Zi 字媒體

經濟學中，有很多非常有趣的現象，可以解釋生活中很多問題。 如果你也想掌握一些經濟學常識，和別人聊天時，有些談資，顯格調，一起來學學這十大經典經濟學常識和現象！10Paradox of Value價值悖論Also known as the Diamond-Water Paradox, the paradox of value is the contradiction that while water is more useful, in terms of survival, than diamonds, diamonds get a higher market price. The argument could be made that diamonds are more rare than water, thus, demand is higher than supply, which means that price will go up. However, consider the fact that less than 1% of the earth』s water is drinkable. Also consider the fact that access to clean drinking water is one of the world』s most pressing problems, every year 2 million people die and half a billion become sick from a lack of drinkable water.又名「鑽石與水悖論」。就人類生存而言，水比鑽石更為珍貴，但鑽石的市場價格更高，這種反差就構成了價值悖論。產生這一現象的原因可能是鑽石更為稀有，需求大於供應，價格上漲。但是，其實地球上的水只有不到1％是可飲用的，同時，世界上每年有200萬人因飲用水短缺死亡，5億人患病。如何為更多人提供清潔飲用水是最緊迫的問題之一。This paradox can possibly be explained by the Subjective Theory of Value, which says that worth is based on the wants and needs of a society, as opposed to value being inherent to an object. In developed countries, drinkable water in not only abundant, it』s considered a right. Because we do not have to worry about paying for water, this gives us money to pay for things like diamonds, that do not fall out of our faucets. Individuals in developing countries surely place a higher value on clean water.這個悖論可以通過主觀價值論來解釋。主觀價值論認為，產品價值取決於社會需求，而非作為物體的固有價值。發達國家不僅擁有豐富的飲用水資源，獲取足量飲用水更是一種權利。因為我們不用為水費發愁，所以可以購買不能輕易獲取的鑽石。而對於發展家而言，飲用水的價值肯定相對更高。9Khazzoom–Brookes PostulateKhazzoom-Brookes假說This proposal was named after Daniel Khazzoom and Leonard Brookes, who argued that increased energy efficiency, paradoxically, tends to lead to increased energy consumption. It was found to be true in the 1990』s. So how is this possible? Wikipedia explains it very effectively:這一假說是以經濟學家Daniel Khazzoom及Leonard Brookes的名字命名的，即能源效率的提高會增加而不是減少能源消費。這一假說於20世紀90年代被證實。那麼這是什麼原因呢？維基百科對此做出了詳細解釋：「Increased energy efficiency can increase energy consumption by three means. Firstly, increased energy efficiency makes the use of energy relatively cheaper, thus encouraging increased use. Secondly, increased energy efficiency leads to increased economic growth, which pulls up energy use in the whole economy. Thirdly, increased efficiency in any one bottleneck resource multiplies the use of all the companion technologies, products and services that were being restrained by it.」「提高能源效率將通過三種方式增加能源消耗：第一，提高能源效率降低能源使用花費，從而增加能源消耗；第二，提高能源效率推動經濟增長，進而拉動整個經濟體的能源消耗；第三，任何一種能源資源效率的提高都會極大地推動所有相關技術、產品和服務的使用。「8Bounded Rationality有限理性Economic theory generally assumes that individuals are completely rational, and as such, make rational decisions. Recent books on behavioral economics, notably Dan Ariely』s Predictably Irrational have brought forth evidence that people do not make rational decisions at all. Bounded Rationality is the idea that individual decision making is limited by personal information, cognitive limitations, and time constraints.經濟理論一般假設個人是完全理性的，因而會做出理性的決定。最近一系列研究行為經濟學的書籍，特別是Dan Ariely的《怪誕行為學》證明了「人們根本不會做出理性決定」的看法。有限理性認為，個人決策會受到個人信息、認知和時間的限制。The basic idea of economics is that people act in ways to maximize their self-interest. We do things that will increase our 「utility」, or happiness. It seems logical that we would make rational decisions in order to accomplish that. Unfortunately, information asymmetry, cognitive biases and other factors conspire to bound our rationality, and people often make choices that lead to outcomes that go against their desires.經濟學的基本思想是人類行為是為了最大限度地獲取自身利益。我們所做的事情能夠增加我們的「效用」或幸福感。我們為了做到這一點而做出理性決定的觀點似乎是合乎邏輯的。不幸的是，信息不對稱、認知偏見和其他因素共同限制了我們的理性，導致人們經常做出非理性決策，其結果往往與初衷背道而馳。7Lipstick Effect口紅效應Economics has many categories for 「goods」. 