Esther Duflo on Management, Growth, and Research in Action (Ep. 82)
Today I am very honored to be here with Esther Duflo, who recently has won a Nobel Prize in economics, the youngest economics winner ever.
今天，我非常荣幸能与埃丝特·迪弗洛一起来到这里，她最近获得了诺贝尔经济学奖，成为有史以来最年轻的经济学奖获得者。
And today, our date of recording, is also, I believe, the publication date for her new book with Abhijit Banerjee, and that is called Good Economics for Hard Times.
今天，我相信，我们的记录日期也是她与阿比吉特·巴纳吉 (Abhijit Banerjee) 合作的新书的出版日期，这本书被称为《艰难时期的良好经济学》。
Esther, welcome.
以斯帖，欢迎。
Thank you very much.
非常感谢。
Thank you for having me.
谢谢你有我。
My first question has to do with what, I think, is maybe your most important paper.
我的第一个问题与我认为可能是您最重要的论文有关。
And that’s the 2015 paper in Science with Abhijit, Dean Karlan, and some other coauthors.
这是 2015 年 Abhijit、Dean Karlan 和其他一些合著者在《科学》杂志上发表的论文。
There you show that a cash transfer to the very poor, combined with training and coaching, has super-high rates of return.
在那里你可以看到，向赤贫者提供现金转移，再加上培训和指导，可以获得超高的回报率。
Why don’t people study that more?
人们为什么不多研究一下呢？
It seems to be the most potent intervention we have to fight poverty, other than migration.
这似乎是除移民之外我们对抗贫困最有效的干预措施。
I think it has been studied a lot.
我认为它已经被研究了很多。
It has also been adopted as policy after this original study and other studies.
在这项原始研究和其他研究之后，它也被采纳为政策。
The original project comes from Bangladesh, and there actually has been a study and a long-run study in Bangladesh by Robin Burgess and others who are now looking at households 10 years hence.
最初的项目来自孟加拉国，实际上 Robin Burgess 和其他人在孟加拉国进行了一项研究和一项长期研究，他们现在正在研究 10 年后的家庭。
And you continue to see large differences between the households who got the transfer.
而且你仍然会看到接受转移的家庭之间存在巨大差异。
And they have a recent paper that they just released to say that they continue to study it, where they are really putting a lot of theory into it to look at the data through the lens of asking, actually, is there a poverty trap in which some of these households have fallen?
他们最近刚刚发布了一篇论文，表示他们正在继续研究它，他们确实在其中投入了大量理论，通过询问的角度来看待数据，实际上，是否存在其中一些家庭陷入贫困陷阱？
They show that, in fact, there is such a thing with a threshold of wealth above which — if households can go above — they can grow to a point where they are significantly better off.
他们表明，事实上，财富存在一个门槛，如果家庭能够超越这个门槛，他们的财富就能增长到显着改善的程度。
And if they are below it, they go back to wherever they came from.
如果他们低于它，他们就会回到他们来自的地方。
I think that’s a very important paper that is making a big splash and show people continue.
我认为这是一篇非常重要的论文，引起了巨大的轰动，并向人们展示了继续前进的动力。
In our case, the part of the study that I was most involved with was in West Bengal.
就我们而言，我参与最多的研究部分是在西孟加拉邦。
We also continued to study them after 10 years.
10年后我们也继续研究它们。
We are studying their children as well.
我们也在研究他们的孩子。
We are studying the impact on migration to go through not just, “Oh, wait, there is an effect,” but how all of these effects are building on each other.
我们正在研究对移民的影响，不仅仅是“哦，等等，有影响”，而是所有这些影响如何相互叠加。
As I understand the paper, there’s a cost-benefit ratio of 133 percent to 433 percent across six countries.
据我了解，六个国家的成本效益比为 133% 至 433%。
That’s enormous.
那是巨大的。
What exactly about the mentor makes the difference as opposed to just giving people cash?
与仅仅给人们现金相比，导师究竟有何作用？
What is the mentor or the coach actually teaching?
导师或教练实际上教什么？
Just from this particular experiment, it would be hard to tell because one could say, “Well, you should try to do cash only, and then we can see.” But subsequently Abhijit and Dean Karlan were involved in an experiment in Ghana where they just gave goats.
仅从这个特定的实验来看，很难说清楚，因为人们可能会说，“好吧，你应该尝试只做现金，然后我们才能看到。”但随后阿比吉特和迪恩·卡兰参与了加纳的一项实验，他们只给了山羊。
They call it a goat drop paper.
他们称之为山羊滴纸。
Just goats were given, without the coaching.
只给了山羊，没有指导。
And there, they find very clearly that the coaching makes a big difference, that people who you give just assets to have more assets, but it doesn’t serve as a springboard for more activities.
在那里，他们非常清楚地发现，辅导会产生很大的影响，你给予的人只是为了拥有更多资产，但它并不能作为更多活动的跳板。
So descriptively, what the coach does is two things.
从描述上来说，教练所做的有两件事。
Number one is avoid the temptation of liquidating the assets quite early.
第一是避免过早变现资产的诱惑。
If you give people cows and they don’t feel confident using them, then the easiest thing to do is to sell them.
如果你给人们牛，而他们对使用它们没有信心，那么最简单的办法就是卖掉它们。
And then they have cash, but they don’t have the productive asset anymore.
然后他们有了现金，但他们不再拥有生产性资产。
The second thing is to provide the complementary human capital for taking care of your assets.
第二件事是提供补充人力资本来照顾您的资产。
For example, when people are given cash — some people are given cash to start a petit business — but have no idea even how to go to the market because the poorest person in a village is also excluded from productive activities.
例如，当人们获得现金时——有些人获得现金来开展小生意——但甚至不知道如何去市场，因为村里最贫穷的人也被排除在生产活动之外。
They have not really been working.
他们并没有真正工作。
Or if they have been working, it’s in very local circumstances.
或者，即使他们一直在工作，也是在非常当地的情况下进行的。
They really have no idea.
他们真的不知道。
So the coaches are physically taking them to the market.
所以教练们亲自带他们去市场。
This is how you take the bus, this is where you buy the trinkets that you’re going to sell in the village, and this is how you bargain for your trinkets and then come back with the trinkets and sell them.
这就是你乘坐公共汽车的方式，这是你购买要在村里出售的小饰品的地方，这就是你讨价还价的方式，然后带着小饰品回来并出售它们。
So there is an amount of technical skills, if you will.
所以如果你愿意的话，这里有大量的技术技能。
The third component, which is harder to quantify but probably very important as well, is confidence training.
第三个组成部分很难量化，但可能也非常重要，那就是信心训练。
They are meeting in groups.
他们正在分组聚会。
Those are people who have not been involved in productive activities, often are living off alms or very petit works.
这些人没有参与生产活动，常常靠施舍或做一些微不足道的工作为生。
They are making them confident that they can do it.
他们让他们相信自己能做到。
How scalable is the coaching in your opinion?
您认为辅导的可扩展性如何？
That’s a good question, to which we should have an answer soonish because there is now scale-up of these programs in various countries, and in particular in India.
这是一个很好的问题，我们应该很快就能得到答案，因为现在这些项目正在各个国家（尤其是印度）扩大规模。
Some state governments in India are scaling this up as part of their program.
印度的一些邦政府正在扩大这一规模，作为其计划的一部分。
So they are mainstreaming it as part of their program, still with the support of the original microfinance institutions that have been running this program, but hiring many, many, many people.
因此，他们将其纳入主流，作为其计划的一部分，仍然得到运行该计划的原始小额信贷机构的支持，但雇用了很多很多人。
So you will be able to see whether you could do this with the best NGO worker of the country, and you only have a hundred of those, and then that’s done.
所以你将能够看到你是否可以用这个国家最好的非政府组织工作人员来做这件事，而你只有一百个人，然后就完成了。
Or whether this is something that can be spread.
或者说这是否是可以传播的东西。
What is encouraging in this respect is that in Bangladesh, the program is huge as it is.
在这方面令人鼓舞的是，在孟加拉国，该计划规模庞大。
It’s enormous.
这是巨大的。
It reaches hundreds of thousands of families as it is.
它照原样惠及数十万家庭。
So to some extent, we already have the answer to how scalable it is because it’s already scaled.
所以在某种程度上，我们已经知道了它的可扩展性如何，因为它已经可以扩展了。
And even the evaluation by Robin Burgess and others was done on a quite large scale.
甚至罗宾·伯吉斯等人的评估也是相当大规模的。
Have you ever thought you should just spend the rest of your career working on this intervention, and 5 percent of the economics profession should just work on this, with possible rates of return so high for the world’s biggest problem, which is poverty, right?
你有没有想过你应该把你的余生都花在这项干预措施上，而 5% 的经济学专业人士应该只从事这项工作，而解决世界上最大的问题，即贫困，可能的回报率如此之高，对吗？
Why don’t we do much, much more of working on this problem, on this study?
为什么我们不在这个问题上、在这项研究上做更多、更多的工作呢？
One should certainly continue to do more working on this study and working on the questions you were asking about the scale-up and working on how various modalities of it want.
人们当然应该继续在这项研究上做更多的工作，解决你所提出的有关扩大规模的问题，并研究它的各种模式想要如何。
Already, the study you mention in Science was already a sign that there is at least some interest in the economics profession to focus on this question because it was the second paper on this.
你在《科学》杂志上提到的研究已经表明，经济学界至少有一些兴趣关注这个问题，因为这是关于这个问题的第二篇论文。
The first paper was the evaluation of the mothership program in Bangladesh.
第一篇论文是对孟加拉国母舰计划的评估。
People didn’t say, “Oh, that’s a nice program.
人们没有说：“哦，这是一个不错的计划。
Let’s go and study something new.” Instead, Dean Karlan led a group of people to replicate this same evaluation in seven different countries, which was a very major undertaking involving lots and lots of researchers and NGOs.
我们去研究一些新的东西吧。”相反，卡兰院长带领一群人在七个不同的国家复制了同样的评估，这是一项涉及大量研究人员和非政府组织的非常艰巨的任务。
So the fact that people were willing to do that, to write a 12-page paper in Science at the end of it, suggests that there is already recognition that it’s a very important topic.
因此，人们愿意这样做，并在最后在《科学》杂志上写一篇 12 页的论文，这一事实表明，人们已经认识到这是一个非常重要的主题。
Now, should everybody do that?
现在，每个人都应该这样做吗？
I guess there are probably diminishing returns to effort on the particular problems, and there are other interesting problems to look at.
我想在特定问题上的努力回报可能会递减，并且还有其他有趣的问题需要研究。
So I’m glad that people continue working on this.
所以我很高兴人们继续致力于此。
And I think the work is only going to deepen, both in understanding the mechanism better, understanding variations around it, and understanding how to make it adopted as policy — because I completely agree with you that of everything that I’ve done, studied in my life, that this is one with the most important, spectacular results.
