Abhijit Banerjee on Theory, Practice, and India (Ep. 83)

They tend to be products that are — think of kids’ toys.

它们往往是儿童玩具的产品。

Most of kids’ toys are a matter of checking and making sure that they have nothing dangerous about it.

大多数儿童玩具都需要检查并确保它们没有任何危险。

And the checking is often done, actually, in other places — in Germany, for example.

实际上，检查通常是在其他地方进行的，例如在德国。

For some of the things, the checking is done in Germany even though the manufacturing is done in China.

对于某些产品，尽管制造是在中国进行的，但检查是在德国进行的。

As a result, the cost part of manufacturing is an extremely small part of the price of the good.

因此，制造成本只占商品价格的极小部分。

So what we pay in the US for the toy — a tenth of that might be the labor cost and the capital cost of it.

因此，我们在美国为玩具支付的费用——其中十分之一可能是劳动力成本和资本成本。

But that means that, essentially, the things that generate large earnings for people are not happening anymore.

但这意味着，从本质上讲，为人们带来巨额收入的事情已经不再发生。

Lots of this is just very, very well-designed products, of which brand-naming, marketing, making sure that they’re okay — all of these things are a huge part of the price.

其中很多都是设计得非常非常好的产品，其中品牌命名、营销、确保它们没问题——所有这些都是价格的很大一部分。

Therefore, essentially, if you think of the rest of it, which is a small amount — that means that, if you’re a worker, you’re getting 40 cents for a $10 toy or something, and that’s just not going to make a lot of rich people or even middle-class people.

因此，本质上，如果你考虑剩下的部分，那是一个很小的数额——这意味着，如果你是一名工人，你可以花 40 美分购买一个 10 美元的玩具或其他东西，而这不会让很多人成为富人，甚至中产阶级。

I think that right now, we don’t see a way to do what I think needs to be done, which is pick the best among these people and make them much, much bigger because I think the way petty entrepreneurs have been absorbed into the economy historically has been by making some people being very successful, employing lots of people and creating large enterprises.

我认为，现在我们还没有找到一种方法来做我认为需要做的事情，即在这些人中挑选最好的人，让他们变得更大、更大，因为我认为历史上小企业家融入经济的方式是让一些人非常成功，雇用很多人并创建大型企业。

People give the example of Italy, but if you study it carefully, even in Italy, a lot of the reason why the petty entrepreneurs can get somewhere is because there’s huge coordination by some brand name, Benetton being the classic example.

人们举了意大利的例子，但如果你仔细研究一下，即使在意大利，小企业家之所以能有所作为，很多原因是因为某个品牌的巨大协调，贝纳通就是一个典型的例子。

It’s not obvious to me that we are, right now, even thinking properly about a mechanism for getting the smallest entrepreneurs out of what they’re doing and into the labor market.

对我来说，我们现在是否正在正确考虑一种机制，让最小的企业家摆脱他们正在做的事情并进入劳动力市场，这一点并不明显。

It seems to me what was important was that it was a set of middle-skilled people.

在我看来，重要的是这是一群中等技能的人。

The skill range in which you could move was still accessible to people who had a poor education.

对于受教育程度较低的人来说，可以移动的技能范围仍然是可以的。

That was the key.

这是关键。

The key move was not so much whether it’s manufacturing or not, but rather, it was there’s some skills involved, and the skills can be learned, and the skills were available to people who didn’t start with having an excellent education.

关键的一步并不在于是否是制造业，而是涉及到一些技能，而且这些技能是可以学习的，而且这些技能对于那些没有接受过良好教育的人来说是可以获得的。

I don’t know.

我不知道。

It could be that manufacturing on top of that has additional benefits.

除此之外，制造业可能还有额外的好处。

That’s the part I really don’t know how to show or whether I actually believe or not.

这是我真的不知道如何表现，也不知道我是否真的相信的部分。

It’s not that I disbelieve it.

并不是我不相信。

It’s not that I have studied it.

不是我研究过的。

It’s just not clear to me that there’s a reason to think that, if the same options were available in services, they would not serve the same purposes.

我只是不清楚是否有理由认为，如果服务中提供相同的选项，它们将不会达到相同的目的。

I just don’t know whether either of that is about to happen.

我只是不知道这两种情况是否会发生。

There’s lots of these classes all over India in small towns.

印度各地的小镇上都有很多这样的课程。

“Learn English, work for a BPO.” And that’s exactly this idea that somebody with a high school education who’s smart, who’s enterprising, who’s willing to work hard can get trained in English, speak like an American, say, “Hello, this is John.” Or whatever you’re supposed to say and carry on a conversation.

“学习英语，为 BPO 工作。”这正是这样的想法：一个受过高中教育、聪明、有进取心、愿意努力工作的人可以接受英语培训，像美国人一样说话，说：“你好，这是约翰。”或者任何你应该说的话并进行对话。

And that training, I don’t see is any different from the upgrading of, I don’t know, a steelworker to a line supervisor.

我不认为这种培训与将钢铁工人升级为生产线主管有什么不同，我不知道。

I don’t know enough about either of these things, but it’s not obvious to me that a location or a small country could not get a lot of benefits out of services.

我对这两件事都了解得不够，但对我来说，一个地点或一个小国家不能从服务中获得很多好处并不明显。

The problem is more, the services are also where automation is hitting.

问题更严重的是，服务也是自动化受到冲击的地方。

On charter cities

关于特许城市

For charter cities, the idea that we are going to hand over the maintenance of our law and order to a different country, and somebody else will act as an enforcer, I think the democratic process doesn’t really .

