The Nobel prize for economics
经济学的诺奖

The bigger picture
大局面

Oct 12th 2009
From Economist.com

This year’s Nobel prize has rewarded the use of economics to answer wider questions
本年度的诺奖犒赏运用经济学来回答大局面上的问题

NEITHER Oliver Williamson of the University of California at Berkeley nor Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University at Bloomington was widely tipped to win this year’s Nobel prize for economics. This may be because their work sits at the boundary of economics, law and political science, and tackles different questions to the ones that economists have traditionally studied. Ms Ostrom is also notable as the first woman to win the economics prize in its 40-year history.

加大伯克利的威廉逊和印大布鲁明顿的奥斯特罗姆并不是本年度经济学诺奖的热门人选。 这也许是因为他们的工作处在经济学、法学和政治学的边界上，他们对付的问题跟经济学家传统上研究的问题不一样。 奥斯特罗姆也因为是经济学诺奖设奖四十年来第一个获奖的女性而引人注目。

Mr Williamson and Ms Ostrom work independently of each other but both have contributed plenty to economists’ understanding of which institutions—firms, markets, governments, or informal systems of social norms, for example—are best suited for conducting different types of economic transactions. Why, for example, do some transactions take place within firms, while others are carried out in competitive markets?

威廉逊和奥斯特罗姆虽各自独立进行自己的研究工作，但两人都贡献良多， 有助于经济学家们了解哪一种机构——例如，公司、市场、政府还是别的什么非正式社会准则体系——才是进行各种形式不同的经济交易的最佳场所。 举例来说， 为什么某些交易发生在公司里， 为什么其他的交易却发生在竞争性的市场上？

Ronald Coase, a British economist who won the Nobel prize in 1991, argued that in some situations, and for some kinds of transactions, administrative decision-making within a single legal entity (ie, a company) is more efficient than a straightforward market transaction. Mr Coase’s arguments were influential and convinced economists that the internal workings of organisations were worth paying attention to explicitly. But it was left to Mr Williamson to refine Mr Coase’s theory and clarify what features of certain transactions made carrying them out more efficient within a firm rather than in the market.

1991年获诺奖的英国经济学家科斯所持的看法是：在某些情况下， 就某种类型的交易而言， 在一单个法定实体（即公司）内部做出的行政决策，较之简单的市场交易，效率可以更高。科斯之论影响甚大，经济学家们从此确信，直截了当地把注意力转到组织内部的运作是值得他们做的事情。 不过，直到威廉逊接手，科斯理论才得以精细化， 另外， 也才弄清楚是某些交易的什么特征使得该交易在公司内部进行效率优于在市场上进行。

Mr Williamson showed that complex transactions involving investment decisions that are much more valuable within a relationship than to a third party are best done within a firm. Part of the problem, he argued, was that some economic transactions are so complicated, and involve so many things which could go wrong, that writing a legally enforceable contract that takes all possibilities into account is impossible. Simpler transactions are completed easily in markets; more complicated ones may demand firms. But in later work he also showed that organising matters within companies had costs: in particular, it relied on internal authority to get things done, and this could be abused.

威廉逊证明了，投资决策对第三方往往不如对（第一、二两方结成的）某种关系更有价值， 而涉及这种投资决策的复杂的交易， 最好在一个公司里进行。 他说， 这里的一部分问题是， 某些经济交易如此复杂， 牵涉到容易出错的东西又如此之多， 不可能单单依靠一纸法律上可执行的契约就能应付所有可能发生的情况。比较简单的交易可在市场上轻易完成； 比较复杂的交易也许就需要公司。 不过， 在他后期的工作里， 他也证明了，在公司内部组织交易事宜是有成本的： 特别是， 为了做成事， 要靠内部权威， 但权威有可能被滥用。

Ms Ostrom has concentrated on a different aspect of economic governance. She has spent her life studying how human societies manage common resources such as forests, rivers, pastures or wildlife. Just as with public goods, it is difficult to prevent people from using the commons. But unlike public goods, and like private ones, what one person takes leaves less for others. Economic theory then predicts that rational individuals will overuse these resources.

奥斯特罗姆则注重经济治理的不同方面。 她毕生研究了人类社会如何管理诸如森林、河流、牧场或野生动植物之类的共同资源。 就像公共物品的情况那样， 要想防止人们使用共同资源是很困难的。但是， 跟公共物品不一样， 而跟私人物品一样， 一个人用了一点共同资源， 其他人也就少了这么一点。 经济理论预言了在这种情况下理性的个人会过度地使用这些共同资源。  

Economists (including Mr Coase) have tended to emphasise property rights as a solution to the problem of managing common resources. Typically that involves either privatisation or putting the resource in government hands. But Ms Ostrom, who is a political scientist by training, spent much of her early career studying how communities managed such common resources. She found that groups of people tended to have complex sets of rules, norms and penalties to ensure that such resources were used sustainably. Such self-governance often worked well.

包括科斯在内的经济学家们一直倾向于强调用产权来解决共同资源的管理问题。 有代表性的做法就是要嘛私有化， 要嘛将资源转交政府手中。 但是， 奥斯特罗姆，作为专业训练出身的政治科学家， 却将其早年职业生涯的许多时间拿来研究某些社区团体是如何管理这样的共同资源。 她发现， 这些人群倾向于建立一套一套复杂的规矩、准则和处罚条例以保证这些资源能被可持续地使用。 如此的自行-治理常可奏效。

Successful informal institutions, she found, have certain features in common, which sets them apart from institutions that fail. The principles of game theory, particularly the theory of repeated interactions, proved remarkably useful in formulating general principles of how common resources ought to be managed without necessarily resorting to private or state ownership.

她还发现， 治理成功的非正式机构， 都有一些共同的特点， 使之与那些治理失败的机构区别开来。 博弈论的原理， 特别是重复互动的博弈论， 被证明是相当的有用， 可以拿来以公式化的形式创立有关共同资源如不必私有或国有应如何管理这个问题的普遍原理。

Mr Williamson launched an entire branch of economic theorising which looks more deeply into firms than economists had tended to do previously. His theories have also helped with understanding the choice between equity and debt, and corporate finance more generally. Ms Ostrom’s research has spawned many experiments about how people interact strategically. Some of these have influenced game theory, which originally provided Ms Ostrom with her analytical tools.

威廉逊创立了经济理论化的整整一个分支， 这个分支在考察公司内部运作方面比先前经济学家所倾向做的，深刻了许多。 他的理论对理解筹股还是借债的选择以及理解更一般意义上的公司金融很有助益。 奥斯特罗姆的研究还引发了许多实验， 探讨人们如何战略性地互动。 这些实验， 有的还反过来影响了最初给奥斯特罗姆提供分析工具的博弈论。

The Nobel committee’s decision, like earlier awards to Amartya Sen and Daniel Kahneman, is a welcome shot in the arm for research that crosses disciplinary boundaries in the social sciences.

诺奖委员会的决定， 就像先前决定授奖给阿玛蒂亚.森和丹尼尔.卡内曼一样， 对于跨越社会科学学科边界的研究， 嘉奖鼓励， 令人可喜。