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Free exchange Poor behaviour 致穷的行为
译者：老狒狒 A BAT and a ball cost $1.10 between them. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does each cost? By paying attention to how people actually think, behavioural economics has qualified some of the underlying assumptions of classical economics, notably that everyone is perfectly rational. In fact, the mind plays tricks, dividing up $1.10 (in this example) neatly into $1 and 10 cents, rather than correctly into $1.05 and 5 cents. People also tend to copy others and often prefer to co-operate rather than compete. For these reasons, some of the simplifying assumptions of economics are not always correct: people do not act in every instance in their long-term self-interest; they do not weigh up all the costs and benefits before taking a decision. 假设：球棒与球的成本相差1.10美元，球棒的成本比球的成本多1美元。问：球棒与球的成本各是多少？通过关注人们的实际所想，行为经济学契合了经典经济学的某些基本假设，尤其是“人是完全理性的”这一基本假设。实际上，（在上述例子中）将1.10美元整齐地分为1美元和10美分，而不是正确地分为1.05美元和5美分，就是思维在作怪。人们还倾向于效仿别人，经常是重视合作甚于竞争。因此，经济学中的某些简单化的假设并非总是正确的：人的所做作为并非每一次都是从长期利益着眼，在做决定之前没有衡量全部的成本和收益。 Many of the insights of behavioural economics were based on studies of American university students and other privileged folk. But they apply with greater force to the poor—both the poor in rich countries and the more numerous inhabitants of developing ones. Behavioural economics therefore has profound implications for development. The new “World Development Report”, the flagship publication of the World Bank, considers them. 行为经济学的许多深刻见解都是建立在美国大学生和其他有着优越地位的人的研究基础之上的。但是，他们在将这些研究成果应用于于穷人——既包括富裕国家的穷人，也包括人数更多的发展中国家的居民——时却需要花费更大的力量。因此，行为经济学对于发展有着深远的意义，而这正是世界银行的最新一期旗舰出版物——《世界发展报告》的主题。 As the report shows, the poor are more likely than other people to make bad economic decisions. This is not because they are irrational or foolish but because so much is stacked against them. They are more likely to lack the basic information needed to make good choices, such as which fertiliser to use or when to apply it. They are more likely to live in societies which hold mistaken or harmful views, such as that girls should not go to school. 正如这份报告所示，穷人比其他人更有可能做出糟糕的经济决定。这不是因为穷人不理性或者愚蠢，而是因为条件不允许。他们更有可能缺乏做出正确选择——如使用何种化肥以及如何施肥——所需要的基本信息，他们更有可能生活在持有错误或者有害观点——如女孩不应当上学——的社会中。 Conventional economic thinking assumes the poor will want to earn their way out of poverty. But as studies from countries as different as Ethiopia and France show, poverty makes people feel powerless and blunts their aspirations, so they may not even try to improve their lot. When they do, they face obstacles everywhere. They have no margin for error, making them risk averse. If they do not know where their next meal is coming from, saving and investing for the future is hard. George Orwell said, “Within certain limits, the less money you have the less you worry.” He was wrong. The poor are subject to exceptional levels of stress: childhood sickness is more likely to be life-threatening; crop failure can lead to destitution. And stress makes good decision-making harder. Above all, the poor lack the institutional framework which, in the West, improves decisions. Everywhere, people underestimate the benefits of education and save too little for their retirement. But children in the West go to school as a matter of course; pension systems make some savings automatic. Poor countries provide few such props. 按照普通的经济学思维，穷人希望通过多挣钱来摆脱贫困。但是，对埃塞俄比亚和法国这样截然不同的国家的研究显示，贫穷不仅让人们感到无助，更能消磨他们的斗志。于是，他们甚至有可能不去尝试改变命运。当他们尝试着去改变命运的时候，又会四处碰壁。他们没有犯错的余地，这使得他们厌恶风险。如果他们不知道是下一顿饭来自何方，为未来而储蓄和投资是困难的。乔治·奥威尔说：“在一定限度内，钱越少，操心就越少。”这是不对的。穷人受制于各种非同寻常的压力：儿童时代的头疼脑热更有可能演变成终生的疾病，农作物的歉收可能导致一贫如洗。同时，压力又会让做出好决策更加困难。总之，穷人缺乏的是在西方被用来改进决策的制度框架。凡是贫穷之地，人们都低估教育的好处，几乎不为退休而存钱。但是，在西方，孩子上学是理所当然的事情，养老金制度自动为人们存下一些钱。穷国很少提供此类支撑。 All this helps explain why the poor stay poor; why (for example) subsistence farmers do not buy fertiliser or put children into secondary school, though they would benefit from doing so. More important, though, behavioural economics provides a different way of thinking about some of the problems of poverty. 