我认为这项工作只会加深，无论是更好地理解这个机制，理解它周围的变化，还是理解如何将其采纳为政策——因为我完全同意你的观点，在我一生中所做的、所研究的一切中，这是一个最重要、最引人注目的结果。
On Microcredit in Hyderabad
海得拉巴的小额信贷
You have some well-known papers with coauthors about microcredit programs in Hyderabad, India, and I’ve long had some questions about how those programs actually work.
你们与合著者发表了一些关于印度海得拉巴小额信贷项目的著名论文，长期以来我一直对这些项目的实际运作方式存有一些疑问。
As you know, often the borrowing families are paying annualized rates of 50 to 100 percent a year.
如您所知，借款家庭每年支付的年利率通常为 50% 至 100%。
And they keep on borrowing.
他们继续借贷。
They’re not just borrowing once to bring the kid to the doctor.
他们不仅仅是借一次钱来带孩子去看医生。
They’re in a steady borrowing program.
他们正在进行稳定的借贷计划。
And at the same time, they’re not just drained of all their wealth.
与此同时，他们不仅耗尽了所有财富。
Does that imply there are rates of return on investment in those communities of 50 to 100 percent a year?
这是否意味着这些社区的投资回报率为每年 50% 到 100%？
And if that’s true, why aren’t the growth rates higher?
如果这是真的，为什么增长率没有更高？
Do you get my question?
你明白我的问题吗？
How does the whole thing fit together?
整个事情是如何结合在一起的？
Well, it actually does not imply that, because the plurality of these households, maybe the majority of these households, does not actually invest in any productive activity with the money, so most of the interest are paid from people’s regular jobs.
嗯，这实际上并不意味着，因为这些家庭中的大多数，也许是这些家庭中的大多数，实际上并没有用这些钱投资于任何生产性活动，所以大部分利息都是从人们的常规工作中支付的。
But don’t they just get drained dry?
但它们不是会被榨干吗？
If I borrowed every year at 80 percent —
如果我每年借80%——
Oh, it’s not the same households that keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing.
哦，这不是那些不断借钱借钱的家庭。
In fact, the number of repeat customers is less than you might think.
事实上，回头客的数量比你想象的要少。
People join microfinance, take a loan, buy something.
人们加入小额信贷、贷款、买东西。
It can be a durable good, for example, a fridge or a cycle, and then use their regular income to repay it.
它可以是耐用品，例如冰箱或自行车，然后用他们的常规收入来偿还。
For some households that’s a very, very expensive way to save in some sense because what they’re looking for is accumulating enough money to buy this durable good that they want for the household.
对于一些家庭来说，从某种意义上来说，这是一种非常非常昂贵的储蓄方式，因为他们正在寻找的是积累足够的钱来购买他们想要为家庭提供的耐用品。
But it’s very difficult to save because there are no saving instruments and there are a lot of temptations, et cetera.
但储蓄却非常困难，因为没有储蓄工具，还有很多诱惑等等。
So the microcredit officer serves as a commitment once you borrow the money.
因此，一旦你借了钱，小额信贷官员就充当了承诺。
The incentive of the credit officer is very strongly to make sure that everybody reimburses.
信贷员的动机非常强烈，以确保每个人都能偿还费用。
That will create a way for you to get your assets and then progressively reimburse.
这将为您创造一种获取资产然后逐步偿还的方式。
That seems kind of a funny way to save, but I think it’s a reasonable response in the environment.
这似乎是一种有趣的储蓄方式，但我认为这是对环境的合理反应。
And then there are some people who are borrowing for business.
还有一些人借钱做生意。
We have a recent paper where we look at the same setting again, but now eight years after microfinance was introduced, and in fact, two years after it’s gone because there was a huge crisis of microfinance.
我们最近有一篇论文，我们再次审视相同的环境，但现在是小额信贷推出八年后，事实上，是小额信贷消失两年后，因为存在巨大的小额信贷危机。
We look at the group of people who had a business before microcredit even got in, so they are people who actually borrowed to invest in their business often.
我们观察的是在小额信贷进入之前就已经开展业务的人群，因此他们实际上经常借钱来投资自己的业务。
And for those guys, we see that some of these people are actually at very, very high rates.
对于这些人，我们看到其中一些人的比率实际上非常非常高。
So there are some people with very high rates of return, as you were saying, 50 percent or 60 percent.
所以有些人的回报率非常高，就像你说的，50%或60%。
But there are not very many.
但数量并不多。
I think that is why the .
我认为这就是原因。
.
。
.
。
First of all, there are not very many, and they are not necessarily the one that have access to money.
首先，这样的人并不多，也不一定是有钱的人。
That’s one of the big reasons why the cost is lower, is that there is a mismatch between the investment opportunity and who has the money.
这是成本较低的重要原因之一，就是投资机会和谁有钱之间存在不匹配。
And that’s what my colleagues call misallocation.
这就是我的同事所说的错配。
Your randomized control trials — they’re very large.
你们的随机对照试验——它们非常大。
They employ large numbers of people.
他们雇用大量人员。
I even once visited the Hyderabad project, was very impressed how much was going on.
我什至曾经参观过海得拉巴项目，其进展给我留下了深刻的印象。
Do you have a personal philosophy of management or leadership?
您有个人的管理或领导哲学吗？
Esther Duflo the manager, not the economist — tell us a little bit about her.
埃丝特·迪弗洛（Esther Duflo）是经理，而不是经济学家——请给我们介绍一下她。
I kind of stumbled onto this because, as most academics, I was not born to be a manager.
我偶然发现了这一点，因为与大多数学者一样，我生来就不是一名经理。
I didn’t bring a premade philosophy to this business, but I developed one, and it has several elements to it.
我并没有给这个行业带来一种预先制定的哲学，但我开发了一种哲学，它有几个要素。
The key is that I’m not a micromanager.
关键是我不是一个事无巨细的人。
The key is that you want to give people a pretty clear vision of where we’re heading and then give them a lot of ownership for how we are getting there.
关键是你想让人们对我们的前进方向有一个非常清晰的愿景，然后让他们对我们如何实现目标有很大的自主权。
That is true for the whole organization of J-PAL, which is the sum total, the network of all these researchers, where from the very beginning, with the first executive director, Rachel Glennerster — it was really her thing to lead, and she put her mark to it.
对于 J-PAL 的整个组织来说也是如此，它是所有这些研究人员的网络的总和，从一开始，由第一任执行董事雷切尔·格伦纳斯特 (Rachel Glennerster) 领导——这确实是她的职责，并且她在其中留下了自己的印记。
And we were behind as kind of enablers.
我们作为推动者落后了。
That’s true at that level, and it’s still true today, I think.
我认为，在那个层面上确实如此，今天仍然如此。
And it’s true at the smaller level of the projects where everybody has a piece that they own, and they run with it.
在项目的较小层面上也是如此，每个人都有自己的一块，并用它来运行。
They’ll make mistakes, and then we have to correct the mistakes.
他们会犯错误，然后我们必须纠正错误。
But the ownership of the piece of the project means that you get a lot of effort and a lot of creativity of everyone.
但项目的一部分的所有权意味着你会得到每个人的大量努力和大量创造力。
And then, I must say that I’m in a very good business — no credit to me — because the people who get attracted to this work tend to be very committed and passion driven, so you get very good material to start with.
然后，我必须说，我的生意非常好——这不是我的功劳——因为被这项工作吸引的人往往非常忠诚和充满激情，所以你会得到非常好的开始材料。
You just need to give them a little bit of guidance, and they move.
你只需要给他们一点指导，他们就会行动。
And which is the input that’s the factor of production that prevents you from scaling your work more?
哪些输入是阻碍您进一步扩展工作的生产要素？
Well, I think it has scaled quite a bit.
嗯，我认为它已经扩大了很多。
If you took it —
如果你拿走了它——
But you’re not doing 5x of what you’re doing, right?
但你并没有做你正在做的事情的 5 倍，对吧？
Something stops you.
有什么东西阻止了你。
It could be money.
可能是钱。
It could be talent.
这可能是天赋。
I always try to be behind the money.
我总是试图落后于金钱。
I think a lot of problems of some centers — sometimes you get some money to do something, and then you have to have the idea to match the money.
我认为一些中心存在很多问题——有时你得到一些钱来做某事，然后你必须有与钱相匹配的想法。
We always had some idea before, and the money comes.
我们之前总是有一些想法，钱就来了。
So at some level, the money is always the constraining factor at any point in time.
所以在某种程度上，钱在任何时候都是制约因素。
You could say, “Why don’t you get more talent to get more money?” But there are some limits to that.
你可能会说，“为什么你不聘请更多的人才来赚更多的钱呢？”但这也有一些限制。
Another thing is, I’m not sure I’m aiming at world conquest in the sense that I’m more interested in — and I think that that very much applied to the three of us — we were very much interested in creating an ecosystem where that kind of work becomes easier because policymakers are interested, funders are interested, talent is interested, and because there are some things that are eased.
另一件事是，我不确定我的目标是征服世界，因为我更感兴趣——我认为这非常适用于我们三个人——我们非常有兴趣创建一个生态系统，在这个生态系统中，这类工作变得更容易，因为政策制定者感兴趣，资助者感兴趣，人才感兴趣，而且因为有些事情变得容易了。
When we started even the Hyderabad project, we were still learning as we went, and we made mistakes.
当我们开始海得拉巴项目时，我们仍在不断学习，我们也犯过错误。
We’re still making mistakes but fewer now because there is an infrastructure and some learnings.
我们仍然会犯错误，但现在已经减少了，因为有了基础设施和一些经验教训。
This infrastructure can then be given to other, younger people that have more imaginative great ideas to run with.
然后，可以将这种基础设施提供给其他有更富有想象力的伟大想法的年轻人。
I’ve always been more interested in doing that and using my own work as a little bit of a testing ground, trying new things that are quite risky because it doesn’t matter to me if that fails.
我一直对这样做更感兴趣，并利用自己的工作作为一点试验场，尝试风险很大的新事物，因为如果失败对我来说并不重要。
I have tenure.
我有终身教职。
Do you worry much that the RCT method — it centralizes authority in too few institutions?
您是否很担心 RCT 方法——它把权力集中在太少的机构中？
You need a certain amount of money.
你需要一定数量的钱。
You need some managerial ability.
你需要一些管理能力。
You need connections abroad.
你需要国外的联系。
It’s not like running regressions — everyone can do it on their PC.
这与运行回归不同——每个人都可以在自己的 PC 上完成。
Is that, in some way, going to slow down science?
在某种程度上，这会减慢科学的发展吗？
You get more reliable results, but there’s much less competition of ideas, it seems.
你会得到更可靠的结果，但想法的竞争似乎要少得多。
I think it would be the case if we had not been mindful of this problem from the beginning.
我想如果我们从一开始就没有注意到这个问题的话，就会出现这样的情况。
And it might still be the case to some extent.
在某种程度上，情况可能仍然如此。
But I actually think that we’ve put a lot of effort in avoiding it to be the case.