对于特许城市来说，我们将把维护我们的法律和秩序交给另一个国家，而其他人将充当执行者的想法，我认为民主进程并不是真的。

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it’s very easy to exploit that.

利用这一点很容易。

It’s very easy to come and say, “Look, your government has been taken over by these enemy people or these foreign people, and they’re running.

很容易说：“看，你们的政府已经被这些敌人或这些外国人接管了，他们正在逃跑。

How could they be the people deciding what’s legal and what’s not?” Et cetera.

他们怎么能成为决定什么是合法的、什么是不合法的人呢？”等等。

This is politically extremely unstable, easy to attack, very visible targets.

这是政治上极其不稳定、容易受到攻击、非常明显的目标。

It’s not clear to me that is anything more than that.

我不清楚除此之外还有什么。

I think yes, if you could imagine a situation where the politics is exactly aligned right, where I would say that creating the legal and physical infrastructure for enterprises would be excellent.

我想是的，如果你能想象一种政治完全一致的情况，我会说为企业创建法律和实体基础设施将是非常好的。

But the idea that this is a country which can’t enforce its own laws, and therefore, outsiders can do it for them — there’s something in that idea that seems to me to be odd because it’s precisely the fact that this country can’t enforce its own laws because there’s something in this country which is making it hard to enforce those laws.

但是，认为这是一个无法执行自己法律的国家，因此外人可以为他们执行这一想法——在我看来，这个想法有些奇怪，因为事实上这个国家无法执行自己的法律，因为这个国家有些东西使得这些法律很难执行。

And maybe it’s competence, but it’s often not.

也许这是能力，但通常不是。

I mean, this is not just competence.

我的意思是，这不仅仅是能力。

There’s politically, the opportunities that these things offer are too tempting, it seems to me.

在我看来，从政治角度来看，这些事情提供的机会太诱人了。

There are only 10 examples of very successful entrepots, or maybe 15 or 20.

非常成功的转口港的例子只有 10 个，或者可能有 15 个或 20 个。

I don’t know the history well enough to say that.

我不太了解历史，无法这么说。

Venice, for a long time, was one, and then it stopped.

威尼斯在很长一段时间里都是其中之一，然后就停止了。

But is it that, essentially, your location is your ticket to success?

但从本质上讲，您所在的位置是否就是您成功的门票？

Or is it something more than that?

或者还有更多的事情吗？

Can you build economies out of entrepots?

你能利用转口港建设经济吗？

And there’s nothing tragic about it.

这并没有什么悲惨的。

It’s a normal way of things.

这是正常的事情。

I think that the question is more — the thing that we don’t understand is what makes that happen sooner or later, more or less, et cetera.

我认为问题更多的是——我们不明白是什么导致这种情况迟早、或多或少发生，等等。

Brazil grew for 20 years, extremely fast, between 1960 and 1980, and then essentially stopped for 20 years.

1960 年至 1980 年间，巴西经济增长了 20 年，速度极快，然后基本停止了 20 年。

Why do those kinds of things happen?

为什么会发生这样的事情呢？

That we don’t understand.

我们不明白。

I think we’re lousy at predicting growth in general.

我认为我们在预测总体增长方面表现不佳。

Singapore was a very, very fragile project in 1960 and one that, I think, they were lucky to have him as the dictator.

1960 年的新加坡是一个非常非常脆弱的项目，我认为他们很幸运有他作为独裁者。

I think he was, in the end, committed to some things which were .

我认为他最终致力于某些事情。

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But they could have easily had someone who had crazy views, and there were plenty of people with crazy views.

但他们很容易就有持有疯狂观点的人，而且持有疯狂观点的人有很多。

I think small cities at the edge of other, less liberal societies also are very strange examples to use.

我认为位于其他不太自由的社会边缘的小城市也是非常奇怪的例子。

I was at Dubai.

我当时在迪拜。

You see so many people from Saudi Arabia, Iran, et cetera, who need to escape their own societies temporarily for pleasure or for just freedom.

你看到很多来自沙特阿拉伯、伊朗等地的人，他们需要暂时逃离自己的社会以获得快乐或仅仅是为了自由。

I think lots of rich people around — Iraq less so — Iran and Saudi Arabia, probably two big countries with lots of rich people who need a playground.

我认为周围有很多富人——伊拉克较少——伊朗和沙特阿拉伯，可能是两个有很多富人需要游乐场的大国。

I don’t know that that’s replicable at any scale.

我不知道这是否可以在任何规模上复制。

On Indian sweets

关于印度糖果

There’s all kinds of conversations about this in the early-to-mid 19th century on what you can eat out, what is eating out, what can you buy in a shop, et cetera.

在 19 世纪上半叶，关于这个问题有各种各样的讨论，比如你可以外出就餐，什么是外出就餐，你可以在商店买什么，等等。

I think in the late 19th century you see that, basically, sweet shops actually provide not just sweets, but for travelers, you can actually eat a lunch there for 50 cents, even now, an excellent lunch.

我想在19世纪末，你会看到，基本上，糖果店实际上不仅仅提供糖果，而且对于旅行者来说，你实际上可以在那里吃一顿午餐，只要50美分，即使是现在，也是一顿很棒的午餐。

They’re some savories and a sweet — maybe for 40 rupees, you get all of that.

它们有一些咸味的，也有一种甜食的——也许 40 卢比，你就可以吃到所有这些。

And it was actually the core mechanism for reconciling Brahminical cultures of different kinds with a certain amount of social mobility.

