【2020-07-22】 贡布里希的这段话（《艺术的故事》第8章）让我想了很多： 现代艺术家那么追求创新，是被市场逼的，和如今的创业公司挖空心思力求成为独角兽，原理是一样的，因为规模经济和网络效应造成了一种只有独角兽才能生存的局面，对艺术来说，背后起作用的是传播和消费方式：并不是消费者真的需要那么多完全不同的新作品，而是因为只有全然不同的新作品才能让新进的艺术家有饭吃。 以音乐为例，且让我从一个极端的假设讲起，即便我们假设，消费者对是否有新作品丝毫不介意，而完全满足于数十年如一日翻来覆去听（比如10首）老曲子，同时他们也不介意时不时可能有一首新曲子，只要它好听就行，我想说的是，即便这种看起来最不鼓励创新的条件下，现代艺术市场也会远比古代市场更鼓励创新。 在古代，哪怕一千年没有新曲子，要满足100万人每人每年听几次的需求，也需要大批音乐家，因为每次表演只能同时服务于几十最多上百人，于是，一个完全没有创新的音乐产业，也可以让众多音乐家生存，具体养活多少，取决于表演次/欣赏次之间的比例关系。 可是技术进步会改变这一比例，考虑另一个极端：假如所有人都在spotify上听歌，而且全都满足于相同的10首歌来回放，那么，等这些歌的作者死光之后，音乐市场就再也不需要新的音乐家了，可是有志于靠音乐吃饭的人不甘心啊，所以他们必须写新曲子，努力说服至少一部分听众把他们的新歌加入播放列表。 这两个极端之间，一些早先的技术进步也可能改变上述比例关系，比如：扩音器，具有专业音响效果的音乐厅，精确的乐谱记录和复现手段（包括指挥），铁路飞机扩大了音乐家服务半径，等等。 除了音乐，类似的机制或许在其他艺术形式中也存在，不过我还没想清楚。  

【2019-06-06】 John Hancock公司的这个寿险产品是我见过最好的健康生活方式督促器，可是有人就不高兴了，说嘎呋闷特该管管了，同是这批人，若是换作没啥鸟用的可乐税或餐桌盐瓶禁止令，大概会拍手叫好，好笑的是，这个博客的名字叫ProMarket，Pro你个头

On September 19, 2018, John Hancock, one of the oldest life insurance companies in the US, made a radical change: it stopped offering life insurance priced by traditional demographics like age, health history, gender, and employment history.

Instead, John Hancock began offering coverage priced according to interactions with policyholders through wearable health devices, smartphone apps, and websites. According to the company, these interactive policies track activity levels, diet, and behaviors like smoking and excessive drinking. Policyholders that engage in healthy behaviors like exercise or prove that they have purchased healthy food receive discounts on their life insurance premiums, gift cards to major retailers, and other perks; those who do not presumably get higher rates and no rewards. According to John Hancock these incentives, along with daily tracking, will encourage policyholders to live longer and have lower hospitalization-related costs.

保险商信息获取和风险甄别的革命性提升，无疑会深刻改变保险业态，但说那会摧毁保险业的存在基础，就有点杞人忧天了，常见的一种担忧是，假如保险商都抢着刮蛋糕上的奶油，剩下的劣质客户的保费就会高到没销路的程度，可问题是，要刮掉多少奶油才会出现这种局面？保险商若是全知上帝，保险业就不复存在，这大概没错，但他们远非全知，他们采集信息的能力确实在迅速提高，但消费者的一种可能反应是提前买，在风险相关信息变得可采集之前就买，有何理由认为这种需求不会有供应商来满足呢？ 还有一种可能性，被刮剩下的蛋糕渣或许单独无法成为有价值的保险开发对象，但仍可能和其他产品组合起来而变得市场可行，比如抽烟喝酒胡吃海喝的没人愿意保，可是早死也有早死的好处啊，和年金结合起来就是个办法，若是再放弃几种续命治疗，好像还挺有吸引力的吧。

【2018-10-21】 https://voxeu.org/article/top-firms-and-decline-local-product-market-concentration 随着排名前几位的大型连锁零售商规模扩张，市场份额提高，零售市场的集中度当然也提高了，但这里提高的是全局市场的集中度，而该指标对于个体消费者是没意义的，消费者真正关心的是他自己的有效购物半径内有多少选择，因而对他们有意义的指标是各局部市场的集中度，研究发现，大型连锁厂商的扩张非但没有提高反而降低了局部市场的集中度 原理其实不难理解，因为结构高度扁平化的大型连锁企业，其每家门店的管理成本远远低于独立企业，因而只须在每个局部市场分到一小块即可实现盈亏平衡，而独立企业需要割到一大块才能生存，因而每个局部市场容纳的门店数增加了。 【2019-03-23】 John Cochrane的解读，和我想法差不多  

【2018-09-05】 看眼下大公司政治站队这么积极的势头，突然冒出一个念头：未来各类消费品市场会不会出现几大品牌分别对应不同党派的局面？雇佣市场的党派分化或许来的更快？ ​​​​ 从左派对待NRA合作商的劲头看，他们总有一天也会发动对FoxNews广告客户的抵制行动，然后许多公司被迫站队……若这种情况升级到某个程度，就会引发连锁反应，因为被腾出的市场空间总会吸引其他厂商来占领，沃尔玛和麦当劳估计会选择右边……  

