象牙塔中的诺贝尔经济奖

飞雪寒冰

The Nobel award for economics this week went to three scholars of unemployment. It is a timely topic. Joblessness has risen to a depressingly high level in the US, while not falling much (from depressingly high levels) in most of Europe. Sadly, the approach of the professors – Peter Diamond (nominated for the Federal Reserve), Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides – has little to offer.
本周，诺贝尔经济学奖被授予了三位研究失业问题的学者。这是一个热门话题。美国的失业率已高到让人沮丧的水平，而在欧洲多数国家，失业率并没有（从高得让人沮丧的水平）下降多少。令人遗憾的是，这三位教授——彼得•戴蒙德(Peter Diamond)（被提名出任美联储理事）、戴尔•莫滕森(Dale Mortensen)和克里斯托弗•皮萨里季斯(Christopher Pissarides)——的方法，提供不了什么答案。

Their topic is ”Markets with Search Costs” – in particular the ways in which employees and employers find each other and agree on wages. The Nobel Committee is pleased that since their work appeared, “the applied research on labour markets, both theoretical and empirical, has flourished”.
他们的研究题目是“存在搜寻成本的市场”——特别是雇主和雇员如何搜寻到彼此、并就工资达成共识。令诺贝尔奖委员会满意的是，自从他们的研究成果发表以来，“对于劳动力市场的应用研究，无论是理论研究还是实证研究，开始繁荣发展”。

飞雪寒冰

The theoretical flourishing is seen in impressive equations which explain the effects of what economists call imperfections on the labour market. Hard theoretical work is required because the starting assumption of market perfection – employers and employees know everything and there are no costs for changing jobs – is so unrealistic.
从令人惊叹的方程式中，可以看出理论研究的高度发展。这些方程式解释了经济学家所说的劳动力市场的不完美性。艰苦的理论研究是有必要的，因为市场完美性的初始假设——雇主与雇员掌握一切信息，而且更换工作没有成本——非常不切实际。

Empirical progress is much less evident. Three examples of relevant research findings are provided in the 35-page prize essay. “More generous benefits tend to increase the duration of unemployment”; a worker is more likely to find a job as “benefit exhaustion” approaches; and higher unemployment rates are associated with fewer vacant jobs. It certainly sounds like an obscure theory has spawned some obvious generalisations.
实证研究的进展则远没有那么明显。35页的颁奖词中，提到了三个相关研究发现：“救济金越丰厚，失业期往往就越长”；当“救济金耗尽”的日子逼近，工人就更可能去找工作；失业率上升，往往和空缺职位减少有关。听上去，这无疑像是用一种晦涩难懂的理论，推导出了一些显而易见的普遍规律。

飞雪寒冰

The many economist fans of the winning threesome say their analytic framework helps address such key policy issues as the level of unemployment benefits and the structure of employment contracts. Maybe, but almost 40 years of research (the earliest paper dates from 1971) was not enough to keep labour economists from being totally surprised at how the recession played out in different countries. If the prize-winning research really is the leader in this particular intellectual market, then there is room for some disruptive innovation.
三位获奖者的许多经济学家粉丝表示，他们的分析框架有助于解决诸如失业救济金水平和雇佣合约结构等关键的政策问题。或许吧，但尽管经过了将近40年的研究（最早的一篇论文可追溯到1971年），经济衰退在不同国家的演进势头仍然能让劳动力经济学家们仍感到震惊。如果说这次获奖的研究的确是这一特定学术领域最成功的理论，那么，该领域还有着进行颠覆性创新的空间。