它实际上是调和不同婆罗门文化与一定社会流动性的核心机制。

People came from outside.

人们从外面来了。

They were working in Kolkata.

他们在加尔各答工作。

Kolkata was a big city in India.

加尔各答是印度的一座大城市。

All the immigrants came.

所有的移民都来了。

What would they eat?

他们会吃什么？

I think a lot of these sweet shops were a place where you actually don’t just get sweets — you get savories as well.

我认为在很多糖果店里，你实际上不仅可以买到糖果，还可以买到咸味食品。

And savories are excellent.

开胃菜也很棒。

In Kolkata, if you go out for the day, the safest place to eat is in a sweet shop.

在加尔各答，如果您外出一天，最安全的用餐地点是糖果店。

It’s always freshly made savories available.

总是有新鲜制作的美味佳肴。

You eat the freshly made savories, and you get some sweets at the end.

你吃的是新鲜制作的咸味，最后你会得到一些甜点。

The high-end bakery, you pay 10 cents more for a baguette instead of 95 pence — whatever cents you pay — one euro and five cents for a baguette or something.

在高端面包店，你要多付 10 美分买一个法式面包，而不是 95 便士——无论你付多少钱——一欧元五美分买一个法式面包什么的。

And the baguettes are always excellent, and the cakes are excellent.

法棍面包总是很棒，蛋糕也很棒。

I actually think that it’s an interesting question, why the US is so exceptional in this.

我实际上认为这是一个有趣的问题，为什么美国在这方面如此出色。

In Italy, it’s the same.

在意大利，情况也是一样。

I don’t love the bread, but the pastries, excellent.

我不喜欢面包，但是糕点，很棒。

In Spain, it’s the same.

在西班牙，情况也是一样。

Indian sweets are actually relatively slow cooked.

印度甜食实际上煮得比较慢。

They don’t involve baking, which is the thing that goes wrong because once you stick it in the oven, it’s like God is your only guide.

它们不涉及烘烤，这是出了问题的地方，因为一旦你把它放进烤箱，就好像上帝是你唯一的向导。

So I think Indian sweets are relatively forgiving.

所以我觉得印度的甜食还是比较宽容的。

I much prefer to make Indian sweets than French sweets.

与法国糖果相比，我更喜欢制作印度糖果。

I love cooking, and I will make anything if I have the time, and mostly because I’m greedy.

我喜欢做饭，只要有时间我就会做任何东西，主要是因为我很贪心。

On Bengali intellectual influence

论孟加拉知识分子的影响

And I think that class very quickly started absorbing English writers and Scottish writers they read, by 1800 already.

我认为，到 1800 年，这门课很快就开始吸收他们阅读的英国作家和苏格兰作家。

This is just 25 years after you’re starting to see people who are writing in Bangla about Hume and about Rousseau.

距离你开始看到人们用孟加拉语撰写关于休谟和卢梭的文章仅仅 25 年。

They’re reading European writers mostly in English, but they’ve mastered English.

他们阅读的欧洲作家作品大多是英文的，但他们已经掌握了英语。

They’re reading all of these things.

他们正在阅读所有这些东西。

Contact with the British created this.

与英国人的接触创造了这一点。

This is very controversial, and I’ll get killed by many, many people who have strong views on this, but I think that it’s very hard to imagine exactly what happened then.

这是非常有争议的，我会被很多很多对此有强烈观点的人杀掉，但我认为很难想象当时到底发生了什么。

Maybe something else could have happened that was wonderful.

也许还会发生其他美妙的事情。

I don’t know the counterfactual, but what happened then was very much people absorbing English 18th-century liberal and conservative discourses, using them.

我不知道反事实，但当时发生的事情是，很多人吸收并使用了英国 18 世纪的自由主义和保守主义话语。

There’s a bunch of historians who studied this period, 1800 to 1840, in Bengal, and it’s a really fascinating period.

有一群历史学家在孟加拉研究了 1800 年至 1840 年的这段时期，这是一个非常迷人的时期。

They’re up in arms, they’re fighting the brahminical tradition.

他们拿起武器，与婆罗门传统作斗争。

The brahminical tradition is fighting back.

婆罗门传统正在反击。

The one fact that I like to emphasize is the first, I think, purely secular institution of higher education in the world is in Kolkata in 1817.

我想强调的一个事实是，我认为世界上第一所纯粹的世俗高等教育机构于 1817 年在加尔各答成立。

What now is called Presidency University was set up as Hindoo College, but Hindoo College was never for Hindus because the first famous professor there was Derozio, who was a Christian.

现在所谓的总统大学的前身是印度学院，但印度学院从来就不适合印度教徒，因为那里的第一位著名教授是基督徒德罗齐奥。

He was the first and perhaps the most visible sign of .

他是第一个，也许是最明显的标志。

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It was funded by the Hindu community, and the idea was each community will fund one, but in fact, that didn’t happen.

它是由印度教社区资助的，想法是每个社区都会资助一个，但事实上，这没有发生。

So Hindus, Muslims, Christians, everybody went there.

所以印度教徒、穆斯林、基督徒，每个人都去了那里。

This is 1817.

这是1817年。

Jefferson was very proud of having set up University of Virginia as a liberal arts university with libraries the central point — that’s in 1825.

杰斐逊对 1825 年将弗吉尼亚大学建立为一所以图书馆为中心的文科大学感到非常自豪。

So this is eight years before that they already set this up.

所以这是他们在八年前就已经建立起来的。

So there’s a long-winded way of saying, I think this is a moment in history which seems to me comes at the encounter with the British, the sense that there is this extremely successful culture out there.