和保健品厂商一样，记者们总是热衷于使用一些偶尔从专家嘴里听来，自己却不太弄得明白的高深术语，诸如博弈，囚徒困境，自私基因，悖论，伪命题……，在众多此类术语中，『市场失灵』是颇受欢迎的一个，大概是因为它有着恰到好处的似懂非懂性——既显得足够高深，又不至于完全不知所云，很适合为进一步的社会批评、政策呼吁，乃至道义铁肩的展示做铺垫。 那么，当人们说市场失灵时，所要表达的究竟是什么呢？在经济学家那里，市场失灵（market failure）是指一组特定的经济现象，它们大多在本书各章中得到了讨论，包括：因所有权缺失而导致的公地悲剧，因搭便车问题而造成的公共品供给不足（第1、2章），外部性带来的无效率（第3章），因资产特化和网络效应而造成的低水平均衡（或者叫路径锁入，第4、5、6章），因单方面资产特化而造成的合约套牢（第7、8章），因信息不对称造成的柠檬市场或委托代理无效（第9章），因掠夺性定价、网络效应或先行优势而造成的自然垄断（第10、11、12章），由非理性行为导致的价格泡沫（第13章）。 何以将这些十分不同的现象归为一类？理由并不明确，常见的说法是，它们都偏离了帕累托最优，即存在帕累托优化的余地，但实际上，其中大部分跟帕累托最优无关，比如旨在消除外部性的庇古税，被征税者的福利显然减损了，所以即便我们接受基数效用论，也充其量只能在理论上实现庇古优化，而非帕累托优化，类似的，即便我们相信某种外力能够将市场从低水平均衡中拉出，或避免合约套牢，或打破自然垄断，结果也只是改进了消费者和部分生产者的福利，而低水平均衡中的特化资产持有者、合约套牢中的讹诈者、自然垄断厂商的利益，无疑都减损了，因而这些改变都不是帕累托优化。 此外，正如各章作者所指出，经济学家基于这些现象所构造的模型在理论上是否成立，它们在现实世界中有多普遍，其影响有多重要，都是相当可疑的，而那些长久以来被视为这组模型之经典案例，被广为援引和传播的故事，则多半只是信口捏造或以讹传讹，对此，本书各章已有详尽论述。 不过，无论理论地位是否脆弱，现实重要性多么可疑，当经济学家说市场失灵时，他们的意思至少是明确的，相比之下，在非专业场合，这个词的用法就变得极为狂野，我在这里打算重点讨论的，正是这一状况；还是让我从语言分析开始吧。 假如我们发现某人未能完成某项视觉任务，并说：“视觉系统失灵”——这究竟是什么意思呢？实际上，这句话的语义太含混了，有太多种可能的解读： 1）此人的（原本好好的）视觉系统此时此刻失灵了。或许是某种疾病（比如视网膜动脉栓塞）发作让他暂时失明； 2）此人的视觉系统向来不灵。或许他是个盲人，或者色盲，或者深度近视，等等； 3）人类的视觉系统不灵。双眼布局造成的视野局限让人类无法（像毛驴那样）完成要求视野角度超过180度的任务，分辨率局限也让我们无法像老鹰那样看清那么远的东西； 4）脊椎动物的视觉不灵。脊椎动物视觉系统的结构缺陷造成的盲点，让我们无法完成某些特殊的视觉任务； 5）无论何种视觉系统都不灵，或，视觉系统这种东西就是不灵。比如视觉系统的定向性令它无法像听觉或嗅觉系统那样随时接收处理来自任意方向的信号，而且光信号绕开障碍物的能力也极差。 类似的，当有人说市场不灵时，其言下之意可能是： 1）这个市场本来有着某种功能，但这个市场的这一功能此时此地在这件事情上没有表现出来，或表现不佳，一定是某种缺陷、状况或外力导致了其功能障碍，就像视网膜动脉栓塞发作时，或眼球长时间受压迫之后，出现的视觉障碍； 2）这个经济体的市场缺乏某些典型市场都有的功能，或者虽有却表现不佳，比如希腊的市场相比美国的市场，表现十分不同，就像色盲患者的视觉障碍； 3）相比其他类型的市场，这种类型的市场缺乏某些功能，或者虽有却表现不佳，比如有着中央银行、价格管制、福利制度或最低工资法的市场，和没有这些制度的市场相比，表现十分不同，就像人眼和驴眼或鹰眼的不同，脊椎动物眼睛和乌贼眼睛的不同； 4）相比人类组织协调其经济活动的其他系统（比如熟人互惠，效忠/庇护网络，封建系统，行政管制，中央计划），无论何种市场都缺乏某些功能，或者虽有却表现不佳，就像眼睛的定向性局限和频宽局限。 重要的不是这些可能性是否存在——对应失灵之不同含义的案例，在现实中或许都可以找到——，而是人们在谈论市场失灵时，总是将这些含义不加区别的混为一谈，当所描述的情况只能支持一种含义时，谈论者试图传达的，听众所领会到的，却是另一种含义，看到某个经济体的市场某时某刻在某件事情上有某项功能表现不佳，就轻易得出“（一般意义上的）市场不行，得试试其他系统（往往是指政府）”的结论。 想象一下，假如我们在谈论眼睛时也这么做，会有多荒唐：因为某人午休打瞌睡时手臂压迫眼球导致20分钟内无法阅读，就说他是个瞎子，发现有些人是色盲，就说人类视觉系统的颜色分辨力实在糟糕，听说存在盲点、视野局限、定向性问题，就宣称视觉比起嗅觉来简直弱爆了。 还有比这些更狂野的用法，有些人在说市场失灵时，首先暗自为它指派了一项来路不明的任务，然后指责它未能完成：市场没能让所有人脱贫致富，让人人变得积极乐观、心想事成、幸福感十足，让坏人从世间消失，再也没有纠纷、冲突、天灾、事故和疾病，创造出零污染没成本且人人喜爱的梦幻能源……可是凭什么市场必须要有这些功能呢？ 让我们看几个具体例子吧，在下文将谈论的一些事情中[1]，对市场失灵的惊呼声不绝于耳，然而惊呼者从来没有说清楚，失灵的究竟是某个特定市场，或是某类市场，还是任何或全部市场，更没有讨论过它们各自可能引出的政策含义有何不同。   为何私人企业在某些产业表现如此糟糕？[2] 2011年4月，云南玉溪一家幼儿园，一位儿童因异物阻塞气管窒息，送医抢救无效死亡，园主竟伙同雇员偷偷将尸体埋到山上。 此事令舆论一时哗然，如同往常一样，记者们也迅速找出了事件中的污点：这所幼儿园是民营的，且属非法办学，缺乏“资质”、未经教育局批准，且已屡次被责令停办。 实际上，类似污点在以往各种质量和安全事件中屡屡占据显著地位，黑心私人作坊、黑心摊贩、黑心民营医院，等等，似乎民营与黑心总是天然的联系在一起，而缺乏资质、许可和执照本身便成了认定其责任的难逃罪状。 可问题是，在我们听到的幼儿园事故中，国营的并不少见，比如2001年南昌广电中心艺术幼儿园烧死13个孩子的火灾，该幼儿园背景又红又正，资质更是健全而雄厚；民营幼儿园在总体上是否比国营的更不安全，我们还没有统计数字可供判断。 不过，难以否认的是，确实存在一些行业，民营企业在质量和安全上的表现明显不如国营的，比如，到处散发欺骗性医疗广告的，多半是民营医院，在民营加油站加到劣质油的概率，也远高于国营连锁油站。 这一相关性，似乎支持了行业准入限制、管制、甚至国有化的必要性：瞧，这些敏感行业国家就应该管起来，否则消费者面对的将是和黑医院黑油站一样的黑心商家；果真如此吗？首先，民营/缺乏资质和质量/安全之间表现出的相关性并不是因果关系，况且，这一相关性本身就是可疑的，看看别的行业，食品和餐饮同样是质量安全高度敏感的，但在麦当劳和国营食堂之间，消费者对哪个更放心？即便在医疗业，私人经营的长庚医院，其服务质量和口碑也为绝大多数国营医院所难以企及。 假如我们对比各个行业的情况，不难发现，那些早已拆除准入门槛、开放私人投资、国企基本退出或不拥有特权的行业，民营企业在规模化、产品质量、服务水平和安全性等方面，都取得了长足进步，其表现与开放之前国企的长期麻木和停滞形成了鲜明对照，而民企黑幕重重、事故频仍、欺诈横行且长期看不到改善的领域，通常都是准入门槛高企、管制重重、国企享有特权或垄断关键资源的行业。 这一对照强烈暗示着另一种因果关系：正是管制将民企长期压制在地下或半地下的灰色状态，随时可能面临清理整顿、打击恶性竞争、优化组合、被国企强行兼并的命运，投资经营者朝不保夕，才让行业陷于黑暗低劣的状态，比如发生埋尸案的幼儿园，因没有牌照而屡屡被责令关闭，不断更名和搬迁以躲避检查，处于这种状态下，他们怎么会愿意在规模化、经营管理规范化和品牌形象建设上做长期而持续的投入？ 朝不保夕状态下的理性策略，就是将投资规模控制在最低水平，以降低被关闭的代价，其中当然包括管理、质量和安全上的投入，低调不张扬以免惹来关注，而这与品牌建设恰好背道而驰；同时，将资源转而投入于寻求与官员和黑社会建立庇护关系，这样既可逃避管制，同时也补偿了质量安全上的低投入所带来的风险，因为这些庇护资源可以帮他们在需要时摆平事情。 这是一个逆向淘汰机制，把那些愿意长期投入、有志于建立百年品牌的企业家赶出了这些行业，也让善良诚实守法、不屑与黑暗势力为伍、以东躲西藏苟且屈膝胯下求生为耻的公民避之犹恐不及，因而，管制先创造了一个浑水泥潭，然后以其浑浊为理由论证管制的必要性，这是又一种自我实现的预言。 更不幸的是，由于管制将经营者预先置于非法状态，当事故发生时，他们丧失了循正当途径解决的条件，而倾向于更黑的手段，或寻求庇护势力摆平，或自己铤而走险；学龄前儿童原本就处于高危年龄段，事故死亡率比青少年高许多，尤其是在不发达社会，所以幼儿园经营者无不日夜提心吊胆，从事发后的恐慌反应看，本案的经营者在避免事故上有着足够的激励，可同样的激励却将其行为引向了不同于常理的方向，他们知道因为没有牌照，诉讼结果会很不利，而在事先，非法状态也让他们无法购买保险，只好选择了最恶劣的做法。 【后记】 在上文的情境中，市场确实失败了，它败于政府强制之手，因为政府根本不让它光明正大的发育。一个产业若处于地下或半地下状态，就无法指望它会健康发展，因为地下状态妨碍了信息的充分流动，而这正是品质提升所需要的，地下状态也会形成对参与者的逆向淘汰：驱逐良民，吸引恶棍。 娼妓业是个典型的例子，禁娼制度下的娼业往往被黑帮（还有与之合作的腐败官员）所控制，妓女处境常十分悲惨，有时近乎于奴役状态，然而在娼业合法的经济体中，妓女的处境并不比其他服务业从业者差多少，顾客被讹诈勒索的机会也并不更高。   为何虚假医疗广告如此肆无忌惮？[3] 2009年初，卫生部和广电总局等五个部门联合发布通告，用四个以“一律不准播放”结尾的排比句，重申了对医疗健康类电视广播节目这种变相医疗广告的禁令。类似的禁令我们已见过多次了，最显著的一次是在2006年8月，广电总局和新闻出版总署对医疗广告全面宣战。后来，战火又蔓延到了互联网，2008年的百度危机便发端于医疗广告（同样的危机在2016年以更大规模暴发）。然而，对于医疗广告泛滥和欺诈横行的局面，这一次又一次语气强硬的禁令和声势浩大的扫荡，恰恰显露了政策执行的失败。 画面恶俗、言辞蛊惑、称述充满误导和欺诈的医疗广告，充斥着各种媒体，这场面确实恶劣而难堪；然而情况恶化到这步田地，却不是因为缺少法规和禁令，我们从不缺少三令五申、严厉打击和彻底杜绝；关于医疗广告，我们有着全世界最严厉的限制：除了通常被印在名片正面的那些信息之外，医疗广告不得包含任何内容，甚至不得提及疾病名称、药物和治疗手段，更不能提及与疗效有关的任何字眼。这些条文带给人们的期待，与现实情景形成天壤之别。 虚假医疗广告轻则骗人钱财，重则夺人性命，无论何种都是刑事犯罪，如今其泛滥之势既已严重到各大部委屡屡联合打击的地步，想必大量虚假陈述已经做出，众多患者已经被误导，不少伤害已经造成，奇怪的是，我们却很少听到有谁为此而坐牢，更没有听说刊登这些广告的媒体因此而赔到破产，甚至很少有诉讼被提起（这些四处打广告的家伙，莫非执法部门比患者更难找到他们？）；相反，我们听到的只是一道又一道的禁令。 如同其他领域常见的那样，每当一种不良现象出现时，有关部门不是去找出那些侵权和犯罪者，作出处罚或提起诉讼，而总是选择对产生该现象的行业颁布一刀切式的禁令，对依靠这一行谋生的人群施加集体惩罚。这种做法，使得秩序的维持依赖于持续的行政压力，一旦风头过去，不良现象便重新泛滥；更严重的是，一刀切的行政管制，摒弃了通过法律途径解决问题的机会，将越来越多的社会纠纷引入到行政命令而非法治的框架之下，与建立现代法治社会的理想背道而驰。 医疗广告之所以敏感而需要慎重管理，不是因为患者不需要信息，恰恰相反，正因为他们太需要信息，过度急切的心情常常让他们忽视了对信息质量的关注，所谓病急乱投医，使得他们很容易被虚假广告所欺骗；然而，帮助他们的办法不是蒙上他们的耳朵，相反，应该让他们多听，有机会获得来自各种渠道的信息，是他们提高鉴别力的前提。 广告是企业实施产品和服务差异化，建立品牌认知的必要手段，如果这一手段被剥夺，所有企业都会向可能的最低标准靠拢，最终市场上充斥着无差异产品；以广告为基础的品牌进化过程，是产品和服务质量不断提高、消费者不断走向成熟所依赖的市场机制，也是有远见、负责任的企业获得长远发展的必由之路。当然，广告还有另一个作用，它也是那些频繁改头换面、打一枪换一个地方、蒙一票算一票的江湖骗子用来招摇撞骗的手段。 那么，一刀切禁令打击了哪一种呢？显然前者遭受的打击更大，那些踏实经营、忠厚本分的企业，在设备、人员、技术、产品研发上作出了巨大的投入和长期的积累，现在被告知不得向消费者宣扬这些优势；更无奈的是，已经积累的巨大资产迫使他们避免冒犯法律的风险，对他们来说，勒令停业、吊销执照、甚至仅仅是通报谴责，其代价都是无法承受的。相反，对于江湖游医，这方面的机会成本低得多，他们原本就没有长远打算，设备场地都是租来的，随时准备跑。 结果是，大医院、大药厂被驱逐出了医疗广告市场，只剩下游医在那里招摇撞骗，令他们惊喜的是，没有大医院跟他们竞争报纸版面、电视时段和患者的眼球，广告费更便宜了，而他们的覆盖率也更高了。这一结果自然不是管理部门所期望的，开放医疗广告，同时惩罚和起诉误导和诈骗者，才能改变当前糟糕的局面。大企业或许也会不负责任，拿自己的品牌开玩笑，但市场自会惩罚他们，三鹿蒙牛的例子已经表明了，数十亿投入打造的品牌，是可以在一夜之间变成负资产的；而这一惩罚，绝非来自禁令，而仅仅是因为信息可以畅通无阻的传递到每个消费者。 【后记】 市场不是飘在太空中的一团空气，它需要一整套深厚的制度基础来支撑，财产权要得到保护，契约要能够执行，债务能够追索，责任能够认定，侵权会被矫正，自愿交易不被强行压制，信息被允许传播……这些条件从未完美成立，但有些经济体比另一些要好得多，其市场表现自然不同，在此意义上，某些特定市场确实很失败，那是因为它们赖以发育成长的文化/制度环境过于糟糕，这就好比，缺乏某些微量元素（比如硒）会造成视力发育不良，所以某些人确实视觉失灵了，但不能因此就说视觉比嗅觉弱爆了。 在上文所涉及的场景中，那些发布虚假广告、欺诈消费者的厂商，其实很少被起诉和定罪，执法机构所做的，只是在场面变得过于难看时，抡起棍子将整个行业不分良奸痛打一顿，这显然不是市场发育的好环境。   服务业的格雷欣法则[4] 2011年春节期间，接连在香港和澳门各发生了一起游客与导游之间的冲突事件，第一起是双方互殴，结果旅行社破财消灾、息事宁人，第二起据说是游客单方面殴打导游，结果引发导游同行群情激愤，恐怕要打一场官司了；受此事件震动，一些呼吁行业自律和自保机制的声音再度在港澳旅游业界出现，甚至包括了建立游客黑名单之类的提议。 自2002、03年内地赴港澳旅游的限制逐步解除以来，内地游客大量涌入港澳，导致港澳旅游、博彩和零售业的迅速增长；伴随这一增长，内地游客与导游间的冲突和暴露港澳导游不良言行的丑闻也在不断增加；对此状况，有人哀叹香港旅游服务的品质正在随规模的扩大而下降，要求加强自律的呼声不断，而政治家也不失时机的跳出来，断言仅凭自律不够，要引入行政监管。 对于急切寻求制度性措施来避免冲突、改进行业状况的人们，重要的是要弄清导致上述变化和冲突的原因和机理；在我看来，变化的主线，是伴随消费群的变化而发生的一个劣币逐良币过程，或者说是格雷欣法则（Gresham’s Law）在起作用；劣币逐良币的意思是，商品的某项品质，若分布于一个消费者无法分辨、或即便有所分辨也不影响其选择的区间，那么，该品质最终将下降到这一区间的下限，即，品质高于该水平的商品将从市场消失。 格雷欣法则的原理很简单，创造和提供品质都是有成本的，若额外的品质不能影响消费选择，厂商自然不愿意负担这项成本；但格雷欣法则的现实表现却十分复杂，要判断消费者能或不能分辨哪些信息，哪些环节导致了信息障碍，信息最终如何影响消费选择，并不容易。 一种常见的情况是，当一个市场突然涌入大批缺乏经验和辨别力的新手时，格雷欣法则便会启动，此时，我们通常都会听到那些老达人们哀叹：行业被做滥了；在餐饮、影视、新闻、教育等行业，当消费群突然扩大时，我们都看到过类似的过程，港澳旅游业遭遇的不同只是，市场并非原地放大，而是从外部涌入，或许澳洲的国际教育业是个恰当的参照。 一个对格雷欣法则的普遍误解是，它会导致行业品质的全面恶化，其实这只有当仅存在一个可识别的品质区间时才会发生；显然，便士铜币不会驱逐先令银币，而只会驱逐成色比它好的便士铜币，每个品质区间都向其底部靠拢，最终行业将分化成几个泾渭分明的品质档次；所以，格雷欣过程并非悲剧，相反，它恰恰是质量和价格信号体系得以演化的关键机制。 起初，随着市场突然放大，许多旅行社发现扩大业务规模比确保服务品质更有利可图，当其他旅行社发现他们的品质坚守并未获得消费者亲睐时，格雷欣过程便启动了，一段时间内鱼龙混杂，似乎一切都在恶化，然后抱怨、冲突、丑闻开始泛滥，但恰是这时候，建立品质鸿沟的机会来了。 一些商家会适时跳出来宣布：我们只做高端业务；假如他们是认真的，将会从商业模式、形象识别、价格水平、业务渠道等方面，构筑全面的隔离栅栏，甚至旅行社这种名字都可以放弃；格雷欣过程所导致的局部一致化，和不同档次之间刻意拉开距离的努力，将共同完成质量符号体系的构建，通过品质离散化，消除了庞杂和连续性带给消费者的识别障碍，这期间将伴随着同质厂商之间的联盟和兼并过程，或许行业协会也会随之而分裂。 那些致力于产业制度改良的人们，需要明白的是，好的产业不必是创造最优品质的产业，而是最能满足需求的产业，抱怨和纠纷并不是品质差的结果，而是品质不符合预期的结果，你不会因为在地摊上买到低档货、或在大排档里吃出根头发而恼羞成怒，所以，重要的是让市场发展出鲜明清晰、不易混淆的质量识别符号系统；上面描述的演化过程，尽管只是设想的，但其他产业的发展历史告诉我们，这是值得期待的。 【后记】 有些人将某个产业在某个时期商品质量或服务水准下降，或者他苦苦期待的品质提升始终没有出现，也称为市场失灵，可是，厂商是为消费者愿意为之付钱的真实需求而生产的，假如消费者收入太低，或宁愿将有限预算留给他们认为更重要的事情，或对某类商品尚缺乏消费经验和鉴别力，尚未养成挑剔口味，那么，他们可能都不会像评论者所想象的那样将品质列为优先考虑，不愿为之多掏很多钱，为此而痛心疾首，不过是何不食肉糜的另一个版本而已。 有时候，某一行业品质普遍下降甚至是市场表现良好的反映，仅仅二十年前，对于绝大多数中国人，出国旅行是想都不敢想的事情，而现在连许多中低收入者也能负担得起欧洲十日游了，当这一大群低预算、无经验、鉴别力缺乏的消费者迅速涌入该市场时，行业的服务品质当然需要拉低，否则如何能以与其支付愿意相匹配的价格提供服务？   博傻游戏中的失败者[5] 2011年初，天津文化艺术品交易所的炒家们，又给我们上演了一出精彩的博傻游戏（greater fool），首批上市的份额化艺术品中的两件画作，价格在50天内被推高了17倍，其中《黄河咆哮》市值一度达到令人乍舌的1.03亿元，随后，在经过9天停牌之后，前天复牌首日又双双跌停。 大概极少有人会相信一位二三流画家的作品的市场价格会长期维持在上亿的水平，每个在此价位买入的炒家，只是相信他能以更高的价格卖给另一个炒家，换句话说，我犯傻没关系，只要我不是最后那个傻瓜就行；这样的博傻游戏在市场上屡见不鲜，特别是那些新开辟的市场，商品期货市场、收藏品市场、权证和A股创业板，都上演过类似的疯狂。 每每这样的情景出现，我们总会听到“市场变赌场”的惊呼和“强化管理”和“规范市场”的呼吁，许多人认为，任由这样的非理性行为存在，会恶化市场环境，降低市场的投资价值，最终使市场丧失创造流动性和优化资源配置的功能。 然而，这些担忧是多余的，确实有许多因素会破坏市场的功能和价值，比如信息的不透明和产品的非标准化，但博傻游戏不在其列，这是因为，博傻是不可持续的游戏，博傻策略的取利对象，并不是价值投资者，而是他们的同道——其他博傻者，因而从长期看，它会自动将自己从市场的策略分布中驱逐出去，而即便它能继续存在或卷土重来，也伤害不到理性的价值投资者，因而也伤害不到市场的健康发展。 每一个回合的博傻游戏最终都会崩溃，而崩溃点是高度不确定的，所以该游戏的效果实际上相当于俄罗斯轮盘赌（Russian roulette）：每次从博傻者中随机挑出一批倒霉蛋，他们的尸体被搬走，剩下的博傻者瓜分他们的遗产；在充满风险的市场上，无论如何每天总会有若干具尸体被搬走，那么，希望市场健康发展的人们，难道不希望被抬出去的，是那些主动采用非理性策略的参与者？ 显然，对于奉行价值策略的投资者来说，一个存在众多博傻者的市场，（用格雷汉姆（Benjamin Graham）的话说）是更友善的“市场先生”（Mr. Market），因为它会时不时以远远出乎你意料的高价格，送给你一个个超额实现投资价值的机会；有人或许会问，假如博傻者总是将价格推高在离谱的水平，价值投资者就没有机会进入，市场怎么健康发展？ 但这不是博傻游戏的特点，泡沫总是短命的，一旦有风吹草动，博傻者比的就是谁跑得快，由此造成的恐慌常常将价格拉到低的离谱的水平，而这时，市场先生又从另一个方向对价值投资者表现出其慷慨和友善：送给他们做梦也想不到的低价买入的机会；对此，我们实在没有什么可抱怨的。 所以，呼吁对博傻行为进行管制的，不会是价值投资者，他们没有理由为此担忧，面对价格泡沫，假如他们手里有货，理应大喜过望，假如没货，也乐得看个热闹；有理由大声疾呼的，只能是俄罗斯轮盘里那些不幸躺下的倒霉蛋，他们既要享受豪赌的快感，又不愿面对输个精光的后果，这就好比那些毫无道理的疯狂抢购囤积食盐的家伙，事后却要求超市接受原价退货，天下岂有此等好事。 任何交易制度和监管政策，当然不应满足这样的无理要求，那些一心只想着丰厚的回报，却将最起码的风险原则抛诸脑后，指望交易所和监管当局替他们挡开所有危险，最好在输掉后还能讨回本钱的所谓“投资者”，理应被横着抬出市场，幸好，博傻者们会自己干这份累活儿，他们是市场的义务清道夫，这也是每出博傻游戏的美妙结局所在。 【后记】 有人好赌，并且赌了，然后输光了，这有什么不对吗？或者考虑更纯粹的情形：有人不想活，并为此而行动了——找了根绳子把自己吊起来，然后死了，这有什么不对吗？如果你觉得这也算市场失灵，那只是暗中为市场假设了它本不具备的功能，毕竟没有人宣称“拯救所有不想活的人”是市场之必备功能，市场可以让不想活的人方便的买到价廉物美的绳子，当然，如果他回心转意，也可让他更容易找到一家心理诊所。 市场并不担保所有人都获得成功，相反，通过创造性毁灭过程将失败者清除出系统，倒是市场的标准功能。 注： [1] 以下内容摘自我2009-2012年间写的几篇评论文章，稍有改动，原文可在我的博客上找到：https://headsalon.org/ [2] 原文《从埋尸案看民企的逼仄地位》 https://headsalon.org/archives/1977.html [3] 原文《医疗广告宜疏不宜堵》 http://headsalon.org/archives/470.html [4] 原文《港澳旅游业的劣币逐良币过程》 http://headsalon.org/archives/1616.html [5] 原文《博傻游戏伤不到市场》https://headsalon.org/archives/1702.html  