但我实际上认为我们已经付出了很多努力来避免这种情况发生。
When you take an organization like J-PAL, just in India we have 200 staff members.
以 J-PAL 这样的组织为例，仅在印度我们就有 200 名员工。
And we have, at any given time, 1,000 people running surveys.
在任何特定时间，我们都有 1,000 人进行调查。
I say we, but these people are not running my project.
我说的是我们，但这些人并没有运行我的项目。
These people are running the projects of dozens and dozens of researchers.
这些人正在运行数十名研究人员的项目。
When I started, I couldn’t have started without having the backing of my team because it was such a risky proposition that you needed to be able to easy risk capital kind of things.
当我开始时，如果没有团队的支持，我就无法开始，因为这是一个非常危险的提议，你需要能够轻松地承担风险资本之类的事情。
But at this point, because of the infrastructure, it’s much more normal sense.
但在这一点上，由于基础设施的原因，这是更正常的感觉。
People can get in with no funding of their own, in part because one of the things we are doing as a network is raising a lot of money to redistribute to other people widely.
人们不需要自己的资金就可以进入，部分原因是我们作为一个网络正在做的事情之一是筹集大量资金并广泛地重新分配给其他人。
J-PAL has 400 researchers that are affiliated to it, or invited researchers, many of them quite, quite junior.
J-PAL 有 400 名附属研究人员或受邀研究人员，其中许多人非常非常初级。
So that sort of mixture — it was very important to us, and I think we’ve been quite successful at making the tool marginally available.
因此，这种混合对我们来说非常重要，而且我认为我们在使该工具稍微可用方面非常成功。
It’s never going to be like running a regression from your computer.
这永远不会像从计算机上运行回归一样。
But my philosophy is that if you have the drive and you’re willing to put in your own sweat equity, you can do it.
但我的理念是，如果你有动力并且愿意投入自己的汗水，你就能做到。
And our students and many other students who are not at top institutions are doing it.
我们的学生和许多其他非顶尖院校的学生正在这样做。
In your book, the new book, Good Economics for Hard Times, you talked quite a bit about a revolt against the elites in the United States.
在您的新书《艰难时期的良好经济学》中，您大量谈论了针对美国精英的反抗。
But what if I say, “Well, the elites are underrated.
但如果我说：“好吧，精英们被低估了。
They’re pretty good.
他们非常好。
Who else runs RCTs other than the elites?” What’s your response?
除了精英之外还有谁在开展 RCT？”你的回应是什么？
Do you side with the revolt or do you side with the elites?
你是站在叛乱一边还是站在精英一边？
First of all, I think that it’s good if it’s not just the elites who are running RCTs, so back to my point of trying to make it a general tool that’s the elite of the academic movement.
首先，我认为，如果不只是精英们在运行 RCT，那就太好了，所以回到我的观点，即试图使其成为学术运动精英们的通用工具。
But you could say, “Well they are still academics, so in the broad scheme of things they are still elite.” My problem is not with the elites.
但你可以说，“好吧，他们仍然是学者，所以从广泛的角度来看，他们仍然是精英。”我的问题不在于精英。
My problem is with the attitude of the elites with respect to everyone else.
我的问题在于精英们对其他人的态度。
I don’t even know what elite means in this context.
我什至不知道精英在这种情况下意味着什么。
But if us economists, as a profession, spend more time trying to understand what are the problems of people who do not have, say, the comfort of an academic career behind them, then we can make progress in understanding the issues and therefore, potentially, thinking through policies that might help solve these issues.
但是，如果我们经济学家作为一个职业，花更多的时间试图了解那些没有舒适的学术生涯的人的问题是什么，那么我们就可以在理解这些问题方面取得进展，从而有可能思考可能有助于解决这些问题的政策。
But if us economists, as a profession, spend more time trying to understand what are the problems of people who do not have, say, the comfort of an academic career behind them, then we can make progress in understanding the issues and therefore, potentially, thinking through policies that might help solve these issues.
但是，如果我们经济学家作为一个职业，花更多的时间试图了解那些没有舒适的学术生涯的人的问题是什么，那么我们就可以在理解这些问题方面取得进展，从而有可能思考可能有助于解决这些问题的政策。
It would be a bit hypocritical of me to be against the elites given that I am the elite in some sense from when I was born.
我从出生起就属于某种意义上的精英，如果我反对精英，那就有点虚伪了。
But I think it comes with some amount of .
但我认为它带有一定数量的。
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It’s the type of problem that you choose to put your attention on that matters.
重要的是你选择关注的问题类型。
In your new book, you seem, at times, quite skeptical about how well economists can understand what drives economic growth.
在您的新书中，您有时似乎对经济学家能否很好地理解推动经济增长的因素持怀疑态度。
But what if I just looked at a few cases?
但如果我只看几个案例呢？
I looked at say, Singapore, Ireland, Poland, which have done remarkably well in the last few decades.
我观察了新加坡、爱尔兰、波兰等国家，这些国家在过去几十年中表现非常出色。
And in each case, you had leaders who more or less followed the prescriptions of economics.
在每种情况下，领导人都或多或少地遵循经济学的规定。
They had the will or the ability to do so.
他们有意愿或有能力这样做。
I watched all of those experiments unfold.
我目睹了所有这些实验的展开。
I felt they were going to do pretty well.
我觉得他们会做得很好。
They did extremely well, actually, better than I thought.
事实上，他们做得非常好，比我想象的还要好。
Don’t we, in fact, have a pretty good idea of what does drive growth?
事实上，我们难道不很清楚什么推动了增长吗？
It might be different for each country.
每个国家的情况可能有所不同。
But you go to a country, you look at it, you have a good sense.
但你去一个国家，你看看它，你就会有很好的感觉。
Many countries have done it, and it’s worked.
很多国家都这么做了，而且取得了成效。
Why is that wrong?
为什么这是错误的？
Then I could give you South Korea, and it did pretty well, too, with an entirely different set of policies.
然后我可以给你韩国，它也做得很好，有一套完全不同的政策。
Oh, sure, policies can be different.
哦，当然，政策可能会有所不同。
But given a country, it seems the leaders can know, and if they have the will to do it, it happens.
但对于一个国家来说，领导人似乎可以知道，而且如果他们有意愿这样做，事情就会发生。
Well, if the policies are very different from one country to the other and are a complicated function of the context .
好吧，如果一个国家的政策与另一个国家有很大不同，并且是具体情况的复杂函数。
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In Ireland, you need very low tax rates, but in South Korea, you need industrial policy.
在爱尔兰，你需要非常低的税率，但在韩国，你需要产业政策。
That a little bit reflects our difficulty as economists to have come up with guidance for the next place.
这一点反映出我们作为经济学家很难为下一个地方提出指导。
Take — I don’t know — Ethiopia, and they want to grow.
以——我不知道——埃塞俄比亚为例，他们想要增长。
The question becomes, do we have anything in the experience of the past country that will help us for sure predict the set of steps that Ethiopia needs to take that is going to lead them to grow?
问题是，我们过去国家的经验中是否有任何东西可以帮助我们确定地预测埃塞俄比亚需要采取哪些步骤来引导他们成长？
My firm belief is that we don’t.
我坚信我们不会。
But if you do, then I think you have a side gig in helping Ethiopia, and that would be great.
但如果你这样做了，那么我认为你有一份帮助埃塞俄比亚的副业，那就太好了。
But Ethiopia has grown at about 10 percent for 10 years running.
但埃塞俄比亚连续 10 年以 10% 左右的速度增长。
They invest about 38 percent of their GDP.
他们的投资占 GDP 的 38% 左右。
It may collapse for political reasons.
它可能会因政治原因而崩溃。
But if they stay on the track that they’re on, isn’t that further evidence that they figured out what they need to do to grow?
但如果他们继续走在现有的轨道上，这难道不是进一步证明他们弄清楚了自己需要做什么才能成长吗？
They had the will to implement it.
他们有意愿去实施它。
So far, it’s working, politics allowing.
到目前为止，在政治允许的情况下，它正在发挥作用。
That’s why I picked Ethiopia, because in a sense, they have.
这就是我选择埃塞俄比亚的原因，因为从某种意义上说，他们做到了。
Again, they have their own path.
再说一次，他们有自己的路。
But the thing is, their own path becomes so particular.
但问题是，他们自己的道路变得如此特殊。
I’m not saying that good policymaking is not feasible because we have lots of examples of good policymaking and lots of examples of bad policymaking, actually.
我并不是说好的政策制定是不可行的，因为实际上我们有很多好的政策制定的例子，也有很多糟糕的政策制定的例子。
But the good policymaking is so varied that at the scientific level, it becomes very quickly “Good things are good.”
但好的政策制定是如此多样化，以至于在科学层面上，它很快就变成了“好事就是好事”。
Because the path of Ethiopia — even the steps they had to take to carve out a place in international trade, for example, is very different from what a country like China had to do, just by virtue of China existing, et cetera, et cetera.
因为埃塞俄比亚的道路——甚至是他们在国际贸易中占据一席之地所必须采取的步骤，与像中国这样的国家所必须采取的措施非常不同，仅仅凭借中国的存在等等。
I’m certainly not saying that good policymaking is not feasible.
我当然不是说良好的政策制定是不可行的。
I’m just saying that we haven’t found — it seems to me, empirically — we haven’t found a series of prescriptions that we could give to countries, saying, “If you do this thing, it’s going to work out.”
我只是说，我们还没有找到——在我看来，从经验来看——我们还没有找到一系列可以给各国的处方，说：“如果你做了这件事，它就会成功。”
Similarly, now growth is slowing down in India.
同样，现在印度的增长正在放缓。
I don’t think .
我不认为。
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at least, I wouldn’t know what to tell them to do, what they are supposed to do now.
至少，我不知道该告诉他们做什么，他们现在应该做什么。
I don’t think they themselves know.
我想他们自己也不知道。
So that’s what has turned out to be difficult empirically.
所以从经验上来看，这就是困难的事情。
This is not me, actually.
其实这不是我。
I’m not a macroeconomist, so I would not have the arrogance to say that we haven’t figured it out.
我不是宏观经济学家，所以我不会傲慢地说我们还没有弄清楚。
But that seems to be what the macroeconomists have .
但这似乎就是宏观经济学家所拥有的。
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the conclusion they’ve come to is they haven’t gotten a set of recommendations, even context-dependent recommendations, that they can run with.
他们得出的结论是，他们还没有得到一套可以运行的建议，甚至是依赖于上下文的建议。
As you well know, there’s a number of papers that suggest human capital is a factor of overriding importance for economic growth.
众所周知，有许多论文表明人力资本是经济增长最重要的因素。
I think Mankiw, Weil, and Romer attribute 80 percent of growth to human capital.
我认为曼昆、韦尔和罗默将 80% 的增长归功于人力资本。
What’s your view of those theories?
您对这些理论有何看法？
It seems as a gross accounting matter — which is, what’s the correlation between how much of the growth is explained by differences in human capital across country?