所以有一种冗长的说法，我认为这是历史上的一个时刻，在我看来，它是在与英国人相遇时出现的，感觉到那里有一种极其成功的文化。

Whether there’s good or bad, we don’t know, but we can’t .

是好还是坏，我们不知道，但我们也不能知道。

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And people are saying that, and they’re writing that.

人们都这么说，他们也这么写。

“We need to know what these bastards are up to,” or whatever.

“我们需要知道这些混蛋在做什么”之类的。

They’re often quite negative, but they’re saying, “How could we not?

他们通常非常消极，但他们会说：“我们怎么能不呢？

They’re successful.

他们很成功。

They’re ruling the world.

他们正在统治世界。

We really need to know what they’re doing.”

我们确实需要知道他们在做什么。”

So they start reading up on all this stuff, and they’re writing about it.

所以他们开始阅读所有这些东西，并且正在写下来。

And this is by 1820s, actually, even before the 1820s.

事实上，这是 1820 年代的事，甚至是 1820 年代之前的事。

Ram Mohan Roy was the first, I think, great Bengali intellectual who’s, I would say, not left leaning.

我认为拉姆·莫汉·罗伊是第一位伟大的孟加拉知识分子，我想说，他不是左倾。

I think he’s very —

我认为他非常——

He writes in Persian a lot because he’s from the old aristocracy, which was trained in Persian.

他经常用波斯语写作，因为他来自旧贵族，接受过波斯语训练。

But he writes about all these very important liberal ideas.

但他写的是所有这些非常重要的自由主义思想。

He’s a liberal in a very important sense in which it’s much more than a leftist.

从某种非常重要的意义上来说，他是一位自由主义者，而不仅仅是一位左派。

He’s a liberal.

他是一个自由主义者。

And I think that liberal tradition becomes extremely contentious immediately, with the conservatives pushing back against them.

我认为自由主义传统立即变得极具争议性，保守派对此进行了反击。

And the liberal tradition then has, actually, a hard time not moving to the left.

事实上，自由主义传统很难不向左转。

So it does move to the left, but partly in reaction to a set of reactionary and completely meaningless reactions to the liberal tradition.

因此，它确实转向了左翼，但部分原因是对自由主义传统的一系列反动且完全毫无意义的反应。

They were a bunch of people who you can speak about in hallowed voices.

他们是一群你可以用神圣的声音谈论的人。

I could talk about them, but they didn’t .

我可以谈论他们，但他们没有。

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Their views seem to be mostly, “Come on, this is foreign stuff.

他们的观点似乎大多是：“得了吧，这是外国东西。

We don’t like it.” And so, I think, the liberal tradition grew partly in reaction to conservative pushback.

我们不喜欢这样。”因此，我认为，自由主义传统的发展部分是对保守派抵制的反应。

Conservative means conservative.

保守就是保守的意思。

I don’t mean Right or Left.

我的意思不是右或左。

But going back to the question of Left, I think the Left comes actually later.

但回到左派的问题，我认为左派其实来得更晚。

The liberals become Left later, partly in reaction to just the horrors of the last years of British rule.

自由派后来转为左派，部分原因是对英国统治最后几年的恐怖做出的反应。

I think the partition .

我认为是分区。

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No, Bengal starts the first piece of that in 1905.

不，孟加拉于 1905 年开始了第一部分。

But most importantly, the Bengal famine just completely moved everybody to the left because the Bengal famine in Bengal is seen as being egregious completely, a callous government with, maybe, some sympathy for the people who control the rice supply.

但最重要的是，孟加拉饥荒完全让每个人都转向左翼，因为孟加拉的孟加拉饥荒被认为是完全令人震惊的，一个冷酷无情的政府，也许对控制大米供应的人有一些同情。

Three million people die.

三百万人死亡。

Churchill sends ships that the Americans had sent with grains to India — doesn’t let them come to India — sends them to help British troops elsewhere.

丘吉尔将美国人运送谷物的船只派往印度——不让它们来到印度——派它们去帮助其他地方的英国军队。

And it creates, I think, an extremely strong basis for the Left.

我认为，它为左派创造了极其坚实的基础。

The Left really becomes very powerful starting in the ’40s.

从 40 年代开始，左派确实变得非常强大。

The Bengal famine is a defining event of that period.

孟加拉饥荒是这一时期的一个决定性事件。

This is one of the biggest famines ever.

这是有史以来最严重的饥荒之一。

And it’s such an egregious tragedy that a lot of people just feel that there’s something deeply wrong with the world.

这是一场如此令人震惊的悲剧，以至于很多人都觉得世界出了问题。

And that’s when from Tagore, who was basically a liberal, we moved to the left very quickly in the ’40s.

就在那时，泰戈尔基本上是一个自由主义者，我们在 40 年代很快就转向了左派。

Tagore dies in ’41, and after that, the Bengalis move quite sharply to the left.

泰戈尔于 41 年去世，此后，孟加拉人急剧左转。

It started before.

之前就开始了。

It’s not that it didn’t — there were elements of Marxist influence before, but I think the general move of Bengali intelligence to the left starts in the 1940s.

并不是说没有——以前也有马克思主义影响的因素，但我认为孟加拉情报界普遍左倾的趋势始于 20 世纪 40 年代。

I certainly believe the caste system is awful.

我当然相信种姓制度是可怕的。

I don’t know whether I would think its first-order effects are on growth directly or because they just happened to be a way of ethnic organization.