【2016-07-22】 不少朋友对金融/投资界的人为何也那么反市场感到困惑不解，among others, 一个明显的理由是退休基金的市场份额在过去几十年中大幅膨胀，这些基金的管理者大多喜欢迎合流行风潮，为了表现自己的政治正确，他们往往表现的比一般白左还要过火，至于内心是否真的相信那一套，则是另一码事。  

Entrepreneurship and American education 创业活动与美国教育 作者:Michael Q. McShane @ 2016-05-10 译者:Tankman 校对:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值) 来源:AEI,http://www.aei.org/publication/entrepreneurship-and-american-education/ Key Points 要点

• While educational entrepreneurship’s influence has been muted by policy and circumstance, this has nevertheless been a time of great growth for the field.
• 尽管政策和政治氛围已经压制了教育业中创业活动的影响，这个领域还是有了一段时间的显著增长。
• Over the next two decades, educational entrepreneurs will encounter a funding community, policy environment, and changing educational landscape that will profoundly affect the types of ventures and the ability of those ventures to scale, grow, and meet children’s needs.
• 在接下来二十年里，教育业的创业者会受到融资界，政策环境，教育业整体面貌变化等因素的冲击。这些因素会深刻影响风险投资的类型以及这些风险投资发起，壮大和满足孩子需求的能力。
• Entrepreneurship does not guarantee success. If anything, it ensures that there will be failure. For all its imperfections though, it offers a degree of imagination and natural winnowing well-suited to our sprawling, diverse, and pluralistic nation, and it creates an opportunity for truly world-changing products to emerge.
• 创业并不一定会成功。如果要说什么是确定的话，那就是一定会有失败产生。虽然有各种不完美，它提供了一定程度的想象空间和自然筛选，很好的适应了我们这个参差多元，分权共治的国家，而且创造机会让真正改变世界的成果得以涌现。

