诺贝尔经济学奖得主研究人们如何花钱

AS IT IS 2016-10-13 Nobel Prize Winners Studied Agreements Affecting Everyone 诺贝尔经济学奖得主研究人们如何花钱

Two professors at American universities have won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. They were honored for their work on business agreements that affect billions of people worldwide: contracts.

“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided¹ to award the Sveriges Richsbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2016 to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom for their contributions to contract theory.”

Goran Hansson, the Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the prize Monday.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prize was awarded for work on the theory of contracts. These agreements affect almost every part of modern life.

Contracts are everywhere

Insurance, loans, buying agreements, employment, property rights, political constitutions and marriage are all kinds of contracts.

Hart and Holmstrom developed a theory for understanding how contracts work. Their research has been used to design contracts. It relates to contracts in private markets and in public policy.

Contracts are agreements between a principal and an agent. One example of this relationship is the one between an employer and an employee.

The leader of a company and its shareholders² also have a contractual agreement.

Hart and Holmstrom’s work raised questions about tying the pay of high-level officials to a company’s current profits. They found that performance-based pay might not be the best policy in some cases. Doing so, may give a business leader an incentive⁴ to make decisions that increase profits for a short period of time. Those same decisions may harm the company over the long term.

The two also studied insurance contracts. They argued that people may become careless if insurance companies fully⁵ replaced things that are damaged in an accident, such as cars. So, insurance companies often have contract holders³ pay a deductible toward repair. Insurers also limit what they are willing pay for or replace in many cases.

Holmstrom worked with others to describe how contracts meant to improve one kind of performance can hurt overall job performance. For example, if teacher pay is tied to student test scores then many other parts of a teacher’s job could be negatively affected⁶.

Hart and Holmstrom worked together to show that contracts cannot describe every part of a job. Contracts are in some ways always incomplete.

The two said contracts cannot predict every need and requirement in the future. Holmstrom researched the subject for many years. He advised that contracts should make clear what needs to be done to deal with future disagreements between parties rather than center on specific requirements.

The new Nobel prize winners also examined whether some jobs are better done by government or private industry.

In 1997, Hart worked with others in a study that showed the incentive to reduce costs is usually stronger among private contractors⁷. The research called into question the policy of some privately⁸ run public services, like prisons.

The Nobel committee praised Hart and Holmstrom for providing the tools to think about and design better contracts in many different fields.

Oliver Hart was born in London. He spent much of his professional life at American universities. Co-winner Bengt Holmstrom was born in Helsinki, Finland. He also spent most of his career in the United States.

The two have been friends for years. The Nobel Prize committee’s twitter account Tweeted Hart’s reaction:

“My first action was to hug my wife, wake up my younger son ... and I actually spoke⁹ to my fellow Laureate” Oliver Hart #NobelPrize

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 10, 2016

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The two will share the economics prize worth $924,000. It is the only Nobel prize not established by Alfred Nobel. Sweden’s central bank established the prize in his honor.

The Nobel prize for literature will be announced Thursday.

Words in This Story

principal – n. a person or group who has responsibility as a guarantor of something such as payment

contribution – n. something that is done to cause something to happen

agent – n. someone acting¹⁰ on behalf of someone else

incentive – n. a reason to do something

deductible – n. an amount of a claim not paid by an insurance company

negatively – adv. badly; poorly

specific – adj. special or particular

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 shareholders   

n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
• the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任

3 holders   

支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物

参考例句：

• Slaves were mercilessly ground down by slave holders. 奴隶受奴隶主的残酷压迫。
• It is recognition of compassion's part that leads the up-holders of capital punishment to accuse the abolitionists of sentimentality in being more sorry for the murderer than for his victim. 正是对怜悯的作用有了认识，才使得死刑的提倡者指控主张废除死刑的人感情用事，同情谋杀犯胜过同情受害者。

4 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

5 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

6 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

7 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。