off if they had faced the corresponding lifetime opportunities of the 1940s birth cohort.” If correct, this finding is worth repeating. Despite all the technological advances in health care, communication, and transportation; despite the progress that has been made on gender equality; despite the massive increase in international trade; despite iPhones and the internet; despite the fact that real gross domestic product per capita has grown by more than a factor of 2.5 in the 50 years from 1965 to 2015; and despite all these perceived improvements in life, more than half of the US population would have been better off had they been born 20 years earlier. In the following section, Iwill offer some casual observations of changes in the US economy over this time period that might make one skeptical that the 1940s cohort really was better off than the 1960s cohort. To shed light on the authors’ pessimistic conclusions, I will then explain why the authors’ assumptions about each of the three changing opportunities that

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Borella、De Nardi 和 Yang（2019 年）解决了一个重要问题。他们考虑了两组未受过大学教育的白人：(i) 1936 年至 1945 年之间出生的人（称为 1940 年代队列），以及 (ii) 1956 年至 1965 年之间出生的人（称为 1960 年代队列） . 他们考虑了为这些群体提供的机会的三个差异：（i）潜在工资，（ii）预期寿命，以及（iii）自付费用。他们询问这三种机会差异如何影响两个队列的三种结果差异：(i) 劳动力供应，(ii) 储蓄和 (iii) 福利。作者得出了一个挑衅性的结论。他们写道：“因此，我们的结果表明，出生于 1960 年代的白人、未受过大学教育的人群占同龄人口的 60%，经历了工资的大幅负面变化、医疗费用的大幅增加和预期寿命的大幅下降，如果他们面临 1940 年代出生队列的相应终生机会，情况会好得多。” 如果正确，这个发现值得重复。尽管在医疗保健、通信和交通方面取得了所有的技术进步；尽管在性别平等方面取得了进展；尽管国际贸易大量增加；尽管有 iPhone 和互联网；尽管实际人均国内生产总值在 1965 年至 2015 年的 50 年间增长了 2.5 倍以上；尽管人们认为生活有了所有这些改善，但如果早 20 年出生，超过一半的美国人口会过得更好。在下一节中，我将对这段时期美国经济的变化提供一些随意的观察，这可能会使人怀疑 1940 年代的人群确实比 1960 年代的人群过得更好。为了阐明作者的悲观结论，我将解释为什么作者对三个不断变化的机会中的每一个做出假设