I have two adorable dogs who I love like children. Georgie is a precocious, 10-pound fur ball Bichon Frise I bought from an Amish man in rural Maryland. Beau is a seven-pound Maltese and silky terrier mix who spent the first five years of his life in a meth den in Missouri before my wife and I rescued him. When we travel, we have to find a place to board them. For years, we used kennels or “open-play” dog boarding facilities. By and large, we were pleased with the care that the dogs received, but boy, was it expensive. 我有两条可爱的狗，我像爱孩子那样爱他们。Georgie是只早熟的，10磅重的圆滚滚毛茸茸的比熊犬。我把它从马里兰州农村的一位阿米绪人那里买来。Beau有七磅，是一只的玛尔济斯犬和澳洲丝毛梗的后代。它生命的前五年在密苏里州的一个毒窝里度过，直到被我和我太太救了出来。当我们旅行时，我们必须为它们找个寄宿的地方。许多年以来，我们使用狗窝或者是“敞开”式宠物狗寄存设施。总体来说，我们对狗狗们受到的照顾感到满意。但这种服务很贵。 That is why it was great when my wife discovered the app Rover. Rover is kind of like Airbnb for dog sitters. Prospective sitters (or walkers or groomers) create profiles, post their rates, and have a space for customers to review them. People can find options that are convenient, in their price range, and the kind of environment they want for their dogs. We use the app whenever we travel and get what I think is far superior care for substantially less than we paid a kennel. It has been a big win for us and our dogs. 因此当我太太发现手机应用Rover时，一切实在太棒了。Rover像是宠物狗看护领域的Airbnb。潜在的看护们（或是遛狗者，或狗美容师）创建了个人简介，贴上他们的要价，留下一个给客户写评论的地方。人们能够在自己满意的价格区间，选择合适的选项，给宠物狗他们觉得合宜的环境。我们每次旅行都要使用这个应用，用明显比狗窝更低的价钱，换来一个更好的服务。这对狗狗和人都大有好处。 Rover illustrates disruptive innovation at work. Its founders identified a practical problem, leveraged knowledge and technology to devise a better solution, and then provided that solution in a way that upends old routines and assumptions. Rover体现了破坏性创新是如何工作的。它的创始人确定了一个实际问题，利用知识和技术来提供一个更好的解决方案，而后那个方案在某种意义上颠覆了旧的常规和假设。 I am of the opinion that it would be good for K–12 schooling if more teachers, school leaders, and entrepreneurs took a Rover-like approach to challenges that plague education. How can we better use school facilities? How can we help children find schools that are a good match for them? How can we help teachers identify the best strategies to address specific learning challenges? The list of vexing problems goes on and on. But what does it take for entrepreneurial problem solving to actually help students, and how do we think about the obstacles it faces and the problems it may create? 我有一种看法：如果更多教师、学校领导和企业家提供一个Rover式的解决方案来挑战如今重疾缠身的教育业，对基础教育将会产生积极影响。如何能更好的使用学校设施？如何能帮助孩子发现适合他们的学校？如何能帮助教师发现应对特定教学挑战的最优策略？令人头痛的问题的清单越拉越长。但是需要什么条件，才能用企业家解决问题的思维来帮助学生？这一途径面临的障碍是什么呢？这种方法又会带来什么问题呢？ Look, Rover is no panacea, but it is a great improvement. I would be the first to admit that in some cities it is probably impractical. There might not be enough supply for great potential dog sitters to want to get involved, or there might not be enough demand to keep prices attractive to sitters. For many dog owners, it is still too expensive. That said, Rover does help solve a particular problem for a lot of people, while opening the door to newer and better solutions. This is what entrepreneurial activity can do. 看，Rover不是一个万灵药，但却是一个巨大的改进。我可以爽快地承认，在某些城市，它很可能不现实。那里可能没有足够多的潜在宠物狗看护者想加入该平台，或是需求量不够大，价格也就无法吸引看护者加入。对很多狗主人来说，价格仍然太高。尽管如此，Rover的确帮很多人解决了一个特殊的问题，也给更新更好的方案留出了机会。这正是创活动所能作的。 In May 2016, Harvard Education Press is releasing a volume called Educational Entrepreneurship Today, which Frederick Hess and I edited.[1] Its content arose during a conference we hosted at AEI during the summer of 2015, where we brought together leading educational entrepreneurs, researchers in the field, and people with experience funding entrepreneurial ventures. What follows are a couple of big ideas that are circulating in the educational entrepreneurship world today and some of the tensions that will define educational entrepreneurship in the future. Will education be a place where Rover- (or Uber- or Airbnb-) like innovation takes place? Do we want it to be? 在2016年五月，哈佛教育出版社发布了一卷Frederick Hess和我编辑的文集，题为《今日教育行业创投》。[1]文集的内容形成于2015年夏季我们在美国企业研究所主持的一个讨论会。在这个会议上，我们把一流的教育业创业者，该领域的研究者和有创投经验的人士召集在了一起。随之而来的则是一些在今日教育业创业界流行的非凡创意，同时还有一些争论将在未来定义教育行业的创投活动。教育业会是一个产生类似Rover（或优步，或Airbnb）那样的创新的领域吗？我们希望如此吗？ Trends in Educational Entrepreneurship 教育业创业的趋势 The first and most important idea that those observing educational entrepreneurship should know is that while its influence over the past decade or so has been muted by policy and circumstance, this has nevertheless been a time of great growth for the field. Sure, it is true that school procurement systems (how schools and teachers shop for and purchase new materials) are stifling and outdated. Teachers and principals have limited flexibility to redesign schools or put new tools to work in ambitious ways. 教育行业创投的观察人士应该知道的第一个也是最重要的一个概念就是：教育行业创投在过去十多年一直在发挥作用，尽管目前已被政策和环境压制，该领域仍然有过一段显著增长期。当然，学校采购平台系统（学校和教师采购新材料的方式）是压抑创新且过时的。老师和校长们重新设计学校，或积极使用新的工作工具的灵活性是有限的。 But there have been many bright spots. Enrollment in charter schools doubled, and then doubled again. Venture capital investments grew from almost nothing to hundreds of millions’ worth. Companies such as Wireless Generation and SchoolNet thrived and then were sold at a handsome rate of return, emboldening more entrepreneurs and investors who seek to emulate those efforts. 但这一行业已然有很多闪光点。特许学校的录取数翻倍，又再翻倍。风险投资额从接近于零，变成几亿美元。如无线世代（Wireless Generation)或学校网（SchoolNet）这样的公司茁壮成长然后再以可观的回报率被收购，这鼓励了更多企业家和投资者去尝试复制上述成果。 The second thing worth noting is that what gets measured gets valued. The No Child Left Behind era heavily emphasized how students perform on state tests in reading and math. In the modern era, there has also been far less appetite or room for entrepreneurs who are not focused on closing reading and math “gaps” for low-income, African American, or Latino youth. Teachers are increasingly evaluated based on these metrics, district schools are at risk of being sanctioned if their students do not perform adequately, and charter schools know their existence depends largely on their test scores. 第二个值得注意的事情是，能被衡量比较的方面才是被认为有价值的。这个“不让一个孩子落后”的时代特别重视学生在州统考中的阅读和数学成绩。在如今这个时代，那些不重视为低收入群体、非裔和拉丁裔青少年缩小阅读和数学成绩差距的企业家很少受到青睐或者得到发展空间。教师评估越来越基于这些指标，如果学生表现不够好，学区的学校可能面临被制裁的风险。而特许学校也知道其生存很大程度上依赖于测试分数。 Test scores tend to define the ways in which schools are judged and compared, and they also mean that new providers can really only demonstrate their mettle in terms of reading and math. When policy and philanthropy treat reading and math tests as the coin of the realm, it creates problems for entrepreneurs who are not offering “whole school” models, focusing on tested grades or subjects, or tackling English Language Arts and math in ways that do not map onto tests. The metrics used to measure success shape the types of solutions that will be offered. 州统考测试分数倾向于被拿来作为评判和比较学校的标准。这也意味着新的教育供应者只能通过阅读和数学成绩来彰显他们的能力。政策和慈善业把分数当作教育业的法定货币，这给一些企业家带来了麻烦。比如有些企业家不提供“完整学校”的模式，他们只关注学校课堂成绩或科目而非州统考成绩或科目；还有些企业家用来促进英语文学和数学教育的方法，无法反映在考试分数上。衡量成功的指标影响了哪些类型的解决方案将被提供。 Finally, the field of educational entrepreneurship needs to take a hard look in the mirror and realize it has suffered from its insularity. As New Schools Venture Fund President Stacey Childress points out in her chapter in Educational Entrepreneurship Today, Teach For America (TFA) alumni were key founders of nearly one in five education ventures launched in the past 20 years.[2] That data point reflects the larger reality that educational entrepreneurs are likely to share common formative experiences and worldviews. This has produced a community that has tended to share certain assumptions (such as the importance of reading and math tests) and embrace a certain set of policies (such as test-based teacher evaluation and charter schooling). 最后，教育行业创投这一领域自身需要被仔细审视，并意识到该领域已经被其孤立性深深伤害。教育行业创投会议上，新学校风险基金的主席Stacey Childress在其专题演讲中指出，过去20年发起的教育业风险投资中，五分之一的创业公司由“为美国而教书”(TFA)组织的前成员作为关键创始人。[2]这数据反映出一个更广泛的现实：教育业创业者很可能有着共同的成长经历或世界观。这就创造了一个倾向于分享特定假设的共同体（例如阅读和数学的重要性），并且支持某特定的政策集（如基于统考测试的教师评估和特许学校教学）。 This insularity has contributed to a simmering tension in several cities with an abundance of entrepreneurial activity and new school formation, such as Detroit, Newark, and New Orleans. Activists, politicians, and community members charge that these ventures are being done to marginalized communities, not with them. Part of this tension is stoked by conflating entrepreneurship and “education reform” more generally (a phenomenon that we will tackle momentarily), but another comes from a genuine fear of snake-oil salesmen and carpetbaggers with agendas of their own. 这种偏狭性在几个创业活动和新式学校丰富的城市导致了沸腾的矛盾，如底特律，纽瓦克和新奥尔良。活动家、政客和社区成员指责这些创业公司让社区边缘化，而不是和社区相伴。更广泛的来说，把创业和“教育改革”结合起来的尝试，激化了部分矛盾（这现象我们很快会谈到）。而另外的激化则来自于对于兜售冒牌货的奸商和有着自己小盘算、想趁机渔利的外来政客的真实恐惧。 Two Dynamics That Will Shape the Next Two Decades of Educational Entrepreneurship 未来20年塑造教育行业创投的两个机制 The “what” of educational entrepreneurship is exciting. The “how” is a lot tougher. Over the next two decades, educational entrepreneurs will encounter a funding community, a policy environment, and a changing educational landscape that will profoundly affect the types of ventures they are able to create and the ability of those ventures to scale, grow, and meet children’s needs. How these dynamics will play out remains to be seen. In fact, there are several key dynamics in educational entrepreneurship that are worth exploring. 教育行业创投的概念是令人激动的。而其实现途径则要困难多了。在接下来二十年，教育业的创业者会受到融资界、政策环境、变化的教育界等因素的冲击。这些因素会深刻影响风险投资以及这些风险投资发起、壮大和满足孩子需求的能力。这些机制如何运作还有待观察。事实上，教育创业有几个关键机制值得探索。 The first dynamic is the tension between big bets and small bets. Because the outcomes of new ventures are uncertain, it makes sense to make a large number of small bets and winnow them over time. This reduces risk for everyone involved and accelerates the rate at which new models can be tried. But this approach flies in the face of much of the thinking that has characterized educational innovation and entrepreneurship during the past decade. Philanthropists and investors have been eager to find “what works” and invest in scaling it up. Proponents of the scale-up approach point to the need nationwide, the slow pace of change, and the messiness of a small-bet strategy. 第一个机制是大额投资和小额投资之间的张力。因为新的风险投资的结果不确定，下很多的小赌注然后再不断筛选它们是有道理的。这减少了每个人涉及的风险，加速了尝试新模式的速率。但是过去十年，教育行业创新、创业的特色思维很大程度上与这一思路相悖。慈善家和投资者渴望发现可行的方案，并加大投资。加大投资这一做法的支持者，提到了全国性的需求、变革的慢节奏以及小赌注方案无序混乱等理由。 Fundamentally, this tension highlights the competing visions of educational improvement in America today. Some see experimentation as eventually converging on a single or small number of “best” models, practices, or programs that should ultimately be adopted everywhere. Others see a far more fluid world, with “best” answers being highly contingent and context dependent. This is not a simple story of entrepreneurs versus bureaucrats, but of good-faith disagreements on the approaches most likely to serve the needs of schools and schooling. 基本上，这种张力突显了在今日的美国教育改进中的竞争理念。有些人把实验看作是最终会收敛的过程。他们认为最后发现的一个或少数几个最优模式、做法或项目应当被用于全国。另一些人则看到一个更加多变的世界，最优答案是高度机缘性且情境依赖的。这不是一个企业家和官僚相争的简单故事，而是一个关于最大可能有助于学校和教学的需要的方法上的善意争执。 The second dynamic—a tension that actually poses a serious risk to current and future entrepreneurial ventures—is the simultaneous desire for experimentation and uniformly positive results. In the world of educational entrepreneurship, there are calls for experimentation, the need to “think outside the box,” and a need to “fundamentally change” American schools. However, in the next breath, the same leaders and advocates who have preached the Innovation Gospel insist on “no excuses” accountability systems aiming for 100 percent proficiency and charter-authorizing systems that require all schools and offerings to prioritize performance on state tests. While it is hypothetically possible to square this circle, the reality is that educational entrepreneurs are whipsawed between an appetite for risk-taking and a strong aversion to it. 第二种机制——实际上给现在和未来的创业风投带来了严重风险——即同时渴望实验和始终如一的正面结果。在教育业创投的世界，有对实验的呼唤，有“跳出盒子思考”的需求，也有对美国学校进行“根本变革”的需求。但同时，同样这些鼓吹创新思维福音的领袖和支持者坚持毫不妥协的系统可靠性，一定要向100%的师资能力水平看齐，而特许学校系统的学校和方案都必须优先考虑州统考的表现。两者兼顾在假想中是可能的，但现实中，教育业创投者则卡在冒险冲动和强烈的风险厌恶之间左右为难。 The casual observer can easily imagine that all the expertise and money involved in venture capital and startups must deliver a high rate of success. The truth is quite different. Ninety percent of all new enterprises fail. Failure is most of what new ventures actually do. That Darwinian process of figuring things out or learning from others’ mistakes is essential to entrepreneurial success. 漫不经心的观察者很容易觉得：风险资本和创业公司配置了所有这些专家技能和资金，回报率一定很高。真相则十分不同。90%的创业公司会失败。失败是大多数新的创投公司实际所做的事。以达尔文过程找到解决方案，或是从别人的错误中学习，对创业公司的成功至关重要。 While the idea of “failure” is disquieting when it comes to children and schools, the value of failure has an important place in classrooms and learning. Students have to feel free to try something new and learn from the experience, whether or not it works out. In American education today, however, there is little tolerance for failure—in classrooms, schools, or the larger landscape. 也许一旦涉及到孩子或者学校，“失败”这个词就让人心神不宁。学生必须有尝试新东西和从经验中学习的自由，无论最后结果成功与否。然而在今日的美国教育领域，失败一点都不被容忍——在教室，学校，或者更大的范围。 This tension is particularly evident in the inclination to support large, established “entrepreneurial” ventures such as TFA or the KIPP Academies. These ventures show track records of success, have proven leaders, and constitute a well-known quantity. At the same time, these are the very things that tend to produce rigidity and routine in any organization. 这种矛盾在支持大型的、发展完备的所谓“创业”风投企业的倾向中显得特别明显，如对TFA或KIPP学院。这些企业有一系列成功的记录，有资质的领袖，规模也广为人知。与此同时，任何这样的组织都倾向产生僵化和陈规。 Organizations such as TFA and KIPP, with more than two decades of experience, records of accomplishment, alumni networks, and stakeholders, are no longer positioned to pioneer wholly new approaches. Rather, they become attractive to funders, policymakers, and education officials as they become less and less the entrepreneurial upstart and more and more a familiar piece of the new education establishment. Rather than think about new ways of preparing teachers, people keep supporting TFA. The consequence is that these organizations are asked to do more and more, stretching their ability to excel while potentially crowding out interest in unproven ventures. TFA和KIPP这样的组织拥有20多年经验、一系列的成就、会友网络和利益相关者，它们不再站在新方法的先驱位置。因为当它们变得越来越不像创业新星而越来越像人们熟悉的新的教育既得利益集团时，它们对投资人、政策制定者和教育官员都变得具有吸引力。人们一直支持TFA，而不是思考培训教师的新方法。后果就是，这些机构被要求做得更多，拓展了其卓越能力的同时也潜在地挤出了那些尚未被认可的创业公司的利益。 Questions about the importance of entrepreneurship and our tolerance for uncertainty are also central to policy debates over entrepreneur-friendly reforms such as education savings accounts, online learning, and expanded school choice programs. After all, such programs are, by their very nature, unproven. 在就对创投友好的各种改革进行政策辩论，如教育储蓄账户、线上课程和范围更宽的择校程序时，创投的重要性和我们对不确定性的容忍度等问题也居于中心。无论如何，这些项目在其最根本性质上尚未证明自己。 So What Can We Do? 那么我们能做什么呢？ If you, like me, appreciate the entrepreneurial impulse and think that it has something to offer the nation’s education system, then there are steps that can be taken to try and advance the cause. 如果你像我一样欣赏创业精神的脉动并认为这可以给这个国家的教育系统带来些什么，那么有以下策略可以尝试和推进这项事业。 Funders can make small bets, as well as large ones. This can help address both the fear of “failing big” and the sense that so much of education reform today is imposed by outsiders on local communities. Insofar as the groups receiving the majority of funding are outsiders that come to town with their already-baked models, well-intentioned philanthropy can unwittingly exacerbate this divide. 投资者可以进行小额投资，就像大投资一样。这可以帮助处理对“大失败”的恐惧，也缓和了如下事实所带来的隔阂感：今日如此之多的教育改革是本地社区的外来者强制推行的。目前的情况是，当拿到大笔投资的团体是来到镇上的外来人，并带着他们已备好的模式时，好心的慈善可以无意中加剧这一隔阂。 An easy rule of thumb here is for funders to be sure they are devoting some modest percentage of their investment giving—whether that is 5 percent or 20 percent—to new ventures. Fortunately, the resources to support the developing, prototyping, and testing process tend to be only a fraction of what it costs to contribute meaningfully to an established operation. 在这里，对投资人来说一个易于施行的拇指规则是，保证他们把投资的一些小额部分，不管是5%还是20%，捐给新的创新公司。幸运的是，用来支持开发，原型制作，和测试过程的资源往往只是有效地捐助一个已建成项目的所需的一小部分。 Entrepreneurs can start with “tiny schools.” Given varying tolerance for risk and limited resources for experimentation, prospective entrepreneurs should take a good look at New Orleans’ 4.0 Schools and their idea of “tiny schools” (described by 4.0 CEO Matt Candler in his chapter).[3] Creating a new charter school typically entails a dozen or more employees, scores or even hundreds of students, and a budget north of $1 million—meaning that failure is slow, expensive, and enormously disruptive. 创业者可以从“小微学校”开始。给定不同的风险容忍度和有限的实验资源，潜在的企业家可以好好审视一下新奥尔良的4.0学校和他们的“小微学校”理念（引自4.0的首席执行官Matt Candler的专题讲座）[3]。创建一所新的特许学校通常需要十几个或者更多雇员，几十甚至几百个学生，一个一百万美元以上的预算——这意味着失败是缓慢、昂贵和极其麻烦的。 Tiny schools mean that educators with a promising idea can start with 5 to 10 kids on Saturday mornings in a public library or school cafeteria. Such a model allows entrepreneurs to experiment, fail, improve, and iterate over the course of several sessions at very low cost and next to zero risk to students. Just as evolutionary change accelerates when new generations are born more often, so entrepreneurial invention benefits from shortened time horizons and more rapid iteration. 小微学校意味着带着有潜质创意的教育者可以从周六上午在公共图书馆或学校食堂以五到十个孩子的规模开始。这种模式允许创业者以一个很低的费用和对学生来说几乎为零的风险，来对课程环节进行实验、失败、改进和试错。就如同新世代出生得更频繁时进化会加速一样。这样，创业型发明就从更短的周期和更快的试错中获益。 Tiny schools accomplish two central tasks. First, they lower the risk of starting a new school. If the idea bears fruit, it can be ramped up. If the teaching methods do not connect with students, at worst, students have lost a couple of Saturdays. Even if the transition cannot be made to a whole-year model, only a few students are affected. 小微学校完成了两个核心任务。第一，他们降低了创立一个新学校的风险。如果创业有成果，它就可以壮大。如果教学方法对学生不起作用，最差也不过就是学生损失几个星期六。即使这一过渡模式无法变为一个全年模式，也只有几个学生会受影响。 Second, they lower the cost of experimentation. In starting an entire charter school, substantial philanthropic and then public dollars are spent on an experiment. It might work out; it might not. While over time there is reason to believe that this will lead to better schools, it is an expensive way to get there. By bridging the gap between nothing and a whole school, tiny schools create space for rapid iteration and improvement. 第二，它们降低了实验成本。为了启动一个完备的特许学校，大笔慈善和财政资金会被用于一次实验。也许有好结果，也许不成功。虽然一直以来这方法被认为会产生好学校，这仍是一个昂贵的手段。通过跨越从一无所有到完备学校的鸿沟，小微学校为快速试错和改进提供了一个空间。 State leaders can complete a comprehensive regulatory review. Although mundane, rules regarding subjects such as procurement, teacher preparation, new school creation, reporting, facilities, special education, online provision, staff development, and charter school authorization can create huge, counterproductive hurdles to new providers and new models of provision. Although these regulations may have made sense at one time, many no longer do. 州政府的领袖可以完成一个综合性规制评议。虽然平凡庸常，但在采购、教师培训、新学校创设、报告、设施、特殊教育、在线授课、雇员培训和特许学校授权机构等诸方面，各种规制能够产生巨大的消极作用，阻碍新的提供者和新的模式投入使用。虽然这些规制过去可能有意义，但也许现在很多已并非如此了。 State leaders would do well to put together a blue-ribbon panel of experts to scour the state education code for outdated and ill-suited statutes and regulations that may be stymieing entrepreneurial solutions. They can also encourage districts, charter authorizers, and schools of education to conduct similar surveys of their own operations and publicly report on where and what they are streamlining. 州政府的领导们能做得更好的方面，也许是推动组成专家委员会来革新州的教育法规并去除那些过时和适应性差并可能阻碍创投方案的法律和规章。他们也可以鼓励学区、特许学校授权机构和学校对其自身的运作进行类似的调查，并公布它们在何处采取了何种加强效率的措施。 Don’t Go Gaga for Entrepreneurs; Foster Entrepreneurship 不要迷信企业家；要鼓励创业精神 The exciting source of dynamism that created everything from Rover to the next cool app to teach students to read is entrepreneurialism, not any particular entrepreneur or entrepreneurial venture. Exciting new entrants age, grow, and evolve. Some succeed and some fail. Those that succeed, with time and success, tend to become members in good standing of the stodgy old establishment. That is the cycle of entrepreneurial life. 企业家精神而不是某个企业家或者创投企业才是令人振奋的动力源。这动力可以创造从Rover到下一个很酷的手机应用，也可以教学生阅读。令人振奋的参与者变得成熟，成长，并且进化。一些成功了，一些失败了。那些成功者，随着它们的年岁和成功，变成了乏味沉闷的老既得利益集团的一部分。这就是创业生命体的周期。 Entrepreneurship does not guarantee success. If anything, it ensures that there will be failure. Of course, if a half century of school reform has taught us anything, it is that system reform is also sure to produce failure—except on a much larger scale and without the dynamism, inventiveness, and self-correction that characterizes vibrant entrepreneurial sectors. 创业不能保证成功。如果说能保证什么的话，它保证这里将会有失败。当然，如果半个世纪的学校改革教会了我们什么的话，那就是系统改革也当然会产生失败--只不过这失败的规模更大，而且没有活力、激励、自我修正等这些有生命力的创业部门所拥有的特征。 For all its imperfections though, educational entrepreneurship offers a degree of imagination and natural winnowing that seems especially well-suited to the sprawling, diverse, and pluralistic nation that we live in, and it creates an opportunity for truly world-changing products to emerge. Those who believe in the power of the entrepreneurial impulse would do well never to cling to any particular venture. The social good is best served by creating the conditions in which entrepreneurs can thrive if—and only if—they are serving the best interests of students. 虽然有种种不完美，教育行业创投活动提供着某种程度的想象力和自然筛选，这些看来对于我们所生活的这个分散，多元和分权共治的国家特别合适。并且创投创造了机会，使得真正改变世界的产品可能涌现。那些相信创业冲劲的人应该避免一成不变地支持某个特定的创投公司。创造条件，让并且只让那些最能为学生利益服务的企业茁壮成长，才是服务社会的最好途径。 Notes 注记

1. Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane, Educational Entrepreneurship Today (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press, 2016).
2. Stacy Childress, “From Generation to Generation: Fifteen Years of Education Entrepreneurship,” in Educational Entrepreneurship Today, ed. Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press, 2016).
3. Matt Candler, “Go Small or Go Home: Innovation in Schooling,” in Educational Entrepreneurship Today, ed. Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press, 2016).

