2023年经济学人 为什么经济学不能理解商业(2)（在线收听）

为什么经济学不能理解商业(2)

    Where there is the delegation of tasks, there is a problem of motivation--how to get an employee to act on behalf of the firm, to be a team player, rather than narrowly self-serving.

    哪里要委托任务，哪里就有动力问题 -- 如何让员工代表公司行事，成为团队的一员，而不是狭隘地为自己谋利。

    This is known in economics as the principal-agent problem, the source of much illuminating theory in this period.

    这在经济学上被称为委托代理问题，是这一时期许多有启发性的理论的来源。

    Incentives matter, of course, but often the best approach is for organisations to pay a fixed salary and not to tie rewards to any one task.

    当然，激励很重要，但通常最好的方法是让组织支付固定的工资，不要将奖励与任何一项任务挂钩。

    Tie teachers' pay to exam results, for instance, and they will "teach to the test", instead of inspiring pupils to think independently.

    例如，如果将教师的工资与考试成绩挂钩，他们就会"为了考试而教学"，而不是鼓励学生独立思考。

    Such avenues of research would earn Nobel prizes in economics for Oliver Williamson, Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom.

    这样的研究途径后来让奥利弗·威廉森、奥利弗·哈特和本特·霍姆斯特罗姆赢得诺贝尔经济学奖。

    (Coase had won the prize in 1991; Simon in 1978.)(科斯于1991年获奖，西蒙于1978年获奖。)

    Their work explains in part why, by the mid-1990s, our business-school professor was so confident that economics should rule the study of business.

    他们的工作在一定程度上解释了为什么在20世纪90年代中期，商学院的教授们如此自信地认为经济学应该统治商业研究。

    The bestselling books of Michael Porter, an economist-turned-business guru, further fuelled such optimism, as did excitement about the potential for game theory in corporate strategy.

    迈克尔·波特是一位经济学出身的商业界大师，他的畅销书进一步助长了这种乐观情绪，人们对博弈论在企业战略中的潜力感到兴奋，这也起到了相同的助长作用。

    Yet today if a firm hires a chief economist, it is for a take on GDP growth or the policy of the Federal Reserve.

    然而，现在如果一家公司聘请了一位首席经济学家，那是为了咨询关于GDP增长或美联储政策的看法。

    It is not for advice on corporate strategy.

    而不是寻求企业战略方面的建议。

    There are reasons for this.

    出现这种现象是有原因的。

    One is academic prestige.

    一个原因是学术声望。

    Economics likes to see itself as a foundational discipline, like physics, not a practical one, like engineering.

    经济学喜欢把自己看作类似物理学的基础学科，而不是类似工程学的实用学科。

    But most of what makes for a flourishing business cannot be captured in a tight theory with a few equations.

    但是，促成企业蓬勃发展的大部分因素，不可能用含有几个方程式的严密理论来描述。

    Often it is a matter of how well ideas, information and decision-making spread throughout the firm.

    通常，这是想法、信息、决策在整个公司传达得有多好的问题。

    And pay is not the only motivation.

    而薪酬并不是唯一动力。

    Strong businesses are shaped by shared values and common ideas about the right way to do things--by corporate culture.

    强大的企业是由共同的价值观和对于正确做事方式的共同看法而塑造的，即企业文化。

    People take pride in their work and their workplace.

    人们为自己的工作和工作单位感到自豪。

    These are not natural subjects for economists.

    这些不是经济学家会自然研究的主题。

    Nor is economics comfortable with the specificity of business problems.

    经济学也对商业问题的特殊性感到不自在。

    Solving them is more than a simple matter of establishing the right economic incentives.

    解决这些问题不仅仅是建立正确的经济激励机制这么简单。

    It requires detailed knowledge of technology, processes and competitors as well as social psychology and political trends.

    还需要对技术、流程、竞争对手，以及社会心理学和政治趋势有详细的了解。

    Economics is never enough.

    光靠经济学是永远不够的。

    Many of the influences on any topical business issue--which tech firm will win the AI race, say--lie outside its purview.

    对热门商业问题 -- 比如哪家科技公司将赢得人工智能竞赛 -- 产生各种影响并不在经济学的权限之内。

    There are economic ideas that business people ignore at their peril.

    而有一些经济学理念，商界人士若忽视了，就要自己承担风险。

    If a firm's strategy can be freely copied, it should expect its profits to be competed away quickly.

    如果一家公司的战略可以被自由复制，它就应该预料到自己的利润会很快被竞争对手夺走。

    A sound business needs an edge.

    稳健的企业需要有自己的优势。

    But beyond such precepts, economics has little of practical use to say about what makes a successful company.

    但除了这些准则，在说明是什么造就了成功企业方面，经济学几乎没有实际用处。

    The study of business remains an outpost of the empire.

    商业研究仍然是经济学帝国的边远前哨。

    It now seems unlikely it will ever fully conquer the terrain.

    现在看来，经济学可能永远无法完全征服这一地带。