我不知道我是否会认为它的一阶效应直接对增长产生影响，还是因为它们恰好是种族组织的一种方式。

So whether, without the caste system, we would have had like in Pakistan .

那么，如果没有种姓制度，我们是否会像巴基斯坦那样。

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。

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。

Pakistan is a war zone between the Punjabis, the Pashtuns, and the Sindhis and the MQM.

巴基斯坦是旁遮普人、普什图人、信德人和民族民族运动之间的交战区。

The kind of movement of Karachi is exactly the .

卡拉奇的这种运动正是如此。

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。

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。

All of these people are fighting the Muhajirs or the people who come from India, so it’s a bunch of ethnic violence.

所有这些人都在与穆哈吉尔人或来自印度的人作战，所以这是一群种族暴力。

Whether India would have had other axes of violence .

印度是否还会有其他暴力轴心。

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。

.

。

In a sense, right now, the Indian political economy is moving, I would say a bit in the direction of trying to unify the Hindus against everybody.

从某种意义上说，现在印度的政治经济正在朝着试图团结印度教徒反对所有人的方向发展。

Whether that works or not, I don’t know.

这是否有效，我不知道。

I’m not sure whether that’s a desirable thing or not.

我不确定这是否是一件可取的事情。

I tend to think that diversity is helpful, actually.

事实上，我倾向于认为多样性是有帮助的。

It’s not obvious to me that, if the Hindus were not as divided, India may have gone in a much less liberal direction easily because there are other minorities, and it could have been much more organized on anti-minority lines.

对我来说，不明显的是，如果印度教徒没有那么分裂，印度可能会轻易地走向不那么自由的方向，因为还有其他少数群体，而且它本来可以在反少数群体的路线上更加组织化。

Part of the division, the fact that the Scheduled Caste don’t trust the upper caste might be actually — not necessarily — it might actually be a way of creating enough countervailing power, if you like.

作为分裂的一部分，在册种姓不信任上层种姓的事实可能实际上——不一定——如果你愿意的话，它实际上可能是一种创造足够抗衡力量的方式。

On Indian classical music

论印度古典音乐

In instrumental, Bengal was always very strong.

在器乐方面，孟加拉一直很强。

Right now, one of the best vocalists in India is a man who lives in Kolkata.

目前，印度最好的歌手之一是住在加尔各答的人。

His name is Rashid Khan.

他的名字叫拉希德·汗。

He’s absolutely fabulous in my view, maybe the best.

在我看来，他绝对是非常棒的，也许是最好的。

On a good day, he’s the best that there is.

在美好的一天，他是最好的。

He’s not a Bengali.

他不是孟加拉人。

He’s from Bihar, I think, and he comes and settles in Kolkata.

我想他来自比哈尔邦，他来到加尔各答定居。

I think a Hindi speaker by birth, other than a Bengali.

我认为他是出生时讲印地语的人，而不是孟加拉人。

So I don’t think Bengal ever had top vocalists.

所以我认为孟加拉从来没有顶级歌手。

It had top instrumentalists, and Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Nikhil Banerjee — these were all Bengali instrumentalists.

它有顶级的乐器演奏家，拉维·香卡（Ravi Shankar）、阿里·阿克巴·汗（Ali Akbar Khan）、尼基尔·班纳吉（Nikhil Banerjee）——这些都是孟加拉乐器演奏家。

Even now, I would say the best instrumentalists, a lot of them are either Bengali or a few of them are second .

即使是现在，我仍会说最好的乐器演奏家，其中很多人要么是孟加拉人，要么其中一些是第二名。

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。

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。

Vilayat Khan and Imrat Khan were the two great non-Bengali instrumentalists of that period, I would say, of the strings especially.

我想说，维拉亚特汗和伊姆拉特汗是那个时期两位伟大的非孟加拉乐器演奏家，尤其是弦乐演奏家。

And they both settled in Kolkata, so that their children grew up in Kolkata.

他们都定居在加尔各答，所以他们的孩子也在加尔各答长大。

And the other great instrumentalists are these Kolkata-born.

其他伟大的乐器演奏家都是加尔各答出生的。

They went to the same high school as I did.

他们和我上的是同一所高中。

There were these Kolkata-born, not of Bengali families, but from very much the same culture.

这些人出生在加尔各答，不是孟加拉家庭，但来自几乎相同的文化。

So I think Kolkata still is the place which produces the best instrumentalists — sitarists, sarod players, et cetera.

所以我认为加尔各答仍然是培养最好的乐器演奏家的地方——西塔琴演奏家、萨罗德演奏家等等。

But the deep South has a completely different tradition.

但南方腹地却有着完全不同的传统。

They sing in entirely different ways.

他们以完全不同的方式唱歌。

The tradition that I listen a lot to is the tradition of Maharashtra and North Karnataka.

我经常听到的传统是马哈拉施特拉邦和北卡纳塔克邦的传统。

And that’s where, to me, in my mind — the great home of classical vocal music right now is that part of India, the area kind of starting at Bombay, going down to Bangalore.

对我来说，在我看来，现在古典声乐的伟大发源地就是印度的那部分地区，这个地区从孟买开始，一直延伸到班加罗尔。

That chunk of India is where the great classical musicians are.

印度的这片土地是伟大古典音乐家的聚集地。

But no, much younger women who are in their 30s.

但不，是 30 多岁的年轻女性。

There are really some very talented ones, but I can’t remember their names right now.

确实有一些很有才华的人，但我现在记不起他们的名字了。

I am blanking on the names.

我对名字一片空白。

I will remember them as soon as I walk out of the room.