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A Case against Child Labor Prohibitions 对禁用童工的一个反对意见 作者:Benjamin Powell @ 2014-07-29 译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha) 校对:辉格(@whigzhou) 来源:Cato Institute,http://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/case-against-child-labor-prohibitions Halima is an 11-year-old girl who clips loose threads off of Hanes underwear in a Bangladeshi factory.1 She works about eight hours a day, six days per week. She has to process 150 pairs of underwear an hour. At work she feels “very tired and exhausted,” and sometimes falls asleep standing up. She makes 53 cents a day for her efforts. Make no mistake, it is a rough life. 哈丽玛是个十一岁的小女孩，在孟加拉的工厂里给Hanes牌内衣修线头，每天工作八小时，每周六天。① 她每小时需要处理150套内衣，工作时觉得“非常劳累”，有时站着就睡着了。而这样的努力工作每天能换来53美分。毫无疑问，这种生活非常艰苦。 Any decent person’s heart would go out to Halima and other child employees like her. Unfortunately, all too often, people’s emotional reaction lead them to advocate policies that will harm the very children they intend to help. Provisions against child labor are part of the International Labor Organization’s core labor standards. Anti-sweatshop groups almost universally condemn child labor and call for laws prohibiting child employment or boycotting products made with child labor. 任何一个正派人的内心都会对像哈丽玛这样的童工充满同情。但遗憾的是，人们的情绪化反应常常指引他们支持错误的政策，这反而会伤害那些他们原本想帮助的孩子。禁用童工条款是国际劳工组织的核心劳工标准的一部分。反对血汗工厂的团体几乎一致谴责使用童工的行为，呼吁通过禁止雇佣童工的法律或是抵制使用童工生产的商品。 In my recent book, Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy, I argue that much of what the anti-sweatshop movement agitates for would harm workers and that the process of economic development, in which sweatshops play an important role, is the best way to raise wages and improve working conditions. Child labor, although the most emotionally charged aspect of sweatshops, is not an exception to this analysis. 在我的新书《走出贫困：全球经济中的血汗工厂》中，我认为反血汗工厂运动的许多诉求将会损害工人们的利益，经济发展才是提高工资与改善工作环境的最好办法，而血汗工厂在其中发挥着重要作用。虽然在情感上，雇佣童工是血汗工厂最受世人谴责的方面，但它在上述分析中也不例外。 We should desire to see an end to child labor, but it has to come through a process that generates better opportunities for the children—not from legislative mandates that prevent children and their families from taking the best option available to them. Children work because their families are desperately poor, and the meager addition to the family income they can contribute is often necessary for survival. Banning child labor through trade regulations or governmental prohibitions often simply forces the children into less-desirable alternatives. When U.S. activists started pressuring Bangladesh into eliminating child labor, the results were disastrous. 我们期望看到童工的终结，但是这需要一个过程，要能为孩子们提供更好的机会，而不是通过法令阻止儿童和他们的家庭做出最佳的可行选择。儿童去工作是因为他们的家庭陷入了极度贫困，尽管收入微薄，但这对于整个家庭的生存来说通常是必要的。通过商业法规或政府管制来禁止雇佣童工常常只是在逼迫儿童们进入更糟糕的环境。美国的活动家们开始对孟加拉施压要求消除童工之后，显现的结果是灾难性的。 Effects of Child Labor Bans 童工禁令的效果 In 1993 Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced the Child Labor Deterrence Act, which would have banned imports from countries employing children. In response, that fall Bangladeshi garment companies let go approximately 50,000 children. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “It is widely thought that most of them have found employment in other garment factories, in smaller, unregistered subcontracting garment workshops, or in other sectors.”2 1993年，爱荷华州的民主党参议员汤姆·哈金提出了《童工慑止法》（the Child Labor Deterrence Act），意在禁止从雇佣童工的国家进口商品。那年秋天，孟加拉服装制造业对此作出反应，解雇了约50,000名童工。据美国劳工部的信息，“普遍认为，这些被解雇的儿童大部分在其他服装工厂，更小的、未经注册的转包作坊或是其他行业里找到了工作。”② That makes the introduction of the bill seem simply ineffective. The Department of Labor is sugarcoating the situation. Paul Krugman summarizes what happened more bluntly: “The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets—and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.”3 提出这部法案看起来毫无作用。劳工部的说法是在粉饰现实。保罗·克鲁格曼作了更直白的总结：“直接结果是孟加拉的纺织工厂停止了雇佣童工，但是这些孩子就此回到学校了吗？他们回到快乐的家里了吗？至少根据乐施会的资料，并没有。他们发现这些被解雇的童工最终找了更加糟糕的工作，或是流落街头——其中相当多的孩子被迫出卖身体。”③ Based on the information they have, families tend to choose the best available job for their children. Taking that option away does not eliminate the necessity of work; it forces them to take a less-desirable job. As repulsive as a child working in a sweatshop may be, it is not nearly as repulsive as a child forced into prostitution through the actions of unthinking Western activists. 基于所拥有的信息，每个家庭都想为自己的孩子在可选职业中挑出最好的。剥夺了那个选项并不等于消除了工作的需求，反而逼迫他们选择一个没那么好的工作。一个儿童在血汗工厂里工作，这确实让人反感，但这远远比不上看着一个孩子因为不动脑子的西方活动家而被迫出卖身体来的让人厌恶。 The Bangladesh story is a dramatic one, but it illustrates the general point that when children lose factory jobs they find less desirable jobs to replace the jobs they lost. In countries where sweatshops locate, child labor is often the norm, and most of the children work in less remunerative sectors with fewer opportunities for advancement than manufacturing, such as agriculture or domestic services. 孟加拉的故事有些极端，但它展示了一个要点：当儿童们失去了工厂里的工作之后，他们会寻找稍次的工作作为替代。在那些血汗工厂所处的国家里，雇佣童工是个惯例，并且大部分儿童工作的行业，如农业与国内服务业，酬劳没有制造业那么多，晋升机会也比较少。 In 2003 the World Bank measured the percentage of children aged 10 to 14 that were working in most countries.4 As Table 1 shows, child labor is not uncommon. Rates of child labor range from a high of nearly 27 percent of children in Bangladesh to a low of 3.3 percent in Costa Rica.5 2003年，世界银行调查了大部分国家中10至14岁儿童中童工的比例。④如表一所示，童工并不罕见，比例高可至孟加拉的几近27%，低的如哥斯达黎加的3.3%。⑤ The World Bank also collects data on the economic sectors in which children are employed. Figure 1 presents the distribution of employment of economically active children between the ages of 7 and 14 by sector.6 世界银行也从雇佣童工的各个经济部门收集数据。表一依照经济部门展示了7-14岁年龄段中参与经济活动的儿童在各行业中的分布情况。⑥ In seven of the nine countries for which data exists, most children were employed in agriculture, often by a wide margin.7 In the two exceptions, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, the leading sector employing children was service. India had the highest proportion of children employed in manufacturing, and there it was a little over 14 percent. 有数据可查的九个国家中，七个国家的大部分儿童受雇于农业部门，远超其他行业。⑦ 哥斯达黎加与多米尼加共和国是两个例外，雇佣童工最多的是服务业。印度制造业雇佣童工的比例在各国中最高，略超过14%。 Protests against sweatshops that use child labor implicitly assume that ending child labor in sweatshops by taking away the option to work in a factory will, on net, reduce child labor. Evidence on child labor in countries that have sweatshops indicates that is wrong. It is not a few “bad apple” firms exploiting children in factories. Child labor is common. Employment in agriculture is not necessarily safer, either. A 1997 child labor survey showed that 12 percent of children working in agriculture reported injuries, compared with 9 percent of those who worked in manufacturing.8 对雇佣童工的血汗工厂进行抗议，这种行为暗含了一种预设，即通过除去儿童在工厂工作的选择从而终结血汗工厂里的童工现象，童工数量就会出现净减少。从拥有血汗工厂的国家所获取的证据显示，这是错的。真相并不是个别“害群之马”在工厂里剥削儿童。雇佣童工的现象是普遍的。而且，在农地里工作也并不必然更加安全。一份1997年的童工调查显示，农业部门有12%的童工曾遭伤害，制造业则是9%。⑧ Child Labor and Economic Development 童工与经济发展 The thought of Third World children toiling in factories to produce garments for us in the developed world to wear is appalling, at least in part because child labor is virtually nonexistent in the United States and the rest of the more developed world.9 Virtually nowhere in the developed world do kids toil long hours every week in a factory in a manner that prevents them from obtaining schooling. 第三世界的儿童们在工厂里辛苦劳动，为我们这些发达地区的人生产服装——这种念头让人惊骇，至少部分原因在于童工事实上并不存在于美国及其他发达地区。⑨ 事实上，没有发达国家会允许儿童们每周长时间地在工厂里辛苦工作，以至于无法接受学校教育。 Children typically worked throughout human history, either long hours in agriculture or in factories once the industrial revolution emerged. The question is, why don’t kids work today? Rich countries do have laws against child labor, but so do many poor countries. In Costa Rica the legal working age is 15, but an ILO survey found 43 percent of working children were under the legal age.10 纵观人类历史，儿童其实一直都在工作，不管是长时间在农地里劳作，还是工业革命之后进入工厂工作。真正该问的问题是：为何今天儿童不工作了？富裕国家确实有禁止童工的法律，但是很多贫穷的国家也有。哥斯达黎加的法定工作年龄是15岁，但是国际劳工组织的一项调查发现有43%的童工低于法定年龄。⑩ Similarly, in the United States, Massachusetts passed the first restriction on child labor in 1842. However, that law and other states’ laws affected child labor nationally very little.11 By one estimate, more than 25 percent of males between the ages of 10 and 15 participated in the labor force in 1900.12 Another study of both boys and girls in that age group estimated that more than 18 percent of them were employed in 1900.13 Economist Carolyn Moehling also found little evidence that minimum-age laws for manufacturing implemented between 1880 and 1910 contributed to the decline in child labor.14 同样，在美国，马萨诸塞州在1842年最先对童工加以限制。然而，那部法律连同其他州的法律对于全国范围内的童工情况影响甚微。⑾ 有人估算过，1900年10-15岁的男性中超过25%的人参与工作.⑿ 另一项研究将同年龄段的女性也纳入了估算范围，结果发现1900年有超过18%的儿童参与了工作。⒀ 经济学家卡洛琳·莫和林也找不到证据证明1880至1910年间针对制造业实施的最低工资法起到了减少童工的作用。⒁ Similarly, economists Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz examined the period between 1910 and 1939 and found that child labor laws and compulsory school-attendance laws could explain at most 5 percent of the increase in high school enrollment.15 The United States did not enact a national law limiting child labor until the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938. By that time, the U.S. average per capita income was more than $10,200 (in 2010 dollars). 经济学家克劳迪亚·戈尔丁与拉里·卡茨仔细调查了1910至1939年间的情况，发现童工相关的法律与强制入学的法律最多只能解释5%的高中入学率增长幅度。⒂ 直到1938年《公平劳动标准法》通过，美国才有了全国性的限制童工的法律。在那时，美国人均收入已超过10,200美元（以2010年美元计算）。 Furthermore, child labor was defined much more narrowly when today’s wealthy countries first prohibited it. Massachusetts’s law limited children who were under 12 years old to no more than 10 hours of work per day. Belgium (1886) and France (1847) prohibited only children under the age of 12 from working. Germany (1891) set the minimum working age at 13.16 此外，如今的富裕国家当年第一次出台法律禁止童工时，其定义要比现在狭窄的多。马萨诸塞州法禁止12岁以下儿童每天工作超过10小时。比利时（1886年）与法国（1847年）只禁止12岁以下儿童工作。德国（1891年）将最低工作年龄限定在13岁。⒃ England, which passed its first enforceable child labor law in 1833, merely set the minimum age for textile work at nine years old. When these countries were developing, they simply did not put in place the type of restrictions on child labor that activists demand for Third World countries today. Binding legal restrictions came only after child labor had mostly disappeared. 英格兰在1833年通过了第一部童工法，将纺织业的最低工作年龄仅仅设在9岁。当这些国家处于发展阶段，他们通过的限制标准可比不上今天这些活动家对第三世界国家所要求的。有效的法律约束只有在童工几近消失之后才会到来。 The main reason children do not work in wealthy countries is precisely because they are wealthy. The relationship between child labor and income is striking. Using the same World Bank data on child labor participation rates we can observe how child labor varies with per capita income. Figure 2 divides countries into five groups based on their level of per capita income adjusted for purchasing power parity. In the richest two fifths of countries, all of whose incomes exceed $12,000 in 2010 dollars, child labor is virtually nonexistent. 富裕国家的儿童不工作的主要原因就是他们比较富有。童工比例与收入之间的相关性是显著的。通过前文提到的世界银行关于童工比例的数据，我们可以观察到童工比例是如何随人均收入的变化而改变的。经购买力平价调整后，图2按照人均收入水平将各国分成五组。最富有的两组国家人均收入超过12，000美元（以2010年美元计算），童工几乎不存在。 It is only when countries have an income less than $11,000 per year that we start to observe children in the labor force. But even here, rates of child labor remain relatively low through both the third and fourth quintiles. It is the poorest countries where rates of child labor explode. More than 30 percent of children work in the fifth of countries with incomes ranging from $600 to $2,000 per year. Economists Eric Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik econometrically estimate that 73 percent of the variation of child labor rates can be explained by variation in GDP per capita.17 只有当一个国家的人均年收入低于11,000美元时，我们才开始观察到童工。即便如此，在第三与第四组国家中，中等及中等偏上收入家庭的童工比例相对来说也很低。而在穷国，童工比例暴增。最为贫穷的那组国家中，人均年收入在600美元到2，000美元之间，童工比例超过了30%。经济学家Eric Edmonds 与 Nina Pavcnik 运用计量经济学测算，认为童工比例差异中的73%可由人均GDP差异来解释。⒄ Of course, correlation is not causation. But in the case of child labor and wealth, the most intuitive interpretation is that increased wealth leads to reduced child labor. After all, all countries were once poor; in the countries that became rich, child labor disappeared. Few would contend that child labor disappeared in the United States or Great Britain prior to economic growth taking place—children populated their factories much as they do in the Third World today. 当然，有相关性不代表存在因果关系。但是当我们思考童工与财富之间的关系时，最符合直觉的解读就是财富的增长减少了童工。毕竟，所有国家都有过贫穷的阶段；在那些富裕起来的国家里，童工就消失了。鲜有人认为美国或者英国的童工在经济发展之前就已经消失了——就像今日的第三世界，工厂里到处都是儿童。 A little introspection, or for that matter our moral indignation at Third World child labor, reveals that most of us desire that children, especially our own, do not work. Thus, as we become richer and can afford to allow children to have leisure and education, we choose to. 我们对历史所做的一些反省，抑或出于对第三世界童工现象的道德愤慨，这些其实都反映了我们中的大部分人不希望孩子们去工作，尤其是自己的孩子。因此，当我们变得有钱，能够为孩子们提供闲暇的生活与教育之时，我们就这样做了。 Conclusion 结论 The thought of children laboring in sweatshops is repulsive. But that does not mean we can simply think with our hearts and not our heads. Families who send their children to work in sweatshops do so because they are poor and it is the best available alternative open to them. The vast majority of children employed in countries with sweatshops work in lower-productivity sectors than manufacturing. 让儿童在血汗工厂里工作的想法令人厌恶，但这不意味着我们就该简单地让同情心泛滥，而舍弃大脑的思考。家长把孩子送去血汗工厂里工作，是因为他们太穷了，而这已是可选的选项中最好的选择。在有着血汗工厂的国家里，大多数童工所在行业的生产能力比制造业更低。 Passing trade sanctions or other laws that take away the option of children working in sweatshops only limits their options further and throws them into worse alternatives. Luckily, as families escape poverty, child labor declines. As countries become rich, child labor virtually disappears. The answer for how to cure child labor lies in the process of economic growth—a process in which sweatshops play an important role. 出台贸易制裁措施或其他法律，将这些儿童的工作机会夺走，这只会进一步限制他们的选择，陷他们于更糟糕的境地之中。值得庆幸的是，当这些家庭脱离贫困之后，童工就减少了。随着国家慢慢富裕起来，童工在事实上就会消失。如何解决童工问题的答案就在经济发展的过程之中，而血汗工厂则在其中扮演了重要角色。 Notes 注记

