经济学人:企业管理经 如何将奖金与业绩挂钩?

 　　A publisher might buy a printing company in order to have more control over its assets, and ensure its presses are used to print its own books first.

　　出版商可能会为了对其资产有更多的控制权并确保印刷设备首先被用于印刷自家的图书而收购一家印刷公司。

　　Yet if the takeover means that the workers tending the presses see smaller rewards for their efforts, and their managers cannot keep tabs on them, they might shirk the extra sorts of work that keep the presses running as productively as possible.

　　然而，如果这一收购意味着维护印刷机的工人看到的是较小的对于他们努力的报答，同时他们的管理人员又不可能时时刻刻地监视他们，他们就可能减少保持印刷设备尽可能高效运转的额外工作。

　　So the theory has real-world relevance¹; Mr Hart used it to explain precisely² why inmates³ may fare worse at privately⁴ run prisons than at public ones.

　　因此，这一理论具有现实世界相关性；哈特曾用它精准地解释了为什么囚犯在私立监狱可能比在公立监狱过得差。

　　Managers of both care about the bottom line, but the incentive⁵ to cut costs is sharper in private prisons, because the profits flow into the pockets of owners who benefit directly.

　　两类监狱的管理人员都关注盈亏底线，但是，在公立监狱，消减成本的激励更加锋利，因为盈利流入直接获益的所有者的口袋。

　　The work of Mr Holmstrom, a Finnish economist⁶ at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, centres on the behaviour of individuals rather than organisations.

　　麻省理工芬兰裔经济学家霍尔姆斯特罗姆的研究重点是个人而非组织的行为。

　　Many of the basic power dynamics⁷ in society boil down to the relationship between one person—a principal—who needs another—an agent—to do something for him.

　　在社会中，许多基本的权力动力学可以归纳为一个人——委托人——需要另一个人——代理人——为其做事之间的关系。

　　The principal can use contracts to shape the incentives⁸ facing the agent, the better to get him to direct his activities.

　　委托人可以利用契约形成面向代理人的激励，能够让他以之指导他的行为更好。

　　Yet getting the incentives just right is no easy feat⁹.

　　然而，把激励设置的正合适不是那么容易的。

　　A firm owner setting pay for a senior manager wants to get his employee to deliver the best possible results.

　　为高级管理人员制定薪水的企业所有者想让他的雇员呈现最好的可能结果。

　　Linking a bonus to performance—to profits, for example—would seem to be the order of the day.

　　把奖金与业绩——如利润——挂钩似乎会成为当今的潮流。

　　Yet profits rise and fall for reasons which have nothing to do with managerial effort, such as the health of the economy.

　　然而，利润会因为经济体健康等与管理努力毫不相干的种种原因而上升和下降。

　　Bonus payments that mostly reward this sort of noise actually dull the incentives facing the manager.

　　大都奖励给这类干扰的奖金支付实际上是削弱了面向管理人员的激励。

　　Better to base contracts only on information (like profits relative to the industry average) which sheds light on the manager's true performance.

　　最好将契约只建立在彰显出管理人员真正业绩的信息 (如相对于行业平均水平的利润) 的基础之上。

　　Yet surprisingly often, firms opt¹⁰ not to structure pay in this way.

　　然而，令人吃惊的是，企业经常选择不用这种办法构成工资。

　　Mr Holmstrom's work describes why that might be so.

　　霍尔姆斯特罗姆的研究描述的正是可能如此的原因。

　　Most jobs are made up of many different tasks, for instance, some of which are easier to assess than others.

　　例如，大多数工作都是由许多不同的任务构成的，有些任务要比另外一些更容易评估。

　　Bonuses linked to the easily measured stuff, like profits, encourage agents to spend more time boosting those measures, at the expense of other, harder-to-measure things that are nonetheless important, like brand reputation or product quality.

　　与利润等容易衡量的东西相挂钩的奖金鼓励代理人，以品牌声誉或产品质量这些虽然重要但更难以衡量的东西为代价，花更多的时间去提高这些尺度。

　　In some cases, firms might therefore opt to pay fixed¹¹ salaries, or to separate roles into those specialising in the easy-to-assess tasks, who can be offered high-powered incentive pay, and others paid fixed rates for woollier sorts of work.

　　因而，在某些情况下，企业可能选择支付固定工资，或是把角色拆分为专门从事容易评估任务的人——他们能够被提供高水平的激励工资以及因为较为模糊的工作种类而被付给固定比率的其他人。

　　Throughout his career, Mr Holmstrom has worked out how the ways contracts can and cannot be made to manipulate others determine the structure of jobs, firms and even industries.

　　纵观其学术生涯，霍尔姆斯特罗姆一直都在设法解决契约能不能以某种具体的方式被打造出来以便影响决定工作、企业乃至行业结构的其他人。

　　Like many of the most deserving laureates, Mr Hart and Mr Holmstrom opened whole new lines of inquiry¹² to later economists¹³ (indeed, the winner of the prize in 2014, Jean Tirole, did important work in response to their contributions) .

　　如同许多最值得的得主一样，对于后来的经济学家而言，哈特和霍尔姆斯特罗姆开辟了质疑的全新线索 (实际上，2014年得主让·梯若尔在响应他们的贡献方面做出了重要的工作)。

　　The Nobel committee should be applauded for rewarding economists who place power dynamics front and centre.

　　诺奖评委会理应因为奖励将权力动力学置于前沿和中心的经济学家而得到掌声。

　　Economic life is messy, but it is also, occasionally, comprehensible.

　　经济生活是凌乱的，但偶尔也是可以理解的。

　　1.boil down 归结；烹煮

　　例句:He boils down red wine and uses what's left.

　　他把红酒熬稠后再用。

　　2.takeover 接管

　　例句:The takeover provoked a tempest of criticism.

　　这次收购引发了潮水般的批评。

　　3.incentive pay 奖金

　　例句:For employees, tender offers allow them to sell the shares they receive as incentive pay.

　　对员工来说，股权收购要约让他们得以卖出作为激励薪酬的股票。

　　4.work out 解决；算出

　　例句:Things just didn't work out as planned.

　　事情根本没有按计划进行。

1 relevance   

n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性

参考例句：

• Politicians' private lives have no relevance to their public roles.政治家的私生活与他们的公众角色不相关。
• Her ideas have lost all relevance to the modern world.她的想法与现代社会完全脱节。

2 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

3 inmates   

n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 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。

5 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。

6 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

7 dynamics   

n.力学，动力学，动力，原动力；动态

参考例句：

• In order to succeed,you must master complicated knowledge of dynamics.要取得胜利，你必须掌握很复杂的动力学知识。
• Dynamics is a discipline that cannot be mastered without extensive practice.动力学是一门不做大量习题就不能掌握的学科。

8 incentives   

激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 )； 刺激； 诱因； 动机

参考例句：

• tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
• Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者，提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

9 feat   

n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的

参考例句：

• Man's first landing on the moon was a feat of great daring.人类首次登月是一个勇敢的壮举。
• He received a medal for his heroic feat.他因其英雄业绩而获得一枚勋章。

10 opt   

vi.选择，决定做某事

参考例句：

• They opt for more holiday instead of more pay.他们选择了延长假期而不是增加工资。
• Will individual schools be given the right to opt out of the local school authority?各个学校可能有权选择退出地方教育局吗？

11 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

12 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

13 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》