「Luxury Goods」 are items that people buy more of as their income rises, as opposed to 「Necessity Goods」 like food and shelter, whose demand is unrelated to income. Examples of luxury goods include fine jewelry, expensive sports cars and designer clothing. The Lipstick Effect is the theory that during an economic calamity, people buy more less costly luxury goods. Instead of buying a fur coat, people will buy expensive lipstick. The idea is that people buy luxury goods even during economic hardships, they will just choose goods that have less of an impact on their funds. Other less expensive luxury goods besides cosmetics include expensive beer and small gadgets.經濟學中有很多 「商品」類別。的特徵是，隨著人們收入的增加， 「奢侈品」購入數量上升，但包括食物和住房在內的 「必需品」的需求與收入無關。奢侈品包括高級珠寶、昂貴跑車和名牌服裝。口紅效應是指人們在經濟蕭條期間會購入更多相對廉價的奢侈品，比如不買皮大衣而去購買昂貴的口紅。這是因為，即使在經濟不景氣的情況下，人們依然有購買奢侈品的慾望，所以會選擇能夠承受的奢侈品。 除化妝品外，其他較便宜的奢侈品包括昂貴的啤酒和小型玩具。Interesting Fact: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, lipstick sales doubled.有趣的事實： 9•11恐怖襲擊之後，美國口紅銷量翻了一番。6Tragedy of the Commons公地悲劇The tragedy of the commons is a situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, deplete a shared resource, even when it is not in anyone』s interest to do so. The best current example of this is fishermen. Nobody owns the earth』s fish populations, indeed, they are a shared resource. Fish are a good that people the world over consume, and as a result, there are multiple fisherman competing for these fish. Each fisherman will try to catch as many fish as possible in order to maximize his profits. However, it is also in the fishermen』s best interest to sustain the fish populations, i.e., leaving enough fish to repopulate, so that down the road, there are still fish to be caught. If each fisherman is concerned with sustainability, and they should be if they don』t want to find new careers in the near future, they theoretically will work to preserve the fish populations. Here is the problem: there is a lack of trust. A fisherman that acts responsibly and limits the amount he catches will be screwed if all the other fisherman do not. The other fisherman get more fish than he does, make more in profits, and will ultimately deplete the fish population anyway. So each fisherman, believing that the others will take more than their sustainable share, will take as many fish as he can, and the world』s fish supplies will deplete, even though no one wants them to.獨立的個體共同將公有資源消耗殆盡，即使這會損害他們自身的利益，這就是公地悲劇。公地悲劇的典型例子是過度捕撈。地球上的魚類資源不屬於任何個體，是全人類的共同資源，也是全世界共同消費的商品，漁民們為了爭取更多的魚類數量展開競爭。每個漁民儘可能地捕撈更多數量的魚，以實現個人利益最大化。然而，維持魚類數量不變、留有足夠數量的魚來繁衍生息、保證未來有魚可捕其實也是漁民的最大利益。如果每個漁民都能考慮到可持續發展，其實如果未來不想改變職業的話他們應該考慮這一點，理論上來說他們應該努力保護魚類。但主要的問題是漁民之間缺乏信任：如果其他漁民依舊我行我素，那麼限制自己捕魚數量的漁民將無利可圖。其他漁民捕撈數量多、盈利多，最終仍會將魚類資源消耗殆盡。每個漁民都認為其他人會儘可能多地捕魚，因此每個漁民都在大肆捕撈，久而久之，世界魚類資源將走向枯竭。儘管這一結局會損害所有人的利益。5Tragedy of the AntiCommons反公共地悲劇The opposite of the above mentioned tragedy of the commons, the anticommons is a situation where too many owners (and bureaucratic red tape) discourages accomplishment of a socially desirable outcome. The classic example is patents. If a product requires multiple components or techniques patented by different people or companies, then it becomes difficult, time consuming and very costly to negotiate with all the owners, and the product may not be produced. This can be a huge loss if the product is in great demand or would have great social benefits. Everybody loses in this situation, the patent holders, the would-be manufacturers and the consumers who would have bought the product.與上述公地悲劇相反，反公地悲劇是指過多的擁有者（繁文縟節）會阻礙多方利益的實現。典型例子就是專利。如果一件產品由不同的人或公司獲得專利的多種組件或技術組成，與各個專利所有者進行協商比較困難、耗時且成本高昂，最終產品可能不能投入生產。若產品需求較大或社會效益良好，不投入生產就是一種損失，專利所有者、生產商及消費者等各方利益都會受到損失。