1. National Labor Committee, “Child Labor: 11 year-old Halima Sews Clothing for Hanes,” 2006. A video of this interview with Halima is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIfY9SmJdA.
2. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 1994 Child Labor Report, Bangladesh, http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/sweat/bangladesh.htm
3. Paul Krugman, “Reckonings; Hearts and Heads,” New York Times (April 22, 2001), p. 17. Similarly, UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/, reports that many of these children turned to prostitution.
4. World Bank, World Development Indicators, CD-ROM (Washington: World Bank, 2005).
5. Mauritius is excluded from Table 1 because it is an outlier that is not representative of the general situation as I explain in Out of Poverty.
6. For each country, an average was taken for all years between 2000 and 2009 for which data are available.
7. The World Bank database does not include data for Vietnam, but Eric V. Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik, “Child Labor in the Global Economy,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 19, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 204, report that 92 percent of children working in Vietnam in 1998 worked in agriculture.
8. Kebebew Asshagrie, Statistics on Working Children and Hazardous Child Labour in Brief, Geneva: International Labor Organization (1997).
9. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 18 percent of children aged 5 to 14 are economically active worldwide. Of these, it estimates that 94 percent of them are in low-income countries, and only 2 percent are in what it classifies as developed countries. ILO, Every Child Counts: New Global Estimates on Child Labour, Geneva: ILO (2002).
10. International Labor Organization, Summary of the Results of the Child and Adolescent Labour Survey in Costa Rica, Geneva: ILO (2002), http://www.ilo.org/ipec/ChildlabourstatisticsSIMPOC/Questionnairessurveysandreports/lang—en/index.htm.
11. The remainder of this paragraph and the next draws on research found in Joshua C. Hall and Peter T. Leeson, “Good for the Goose, Bad for the Gander: International Labor Standards and Comparative Development,” Journal of Labor Research 28, no. 4 (September 2007): 658–76.
12. Robert Whaples, “Child Labor in the United States,” in EH.Net Encyclopedia, ed. R. Whaples, retrieved from http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/whaples.childlabor.
13. Samuel Lindsay, “Child Labor in the United States,” American Economic Association 8, (February 1907): 256–259.
14. Carolyn Moehling, “State Child Labor Laws and the Decline in Child Labor,” Explorations in Economic History 36, no. 1 (1999): 72–105.
15. Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz, “Mass Secondary Schooling and the State: The Role of State Compulsion and the High School Movement,” NBER Working Paper No. 10075 (2003).
16. France and Prussia both had earlier laws prohibiting child labor, but they were not enforceable. See Hall and Leeson (2007).
17. Edmonds and Pavcnik, (2005): 210.

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Free Market Food Banks 自由市场中的救济食品发放中心 作者：Alex Tabarrok @ 2015-11-03 译者：尼克基得慢（@尼克基得慢） 校对：龙泉（@ L_Stellar） 来源：http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/11/free-market-food-banks.html Feeding America, the third largest non-profit in the United States, distributes billions of pounds of food every year. Most of the food comes from large firms like Kraft, ConAgra and Walmart that have a surplus of some item and scarce warehouse space. Feeding America coordinates the supply of surplus food with the demand from food banks across the U.S.. 作为美国第三大非营利性机构，“喂饱美国”每年要分发数十亿磅食品。大多数食品来自像克拉夫特、康尼格拉和沃尔玛这样产品过剩且仓储不足的大型食品公司。“喂饱美国”可调节过剩食品供给和全美救济食品发放中心【以下简称“救济中心”】需求之间的关系。 Allocating food is not an easy problem. How do you decide who gets what while taking into account local needs, local tastes, what foods the bank has already, what abilities the banks have to store food on a particular day, transportation costs and so forth. Alex Teytelboym writing at The Week points out: 分配食品不是一件容易的差事。在同时考虑当地需求、当地口味、救济中心已有食品、救济中心在特定日期储存食品的能力和运输成本等因素时，你如何决定什么人得到什么食物呢？Alex Teytelboym在《周报》上指出：

…Before 2005, Feeding America allocated food centrally, and according to its rather subjective perception of what food banks needed. Headquarters would call up the food banks in a priority order and offer them a truckload of food. Bizarrely, all food was treated more or less equally, irrespective of its nutritional content. A pound of chicken was the same as a pound of french fries. …在2005年之前，“喂饱美国”根据对救济中心需求颇为主观的感知来集中分配食物。总部会按优先顺序致电救济中心，并给他们提供一大卡车食物。离奇的是，不论营养成分如何，所有食品或多或少都被同等处理了。一磅鸡肉等同于一磅炸薯条。 If the food bank accepted the load, it paid the transportation costs and had the truck sent to them. If the food bank refused, Feeding America would judge this food bank as having lower need and push it down the priority list. Unsurprisingly, food banks went out of their way to avoid refusing food loads — even if they were already stocked with that particular food. 如果一家救济中心接受了配送，总部会付给运费让卡车把食品送给接受的中心。如果一家救济中心拒绝了，“喂饱美国”会视这家救济中心需求量较低，并把它从优先列表中除去。不出所料，所有的救济中心都特意避免拒绝食品配送——即使某类食物它们已经储存了很多。 This Soviet-style system was hugely inefficient. Some urban food banks had great access to local food donations and often ended up with a surplus of food. A lot of food rotted in places where it was not needed, while many shelves in other food banks stood empty. Feeding America simply knew too little about what their food banks needed on a given day. 这种苏联式的系统非常低效。一些城市的救济中心有很多当地的食品捐赠渠道，因此经常出现食品过剩。很多食品腐烂在不需要它们的地方，而别处救济中心的很多架子仍是空的。“喂饱美国”连某一天救济中心的需求都知之甚少。

In 2005, however, a group of Chicago academics, including economists, worked with Feeding America to redesign the system using market principles. Today Feeding America no longer sends trucks of potatoes to food banks in Idaho and a pound of chicken is no longer treated the same as a pound of french fries. 然而在2005年，一群包括经济学家在内的芝加哥学者用市场准则帮助“喂饱美国”重新设计了分配系统。今天的“喂饱美国”不会再给爱达荷州的救济中心送去一车土豆了，而且一磅鸡肉跟一磅炸薯条也不再同等对待。 Instead food banks bid on food deliveries and the market discovers the internal market-prices that clear the system. The auction system even allows negative prices so that food banks can be “paid” to pick up food that is not highly desired–this helps Feeding America keep both its donors and donees happy. 救济中心转而对食品运送进行竞拍，而且市场发现了理顺整个系统的内部市场价格。这个拍卖系统甚至允许负价格，以便于救济中心可以为取走需求量不大的食物而获得报酬——这帮助“喂饱美国”同时取悦捐赠者和受捐者。 Food banks are not bidding in dollars, however, but in a new, internal currency called shares. 然而救济中心并不用美元竞拍，而是用一种新的名叫“股份”的内部货币。

Every day, each food bank is allocated a pot of fiat currency called “shares.” Food banks in areas with bigger populations and more poverty receive larger numbers of shares. Twice a day, they can use their shares to bid online on any of the 30 to 40 truckloads of food that were donated directly to Feeding America. The winners of the auction pay for the truckloads with their shares. 每个救济中心每天都会分配到一壶名为“股份”的法定货币。人口和穷人较多地区的救济中心会收到数量较多的“股份”。他们隔天就可以用自己的“股份”在线竞拍30到40卡车食品中的任意一车，这些食品都是直接捐赠给“喂饱美国”的。赢得拍卖的一方要为那车食品支付其“股份”。 Then, all the shares spent on a particular day are reallocated back to food banks at midnight. That means that food banks that did not spend their shares on a particular day would end up with more shares and thus a greater ability to bid the next day. 然后，一天内花掉的所有“股份”都会在半夜重新分配给救济中心。这意味着这一天没有花掉股份的救济中心最后会有更多“股份”，并因此在来日有更大的竞标能力。 In this way, the system has built-in fairness: If a large food bank could afford to spend a fortune on a truck of frozen chicken, its shares would show up on the balance of smaller food banks the next day. Moreover, neighboring food banks can now team up to bid jointly to reduce their transport costs. 通过这种方式，系统拥有了内在的公平性：如果一家大型救济中心在一车冻鸡肉上花了大价钱，它的“股份”就会在来日出现在小型救济中心的股份账户上。而且，临近的救济中心现在可以组团共同竞标来降低运输费用。 Initially, there was plenty of resistance. As one food bank director told Canice Prendergast, an economist advising Feeding America, “I am a socialist. That’s why I run a food bank. I don’t believe in markets. I’m not saying I won’t listen, but I am against this.” 起初有很多阻力。正如一位救济中心的主管对Canice Prendergast——一位经济学家，“喂饱美国”的顾问——所说，“我是个社会学家。这是为何由我来运营一家救济中心的原因。我不相信市场。我不是说我不会听取你们的建议，但我反对这一举措。” But the Chicago economists managed to design a market that worked even for participants who did not believe in it. Within half a year of the auction system being introduced, 97 percent of food banks won at least one load, and the amount of food allocated from Feeding America’s headquarters rose by over 35 percent, to the delight of volunteers and donors. 但是这位芝加哥经济学家尽力设计了一个连不相信它的参与者都适用的市场【编注：此处疑似埋了Niels Bohr的马蹄铁梗】。在引入拍卖系统的半年内，97%的救济中心至少竞标成功过一车食品，而且从“喂饱美国”总部分配的食品总量增长了超过35%，这是志愿者和捐赠者喜闻乐见的。

Teytelboym’s very good, short account is working off a longer, more detailed paper by Canice Prendergast, The Allocation of Food to Food Banks. Teytelboym出色简短的描述都出自Canice Prendergast一篇更长更细致的论文，《救济中心的食品配给》。 Canice’s paper would be a great teaching tool in an intermediate or graduate micro economics class. Pair it with Hayek’s The Use of Knowledge in Society. Under the earlier centralized system, Feeding America didn’t know when a food bank was out of refrigerator space or which food banks had hot dogs but wanted hot dog buns and which the reverse–under the market system this information, which Hayek called “knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place” is used and as a result less food is wasted and the food is used to satisfy more urgent needs. Canice的论文会是一份很棒的中级或者高级微观经济学课程的教学材料。最好配上哈耶克的《知识在社会中的应用》一文。在早前的集中式系统中，“喂饱美国”并不知道某个救济中心何时冰箱没空间了，或者哪家救济中心有热狗却想要热狗面包而哪家正相反——在市场系统中，这类信息——哈耶克称为“有关特定时空情境的知识”——被利用起来，因此浪费的食物更少，食物用来满足更急切的需求。 The Feeding America auction system is also the best illustration that I know of the second fundamental theorem of welfare economics. “喂饱美国”的拍卖系统也是我所知的对福利经济学第二基本定理的最好诠释。 Even monetary economics comes into play. Feeding America created a new currency and thus had to deal with the problem of the aggregate money supply. How should the supply of shares be determined so that relative prices were free to change but the price level would remain relatively stable? How could the baby-sitting co-op problem be avoided? Scott Sumner will be disappointed to learn that they choose pound targeting rather than nominal-pound targeting but some of the key issues of monetary economics are present even in this simple economy. 甚至货币经济学派上了用场。“喂饱美国”创造了一种新货币并且因此必须处理总货币供应量的问题。应如何决定“股份”的供应量以使相关价格能够自由变动而价格水平保持相对稳定？如何避免保姆合作社问题？Scott Sumner将会失望地发现，救济中心选择了以紧盯镑重而不是名义镑重为政策指引【编注：此处疑似在调戏Sumner，后者提倡一种紧盯名义GDP的货币政策。】，但是货币经济学的一些关键问题出现在了这个甚为简单的经济体中。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