这似乎是一个总的会计问题——也就是说，有多少增长是由各国人力资本差异解释的，这之间有什么相关性？
— it does seem to be that human capital plays a big role, even though Mankiw, Weil, and Romer figures have gone down since then with the work of Khazali, for example.
——人力资本似乎确实发挥了重要作用，尽管曼昆、韦尔和罗默的数字自那时以来随着卡扎利的工作而下降。
But it is important.
但这很重要。
Some of it is correlation, rather than cause and effect, that countries that have been good at increasing education have been good at doing other things.
善于增加教育的国家也善于做其他事情，其中一些是相关性，而不是因果关系。
Also, countries that have grown fast also generate an incentive to invest in education.
此外，经济快速增长的国家也有动力投资于教育。
That’s an old paper by Bils and Klenow that nicely makes this point.
Bils 和 Klenow 的一篇旧论文很好地阐述了这一点。
But the bottom line is that I’m totally ready to believe that human capital, broadly defined — education in particular — plays a big role in growth.
但最重要的是，我完全准备好相信广义上的人力资本——尤其是教育——在经济增长中发挥着重要作用。
To tell you the truth, even if it didn’t, it seems it’s not a big bet to invest in education anyway because worse comes to worst, people would be educated, which seems to be a good end in itself.
说实话，即使没有，投资教育似乎也不是什么大赌注，因为最坏的情况是，人们会受到教育，这本身似乎就是一个好的结局。
It’s not just a means to an end.
这不仅仅是达到目的的手段。
I will totally agree with you that human capital is super important.
我完全同意你的观点，即人力资本非常重要。
In fact, it is what I think was the original impulse of Michael Kremer when he worked on the first RCTs.
事实上，我认为这就是 Michael Kremer 在从事第一个随机对照试验时的原始冲动。
He was coming from growth, and he thought, “Wow, human capital plays a big role in growth.”
他来自增长，他想，“哇，人力资本在增长中发挥着重要作用。”
Now, what’s human capital?
现在，什么是人力资本？
Once you said education is important, you have to start unpacking this question.
一旦你说教育很重要，你就必须开始解开这个问题。
Is it years of education?
是受教育年限吗？
Well, not really.
嗯，不是真的。
Clearly if the kids learn nothing, that’s not so useful, so it has to be learning.
显然，如果孩子们什么也没学到，那就没有多大用处，所以必须要学习。
Then you can start asking yourself questions on whether it’s cognitive skills or noncognitive skills or a mix of the two.
然后你可以开始问自己问题是认知技能还是非认知技能或者两者的混合。
Heckman is telling us that noncognitive skills is such a very important part of human capital.
赫克曼告诉我们，非认知技能是人力资本非常重要的一部分。
And then you want to ask yourself the question, how do cognitive skills get produced?
然后你想问自己这个问题，认知技能是如何产生的？
How do noncognitive skills get produced?
非认知技能是如何产生的？
And that’s what willy-nilly lands you to much more specific policy advice and hence, potentially, things that you can start running RCT on.
这就是无论你愿意与否，你都会得到更具体的政策建议，因此，你可能会开始运行随机对照试验。
To return to what I think was your master’s thesis, how well did the USSR’s first five-year plan go?
回到我认为你的硕士论文，苏联的第一个五年计划进行得怎么样？
This was actually my master’s thesis in history.
这实际上是我的历史学硕士论文。
And I was interested in the time in propaganda, not so much the first five-year plan per se.
我对宣传时期感兴趣，而不是第一个五年计划本身。
But how over this period the talk and the use in propaganda of the big construction sites evolved.
但在这一时期，大型建筑工地的言论和宣传用途是如何演变的？
This is also the period where Stalin consolidated power.
这也是斯大林巩固权力的时期。
At the beginning there were a lot of ways that the Soviet Union could have gone.
一开始，苏联可以走的路有很多。
It could have gone a more market-friendly way, which is what Lenin was hoping at some point.
它本可以走一种更加市场友好的方式，这正是列宁在某个时候所希望的。
It was going a completely utopian everybody-live-together kind of crazy way.
这是一种完全乌托邦式的所有人都住在一起的疯狂方式。
And then there was the Stalin thing, which was finally the form that they adopted, which was boring, inefficient materialism.
然后是斯大林的事情，这最终成为他们采用的形式，这是无聊的、低效的唯物主义。
All of this played out in how they represented their construction sites, like the big dam on the Dnieper.
所有这一切都体现在他们如何表现他们的建筑工地，比如第聂伯河上的大坝。
So this is how those economics and the narrative of economics were used to consolidate power and to consolidate grip on society.
这就是这些经济学和经济学叙事被用来巩固权力和巩固对社会的控制的方式。
You didn’t like economics at first, I read in one interview.
我在一次采访中读到，你一开始并不喜欢经济学。
Why not?
为什么不呢？
What happened?
发生了什么？
What soured you on it?
是什么让你对此感到厌烦？
I was exposed to the typical econ 101 course, the French version of it, with the indifference curves and all that jazz.
我接触到了典型的 econ 101 课程，它的法语版本，有冷漠曲线和所有爵士乐。
I thought it had no relevance, that it was so far removed from any real person’s life that it could not possibly be useful.
我认为它没有任何意义，因为它与任何真实的人的生活相距甚远，不可能有用。
I also was skeptical that it was extremely ideological.
我也怀疑它是否具有极端的意识形态。
That if you want to show that minimum wage is bad, then it’s very easy to write a supply-demand curve and the horizontal line.
如果你想表明最低工资不好，那么很容易写出供求曲线和水平线。
Low and behold, minimum wage is bad, and redistribution perverts incentives.
你瞧，最低工资很低，而且再分配会扭曲激励。
I thought the conclusions were a little bit too directly coming from the assumptions that were put in.
我认为结论有点过于直接来自所提出的假设。
I had only done economics initially because I wanted to do economic history.
我最初只学过经济学，因为我想学经济史。
And then I thought, “Okay, I’m done with this whole economics business.” But at the same time, I was a little bit dissatisfied with history for different reasons, in particular because I thought it was not very immediately useful.
然后我想，“好吧，我已经完成了整个经济学业务。”但与此同时，出于不同的原因，我对历史有点不满意，特别是因为我认为它不是立即有用。
So that’s why I decided to go to Russia under the pretext of writing my master’s thesis, but really to get some exposure to the world.
这就是为什么我决定以写硕士论文为借口去俄罗斯，但实际上是为了接触世界。
This is where I saw economists in action because I was the research assistant of the research assistant of Jeff Sachs, whom I never met in this occasion, but I was hustling for them.
这是我看到经济学家在行动的地方，因为我是杰夫·萨克斯（Jeff Sachs）研究助理的研究助理，我在这次会议上从未见过他，但我正在为他们努力。
And there I saw I didn’t necessarily agree with everything they were doing, but I saw that they had the luxury to think about things and then to be heard by policymakers when they had something to say.
在那里我发现我不一定同意他们所做的一切，但我看到他们有足够的空间去思考事情，然后当他们有话要说时可以被政策制定者听到。
And I said, “Wow, this is the best job in the world.” And I still think that.
我说：“哇，这是世界上最好的工作。”我仍然这么认为。
On living in Russia
关于在俄罗斯的生活
On the internet, there’s a photo of a teenage Esther Duflo — at least it looks like you — protesting against fascism in Russia on top of a tank, is it?
互联网上有一张十几岁的埃丝特·迪弗洛 (Esther Duflo) 的照片——至少看起来像你——在坦克顶上抗议俄罗斯的法西斯主义，是吗？
That was a bus, and it was me.
那是一辆公共汽车，那是我。
It was me.
是我。
So that was in 1991.
那是1991年的事了。
This was not when I lived for one year there.
这不是我在那里住一年的时候。
I lived one year in ’93–’94.
我在93年到94年住过一年。
But this was in ’91.
但这是91年的事了。
I had gone to Russia about every year since I was a teen to learn Russian.
从十几岁起，我每年都会去俄罗斯学习俄语。
I happened to be there the summer where there was this putsch against Gorbachev.
那年夏天我碰巧在那里，那里发生了针对戈尔巴乔夫的政变。
That summer.
那个夏天。
That’s the year my wife left as a refugee.
那是我妻子作为难民离开的那一年。
Photo: Dmitry Borko
照片：德米特里·博尔科
We actually watched TV.
我们实际上看了电视。
And I do remember those GKChP they were called, like fascist Communists, old, half-decrepit, half-dead, making the coup.
我确实记得那些被称为“GKChP”的人，就像法西斯共产党人一样，老了，半衰弱，半死不活，正在发动政变。
We were a little bit shocked.
我们有点震惊。
With my friends, we decided that we would go out in town to see what’s happening.
我和朋友们决定去城里看看发生了什么。
We went toward the White House, and we couldn’t see very well because there was a lot of people.
我们朝白宫走去，因为人很多，所以看得不太清楚。
So we saw this trolley, and I said, “Let’s go up.
所以我们看到了这辆电车，我说：“我们上去吧。
We are going to have a good view of what’s going on.” And we went to the top of the trolley.
我们将对正在发生的事情有一个很好的了解。”我们去了电车的顶部。
It was amazing because there was an immediate fraternization of the troops and the people.
这是令人惊奇的，因为军队和人民立即变得友好起来。
In retrospect, it was not a very reasonable thing to do.
回想起来，这并不是一件非常合理的事情。
But at the time it sounded like a completely happy moment.
但当时听起来这是一个完全幸福的时刻。
There was a truck that was delivering bread.
有一辆卡车正在运送面包。
It was the end of Communism.
那是共产主义的终结。
And someone gave me that fashizm ne poletit placard and asked me to hold it.
有人给了我那张 fashizm ne poletit 标语牌并让我拿着它。
And I’m like, “Sure, I’m going to hold it.” So I’m holding my placard.
我想，“当然，我会坚持下去。”所以我举着我的标语牌。
We stayed there for a long time when things were happening.
当事情发生时，我们在那里呆了很长时间。
Next time I saw in the evening, my parents called me, “What are you doing?” Because it turned out that that image was on all the TVs in the world.
下次晚上我看到的时候，我的父母打电话给我：“你在做什么？”因为事实证明这个图像出现在世界上所有的电视上。
And that’s how I very briefly became the face of this revolution.
这就是我如何短暂地成为这场革命的代言人的原因。
That photo was then in a book.
这张照片当时在一本书里。
The guy never knew who I was.
那家伙从来不知道我是谁。
Recently, he put two and two together.
最近，他把两个和两个放在一起。
Other than missing your family, what was the hardest thing about living in Russia for a year?
除了想念家人之外，在俄罗斯生活一年最困难的事情是什么？
Oh, Russia was extremely, extremely hard place to live in that time.
哦，那个时候的俄罗斯是一个极其非常艰苦的地方。
It was extremely violent, just the day to day.
这是极其暴力的，只是日复一日。
It was the end of Communism, but the mafia was out there replacing it.