我一走出房间就会想起他们。

But there’s actually lots of talented people in their 30s, 40s.

但实际上30多岁、40多岁的人才有很多。

Indian classical music, being the kind of thing it is, you never become a top artist till you are in your late 30s or something.

印度古典音乐，就其本质而言，除非你三十多岁左右，否则你永远不会成为顶级艺术家。

And the movie industry has always been quite generous.

而电影界向来是相当慷慨的。

Ravi Shankar also was a music director for many films, and he composed music for many films, et cetera.

拉维香卡（Ravi Shankar）还担任多部电影的音乐总监，并为多部电影创作音乐等等。

Bollywood is actually a pretty good client for good classical musicians.

宝莱坞实际上是优秀古典音乐家的一个很好的客户。

And Bollywood is one of India’s great successes.

宝莱坞是印度最成功的电影之一。

On things under- and overrated

关于被低估和高估的事情

Economic growth prospects for Pakistan — it seems to me 30 years behind India.

巴基斯坦的经济增长前景——在我看来似乎落后印度 30 年。

Will it catch up, converge, or not?

它会赶上、收敛还是不会？

The South actually is where meat-eating is more common than in the North, bizarrely enough, though we associate the South with vegetarian food.

奇怪的是，南方实际上比北方更普遍吃肉，尽管我们将南方与素食联系在一起。

And Uttar Pradesh has fabulous food across the range.

北方邦拥有各种美味佳肴。

If you go to small towns in Uttar Pradesh, the meat, the vegetables, everything is stunningly good.

如果你去北方邦的小镇，那里的肉、蔬菜，一切都非常好。

Fish is stunningly good.

鱼是惊人的好。

I would have picked Uttar Pradesh, but Tamil Nadu being the other possible.

我会选择北方邦，但泰米尔纳德邦是另一个可能的选择。

Tamil Nadu is where Chennai is.

钦奈所在的地方就是泰米尔纳德邦。

Tamil Nadu has enormous variety.

泰米尔纳德邦种类繁多。

Again, going from meat, the Chettinad food all the way to very, very proper vegetarian food, and all that is really great.

再说一次，从肉类、切蒂纳德食物一直到非常非常合适的素食，所有这些都非常棒。

And that part of the southeast, the eastern South has great, great food.

东南部、东南部的那部分地区有很棒的食物。

And for them, I think confidence is an enormous issue because they’ve never actually done anything in their life successfully.

对于他们来说，我认为信心是一个巨大的问题，因为他们一生中从未真正成功地做过任何事情。

They’ve been living hand to mouth, usually begging from people, getting some help.

他们一直勉强糊口，通常向人们乞讨，获得一些帮助。

What that does to your self-confidence, your sense of who you are — I think those things, we haven’t even documented how brutal it is.

这对你的自信、你对自己的认识有什么影响——我认为这些事情，我们甚至还没有记录下来它有多么残酷。

People will treat you with a little bit of contempt.

人们会用一点轻蔑的态度对待你。

They might help you, but they treat you with a little bit of contempt as well.

他们可能会帮助你，但他们也会对你有点蔑视。

This is the kind of people — at least the one that I was a big part of studying was the one in India and also one in Ghana.

这就是这样的人——至少我主要研究的人是印度人和加纳人。

Especially the one in Bengal.

尤其是孟加拉的那个。

These women — they were living in places where nobody should live.

这些妇女——她们生活在没人应该居住的地方。

One said, “Oh, we get snakes all the time.” Another one said, “I’m now vending knickknacks in the village,” basically kind of cheap jewelry, that cheap stone jewelry or plastic jewelry.

其中一个说：“哦，我们总是遇到蛇。”另一位说，“我现在在村里卖小摆设”，基本上是一种廉价珠宝，廉价的石制珠宝或塑料珠宝。

“Before the people from this NGO showed me where the market was to buy wholesale, I had never taken a bus, so I had no idea how to go there.

“在这个非政府组织的人带我去哪里批发市场之前，我从来没有坐过公共汽车，所以我不知道怎么去那里。

They had to literally put me on a bus, show me where to get off.

他们不得不把我送上公共汽车，告诉我在哪里下车。

And it took a couple of times because I had never taken a bus.

因为我从来没有坐过公共汽车，所以花了好几次。

I couldn’t read, so if it’s a number X bus number, I don’t know what X is, so how would I know I’m getting on the right bus?”

我看不懂，所以如果是 X 路公交车号码，我不知道 X 是什么，那么我怎么知道我坐的是正确的公交车呢？”

All of these things are new.

所有这些都是新的。

If you start from a place where you really never had a chance, I think it’s useful to have some confidence building.

如果你从一个你真的没有机会的地方开始，我认为建立一些信心是有用的。

You can do it too.

你也可以做到。

There’s nothing difficult about it.

这没有什么困难的。

It’s a bit more than that.

还不止于此。

Turning things into process is important also, that here is how you get on a bus.

将事情转化为流程也很重要，这就是您如何上公交车。

You go there, you pay this much money, they give you something, you bring it back.

你去那里，你付了这么多钱，他们给你一些东西，你把它带回来。

One of the things they are doing is also turning it into a set of procedural steps, which is very different from saying, “Go do that.”

他们正在做的一件事是将其转变为一系列程序步骤，这与说“去做吧”有很大不同。

I think is a bit more than that.

我认为还不止于此。

It’s also saying, “You can do it, and here are the steps.” Turning things into a set of processes is important.