沙特阿拉伯可能会在美国石油行业崩溃之前倒下 Saudi Arabia may go broke before the US oil industry buckles 作者：Ambrose Evans-Pritchard @ 2015-8-5 译者：Veidt（@Veidt) 校对：Tankman 来源：每日电讯报，http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/oilprices/11768136/Saudi-Arabia-may-go-broke-before-the-US-oil-industry-buckles.html If the oil futures market is correct, Saudi Arabia will start running into trouble within two years. It will be in existential crisis by the end of the decade. 如果石油期货市场是对的，那么沙特阿拉伯将会在两年之内开始陷入麻烦。这个国家将会在这个十年的尾声时陷入一场生存危机。 The contract price of US crude oil for delivery in December 2020 is currently $62.05, implying a drastic change in the economic landscape for the Middle East and the petro-rentier states. 目前2020年12月交付的美国原油期货价格是每桶62.05美元，这个价格体现了中东地区和石油租利国家经济版图的一场剧变。 The Saudis took a huge gamble last November when they stopped supporting prices and opted instead to flood the market and drive out rivals, boosting their own output to 10.6m barrels a day (b/d) into the teeth of the downturn. 沙特人在去年11月【译注：本文作于2015年，此处指2014年11月】开始了一场豪赌，他们停止了对石油价格的支撑，转而选择在市场上倾销以挤出竞争对手，他们在市场急转直下的时候将自己的原油产量提升到了每日106万桶。 Bank of America says OPEC is now "effectively dissolved". The cartel might as well shut down its offices in Vienna to save money. 美国银行认为OPEC目前“实际上已经解体了”。这个垄断联盟也许会关闭它在维也纳的办公室以节省资金。 If the aim was to choke the US shale industry, the Saudis have misjudged badly, just as they misjudged the growing shale threat at every stage for eight years. "It is becoming apparent that non-OPEC producers are not as responsive to low oil prices as had been thought, at least in the short-run," said the Saudi central bank in its latest stability report. 如果这么做的目的是打击美国的页岩产业，那么沙特人就犯了个大错，就像他们在过去八年中的每个阶段都错判了成长中的页岩产业的威胁一样。“很显然那些非OPEC产油国对于低油价的反应并不像我们之前所设想的那样剧烈，至少在短期内是这样，”沙特央行在最近的稳定性报告中表示。 "The main impact has been to cut back on developmental drilling of new oil wells, rather than slowing the flow of oil from existing wells. This requires more patience," it said. 这份报告称：“（这项政策）的主要影响是减少了新油井的开发钻探量，而并非降低现有油井的生产速度。这需要更多的耐心。” One Saudi expert was blunter. "The policy hasn't worked and it will never work," he said. 一位沙特专家则更加直白。“这项政策显然没起作用，而且它也永远起不了作用，”他说。 By causing the oil price to crash, the Saudis and their Gulf allies have certainly killed off prospects for a raft of high-cost ventures in the Russian Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico, the deep waters of the mid-Atlantic, and the Canadian tar sands. 通过让油价崩溃，沙特人和他们的海湾盟友们显然杀死了那些试图在俄罗斯北极地区，墨西哥湾，大西洋中部深海和加拿大油砂中提炼原油的昂贵冒险活动。 Consultants Wood Mackenzie say the major oil and gas companies have shelved 46 large projects, deferring $200bn of investments. 咨询公司Wood Machenzie表示，大型油气公司们已经将46个大型项目束之高阁，这推迟了大约2000亿美元的投资支出。 The problem for the Saudis is that US shale frackers are not high-cost. They are mostly mid-cost, and as I reported from the CERAWeek energy forum in Houston, experts at IHS think shale companies may be able to shave those costs by 45pc this year - and not only by switching tactically to high-yielding wells. 沙特人所面临的问题是，美国的页岩油气生产商们的成本并不高。正如我在休斯顿举办的CERAWeek能源论坛上所报告的，这些公司中的大多数成本都处于适中的水平，IHS公司的专家们认为这些页岩油气公司也许能在今年将这些成本削减45个百分点——而这并不仅是靠战术性地转向那些高产的油井来做到的。 Advanced pad drilling techniques allow frackers to launch five or ten wells in different directions from the same site. Smart drill-bits with computer chips can seek out cracks in the rock. New dissolvable plugs promise to save $300,000 a well. "We've driven down drilling costs by 50pc, and we can see another 30pc ahead," said John Hess, head of the Hess Corporation. 先进的井台批量钻探技术让页岩油业者能在同一处钻探点打出5口或10口不同方向的油井。植入了计算机芯片的智能钻探装置能够自动发现岩层中的裂缝。最新的可溶解油栓技术有望为每口油井节省30万美元的成本。“我们已经将钻探成本降低了百分之五十，而且我们认为目前的成本还有百分之三十的下降空间，”Hess集团总裁John Hess表示。 It was the same story from Scott Sheffield, head of Pioneer Natural Resources. "We have just drilled an 18,000 ft well in 16 days in the Permian Basin. Last year it took 30 days," he said. 先锋自然资源公司总裁Scott Sheffield也持相同看法。“我们最近在16天内在二叠纪盆地钻出了一口深达一万八千英尺的油井。而在去年，这样的工程还需要花上30天，”他说。 The North American rig-count has dropped to 664 from 1,608 in October but output still rose to a 43-year high of 9.6m b/d June. It has only just begun to roll over. "The freight train of North American tight oil has kept on coming," said Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil. 北美工作中的钻机数量从去年十月的1608台下降到了目前的664台，但原油产量却在今年六月升至43年来的最高水平——每日960万桶。而这仅仅只是个开始。“运送北美页岩油的货运火车正源源不断地开来，”埃克森美孚公司总裁Rex Tillerson表示。 He said the resilience of the sister industry of shale gas should be a cautionary warning to those reading too much into the rig-count. Gas prices have collapsed from $8 to $2.78 since 2009, and the number of gas rigs has dropped 1,200 to 209. Yet output has risen by 30pc over that period. 他说，页岩气作为姊妹行业其适应能力应该引起那些过多关注钻机数量的人们的深切警醒。天然气价格已经从2009年的8美元暴跌至目前的2.78美元，而工作中的天然气钻机数量则从当时的1200台降至了目前的209台。但产量却在同一时期上升了超过三十个百分点。 Until now, shale drillers have been cushioned by hedging contracts. The stress test will come over coming months as these expire. But even if scores of over-leveraged wild-catters go bankrupt as funding dries up, it will not do OPEC any good. 直到目前，页岩钻探者们一直受到了对冲合约的保护。而未来的几个月中，随着这些合约到期，真正的压力测试将会到来。但即便这些过度使用杠杆的风险弄潮儿最终因为资金枯竭而破产，OPEC也无法从中得到任何好处。 The wells will still be there. The technology and infrastructure will still be there. Stronger companies will mop up on the cheap, taking over the operations. Once oil climbs back to $60 or even $55 - since the threshold keeps falling - they will crank up production almost instantly. 油井仍然在那里。技术和基础设施也仍然在那里。更加强大的公司将会廉价扫货，并接管他们的生意。一旦油价重新回到每桶60美元甚至55美元——这个阈值正在持续降低——他们将会立即重新启动钻机开始生产。 OPEC now faces a permanent headwind. Each rise in price will be capped by a surge in US output. The only constraint is the scale of US reserves that can be extracted at mid-cost, and these may be bigger than originally supposed, not to mention the parallel possibilities in Argentina and Australia, or the possibility for "clean fracking" in China as plasma pulse technology cuts water needs. OPEC目前面临着一个挥之不去的困境。每一波油价上涨就会被一波美国原油产量的激增抵消。对此的唯一限制是全美能够以适中成本开采的原油总储量，而这个数字则很可能比人们之前设想的要大，更不用提在阿根廷和澳大利亚的那些类似的可供开采储量，还有中国未来因等离子脉冲技术降低了对水量的需求，实现“清洁开采”的可能性。 Mr Sheffield said the Permian Basin in Texas could alone produce 5-6m b/d in the long-term, more than Saudi Arabia's giant Ghawar field, the biggest in the world. Sheffield先生表示，单单是德州的二叠纪盆地在长期内的日产出量就能达到500到600万桶，而这个数字比目前世界上最大的石油产区——沙特阿拉伯的大Ghawar油田的产出还要大。 Saudi Arabia is effectively beached. It relies on oil for 90pc of its budget revenues. There is no other industry to speak of, a full fifty years after the oil bonanza began. 沙特阿拉伯这艘大船实际上已经搁浅了。这个国家预算收入中的90%都依赖石油。而在经历了整整50年的石油大繁荣之后，它并没有发展出任何其它值得一提的产业。 Citizens pay no tax on income, interest, or stock dividends. Subsidized petrol costs twelve cents a litre at the pump. Electricity is given away for 1.3 cents a kilowatt-hour. Spending on patronage exploded after the Arab Spring as the kingdom sought to smother dissent. 该国的国民不需要为他们的收入，利息或者股利交税。在加油站可以用每升12美分的补贴价格购买汽油。每千瓦时的电价仅仅是1.3美分。在“阿拉伯之春”开始之后，由于王室试图平息民间的不满情绪，该国用于收买支持的开支也迅速地增长。 The International Monetary Fund estimates that the budget deficit will reach 20pc of GDP this year, or roughly $140bn. The 'fiscal break-even price' is $106. 据国际货币基金组织估计，沙特的财政赤字将在今年占到GDP的20%，也就是大约1400亿美元。而让该国的财政收支达到均衡的油价水平是每桶106美元。 Far from retrenching, King Salman is spraying money around, giving away $32bn in a coronation bonus for all workers and pensioners. 而当今沙特国王萨勒曼却完全没有想要缩减开支的意思，反而四处撒钱，单单是在一次加冕礼上，他就为全国的所有工人和退休者发放了320亿美元的奖金。 He has launched a costly war against the Houthis in Yemen and is engaged in a massive military build-up - entirely reliant on imported weapons - that will propel Saudi Arabia to fifth place in the world defence ranking. 此外，他还对也门的胡塞武装发动了一场代价高昂的战争，并且大肆扩张军备——沙特的军备完全依赖从外国进口武器——这会使沙特的军费开支排到全球第5位。 The Saudi royal family is leading the Sunni cause against a resurgent Iran, battling for dominance in a bitter struggle between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. "Right now, the Saudis have only one thing on their mind and that is the Iranians. They have a very serious problem. Iranian proxies are running Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon," said Jim Woolsey, the former head of the US Central Intelligence Agency. 沙特王室还需要肩负领导逊尼派对抗东山再起的伊朗的重任，为争夺霸权，整个中东地区的逊尼派和什叶派之间展开了艰苦的斗争。“现在沙特人满脑子都只想着一件事情，那就是来自伊朗人的威胁。他们面临着一个非常严峻的问题，伊朗的代理人目前正控制着也门，叙利亚，伊拉克和黎巴嫩，”美国中央情报局前任局长吉姆·伍尔西表示。 Money began to leak out of Saudi Arabia after the Arab Spring, with net capital outflows reaching 8pc of GDP annually even before the oil price crash. The country has since been burning through its foreign reserves at a vertiginous pace. 在“阿拉伯之春”发生后，资本开始流出沙特阿拉伯，即使在油价崩溃之前，每年资本净流出也占到了GDP的8%。从那时开始，该国的外汇储备就以惊人地速度直线下降。 The reserves peaked at $737bn in August of 2014. They dropped to $672 in May. At current prices they are falling by at least $12bn a month. 沙特的外汇储备在2014年8月达到峰值7370亿美元。而到今年5月，这个数字下降到了6720亿美元。以目前的汇率计算，沙特的外汇储备每月至少会下降120亿美元。【编注：2016年4月 已降至5720亿美元】 Khalid Alsweilem, a former official at the Saudi central bank and now at Harvard University, said the fiscal deficit must be covered almost dollar for dollar by drawing down reserves. 沙特央行的一位前任官员Khalid Alsweilem（目前在哈佛大学担任研究员）表示，沙特政府财政赤字中的几乎每一美元都需要以外汇储备的同等下降为代价来弥补。 The Saudi buffer is not particularly large given the country's fixed exchange system. Kuwait, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi all have three times greater reserves per capita. "We are much more vulnerable. That is why we are the fourth rated sovereign in the Gulf at AA-. We cannot afford to lose our cushion over the next two years," he said. 在该国的固定汇率体系之下，留给沙特人的缓冲余地并不是很大。科威特，卡塔尔和阿布扎比所拥有的人均外汇储备是沙特的三倍。“我们相对而言要脆弱得多。这就是为何我们的主权债评级在海湾地区只排第四，评级水平也仅是AA-。在未来两年中，我们承受不起失去外汇储备缓冲的后果，”他说。 Standard & Poor's lowered its outlook to "negative" in February. "We view Saudi Arabia's economy as undiversified and vulnerable to a steep and sustained decline in oil prices," it said. 标普在今年二月将沙特主权债务的评级展望降为“负面”。“我们认为在油价持续急剧下降的过程中，沙特阿拉伯的经济没有多元化，并且十分脆弱，”标普在他们的报告中表示。 Mr Alsweilem wrote in a Harvard report that Saudi Arabia would have an extra trillion of assets by now if it had adopted the Norwegian model of a sovereign wealth fund to recyle the money instead of treating it as a piggy bank for the finance ministry. The report has caused storm in Riyadh. Alsweilem先生在哈佛大学的一份报告中写道，如果沙特之前采用挪威的主权财富基金模式让外汇储备循环投资，而不是像他们所做的那样仅仅把它当作财政部的一头现金奶牛，目前沙特阿拉伯的资产也许会多出1万亿美元。这份报告在沙特首都利雅得引发了风暴。 "We were lucky before because the oil price recovered in time. But we can't count on that again," he said. “上一次我们很幸运，因为油价适时地恢复了。但是这次我们不能再次指望同样的事情会，”他说。 OPEC have left matters too late, though perhaps there is little they could have done to combat the advances of American technology. OPEC做出反应时已经太晚了，虽然即使早一些意识到问题，他们也做不了太多事情来对抗美国的技术进步。 In hindsight, it was a strategic error to hold prices so high, for so long, allowing shale frackers - and the solar industry - to come of age. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. 事后看来，让油价在如此长的时间维持在这么高的位置实际上是一个战略性错误，这样那些页岩油气的勘探者们——还有太阳能产业——就能够成长壮大。一旦被放出来，你就无法再将精灵放回瓶子里了。 The Saudis are now trapped. Even if they could do a deal with Russia and orchestrate a cut in output to boost prices - far from clear - they might merely gain a few more years of high income at the cost of bringing forward more shale production later on. 沙特人如今陷入了困境。即使他们能与俄罗斯达成一致共同减产以支撑油价——虽然这样的愿景目前看来一点也不清晰——这也仅仅能让他们享受多几年的高收入，而这样做的代价却是在未来面临更多的页岩油产出的竞争。 Yet on the current course their reserves may be down to $200bn by the end of 2018. The markets will react long before this, seeing the writing on the wall. Capital flight will accelerate. 而如果当前的趋势维持下去，沙特的外汇储备将在2018年底前降至2000亿美元以下。一旦前景明白无误了，市场会在它成为现实前就早早做出反应。资本外流将会加速。 The government can slash investment spending for a while - as it did in the mid-1980s - but in the end it must face draconian austerity. It cannot afford to prop up Egypt and maintain an exorbitant political patronage machine across the Sunni world. 沙特政府可以在一段时间内削减资本开支——就像它在1980年代中期所做的那样——但最终它将面临严峻的紧缩。沙特将无法负担起支撑埃及政权并在逊尼派穆斯林世界里维持一台昂贵的资助机器的开支。 Social spending is the glue that holds together a medieval Wahhabi regime at a time of fermenting unrest among the Shia minority of the Eastern Province, pin-prick terrorist attacks from ISIS, and blowback from the invasion of Yemen. 庞大的社会开支是将一个仍然处在中世纪状态的瓦哈比政权维系在一起的粘合剂，这个政权正面临着东部省份的什叶少数派中正在发酵的动荡，ISIS时而发动的针刺般的恐怖袭击，还有入侵也门所带来的反作用力。 Diplomatic spending is what underpins the Saudi sphere of influence in a Middle East suffering its own version of Europe's Thirty Year War, and still reeling from the after-shocks of a crushed democratic revolt. 庞大的外交开支则是维系沙特在中东地区影响力的基础，而目前中东地区正在经历着类似欧洲“三十年战争”般的苦难，同时还在蹒跚地试图爬出镇压民主反抗运动带来的余震。 We may yet find that the US oil industry has greater staying power than the rickety political edifice behind OPEC. 我们也许会发现，虽然同样处在低谷中，但相比OPEC身后的那座虚弱的政治大厦，美国的石油行业其实拥有着更强的生命力。 （编辑：辉格@whigzhou） *注：本译文未经原作者授权，本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利，如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容，请私信联系，我们会立即作出响应。