Interesting fact: A single microchip contains up to 5,000 different patents. No one can create a microchip unless every single patent holder agrees to license their patent.有趣的事實：單個微晶元包含多達5,000種不同的專利，只有在得到每個專利持有人授權的情況下才能生產微晶元。4Perverse Incentives不當激勵A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable effect which is opposite to the initial interests. A type of unintended consequences, perverse incentives are the result of an honest good intention. A historical example illustrates the problem: 19th century paleontologists traveling to China used to pay peasants for each piece of dinosaur bone that they presented. It was later found the peasants found bones and then smashed them into many pieces, which significantly reduced their scientific value, to get more payments. More modern examples include paying architects and engineers based on project costs, which leads to excessively costly projects as they overspend unnecessarily to make income.不當激勵所導致的結果往往與發起人的初衷背道而馳。不當激勵的出發點是良性的，結果是不在預料範圍內的。歷史上，19世紀古生物學家到達后，常常從農民手中按照件數購買恐龍骨。後來他們發現，農民會將自己發現的恐龍骨切割成更多小塊，以此換取更多的報酬。但這大大降低了骨頭的科學研究價值。在現代社會，由於人們按照項目花費向建築師及工程師支付酬勞，建築師及工程師們會增加額外支出以獲取更多利益，最終導致項目花費過高。3Information Asymmetry信息不對稱Information asymmetry is a prevalent issue in economics. In most sales transactions, the seller has more information than the buyer, and as such has the opportunity to try to pass off low quality or defective products for higher prices. This leads to buyer distrust and the old idiom: Buyer Beware.信息不對稱是經濟學中普遍存在的問題。 在大多數商品交易中，賣方所掌握的信息比買方多，因此能夠將劣質品或次品以高價出售，從而導致買方對其失去信任。有成語云：「無奸不商」。Adverse selection is a market process where information asymmetry causes negative results. A good example is health insurance. Insurance companies depend on a mix of clients: they need a certain number of healthy individuals (low-risk) to pay premiums and not use a lot of services so that the premium prices can average out. However, the people most likely to buy health insurance are people who need it because of health problems (high-risk). These people are more costly to the insurance companies because they need more services than a healthy person. The insurance companies do not know every new policy applicants health status (but they certainly do everything in their power to find out as much as they can), and this lack of information requires the companies to raise premiums to mitigate the risk. This increase in premiums causes the healthiest people to cancel their insurance. This leads to a further increase in premium price as the insurance companies now have a riskier group, which leads to the now healthiest people canceling their insurance, continuing the 「adverse selection spiral」, until the only people insured are the direly ill. At this point, the premiums paid will not even begin to offset the costs of the sick. In theory, this could lead to the collapse of the health insurance industry, however, this is an unlikely scenario as their risk is diminished by things such as employer offered insurance, which includes a large set of healthy individuals who average out the risk.逆向選擇是信息不對稱導致的負面影響。健康保險是最典型的例子。保險公司依賴客戶群體生存：他們需要一定數量的健康客戶（低風險）來支付保費，並且不需為他們提供服務，以便平衡他人保費。然而，最有可能購買健康保險的人是自身存在健康問題的人（高風險）。對於保險公司而言，這些客戶需要更多服務，因而成本更高。但事實上，保險公司並不了解每一位投保人的健康狀況（但他們一定儘可能地去了解），這種信息不對稱使得保險公司進一步提高保費以減輕風險。但保費增加又導致健康狀況最良好的客戶取消購買保險，保險公司客戶群體的整體健康狀況下降，進而導致保費價格進一步上漲，又導致現有客戶中健康狀況最佳的客戶取消保險，形成「逆向選擇怪圈」，最終投保人均為患有疾病的客戶。此時，保險公司收取的保費甚至不能抵消病人的花費。從理論上來說，健康保險公司可能會因此破產。但實際上，由於其他公司投保客戶群中包含許多健康客戶，保險公司的破產風險就大大降低了。