它还说：“你可以做到，步骤如下。”将事情变成一组流程很重要。

Otherwise, it looks like an unlikely proposition that I can do it.

否则，我似乎不太可能做到这一点。

I’ve never done it.

我从来没有这样做过。

I’ve never bought and sold things.

我从来没有买卖过东西。

In fact, I’ve never sold anything, and how do I do it?

事实上，我从来没有卖过任何东西，我该怎么做呢？

Lots of people work for NGOs, after all.

毕竟，很多人为非政府组织工作。

And they are often people who want to do things for the world, who are positive people, so I don’t imagine it being that difficult.

他们往往是想要为世界做事的人，都是积极的人，所以我不认为这有那么困难。

It will require investment in training a particular kind of person, but I don’t know that it’s any different from training somebody for collecting money in a microfinance organization.

这需要投资来培训特定类型的人，但我不知道这与培训某人在小额信贷组织中筹集资金有什么不同。

It’s the same level of skill, the same kind of person, same set of places we did this people will come out of.

这是相同水平的技能、相同类型的人、相同的地方，我们所做的这些人都会出来。

But actually, the story is kind of doing the rounds of the governments.

但实际上，这个故事正在各国政府中流传。

Many state governments in India now want to just do it, and that’s my exposure.

印度的许多邦政府现在都想这么做，这就是我的曝光。

In fact, today we were a part of a long email exchange on exactly how it should be done in the state of Orissa in the east of India that wants to do it.

事实上，今天我们参与了一次长时间的电子邮件交流，内容是关于印度东部奥里萨邦想要这样做的具体应该如何做。

I think it’s having some traction.

我认为它有一定的吸引力。

You see absolutely the Bertrand-Edgeworth pattern, and you’re seeing it right now in India where a bunch of airlines are going out of business because their prices were just too low at some level, and the competition was too hard.

你绝对可以看到伯特兰-埃奇沃斯模式，你现在在印度也能看到这种模式，那里有很多航空公司正在倒闭，因为它们的价格在某种程度上太低了，而且竞争太激烈了。

Jet Airways is gone, and Kingfish is gone.

捷特航空（Jet Airways）消失了，金鱼航空（Kingfish）也消失了。

India’s basically now down to three and a half airlines.

印度的航空公司现在基本上减少到了三个半。

It never flew because I think people really wanted the bells and whistles that we didn’t really provide.

它从未飞过，因为我认为人们真的想要我们没有真正提供的花哨功能。

Paul Krugman for a while did some advertising on not that paper, but the sequel of that paper, which was on open economies.

保罗·克鲁格曼（Paul Krugman）有一段时间不是在那份报纸上做了一些广告，而是在那份报纸的续集上做了一些广告，那是关于开放经济的。

But I think most people, the most macro people, real macro people didn’t see it as being .

但我认为大多数人，最宏观的人，真正宏观的人并不认为它是。

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。

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。

they thought it was too toy — the model.

他们认为这个模型太玩具了。

What you can do is design your treatment to follow what’s inside your head.

您能做的就是根据您的想法设计治疗方案。

And I think what’s very nice about randomized controlled trials is to say, “Look, if I want to keep digging into something, why is it not working?

我认为随机对照试验的好处就是说：“看，如果我想继续深入研究某些东西，为什么它不起作用？

I can keep varying the treatment exactly based on my current hypothesis.”

我可以根据我当前的假设不断改变治疗方法。”

In some ways, I think this process of working on it even more convinced me that this idea that we’re going to do theory which is kind of place- and time-independent is not helpful.

在某些方面，我认为这个研究过程更加让我相信，我们将进行与地点和时间无关的理论的想法是没有帮助的。

I think what’s the best thing with economics is that it gives you a toolkit.

我认为经济学最好的一点是它为你提供了一个工具包。

You interrogate things, and you say, “Oh, well it couldn’t be that.

你审问事情，然后说：“哦，好吧，不可能是那样的。

It couldn’t be that.

不可能是那样的。

Could it be this?”

会不会是这个？”

And that training that we get, which is an excellent training of thinking through multiple hypotheses — that’s what theory is about, in a sense, building ways to accommodate multiple hypotheses into the sparest narrative possible.

我们得到的训练是通过多种假设进行思考的绝佳训练——从某种意义上说，这就是理论的意义所在，它构建了将多种假设容纳到尽可能简洁的叙述中的方法。

So you want to see if these two forces — which of them win out under certain conditions.

所以你想看看这两种力量是否在某些条件下胜出。

And that kind of thing is great because it trains you to think about all the forces at play in a particular context.

这种事情很棒，因为它训练你思考特定背景下所有起作用的力量。

I think of economics as theory as being excellent training for the mind.

我认为经济学作为理论是对思想的极好的训练。

It gives you a way to ask, “I think it’s this, but could it be that?” And that training is still what makes me excited.

它给了你一种问的方式：“我想是这个，但也可能是那个吗？”那次训练仍然让我兴奋。

When I think about a new RCT, I think about maybe we can try this, maybe we can try that.

当我考虑一项新的随机对照试验时，我想也许我们可以尝试这个，也许我们可以尝试那个。

That’s what theory is about, in a sense, building ways to accommodate multiple hypotheses into the sparest narrative possible.

从某种意义上说，这就是理论的意义所在，即构建方法，将多种假设容纳到尽可能简洁的叙述中。

Now I teach PhD behavioral economics, so I’ve been educating myself in those things.

现在我教授行为经济学博士，所以我一直在这些方面进行自我教育。

The hypothesis set are maybe a bit wider, but the same idea, which is that theory trains you to ask questions about what you could get wrong or where you could get confused or how to interpret a particular fact, maybe.