——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Government Compensation of Kidney Donors 政府补贴捐肾者的成本效益分析 作者：Alex Tabarrok @ 2015-11-25 译者：Eartha（@王小贰_Eartha) 校对：小册子（@昵称被抢的小册子） 来源：Marginal Revolution，http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/11/a-cost-bene%EF%AC%81t-analysis-of-government-compensation-of-kidney-donors.html The latest issue of the American Journal of Transplantation has an excellent and comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of paying kidney donors by Held, McCormick, Ojo, and Roberts. 最新一期【译注：即2015年第十期】的《美国移植杂志》刊登了一篇由Held, McCormick, Ojo, 与 Roberts合著的文章，出色且全面地描述了关于支付捐肾者报酬的成本效益分析。 Earlier, Becker and Elias estimated that a payment of $15,000 per living donor would be sufficient to eliminate the US waiting list. The authors adopt a larger figure of $45,000 for living donors and $10,000 for deceased donors and find that even at these rates paying donors generates benefits far in excess of costs. 早些时候，Becker与 Elias就估算过，如果向每位活体捐赠者支付15,000美元，就会有足够的捐赠者来满足全美的肾脏移植需求。上述论文的作者们在分析中采用了更高的补贴数额，给予活体捐献者45,000美元，遗体捐献者10,000美元。结果显示，即使以这样的高价格补贴捐献者，其产生的效益也远超过成本。 In particular, a program of government compensation of kidney donors would provide the following benefits (quoting from the article): 具体而言，政府补贴捐肾者的计划将会带来下列好处（摘自该文章）：

• Transplant kidneys would be readily available to all patients who had a medical need for them, which would prevent 5000 to 10 000 premature deaths each year and significantly reduce the suffering of 100 000 more receiving dialysis.
• 所有有医疗需求的患者都能够顺利地获得肾脏移植，每年将会挽救5,000至10,000例早逝患者，并为超过100,000名依赖透析的患者极大地减缓病痛。
• This would be particularly beneficial to patients who are poor and African American because they are considerably overrepresented on the transplant waiting list. Indeed, it would be a boon to poor kidney recipients because it would enable them to reap the great benefits of transplantation at very little expense to themselves.
• 穷人和非裔病患将尤其从中受益，因为他们在移植等候名单中明显占据了多数。对于贫苦的肾脏移植接受者来说，这的确是一件好事，因为这将使得他们能以非常低的价格享受到肾脏移植的巨大好处。
• Because transplant candidates would no longer have to spend almost 5 years receiving dialysis while waiting for a transplant kidney, they would be younger and healthier when they receive their transplant, increasing the chances of a successful transplantation.
• 因为移植接受者将不必再依赖透析等待近5年，他们接受移植的时候也会更加年轻与健康，移植的成功率将会得到提高。
• With a large number of transplant kidneys available, it would be much easier to ensure the medical compatibility of donors and recipients, which would increase the success rate of transplantation.
• 由于有大量的肾脏可供移植，捐献者与受移植者在医学上的相容性会更容易得到保障，这也会提高移植的成功率。
• Taxpayers would save about $12 billion each year. Dialysis is not only an inferior therapy for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), it is also almost 4 times as expensive per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained as a transplant.
• 纳锐人将因此每年节省大约120亿美元。对末期肾衰竭（ESRD）患者来说，肾透析不仅是一种次等的治疗方法，而且延长每个经质量调整寿命年（QALY）的花费，几乎是肾移植的四倍。【译注：QALY是一种经调整的期望寿命，其计算方式是将实际年数乘上该健康状态下的效用价值。如果在效用价值为5的健康状态持续3年，QALY就等于1.5，相当于保持1.5年的完美健康状态。】

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——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

【2016-06-01】 @whigzhou: 看过《大空头》：虽然下了点功夫，但还是错的离谱，Margin Call仍是有关金融题材唯一好电影 ★★★ 1）市场上永远不缺看空、唱空、做空者，更有无数泡沫论、危机论、末日论者， 2）对房产泡沫和次贷风险的警告早就存在了，绝非一小撮火眼金睛的怪人聪明人的离经叛道之辞， 3）看空和做空是完全不同的两码事，后者需要对崩盘时间的准确判断，危机晚几个月爆发，跳楼的可能就是你了， 4）所以这根本不是一小撮聪明人/头脑清醒者与其他所有傻瓜/混蛋/疯子之间互搏的问题，果若如此，就不会有金融市场了， 5）次贷危机的始作俑者就是政府，放贷机构当然是非常起劲且不负责任的放出了大量劣质房贷，但他们敢这么做就是因为知道两房这两个冤大头会大量买入次贷，而两房之所以会做冤大头是因为他们需要满足92年住房法案的要求，而且知道出了问题政府不会撒手不管，说白了他们就是准国企， 6）当然让次贷危机扩大成金融危机的责任，金融业是逃不掉的，主要是债券结构的特性，让次贷的毒性蔓延到了整个系统中，它造成的结构与反馈机制上的复杂性，使得风险影响变得很难计算和重估，一出事就造成恐慌， 7）参与其中的金融企业根本没有逃脱损失，这一点是媒体和好莱坞睁眼说瞎话最多的地方，The Big Short里虚构的那种神奇大逃脱根本不可能实现， 8）虽然一开始来势凶猛，但事后看来这次金融危机根本无法跟大萧条相提并论，从对实体经济的影响看，这种级别的危机很平常，10年左右总会来一次，资本主义末日之类说法完全胡扯， 9）美联储的应对很好，国会和奥巴马的应对（Dodd-Frank法案以及针对金融业的一系列疯狂打压）很糟糕，否则后来的复苏会更快更高， @Limlne: 那些神棍博中几次就以为自己是股神了，殊不知坏表一天也会有两次指对时间的，退潮了才能发觉自己是在裸游 。一直看空者也如此，他们预测到3次衰退中的5次 @whigzhou: 呵呵就是 @Veidt:被骂得最多的不是金融企业的股东逃脱损失，而是金融企业的高管作为代理人不仅没有因为不负责任的冒险受到惩罚，反而在危机发生后还拿到了高额奖金。其实金融业的一个大问题也在于从合伙制大规模转向股份制后的委托代理问题， @whigzhou: 没错，所以我说的不是“骂得最多”而是“睁眼说瞎话最多” @Veidt:财政部在前期的应对也很好，因为美国的信贷创造主要是由商业银行体系之外的投行和其他影子银行创造的，商业银行创造的信贷量不到整个体系的三分之一，所以影子银行体系如果得不到救助，信贷真空对实体经济造成的损失会非常可怕，但美联储对影子 @whigzhou: 没错，所以我说的是“奥巴马”不是“行政分支” @Veidt:另外说这种级别的危机十年左右总会来一次有点低估它了，这次危机之所以没有一直蔓延下去造成更大规模的恐慌和萧条原因还是在于财政部和联储吸取了历次危机尤其是大萧条的教训，在早期通过有力的担保救助切断了危机蔓延的链条… @whigzhou: 没错，但要假设把知识状态退回80年前的话危机也不会发生了 @wangyi_sswy:还有就是评级机构在这里的非常负面的作用。我亲身参与了很多次贷结构化证券的交易，很多同事认为，我们最终赚的，其实是评级机构的钱，以及大家对评级机构的盲目相信 @whigzhou: 1）评级机构是金融业的一部分，2）评级机构的责任主要在链条的后半部分，即让次贷危机放大为金融危机的部分 @wangyi_sswy:两房其实是不买次级债的，他们只会买优质的债（当然这里面包括了次级打包后，打包出来的优质债，这又和评级机构有关 @whigzhou: 两房买了很多次贷，见Fannie Mae一份季报 http://t.cn/R54IypM 第5页表格  

【2016-05-23】 1）达尔萨斯主义者（Darthusian）和古典自由主义者的根本区别在于：不许诺一个共同富裕普遍康乐的前景，并认为那注定是个虚假的许诺， 2）尽管我们相信（也乐意称颂）自由市场可以最大限度的拓展合作共赢的领域，也承认（统计上）自由社会的最穷困阶层也比非自由社会的普通人状况更好，但不会否认自由竞争终究会有失败者，自由化甚至可能在绝对水平上恶化一些人的处境， 3）马尔萨斯法则为这一判断提供了兜底保证，尽管不是唯一理由， 4）达尔文的启示在于，这完全不是坏事，而是文明进步的动力，试图消除它的努力将摧毁文明赖以繁荣的基础， 5）只有认清这一点才能将自由主义建立在真实而牢靠的基础上，而虚假承诺终究会被现实所揭穿， 6）这也是为何许诺共同康乐的强共同体难以长久维系，除非它能通过周期性重组摆脱一部分成员， 7）或者像罗马那样有着永无止境的拓殖边疆让他得以向其贫穷公民许诺美好前程， 8）对达尔萨斯主义者，自由的伦理基础不是帕累托效率，而是契约合意：我们同意这样的竞争规则，无论结果是谁赢——通俗的说，就是愿赌服输，  

【2016-05-13】 @海德沙龙 《自由市场环保主义》 环境问题向来都被视为市场失灵的一种表现，许多经济学家也认为，市场本身无法处理像环境污染这样的“外部性”问题，良好环境是一种“公共品”，只能由政府提供（以管制或庇古税的方式），可实际上，无论是理论还是经验都告诉我们，自由市场能够处理环境问题 @whigzhou: 福利经济学作为一种思考问题的方式是有益的，像外部性、公共品、帕累托最优等概念，对不同税种之经济性质的分析，等等，但许多自以为是的福利经济学家总是得出一些可笑的结论，然后就被现实打耳光，比如他们总是认为收益未能内化的产品不可能由私人企业提供，或至少是供给不足的，需要政府补贴， @whigzhou: 可是谷歌服务的收益内化了百分之多少呢？开源社区呢？维基呢？所有这些产业需要多少政府补贴才算够？ @whigzhou: 还有，在书呆子福利经济学家看来，像基础研究这种不能带来短期利益即便带来了也不是一家独享的事情，私人企业是不可能去做的，事实上呢？贝尔实验室，IBM实验室，1960年代由石油企业引领的地质学革命，耳光piapia的～ @whigzhou: 更好笑的是，当私人企业在诸如此类看不到眼前利益的事情上表现过于热情时，另一批经济学家又会跳出来大叫：泡沫！泡沫！急杀太监了～  

【2016-05-07】 @whigzhou: 从老弗里德曼那辈开始，libertarians总是宣称18/19世纪的英国和美国有多么自由放任，许多追随者也人云亦云，他们的用意很好，但说法是错的，实际上，即便西方世界中最自由的部分，（除了少数袖珍国之外）距离古典自由主义的理想制度始终很遥远，只不过那时候国家干预经济和私人生活的方式不同而已。 @whigzhou: 略举几点：1）自由贸易，古典自由主义时代推动自由贸易的主要方式是破除非关税壁垒，而关税始终很高，各国财政对关税的依赖也比现在高得多，关税大幅下降到个位数水平是二战后的事情，但这并不是说早期的贸易自由化不重要，因为当时关税再高，和运费比还是很低，所以只要拆除壁垒，效果仍很显著。 @whigzhou: 2）管制，随便翻翻经济史就知道，18/19世纪的管制同样多如牛毛，但给人的印象很不一样，我猜这是因为，早先的管制主要以准入限制和特许垄断的方式进行，而较少以行为管控的方式进行，大量限制法规，但较少执行官僚，所以看到国家之手四处挥舞的景象不多见，究其因，当时政府的组织执行力还不行。 @whigzhou: 3）19世纪的美国联邦政府管的事情确实非常少，但州政府和市政府管的可不少，看看产业史，哪个新产业不是从一大堆政府限制法规里挣扎出来的，那时候联邦政府站在自由一边，多数州政府站在另一边，联邦主义者的努力拆除了很多壁垒，由此也可见在此之前的市场并没有那么自由。 @whigzhou: 当然后来局面颠倒了，铁路和电报把北美大陆连接成单一大市场，州政府管的太过分就把人逼跑了，只好偏向自由化，但此时联邦政府开始伸手了 @whigzhou: 4）政府规模，从财政开支和雇员数量看，那时候的政府确实小得多，但政府对市场和私人生活的干预强度不能仅从其有形规模看，也要从它所维护的壁垒、限制性法规和垄断特权看 @whigzhou: 5）福利制度，这是老弗里德曼叙事中唯一完全成立的一点，那时候基本上没有福利制度，济贫法的影响规模不大 @王弼正: 依稀记得宪法中，国会只有针对州际贸易有立法权也许就是这么来的吧。不过沿海州的国际贸易很繁荣啊。 @whigzhou: 没说不繁荣啊，仅仅清除海盗和运费降低这两项即可将潜在贸易量提升两个数量级，何况还有新世界的人口急速增长 @whigzhou: 从现世的污浊泥潭中赢得一点差强人意的自由空间从来都是艰难而侥幸的，所以不要相信什么自由天国，也无须为此一时彼一时的跌宕沦陷而悲观发愁。