这是共产主义的终结，但黑手党正在取而代之。
Some people were really extremely poor.
有些人确实非常穷。
They were given these vouchers, but they quickly exchanged them.
他们得到了这些优惠券，但他们很快就换掉了。
You saw this woman queuing near the subway with one fish to sell, and the whole thing was so hard.
你看到这个女人在地铁附近排队，手里拿着一条鱼要卖，整个事情是如此艰难。
Everything was hard.
一切都很困难。
It was a difficult environment.
那是一个艰难的环境。
I assume it still is, but I haven’t really gone back since then.
我想现在仍然如此，但从那以后我就没有真正回去过。
Do you have a favorite Russian novel?
您有最喜欢的俄罗斯小说吗？
My favorite Russian author — not very original — is Dostoevsky.
我最喜欢的俄罗斯作家——不是很有创意——是陀思妥耶夫斯基。
Crime and Punishment probably.
大概是《罪与罚》吧。
On French education
论法语教育
Why is the French education system so good?
为什么法国的教育体系这么好？
Or would you challenge the premise?
或者你会挑战这个前提吗？
The French education system is very good at producing a very small elite of very educated people, and at reproducing it.
法国的教育体系非常善于培养和复制少数受过良好教育的精英。
But productivity at the median is quite high in France, right?
但法国的生产率中位数相当高，对吧？
At the median of the productivity of the median worker?
处于中位数工人生产力的中位数？
Yes, so it’s not just training an elite.
是的，所以这不仅仅是培养精英。
Yes, although I wonder whether, if we look in a generation on the current kids who are in school, will we find the same thing?
是的，尽管我想知道，如果我们在一代人的时间里观察现在在学校的孩子，我们是否会发现同样的事情？
Because I’ll tell you exactly why: the current PISA and TIMSS results show France exactly at the median in terms of the scores, but with a lot of heterogeneity, with excellent results at the top and really bad results at the bottom.
因为我会告诉你确切的原因：目前的 PISA 和 TIMSS 结果显示，法国的分数完全处于中位数，但存在很大的异质性，顶部的成绩非常好，底部的成绩非常糟糕。
And the second thing that these test scores also show — I think it’s the TIMSS — the math scores are the strongest correlation of the OECD country between your socioeconomic class and your score.
这些测试分数还显示的第二件事——我认为是 TIMSS——数学分数是经合组织国家的社会经济阶层和分数之间最强的相关性。
This is the place where being in a bottom quintile of socioeconomic class, parental income, is the most predictive of being in the bottom quintile of the math performance.
在这个地方，社会经济阶层（即父母收入）处于最低五分之一，最能预测数学成绩处于最低五分之一。
So I do think we, historically, have an excellent system.
所以我确实认为，从历史上看，我们拥有一个出色的系统。
I do think it has roots in 19th century France and the Republic of the Teachers and the both inclusive and demanding system at once.
我确实认为它起源于 19 世纪的法国和教师共和国以及包容性和要求性兼具的制度。
I think to some extent, I’m the product of that.
我想在某种程度上，我就是它的产物。
But I also think that we’ve a little bit let it crumble.
但我也认为我们有点让它崩溃了。
I do hope that we can recover it.
我确实希望我们能够恢复它。
Does child-rearing in France strike you as more sensible than child-rearing in the United States?
您觉得在法国养育孩子比在美国养育孩子更明智吗？
Oh very much so, very much so.
噢，非常是这样，非常是这样。
And why?
为什么？
You know that book, Bringing Up Bébé?
你知道《抚养贝贝》这本书吗？
Yes.
是的。
I think she picked up on something which rings so true to me, which maybe is a marginal point about the US versus France.
我认为她发现了一些对我来说非常真实的东西，这可能是美国与法国之间的一个边缘点。
In France people are reasonably content to just go with the flow and do what everybody does.
在法国，人们相当满足于随波逐流，做每个人都做的事情。
Every kid eats the same thing at 4:30, has dinner at the same time, has gone through the same experiences, learned the same songs, and everybody thinks they are totally free.
每个孩子在4点30分吃同样的东西，在同一时间吃晚饭，经历同样的经历，学同样的歌曲，每个人都认为自己是完全自由的。
But in fact, they are all on this pretty sensible railroad.
但事实上，他们都在这条相当合理的铁路上。
And also, they don’t agonize about it.
而且，他们并不为此苦恼。
In the US, child-rearing is one more occasion to make a statement about your identity.
在美国，抚养孩子是表达自己身份的又一个机会。
You’re the kind of mother that carries the baby, or you’re the kind of mother that puts the baby in a stroller.
你是那种抱着宝宝的妈妈，或者你是那种把宝宝放在婴儿车里的妈妈。
And somehow it almost can predict what you’re going to think about Donald Trump.
不知何故，它几乎可以预测你对唐纳德·特朗普的看法。
That’s crazy.
这太疯狂了。
Some people are so concerned about what they do.
有些人非常关心自己所做的事情。
Not only they feel that they have to invest a ton in their children, and they feel inadequate if they are not able to, but also, exactly what they do creates them as people.
他们不仅觉得自己必须在孩子身上投入大量资金，如果自己做不到，就会觉得自己不够，而且，正是他们所做的事情造就了他们作为人。
In France that’s not there, and I think that makes everybody so much more laid back, children and adults.
在法国，情况并不存在，我认为这让每个人都更加悠闲，无论是儿童还是成人。
In the US, child-rearing is one more occasion to make a statement about your identity.
在美国，抚养孩子是表达自己身份的又一个机会。
You’re the kind of mother that carries the baby, or you’re the kind of mother that puts the baby in a stroller.
你是那种抱着宝宝的妈妈，或者你是那种把宝宝放在婴儿车里的妈妈。
And somehow it almost can predict what you’re going to think about Donald Trump.
不知何故，它几乎可以预测你对唐纳德·特朗普的看法。
That’s crazy.
这太疯狂了。
Some people are so concerned about what they do.
有些人非常关心自己所做的事情。
Not only they feel that they have to invest a ton in their children, and they feel inadequate if they are not able to, but also, exactly what they do creates them as people.
他们不仅觉得自己必须在孩子身上投入大量资金，如果自己做不到，就会觉得自己不够，而且，正是他们所做的事情造就了他们作为人。
Why are the biggest and best French companies all so old?
为什么法国最大、最好的公司都这么老了？
I think they all predate 1980 or so.
我认为它们都早于 1980 年左右。
That’s a little bit above my pay grade.
这比我的工资等级略高一点。
Not that your other questions were not above my pay grade.
并不是说你的其他问题不高于我的薪资等级。
We’re pay grade elevators at Conversations with Tyler.
我们是《与泰勒对话》的付费等级电梯。
Yes, I appreciate that.
是的，我很欣赏这一点。
But that might be above my pay grade even with your elevator.
但即使有电梯，这也可能高于我的工资等级。
What economists seem to say about that — and I’m just going to parrot, say, someone like Augustin Landier — the idea that in the US, failing is quite all right; bankruptcy is not really a problem.
经济学家们对此似乎是这么说的——我只是想鹦鹉学舌地重复奥古斯丁·兰迪尔这样的人的观点——在美国，失败是很正常的；在美国，失败是可以接受的。破产并不是真正的问题。
Bankruptcy laws are reasonably easy to navigate, and there is not much stigma associated with failing, and so there is more churn in the system.
破产法相当容易操作，而且破产也不会带来太多耻辱，因此系统中的流失率更高。
That produces a bunch of horrible companies, but those guys — we don’t see them.
这产生了一堆可怕的公司，但那些人——我们看不到他们。
And that produces some good ones.
这会产生一些好的结果。
The French system is less encouraging of failing, and that is less conducive to lots of thousand flowers blooming.
法国的制度不太鼓励失败，这也不利于万花齐放。
Hence, there is no new things.
因此，没有什么新的东西。
But I’m repeating something which is not deeply original and has some ring of truth.
但我重复的内容并不是很原创，但也有一定道理。
But honestly, I’m not going to claim expertise there.
但老实说，我不会在那里声称拥有专业知识。
On French cinema
论法国电影
What is important to you from French cinema?
法国电影对您来说最重要的是什么？
Oh, so many things.
哦，很多事情。
That’s not above my pay grade, and I am so much inside my pay grade.
这并不高于我的工资等级，而且我的工资等级在很大程度上是在我的工资等级之内的。
I grew up watching movies.
我是看着电影长大的。
The French system is such that in the first two years of undergraduate, you work like a mad person, and then you can pretty much take vacations for the rest of your life.
法国的制度是这样的，在本科的前两年，你像疯子一样工作，然后你的余生几乎可以休假。
I decided against the rest-of-my-life thing after going to Russia and all that.
在去了俄罗斯等等之后，我决定放弃我余生的事情。
In between I had this one year where I used to go to the cinema about three or four times a week, so I had a chance to get groomed in the American classics and French classics.
在这期间，我每周大约去三四次电影院，所以我有机会接触美国经典和法国经典。
And what do you recommend to us?
您向我们推荐什么？
De Nouvelle Vague is still not surpassed in a way — in particular, Godard.
新浪潮在某种程度上仍然没有被超越——尤其是戈达尔。
You watch Prénom Carmen, and nobody has made a movie like that.
你看《卡门》，没有人拍过这样的电影。
For me, it’s Godard and Besson.
对我来说，是戈达尔和贝松。
Yes, I would also put Besson there.
是的，我也会把贝松放在那里。
It’s just unbelievable cinema.
这真是令人难以置信的电影。
On growth rates
关于增长率
On the wall of your home in Boston, according to one newspaper, is a slogan from the 1968 Paris Riots.
据一份报纸报道，你在波士顿家中的墙上挂着 1968 年巴黎骚乱的标语。
And it reads, “Nobody ever fell in love with the growth rate.”
上面写着：“没有人爱上增长率。”
It’s not on the wall of my house in Boston, but it’s in a book of quotes that were on the wall of Paris.
它不在我波士顿房子的墙上，但在巴黎墙上的一本引言书中。
It’s a little red book that was in my parents’ bookshelf, which I read as a kid.
这是我父母书架上的一本小红书，我小时候读过。
I kept in my mind that I knew we had that and was looking for it.
我牢记我知道我们拥有它并且正在寻找它。
It could come in handy at some point.
它在某个时候可能会派上用场。
It has a lot of these quotes from 1968, some of them more well-known than others, like “Sous les paves, la plage.” It’s one of the most well-known.
它有很多 1968 年的名言，其中一些比其他的更出名，比如“Sous les paves, la plage”。这是最知名的之一。
“Under the pavement you have the sea.”
“人行道下面就是大海。”
And this one, which I found when we were working on the book, and I wanted to .
这个是我在写这本书时发现的，我想找到它。
.
。
.
。
It was kind of the epigraph of one of the first drafts of the chapter on growth.
这是增长章节初稿之一的题词。
Then somehow, it didn’t make it in the final cut.