假设集可能更广泛一些，但想法是一样的，即理论训练你提出问题，比如你可能会犯什么错误，或者你可能会在哪里感到困惑，或者如何解释一个特定的事实。

I think, naively, that this means that, but it’s not actually because we think about it.

我天真地认为这就是这个意思，但实际上并不是因为我们想到了这一点。

That was the great insight, I think, of the Chicago tradition.

我认为这是对芝加哥传统的伟大洞察。

They used it often, maybe, to defend the status quo, but the insight was not wrong.

也许他们经常用它来捍卫现状，但这种洞察力并没有错。

I think the way they used theory was very appropriate, which is to be interrogative.

我觉得他们用理论的方式非常恰当，就是质疑。

I do feel that we sort of stun people with “This much theory and this much macro is essential.” And there’s so much.

我确实觉得我们用“这么多的理论和这么多的宏观是必不可少的”来震惊人们。还有这么多。

We tease them so much that they don’t learn anything or they don’t look enough because I think some level, what maybe we got by having been at an early point is that we got little portable insights.

我们对他们进行了如此多的嘲笑，以至于他们没有学到任何东西，或者他们看起来不够，因为我认为在某种程度上，我们可能通过早期获得的是我们几乎没有可移植的见解。

And portable is the key word, which is that I want to take the insight and apply it to something immediately rather than know that, yes, there is this enormous edifice and the edifice can be built.

可移植是关键词，这就是我想要获得洞察力并将其立即应用到某些事物上，而不是知道，是的，有这座巨大的大厦并且可以建造这座大厦。

That to me is less useful than knowing the insight of why complete markets deliver efficiency.

对我来说，这不如了解完整市场为何带来效率的洞察有用。

Understanding that is very useful, not because it describes a world, but because it gives you a very clear understanding of what is going wrong, and we don’t teach it as such.

理解这一点非常有用，不是因为它描述了一个世界，而是因为它让你非常清楚地了解出了什么问题，而我们并不是这样教它的。

We teach it as “Here is a theorem about the world.” We don’t teach people to wonder about, “Here are 17 examples.

我们将其教授为“这是一个关于世界的定理”。我们不会教人们思考“这里有 17 个例子。

What’s going wrong in this one?

这到底出了什么问题？

Spot the place where the assumptions are failing.” Or “What’s incomplete in this market?

找出假设失败的地方。”或者“这个市场有什么不完整的地方？

And why does that potentially have big effects?”

为什么这可能会产生重大影响？”

I don’t think we do a good job of making these things get under people’s skin so that they feel, “I understand not just the theorem, which I can write down and prove, but also that this is, if I had to take it in my hand and use it to analyze a particular question, I’ll feel confident in doing that.”

我认为我们没有很好地让这些东西深入人心，让他们觉得，“我不仅理解这个定理，我可以写下并证明它，而且还知道，如果我必须把它拿在手里并用它来分析一个特定的问题，我会对此充满信心。”

And he would, when he taught advanced course — I don’t know if you took one — he would just draw a picture and say, “Look, this picture contains all the things that can go wrong, and this whole theorem is to show you conditions under which this doesn’t happen, but think about the picture and you are…

当他教授高级课程时——我不知道你是否学过——他会画一张图并说，“看，这张图包含了所有可能出错的东西，整个定理是向你展示这种情况不会发生的条件，但想想这张图，你就会……

I always think of that as being the key thing that I learned from both of them.

我一直认为这是我从他们身上学到的关键东西。

Just have the discipline to pinpoint.

只要有明确的纪律即可。

Don’t get lost in the complexity.

不要迷失在复杂性中。

The complexity is often man-made and sometimes unnecessary.

复杂性往往是人为的，有时是不必要的。

Find the key place where the argument is failing or what gives leverage to the argument in both directions.

找到论证失败的关键地方，或者是什么在两个方向上为论证提供了影响力。

And that’s what I learned.

这就是我学到的。

I think it’s a fabulous way to be trained because you don’t .

我认为这是一种极好的培训方式，因为你不需要。

.

。

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。

with Eric it’s unnerving, in a sense, because he’s so sharp, and if you say something that there’s three extra pieces to the argument and those are not needed, he’ll spot them immediately.

从某种意义上说，与埃里克在一起是令人不安的，因为他太敏锐了，如果你说争论中有三个额外的部分，而这些是不需要的，他会立即发现它们。

You get trained to say, “Look, this is the key point.

你被训练说：“看，这是关键点。

Rest of it is — we can build the infrastructure over it, but it’s not going to change the core insight.”

剩下的就是——我们可以在它上面构建基础设施，但这不会改变核心洞察力。”

And in a sense, her passion is not unrelated to the economics.

从某种意义上说，她的热情与经济不无关系。

She thinks of the economics and says, “But this economics is backwards.

她想到了经济学并说道：“但是这种经济学是倒退的。

It can’t possibly be that this is what the market needs to do to function.

这不可能是市场发挥作用所需要的。

So, where is it wrong?”

那么，到底哪里出了问题呢？”

She doesn’t necessarily always articulate the whole talk, but her passion, combined with a certain commitment to thinking it through — I think she’s just a fabulous example for growing up.

她不一定总是能清晰地表达整个演讲，但她的热情，加上对思考的一定承诺——我认为她是成长过程中的一个极好的榜样。

She would never be passive about the bad things that are happening in the world.

对于世界上发生的不好的事情，她绝不会袖手旁观。