Another information asymmetry example is the 「Market for Lemons」, a term coined by George Akerlof. The used car market is the classic example of quality uncertainty. A defective used car (「lemon」) is generally the result of untraceable actions, like the owners driving style, maintenance habits and accidents. Because the buyer does not have this information, their best assumption is that the vehicle is of average quality, and therefore will pay only an average fair price. As a result, the owner of a car in great condition (「cherry」), will not be able to get a price high enough to make selling the cherry worthwhile. End result: the owners of good cars will not sell their vehicles in the used-car market. This reduces the quality of cars in the used-car market, this reduces the price buyers will pay, this further reduces the quality of cars sold.另一個信息不對稱的例子是經濟學家George Akerlof提出的「檸檬市場」。 二手車市場是質量信息不對稱的典型例子。 一輛有缺陷的二手車（「檸檬」）的質量難以考察，因為這需要了解原車主的駕駛風格、保修習慣和是事故記錄。買家因為沒有這個信息，所以最多只能假設這輛車的質量「還可以」，並按照這種假設來支付相應的價格，而質量較好的汽車（「櫻桃」）也無法以合理的價格售出。最終結果就是質量較高的汽車不會在二手車市場上出售。在這種情況下，二手車市場的汽車質量下降，買家的購買價格下降，從而進一步降低了待售汽車質量。2The Cobra Effect眼鏡蛇效應This is when the solution to a problem actually makes the problem worse. The term 『Cobra effect』 comes from an anecdote from colonial India. The British government wanted to decrease the population of venomous cobra snakes, so they offered a reward for every dead snake. However, the Indians began to breed cobras for the income. When the government realized what was going on, the reward was canceled, and the breeders set the snakes free. The snakes consequently multiplied, and increased the cobra population. The term is now used to illustrate the origins of wrong stimulation in politics and economic policy. Unfortunately, some of the crises facing our world are the result of honest attempts to solve problems.眼鏡蛇效應指的是針對某問題的解決方案反而使該問題惡化。「眼鏡蛇效應」一詞來自殖民時期印度的一則逸聞：英國政府想減少有毒眼鏡蛇蛇的數量，因而頒布法令說每打死一條眼鏡蛇都可以獲得賞金。然而印度人為了賞金反而開始養殖眼鏡蛇。當英國政府意識到這種情況而取消賞金后，養殖蛇的人把蛇都放了；放出去的蛇繼而大量繁殖，結果眼鏡蛇種群數量反而上升。現今該術語用於形容政治和經濟政策下錯誤的刺激機制。很不幸的是，當今世界面臨的一些問題，正來源於為解決問題而作出的正當嘗試。1The Samaritans Dilemma撒瑪利亞人困境This is the idea that giving charity reduces an individual』s incentive to help themselves. When given assistance, the recipient has two choices: use the aid to improve their situation, or come to rely on the aid to survive. Obviously, good Samaritans give assistance in the hopes of the former, that the recipient will use the aid to improve their situation. For example, when a country gives financial aid to another country who has experienced a natural disaster, we assume that the money will go to helping the victims, cleaning, rebuilding, etc. Arguers against charity often bring up this dilemma, claiming that beneficiaries of such aid lose incentive to work or become productive members of society. This can be seen in action when people who want to give a dollar or two to a homeless person do not, because they are afraid the person will buy booze with it. A 「transfer of wealth」 of a couple of dollars from someone who can spare the dollars to someone who will use the dollars to improve their situation is a wonderful arrangement. However, if the recipient of the dollars is not going to use the money for a noble purpose, and instead is going to buy illicit drugs with them, it is a less desirable arrangement, and most charitable people would decline to give the dollars. Here』s the problem: it is hard to know how the person you are giving the dollars to will use the funds, so people might instead opt to not give to any homeless people. Now the individuals who would have used the money to improve their situations suffer.撒瑪利亞人困境認為，對他人提供幫助都會降低受助人自我奮鬥的動力。弱勢群體在接受幫助的情況下有兩種選擇：利用援助來改善現況，或依靠援助來生存。好心的撒馬利亞人當然希望受助人利用援助來改善他們的處境。例如，當一國向遭受自然災害的另一國提供財政援助時，我們一般認為這筆錢將用於幫助受害者、清理災禍現場、災后重建等工作。反慈善者經常引用這一經濟問題，認為受助人在接受援助之後會失去努力工作及提升自我的動力。日常生活中也可以看到類似的現象。行人想要施捨給流浪漢一兩美元，但想到流浪漢可能用這些錢去買酒，最終沒有伸出援手。這種 「財富轉移」的接受者若能利用援助改善生活，那麼這便是一項成功的轉移。但是，如果接受者利用援助購買毒品而非改善生活，這項財富轉移並不符合贈與人的意圖，進而拒絕施以援助。總的來說，施助人很難知道受助人將如何使用援助資金，因而選擇不伸出援手。這樣一來，真正會利用援助來改善生活的弱勢群體失去援助，苦不堪言。