但不知何故，它没有进入最终剪辑。
And you think we should fall in love with growth rates.
你认为我们应该爱上增长率。
No, I don’t think one —
不，我不认为——
Why not?
为什么不呢？
The power of compound returns is remarkable, right?
复合回报的力量是惊人的，对吧？
I think one should have a healthy respect for growth rates and treat them as useful companions and people that you have to make work for you.
我认为人们应该对增长率抱有一种健康的尊重，并将它们视为有用的伙伴和你必须为你工作的人。
I think we should think of growth rate as chief of staff, not something I think we should fall in love with.
我认为我们应该将增长率视为幕僚长，而不是我认为我们应该爱上的东西。
I think one should have a healthy respect for growth rates and treat them as useful companions and people that you have to make work for you.
我认为人们应该对增长率抱有一种健康的尊重，并将它们视为有用的伙伴和你必须为你工作的人。
I think we should think of growth rate as chief of staff, not something I think we should fall in love with.
我认为我们应该将增长率视为幕僚长，而不是我认为我们应该爱上的东西。
And I think one issue the countries have had when they’ve fallen in love with growth rates per se, as opposed to why is it you want growth in the first place, is that going back to the early conversation, it’s pretty hard to manipulate growth rates for politicians, especially in fluctuation growth rates.
我认为，当这些国家爱上增长率本身时，他们遇到的一个问题是，而不是一开始就想要增长，那就是，回到早期的谈话，政治家很难操纵增长率，尤其是在增长率波动的情况下。
Therefore, if things are not going your way, and you try more and more crazy things to try to make growth come back because that’s what you’ve fallen in love with, then you can put yourself in pretty bad corners.
因此，如果事情不按你的意愿发展，并且你尝试越来越疯狂的事情来试图让增长回来，因为那是你爱上的，那么你可能会把自己置于非常糟糕的境地。
One example is Japan.
日本就是一个例子。
I think they did fall in love with the growth rate instead of trying to think, “Maybe there is a reason why the growth rate has fallen down.
我认为他们确实爱上了增长率，而不是试图思考：“也许增长率下降是有原因的。
We should be comfortable with that and do the best with what we have.”
我们应该对此感到满意，并利用我们所拥有的做到最好。”
Could Japan have done better?
日本可以做得更好吗？
It grew very rapidly.
它增长得非常快。
It caught up, basically, to France, then stopped at a certain frontier short of the United States.
它基本上追上了法国，然后停在美国附近的某个边境。
It’s managed its decline really quite well in per capita terms.
从人均计算来看，它确实很好地控制了下降。
Its growth rate is okay, not spectacular.
其增长速度还算可以，不算很惊人。
Social order is at a premium.
社会秩序非常宝贵。
What have they done wrong?
他们做错了什么？
Well, they’ve built themselves a pretty big debt level, which could become a debt crisis in the making, which was entirely unnecessary because when growth fell down in Japan — in retrospect, of course, you always have 20/20 hindsight — but when growth fell down in Japan, there was a reason for that, which is the population was aging.
好吧，他们已经为自己建立了相当高的债务水平，这可能会成为一场债务危机，这是完全没有必要的，因为当日本经济增长下降时——当然，回想起来，你总是有20/20的后见之明——但当日本经济增长下降时，这是有原因的，那就是人口老龄化。
The working population, as a share of the overall population, was therefore becoming smaller.
因此，工作人口占总人口的比例越来越小。
So it is not surprising that there would be a slowdown in the growth of GDP per capita.
因此，人均GDP增长放缓也就不足为奇了。
And for a while it was compensated by the fact that there was a lot of TFP growth.
有一段时间，全要素生产率的大幅增长弥补了这一不足。
But that wasn’t necessarily going to come forever because we don’t really know where TFP is coming from.
但这并不一定会永远存在，因为我们真的不知道 TFP 从哪里来。
At this point, they could have said let’s do exactly what you said they should do: “We should manage expectations for the downfall.
在这一点上，他们可能会说，让我们完全按照你所说的去做：“我们应该管理对垮台的预期。
We’re already quite rich, and we have good standard of living, which we could make, in a sense, even better by addressing some of the issues that still remain in Japanese society.”
我们已经相当富有，并且拥有良好的生活水平，从某种意义上说，我们可以通过解决日本社会中仍然存在的一些问题来改善生活水平。”
They did some of that, but on top of that they also said, “Let’s try and make growth come back.” There was this sort of Keynesian spending spree that I don’t think did have an impact on growth but put them in a not particularly desirable macroeconomic situation at the moment.
他们做了一些，但最重要的是，他们还说：“让我们努力让增长回来。”我认为这种凯恩斯主义的支出热潮确实不会对经济增长产生影响，但目前却使它们处于不太理想的宏观经济形势。
Why do you think, in the United States, geographic mobility has fallen so much?
您认为为什么在美国，地域流动性下降如此之多？
You discuss that at length in the new book.
您在新书中详细讨论了这一点。
I think there are a number of reasons.
我认为有很多原因。
Some are strictly economic, as in financial.
有些是严格意义上的经济领域，如金融领域。
And some are a little bit broader.
有些范围更广一些。
On the financial side, real estate is a big part of it.
在金融方面，房地产是其中很大一部分。
That has been documented by other people.
其他人已经记录了这一点。
But you can move to the South, right?
但你可以搬到南方去，对吗？
There’s freedom to build in the South.
南方有建设的自由。
Plenty of people move to Texas.
很多人搬到德克萨斯州。
You won’t move to the Bay Area, but it’s a big country.
你不会搬到湾区，但这是一个大国。
Exactly so.
正是如此。
That explains why people aren’t moving where a lot of the jobs are, if you will.
这就解释了为什么人们不搬到有很多工作岗位的地方（如果你愿意的话）。
But you are right.
但你是对的。
People could decide to move 200 kilometers away, not to a city but to another place that happens not to be shocked by a shock.
人们可以决定搬到 200 公里之外，不是搬到城市，而是搬到另一个碰巧没有遭受地震袭击的地方。
Now there is the issue that places where you would expect most people to move from are places which have been hit by economic shock, which is often clustered in each area because industry is clustered.
现在有一个问题，你预计大多数人搬走的地方都是受到经济冲击的地方，而且由于工业聚集，这些地方往往聚集在各个地区。
When a region is hit by a shock, that hits not just one company when everybody else is doing fine, but all the companies because everybody was doing furniture or clothing, or everyone was doing something that is being replaced by robots or something like that.
当一个地区受到冲击时，受影响的不仅仅是一家公司，而其他公司都表现良好，而是所有公司，因为每个人都在生产家具或服装，或者每个人都在做一些被机器人或类似的东西取代的事情。
You have an equilibrium fact that the places that are affected by the shock get hurt.
你有一个平衡事实，即受冲击影响的地方会受伤。
Then the places that are not directly affected by the shock get hurt, too, because the guys and girls, actually, who were working are less likely to buy McDonald’s, and therefore, all the McDonald’s business goes down, et cetera, which then leads to a decline in the real estate prices.
然后，那些没有直接受到冲击影响的地方也会受到伤害，因为实际上正在工作的男孩和女孩不太可能购买麦当劳，因此，所有麦当劳的业务都会下降，等等，从而导致房地产价格下跌。
People find themselves underwater on their market.
人们发现自己在市场上陷入困境。
I think that prevents mobility because at least they have a house to live in if they don’t go.
我认为这阻碍了流动性，因为如果他们不去的话，至少他们还有房子住。
But if they sell that house, they have nothing to get themselves another place.
但如果他们卖掉那栋房子，他们就没有办法为自己找到另一个地方。
So that’s the purely economic factor.
这就是纯粹的经济因素。
Then on top of that, I think childcare is an issue because a lot of people have childcare provided by their extended family.
最重要的是，我认为儿童保育是一个问题，因为很多人的大家庭都提供儿童保育。
You cannot move the entire family, again, maybe due to this list of things.
你不能再一次搬走整个家庭，也许是因为这一系列的事情。
The childcare options are pretty bad in this country in general, especially for small kids.
总的来说，这个国家的托儿服务选择相当糟糕，尤其是对于小孩子来说。
Once they start going to school it’s a bit better.
一旦他们开始上学，情况就会好一些。
So those are some of the economic reasons.
这些是一些经济原因。
Then I also think there is one social reason, which is, people like to be part of a social network.
然后我还认为有一个社会原因，那就是人们喜欢成为社交网络的一部分。
I think it’s profoundly human.
我认为这非常人性化。
We are not made to be lonely.
我们生来不是为了孤独。
We are meant to live with our friends and derive some amount of meaning from our place in the social network.
我们注定要与朋友一起生活，并从我们在社交网络中的位置中获得一定的意义。
And moving makes it difficult, especially if you’re going to move to something that’s completely unknown, and you don’t exactly know what you’re moving to and why.
搬家会让事情变得很困难，尤其是当你要搬到完全未知的地方，并且你并不确切知道要搬到什么地方以及为什么搬家时。
Then finally is .
那么终于是。
.
。
.
。
and that’s one thing that we think we should start to put a little more in our economic model, is the fact that people are .
我们认为我们应该开始在我们的经济模型中投入更多一点，那就是人们……这一事实。
.
。
.
。
It seems in surveys, people keep declaring one thing: to derive meaning from their job.
在调查中，人们似乎不断宣称一件事：从工作中获取意义。
But they don’t always do.
但他们并不总是这样做。
And they are more likely to be deriving meaning from their job if they’ve held this job for a long time and if they’ve grown in expertise and in ranks in doing this particular job.
如果他们长期担任这份工作，并且在从事这项特定工作的过程中，他们的专业知识和级别有所提高，那么他们更有可能从工作中获得意义。
So here, the lack of geographic mobility is coupled with the lack of sector mobility, where people aren’t just not particularly excited, or not excited at all, to leave their job making furniture to take another job 200 kilometers away being a security guard in a furniture company.
因此，在这里，地域流动性的缺乏与行业流动性的缺乏相结合，人们不仅不是特别兴奋，或者根本不兴奋，放弃自己的家具制造工作，去 200 公里外的一家家具公司当保安。
Why is any of that so different from the 1980s when mobility was quite high?
为什么这与流动性相当高的 20 世纪 80 年代有如此不同？
Even for people without children, mobility now is much lower than it was in the ’80s.
即使对于没有孩子的人来说，现在的流动性也比 80 年代低得多。
What’s the difference?
有什么区别？
It’s about half now what it was in 1948.
现在大约是 1948 年的一半。
The decline started in the ’90s.
衰退始于上世纪 90 年代。
Yes.
是的。
So it’s very high in the ’80s, and then something happens.
所以在 80 年代它非常高，然后发生了一些事情。
And then something happens.
然后发生了一些事情。
And the ’90s are good years, right?
90 年代是美好的岁月，对吗？
You would think mobility would be rising in the ’90s.
你可能会认为流动性会在 90 年代上升。
Now there’s the internet.
现在有了互联网。
You find jobs through the internet.
