2019经济学人考研英文文章阅读五十五

Behavioural economics

行为经济学

People are more honest than they think they are

人们比他们所认为的更诚信

More money in a lost wallet means it is more likely to be returned

钱包里的钱越多，找回来的可能性就越大

Imagine that you found a wallet in the street containing a stranger’s contact details but no cash.Would you go out of your way to return it to its owner?Now imagine that the same wallet contained a few

crisp banknotes.Would that alter your response?Does it depend on the amount of money?And how do you think other people would react in similar circumstances?

假如你在街上捡到了一个钱包，钱包里有主人的联系方式但没有钱。你会想办法物归原主吗？又假如在你捡到的这个钱包里有几张崭新的钞票。这会让你的行为有所改变吗？归还与否取决于钱的多少吗？你认为其他人在碰到类似的情况时会有什么反应？

Honesty makes the world go round.Without people trusting in one another,at least to a certain extent,society would fall apart.Honesty is

therefore studied academically.Most work in the area,though,takes place under controlled conditions in laboratories.

世界依靠诚信而运转。如果人与人之间不能够相互信任，社会（至少在一定程度上）会分崩离析。因此，人们对诚信进行了学术研究。不过，该领域的研究大都是在实验室的可控条件下进行的。

Moreover,it often features well-off and well-educated Westerners as its subjects.By contrast Alain Cohn of the University of Michigan and his colleagues have taken such behavioural economics around the world.And 40countries,355cities and more than17,000people later the results are in for their survey of civic honesty in the wild.

此外，研究对象往往是富裕且受过良好教育的西方人。相比之下，密歇根大学的阿兰·科恩和他的同事们在全球各地对这种行为学进行了研究。他们对全球40个国家、255个城市的超过1.7万人进行了诚信调查。

As the team report this week in Science,from Canada to Thailand and from Russia to Peru Dr Cohn’s research assistants entered public buildings like banks,museums and police stations.

正如研究小组本周发表在《科学》杂志上的报告所述，从加拿大到泰国，再从俄罗斯到秘鲁，科恩博士的研究助理来到了银行、博物馆和警察局等公共场所。

They handed in a dummy wallet to an employee in the reception area, saying they had found it on the street outside,before making a hasty exit. Each wallet was a see-through plastic card case containing three identical business cards(with a unique email address and a fictitious native man’s name),a shopping list(in the local language)and a key.

他们把一个事先准备好的钱包交给接待处的一名员工，并声称是从外面的大街上捡到的，然后匆匆离去。每个钱包都是一个透明的塑料卡片盒，里面装有三张相同的名片(名片上印有一个特定的电子邮箱地址以及一个虚构的当地人的姓名)、一张购物清单(用当地语言书写的)和一把钥匙。

Crucially,some wallets also included$13.45in the local currency,while some had no cash.Then,the team simply waited to see who would email the“owner”about returning the wallet.

更为关键的是，一些钱包里装有价值13.45美元的当地货币，而另一些钱包里则一分钱都没有。随后，研究小组就等着看谁会发邮件给“失主”以归还钱包。

In38of the40countries,the wallets with money in them were returned more often than those without(51%of the time,compared with40%for the cashless).While rates of honesty varied greatly between different places(Scandinavia most honest,Asia and Africa least),the difference within individual countries between the two return rates was quite stable around that figure of11percentage points.