找出最餓的那個人的雙語新聞

2024-07-22 好文

　　THE HUNGRY MAN

　　Dear Economist,

　　I have a question for you. You have a piece of bread and you are full enough to give it to someone else. In front of you, 10 guys are waiting for your charity. You can say only one sentence to them.

　　But with only this one sentence, you need to find out who is the most hungry guy. What are you going to say?

　　Myeong Hyeon, via e-mail

　　Dear Myeong Hyeon,

　　This is an interesting poser, although in fact I would run a mile if confronted by 10 hungry guys clamouring for my focaccia. That is, perhaps, quibbling, but my main complaint about your question is more serious.

　　Perhaps you believe that there is little difference between economics and the parlour games of logicians, but in this particular case there is all the difference in the world.

　　A basic proposition of economics is that talk is cheap. Nothing these worthy fellows could say conveys any information to me. A crook can tell the same sob story as the most desperate beggar.

　　One possibility, then, is that I could carry out intrusive background checks on these characters. However, that is expensive and tiresome for all concerned - and since the largest providers of pieces of bread are governments, there are concerns over abuses of information, too.

　　Alternatively, and more elegantly, I could hand over bread only to those people who give me a signal that a well-fed con man would not be willing to give. For example, I could demand that the recipient of the bread first wallow in a muddy puddle. But this, like many signals, is wasteful. Better if the signal was also socially productive, so that I could hand out bread in exchange for useful work. We call this arrangement “getting a job”.

　　找出最餓的那個人

　　親愛的經濟學家，

　　我有一個問題問你。你有一片面包，但你已經吃飽了，于是決定把它送給別人。在你面前，有10個人等著你的施舍。你只能對他們說一句話。

　　但要通過一句話，你必須找出誰是最餓的那個人。你會說什么呢?

　　Myeong Hyeon，通過電子郵件

　　親愛的Myeong Hyeon，

　　這是一個有趣的難題，但事實上，如果我碰到10個饑餓的人嚷著要我的面包，我可能早就跑到一英里以外去了。這可能是在詭辯，但對于你的問題，我的主要不滿則更為嚴肅。

　　可能你相信，經濟學和邏輯學家的室內游戲幾乎沒有區別，但在這個特殊的案例中，則存在天壤之別。

　　經濟學的一個基本命題是，言語是廉價的。這些需要面包的人無論說什么都不能向我傳遞任何信息。一個騙子講述的故事可以和最絕望的乞丐一樣催人淚下的故事。

　　那么，一個可能性就是，我可以對這些人的背景進行深入調查。然而，調查費用巨大，而且令所有各方都感到疲憊——由于面包的最大提供者是政府，因此這里還存在信息濫用的問題。

　　換種做法(這種做法也更紳士一些)，如果有人會向我發出衣食無憂的騙子不愿發出的信號，我可以把面包只交給這些人。例如，我可以要求面包接受者先在泥塘里打滾。但和許多其它信號一樣，這也是種浪費。更好的辦法是讓發出的信號還能帶來社會生產力，這樣我就可以拿面包交換有用的勞動。我們將這種安排稱作“得到工作”。

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