您通过互联网找到工作。
It’s counterintuitive that mobility has fallen so much.
流动性下降如此之多是违反直觉的。
Not only that, but it’s also the years where you start having a lot of geographically concentrated shocks because the ’90s and 2000s is when trade with China picks up.
不仅如此，这也是开始遭受许多地理集中冲击的年份，因为 20 世纪 90 年代和 2000 年代是与中国的贸易回升的时期。
It’s where entire towns — it would seem that they should go and pick up.
整个城镇似乎都应该去那里接人。
Precisely at the moment where the factors you point out would have made geographic mobility easier and there was also more of a need for people to move — this is when we see people move less.
正是在你指出的因素会使地理流动变得更容易，而且人们也更需要流动的时候——这就是我们看到人们流动较少的时候。
We don’t have the full answer to this question.
我们没有这个问题的完整答案。
But I think it’s a little bit correlated to this meaningful-jobs question.
但我认为这与这个有意义的工作问题有点相关。
This is also the time where the geographic movement would be not associated with finding a job in another furniture factory 200 kilometers away, but would be finding a job in a completely different sector where you would be starting from scratch, and you’re taking a job you think is demeaning.
在这个时候，地理流动与在 200 公里外的另一家家具工厂找工作无关，而是在一个完全不同的行业找到工作，在那里你将从头开始，并且你正在接受一份你认为有辱人格的工作。
In your recent New York Times op-ed, you seem to argue that incentives are, in general, not that powerful in motivating people economically.
在您最近的《纽约时报》专栏文章中，您似乎认为，总体而言，激励措施在经济上激励人们的作用并不大。
And that surprised me because, if I think of most J-PAL papers, incentives are pretty powerful.
这让我感到惊讶，因为如果我想到大多数 J-PAL 论文，激励措施是相当强大的。
Your own paper on Indonesian roads — you put in much better roads, many more parents sent their kids to school, right?
你自己的关于印度尼西亚道路的论文——你修建了更好的道路，更多的父母送孩子上学，对吧？
It’s a big response.
这是一个很大的回应。
The recent paper on drunk driving in India with Abhijit — police set up new road blocks.
最近与 Abhijit 合作发表的一篇关于印度酒后驾车的论文——警方设置了新的路障。
People respond to that incentive.
人们会对这种激励做出反应。
They take other routes.
他们走其他路线。
So there are all these papers you’ve done, your lab has done, showing incentives are powerful.
因此，您完成的所有这些论文、您的实验室完成的所有这些论文都表明激励措施是强大的。
Why in the op-ed say incentives don’t matter so much?
为什么在专栏中说激励措施并不那么重要？
What the op-ed says is that financial incentives are overrated.
这篇专栏文章指出，经济激励措施被高估了。
But getting educated or not being pulled over for a drunk-driving traffic ticket — they’re closely related to financial incentives.
但接受教育或不因醉酒驾驶交通罚单而被拦下——它们与经济激励密切相关。
The traffic ticket, I think, is much more than the financial incentive.
我认为，交通罚单不仅仅是经济激励。
If you get stopped by a traffic officer, you lose your car right this instant.
如果您被交通官员拦住，您会立即失去您的汽车。
I think that it’s likely inconvenience is much, much bigger.
我认为这可能带来的不便要大得多。
The point that we are trying to make is not that people are not sensitive to incentives, because we can always construct incentives.
我们想要表达的观点并不是人们对激励不敏感，因为我们总是可以构建激励。
If you construct the incentive boldly enough, then it’s almost always true.
如果你足够大胆地构建激励措施，那么它几乎总是正确的。
The point is also not that people are not responsive to financial incentives whatsoever.
问题也不在于人们对任何经济激励措施没有反应。
The point is that the response to financial incentives is less than what typically we assume it is, both in terms of people seem to be pretty inelastic to taxes at all levels of income from the studies we have.
关键是，对财政激励措施的反应低于我们通常假设的情况，从我们的研究来看，人们似乎对各级收入的税收都缺乏弹性。
People seem to be pretty inelastic to receiving money for sure that doesn’t lead them to go on vacation.
人们似乎对收到金钱缺乏弹性，这肯定不会导致他们去度假。
But that’s just an income effect, right?
但这只是收入效应，对吧？
It’s not a price effect.
这不是价格效应。
Yeah, that’s an income effect.
是的，这就是收入效应。
But you would think the income effect also create a disincentive to work.
但你可能会认为收入效应也会抑制工作。
At least that’s in our models.
至少在我们的模型中是这样。
That’s why we’d be wary of welfare.
这就是为什么我们会对福利保持警惕。
But you take the negative income tax experiment — in fact, probably the first RCTs in the social science — as early as the ’70s, what they were doing was kind of a Milton Friedman idea to simplify welfare.
但以负所得税实验为例——事实上，这可能是社会科学领域的第一个随机对照试验——早在上世纪 70 年代，他们所做的就是米尔顿·弗里德曼 (Milton Friedman) 简化福利的想法。
But what they did in this experiment is to guarantee people a certain level of income, but it was such that it was taxed away at a pretty steep rate.
但他们在这个实验中所做的是保证人们一定的收入水平，但这种收入却被以相当高的税率征税。
So people were facing about a 50 percent marginal tax on their income.
因此，人们的收入面临着大约 50% 的边际税。
And even there, the labor supply response was so low.
即使在那里，劳动力供应的反应也很低。
But take that French work many fewer hours a week than Americans.
但法国人每周的工作时间比美国人少得多。
Isn’t that mainly a tax effect, a price effect?
这主要不是税收效应、价格效应吗？
I don’t think so, no.
我不这么认为，不。
No?
不？
What would it be?
会是什么？
Well to start with, there is a regulation —
首先，有一条规定——
But there were all these part-time jobs.
但还有所有这些兼职工作。
In the 1970s, French and other Europeans worked more than Americans.
20 世纪 70 年代，法国人和其他欧洲人的工作时间比美国人多。
Tax rates in Europe were lower.
欧洲的税率较低。
The ’80s — expenditures and tax rates go up.
八十年代——支出和税率上升。
It’s always difficult to compare two countries, but my bet, based on extrapolating from the micro study, is that that’s not the financial effect.
比较两个国家总是很困难，但根据微观研究的推断，我敢打赌，这不是财务影响。
I think it comes much more from regulation.
我认为这更多地来自监管。
How much can you work anyways?
无论如何，你能工作多少？
And from the availability of jobs, the availability of part-time jobs.
从工作的可用性来看，兼职工作的可用性。
There’s actually much less, partly also due to regulations and less to individual effort response because they are thinking they are going to be taxed away.
实际上要少得多，部分原因是法规的原因，而不是个人努力的反应，因为他们认为自己会被征税。
That seems to me counter factor.
在我看来，这似乎是反因素。
In the new book, why not have more on social conservatism?
在新书中，为什么不更多地讨论社会保守主义呢？
Take something like single parenthood.
以单亲家庭为例。
It seems to be a big problem.
看来是个大问题了。
There are many new studies showing it may be a bigger problem than we had thought.
许多新研究表明，这可能是一个比我们想象的更严重的问题。
It’s a cause of poverty, persistent poverty.
这是贫困、持续贫困的一个原因。
It’s kind of a right-wing issue, for whatever reasons.
无论出于何种原因，这都是一个右翼问题。
Why not have more right-wing issues in your book?
为什么不在你的书中加入更多右翼问题呢？
We do have these issues as outcomes.
我们确实有这些问题作为结果。
I don’t know why it’s a right-wing issue to worry about single parenthood because, as you were saying, all of the data suggest that it’s not a very good thing to grow up as a kid of a single mom in her teens.
我不知道为什么担心单亲家庭是一个右翼问题，因为正如你所说，所有数据都表明，作为一个十几岁的单亲妈妈的孩子长大并不是一件好事。
And it’s not a good thing for the single mom in question, either.
对于单亲妈妈来说，这也不是一件好事。
So it seems to me that it’s not a right-wing, left-wing issue.
所以在我看来，这不是一个右翼、左翼的问题。
In fact, the person I know who is the most left-wing probably is my mom, and that’s one of her key battle cries — reduce teenage pregnancies in El Salvador.
事实上，我认识的最左翼的人可能是我的妈妈，这是她的主要战斗口号之一——减少萨尔瓦多的青少年怀孕。
And your father was a mathematician, right?
你父亲是一位数学家，对吗？
Yeah.
是的。
And did you learn math from him?
你是跟他学数学的吗？
Yes, but I learned it at a very fundamental level because he’s a very fundamental mathematician.
是的，但我在非常基础的层面上学习了它，因为他是一位非常基础的数学家。
It left me, I think, with some good instinct.
我想，这给我留下了一些良好的本能。
Going back to the issues — why I don’t think single motherhood is a left-wing or a right-wing issue — I think what would make it a social-conservatism issue is to approach it from a kind of moral failing way.
回到问题上来——为什么我不认为单身母亲是左翼或右翼问题——我认为使它成为社会保守主义问题的方法是从一种道德失败的方式来处理它。
And what makes it a progressive issue is to approach it as the outcome of conditions in life that are potentially changeable.
使它成为一个进步问题的原因在于将其视为可能改变的生活条件的结果。
Or maybe it’s the same thing.
或者也许是同一件事。
We do talk about it a bit in the book.
我们在书中确实讨论过这一点。
In particular, for example, one of the consequences of the fact that people are not mobile and industries are clustered, so when there is a shock, everybody suffers together, is that in those towns that are hit the most, you do see a kind of erosion of these social norms.
特别是，例如，由于人们不流动、产业聚集，所以当发生冲击时，每个人都共同受苦，其后果之一是，在那些受灾最严重的城镇，你确实看到了这些社会规范的一种侵蚀。
People are less likely to get married.
人们结婚的可能性较小。
They are more likely to have children out of wedlock, et cetera.
他们更有可能非婚生孩子等等。
So this is one of the possible consequences of people’s unhappiness.
所以这是人们不快乐可能产生的后果之一。
What do you learn from rock climbing, or how does it inspire you?
你从攀岩中学到了什么，或者它如何激励你？
Many things you can learn from rock climbing.
你可以从攀岩中学到很多东西。
One is that it’s a bit like empirical economics.
一是它有点像经验经济学。
You look at the wall, and you have a decent idea of what might work.
你看着这堵墙，你就知道什么是可行的。
Think of it as a theory or an intuition.
将其视为理论或直觉。
But then when you try it out, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
但当你尝试时，有时有效，有时无效。
That’s kind of the data going in a way.
这就是数据的运行方式。
It’s also something you do socially.
这也是你在社交场合所做的事情。
You do need another person to catch you if you fall.
如果你跌倒了，你确实需要另一个人来接住你。
And you need to pay attention to the other person.
并且你需要注意对方。
And a lot of economics is very social in this way.
许多经济学在这方面都是非常社会化的。
It’s not competitive, or at least not the way I do it.
这没有竞争力，或者至少不是我这样做的方式。
It’s making slow and steady progress toward some goal.