所有这一切都有助于解释穷人为什么总是贫穷；有助于解释（比如说）农民为什么不买化肥，为什么不把孩子送进中学，尽管他们会从中获益。然而，更为重要的是，行为经济学所提供的是另一种思考某些贫穷问题的方式。 Traditional development programmes stress resources and markets. People are poor, the argument goes, because they lack resources: not just money but roads, clinics, schools and irrigation canals. The job of development is to provide those things. And since resources also need to be allocated properly, prices have to be right. So a lot of development is about freeing prices and making markets more efficient. 传统的发展项目强调的是资源和市场。据此，穷人贫穷的原因是缺乏资源。这里所说的资源不仅仅是资金，还包括道路、诊所、学校和各种水利设施。发展的任务就是提供这些东西。同时，由于资源也需要得到正确的分配，因而，价格必需是正确的。于是，许多发展就是放开价格和提高市场效率。 A behavioural approach to development is different. It focuses on how decisions are made and how they can be improved. For example, in Bogotá a conditional-cash transfer programme paid mothers a monthly stipend if they took their children to school. Attendance during the school year was good but re-enrolment rates were low. A shift in the timing of the hand-out—withholding a part of the regular payment until just before the start of the school year—boosted enrolment sharply. This makes little sense in conventional economic terms: going to school is so beneficial that families should not need extra incentives and the overall sum available did not change. Yet the pay-off was substantial. 针对发展的行为策略与此不同。它的重点在于决策的制定方式和决策的改进方式。例如，波哥大的一个有条件现金转移项目曾经每月给那些把孩子送去上学的母亲们支付一笔奖学金。学年中，出勤率是高的。但是，重新入学率却处于低位。布施时机的调整——把一部分常规支付留到学年开始之前支付——大幅提高了入学率。这在普通的经济学理论中是不成立的。因为按照普通的经济学理论，上学的好处是如此之大，以致于家庭不应当需要额外的动力，同时他们可以得到的奖金总额也没有变化。不过，负债却是巨大的。 Actions like this sound marginal. Economists should be paying attention to the details of policy anyway. It may not seem to amount to a profoundly different approach—but it actually might. 这样的行动看上去无足轻重。经济学家无论如何都应当去关注于政策的细节。这似乎不可能成为一种截然不同的策略。但是，实际是有可能的。 A tweaking revolution 微调革命 Some small-scale policies turn out to be far from marginal. A programme in Jamaica in the 1990s taught mothers of chronically malnourished toddlers how to play with them in such a way as to encourage greater verbal and physical skills—a behavioural tweak. Twenty years later, the average earnings of these children (among the most deprived in the country) were higher than those of children who had not been malnourished, and far higher than malnourished children who were not part of the programme. Paying attention to how the poor actually think would also imply big changes to financial-inclusion policies, encouraging financial products that people want to buy. 某些小范围的政策最后都证明自己绝非无足轻重。在上世纪90年代的牙买加曾经推行了这样一个项目：教给那些有着长期营养不良的孩子的母亲在同孩子玩耍时，如何更多地用口头和身体技能的方式来鼓励孩子。20年后，这些孩子的平均收入，在最贫困的国家中，高于没有有过营养不良的孩子，远远高于不是这一项目参与者却曾经营养不良的孩子。关注穷人的实际所想还意味着金融包容政策的重大转变，对人们想要购买的金融产品给予更多的鼓励。 Moreover, development experts have their biases and blind spots, like anyone else. In principle, behavioural development could sit happily alongside the traditional sort. In practice, the two will compete for resources and professional attention. 再者，发展专家也是普通人，他们也有各种偏见和盲点。从理论上说，行为经济学的发展策略能够同传统的发展策略愉快共处。但是，在实践中，两者将会为了资源和专业人员的注意而相互竞争。 A behavioural approach to poverty is not new. The World Bank has long had a behavioural unit. The Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has championed randomised control trials to test tweaks to policy. But by making this the subject of its main annual publication, the Bank has brought behavioural economics into the mainstream of development. It is likely to prove a challenge to traditional ways of combating poverty, as well as a complement to them. 针对贫困的行为经济学策略不是新鲜事务。长久以来，世界银行一直拥有一个行为单位。麻省理工的贫困行动实验室就是一个先行者。它们无论是在随机控制测试，还是在针对政策的微调方面，都始终位于世界的前列。但是，世界银行已经通过让其成为年度主要出版物主题的方式，将行为经济学引入到发展的主流之中。行为经济学很有可能证明自己既是对战胜贫困的传统方式的一种挑战，也是对它们的一种补充。 From the print edition: Finance and economics |
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