它正在朝着某个目标缓慢而稳定地前进。
Do you love South Indian classical music?
您喜欢南印度古典音乐吗？
I like it.
我喜欢它。
Love it would be a stronger statement than I should because I am not a connoisseur.
喜欢它会是一个比我应该更强烈的声明，因为我不是鉴赏家。
Abhijit, my husband, is really into it.
我的丈夫阿比吉特（Abhijit）非常热衷于此。
In fact, South Indian and North Indian both.
事实上，南印度和北印度都有。
We listen to it at home, and we go to concerts whenever we are in India.
我们在家听，只要我们在印度，我们就会去听音乐会。
Chennai is one place where we do a lot of work and J-PAL has its headquarters, and it has some of the best South Indian music.
金奈是我们开展大量工作的地方，J-PAL 也是其总部，这里有一些最好的南印度音乐。
So I’m kind of an unenlightened amateur.
所以我是一个没有开悟的业余爱好者。
I’ve been to the December festival there.
我去过那里的十二月节日。
It was fantastic.
太棒了。
Took my daughter.
带走了我的女儿。
What in classical music interests you most?
古典音乐中你最感兴趣的是什么？
In Western classical?
西方古典？
Yes.
是的。
This I truly love.
这是我真正喜欢的。
Indian classic I also love but with no expertise whatsoever.
我也喜欢印度经典，但没有任何专业知识。
Western classic I grew up listening to forever.
我从小就听着西方经典。
What interests me the most .
我最感兴趣的是什么。
.
。
.
。
I don’t even know if interest is the word because it’s very visceral.
我什至不知道兴趣这个词是否正确，因为它是发自内心的。
And what is it?
那是什么？
What do you put on?
你穿什么？
What’s your Desert Island Disc?
你的荒岛光盘是什么？
Oh, that’s Bach.
哦，那是巴赫。
I listen to Bach almost every morning when I’m walking, in particular to Bach cantatas.
我几乎每天早上走路时都会听巴赫的曲子，尤其是巴赫的康塔塔。
That’s my morning music.
这是我早上的音乐。
Then in the afternoon I move on to more frontier stuff like Schumann or something like that.
然后下午我会继续学习更前沿的东西，比如舒曼之类的。
It’s only after dinner that it moves to Bob Dylan.
直到晚饭后，话题才转向鲍勃·迪伦。
So definitely it would be Bach, and it would probably be one of the Passions.
所以肯定是巴赫，而且可能是受难曲之一。
Or if I could have two, I would take two Passions, the St. John and St. Matthew’s Passion.
或者，如果我可以有两个，我会选择两首受难曲，《约翰受难曲》和《马太受难曲》。
Yeah.
是的。
What advice do you give to your talented undergraduates that differs from the advice your colleagues would give them?
您给才华横溢的本科生的建议与您的同事提供的建议有何不同？
I give almost all of them the advice to take some time off, in particular if they have any interest in development, which is generally the reason why they come to see me in the first place.
我给几乎所有人的建议是休息一段时间，特别是如果他们对发展感兴趣的话，这通常是他们首先来见我的原因。
But even if they don’t really, to spend a year or two in a developing country, working on a project.
但即使他们没有真正做到这一点，也要在发展中国家花一两年时间从事一个项目。
Not necessarily inner city.
不一定是内城。
Any project spending time in the field.
任何在现场花费时间的项目。
This is what Michael Kremer did before he went back to graduate school, and I think that was a determinant to him.
这就是迈克尔·克雷默（Michael Kremer）回到研究生院之前所做的事情，我认为这对他来说是一个决定性因素。
This, to some extent, is what I did with my little Russia experience.
在某种程度上，这就是我用我在俄罗斯的一点点经验所做的。
And this was clearly very central to me.
这显然对我来说非常重要。
It’s only through this exposure that you can learn how wrong most of your intuitions are and preconceptions are.
只有通过这种接触，你才能了解到你的大多数直觉和先入之见是多么错误。
I can tell it to them till they are blue in the face to not let themselves be guided by what seems obvious to them.
我可以告诉他们，直到他们脸色发青，不要让自己被那些对他们来说显而易见的事情所引导。
But until they’ve confronted what they think is obvious to something entirely different, then it’s not clear.
但直到他们面对他们认为显而易见的完全不同的东西之前，一切都还不清楚。
Whether or not this is different from what my colleagues would say, I don’t know.
我不知道这是否与我的同事所说的不同。
Maybe some of my colleague would say that you’re better off staying home and cranking some data and getting these types of skills.
也许我的一些同事会说，你最好呆在家里处理一些数据并获得这些类型的技能。
Obviously it hasn’t stopped you any, but do you worry that development economics in some ways puts women at a disadvantage because some emerging economies are especially dangerous for women?
显然这并没有阻止你，但你是否担心发展经济学在某些方面使女性处于不利地位，因为一些新兴经济体对女性特别危险？
India, in particular, that may be the case.
尤其是印度，情况可能如此。
I think development economics is the most gender-balanced subfield of all of economics.
我认为发展经济学是所有经济学中性别最平衡的子领域。
In fact, if anything, there are more women and more powerful women in development than men.
事实上，如果说有什么不同的话，那就是发展中的女性数量比男性更多，女性的权力也更大。
So whatever it is, it does not stop them.
所以无论是什么，都无法阻止他们。
And there are many, many women working on India.
还有很多很多女性在印度工作。
Of course, you don’t do silly things.
当然，你不会做傻事。
And the advantage of working, of having this infrastructure that I was talking about before, is that it makes it possible for people to always be in groups and to work in a context where they are safe.
工作的好处，拥有我之前谈到的这种基础设施，是它使人们能够始终分组并在安全的环境中工作。
At the same time, they can get the experience of living in these environments.
同时，他们可以获得在这些环境中生活的体验。
I think that makes people often very aware that gender rights, for example, is something to study very deeply.
我认为这常常使人们非常意识到性别权利等问题是需要深入研究的事情。
For example, one of my graduate students, Maddie McKelway, worked in rural Uttar Pradesh, one of the parts of India which has some of the most extreme gender inequity.
例如，我的一位研究生麦迪·麦克凯尔韦（Maddie McKelway）在北方邦农村工作，这是印度性别不平等最严重的地区之一。
And she conducted her project like a master with a little group of largely female research assistants and got everybody to go along with her.
她像大师一样带领一小群主要由女性研究助理组成的项目，并让每个人都同意她的意见。
Last question — if you could institute a reform to increase opportunity for women in economics, what would you do?
最后一个问题——如果你可以进行一项改革来增加女性在经济学领域的机会，你会做什么？
I think there are two things that one could do.
我认为一个人可以做两件事。
I don’t know if they are reforms per se.
我不知道它们本身是否是改革。
One is to change a little bit the climate in the economics profession.
一是稍微改变经济学界的氛围。
It’s not particularly anti-woman per se.
它本身并不是特别反女性。
Some people argue it is, that people are, for example, more likely to interrupt women than men, et cetera.
有些人认为，例如，人们比男性更有可能打断女性，等等。
But even if they weren’t, they are, just in general, likely to interrupt each other.
但即使他们没有，一般来说，他们也可能会互相打断。
We are not a very touchy-feely culture in economics.
我们在经济文化中并不是一个非常敏感的文化。
It doesn’t bother me, it turns out.
事实证明，这并不困扰我。
So that’s not something that has stopped me in any way.
所以这并没有以任何方式阻止我。
But it bothers many people, and it tends to bother women and, I think, minority more.
但它困扰了很多人，而且往往更困扰女性，我认为更困扰少数族裔。
Changing the culture, of course, is not a reform per se.
当然，改变文化本身并不是改革。
But there are small things you can do that can help.
但您可以做一些小事来提供帮助。
One thing we’ve done at MIT — very simple — is to institute the rule that someone who gives a seminar gets the first 15 minutes uninterrupted.
我们在麻省理工学院做过的一件事——非常简单——就是制定一项规则，要求举办研讨会的人在前 15 分钟内不受打扰。
And that has, for our seminars, the development seminars, I think it’s actually improved the experience for everyone, the speaker and the audience.
对于我们的研讨会、发展研讨会来说，我认为这实际上改善了每个人、演讲者和观众的体验。
So that’s one.
这就是其中之一。
That’s not huge, but think of this as one — I’m not the magic-bullet type of person, and I don’t think there is one there — one of the silver bullets you could do there.
这并不大，但把它想象成一个——我不是那种灵丹妙药的人，我不认为那里有一个——你可以在那里做的灵丹妙药之一。
The other is something we could do outside of the economic profession, which is to change a little bit the image that economics has to the outside world.
另外一个是我们在经济专业之外可以做的事情，就是稍微改变一下经济学在外界的形象。
I think for a lot of high school students, college students — they are a bit like me when I was considering economics.
我认为对于很多高中生、大学生来说——当我考虑经济学时，他们有点像我。
It’s like, number one, it’s talk about interest rate and central banks, and it’s kind of boring.
第一，它谈论的是利率和央行，这有点无聊。
And number two, it uses incredibly crude tools.
第二，它使用极其粗糙的工具。
In fact, both of these statements are wrong about the state of our discipline.
事实上，这两种关于我们学科现状的说法都是错误的。
In fact, we study any number of issues, including those, but also extreme poverty, discrimination, inequality, and we study them with lots of very sophisticated tools and relevant empirical tools, et cetera.
事实上，我们研究许多问题，包括这些问题，但也包括极端贫困、歧视、不平等，并且我们使用许多非常复杂的工具和相关的经验工具等来研究它们。
I think if people were more aware at an early age, before they choose a field, there would be more women to start with choosing to study economics.
我认为，如果人们在很小的时候，在选择专业之前就更加意识到这一点，就会有更多的女性开始选择学习经济学。
And then hopefully, more would continue, which, I think, is something we really need.
希望更多的事情能够继续下去，我认为这是我们真正需要的。
Not just women but also minority because economics is a social science, and as a social science, we do need diversity in experiences and points of view, et cetera, because people with different backgrounds, including gender and life experiences, will be interested in different questions and also will bring a slightly different perspective to those questions.
不仅是女性，也包括少数族裔，因为经济学是一门社会科学，而作为一门社会科学，我们确实需要经验和观点的多样性等等，因为不同背景的人，包括性别和生活经历，会对不同的问题感兴趣，也会对这些问题带来稍微不同的视角。
So it would make the field more vibrant.
因此，这将使该领域更加充满活力。
Esther Duflo, thank you very much.
埃丝特·迪弗洛，非常感谢你。
Congratulations again on the Nobel Prize, of course.
当然，再次祝贺您获得诺贝尔奖。
And the new book with Abhijit Bannerjee is Good Economics for Hard Times.
阿比吉特·班纳吉 (Abhijit Bannerjee) 合着的新书是《艰难时期的良好经济学》(Good Economics for Hard Times)。
Thank you.
谢谢。
Thank you so much.
太感谢了。