Congratulations are in order to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom, winners on Monday of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

恭喜奥利弗•哈特(Oliver Hart)和本特•霍姆斯特姆(Bengt Holmstrom)——2016年诺贝尔经济学奖(Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics)的得主。

Even though economics is not a full-fledged Nobel Prize, it has been earned by some splendid social scientists over the years — including a number of people who are not economists at all, from Herbert Simon and John Nash to Daniel Kahneman and Elinor Ostrom.

尽管诺贝尔经济学奖并非根据阿尔弗雷德•诺贝尔的遗嘱所设立，但多年来有一些出色的社会科学家获此殊荣——其中包括一些根本不是经济学家的人，从赫伯特•西蒙(Herbert Simon)和约翰•纳什(John Nash)、到丹尼尔•卡尼曼(Daniel Kahneman)和埃莉诺•奥斯特罗姆(Elinor Ostrom)。

Yet this week I would rather discuss a different prize: the Ig Nobel prize for economics.

不过本周我宁愿讨论另一种奖项——搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖。

The Ig Nobels are an enormously silly affair: they have been awarded for a study of dinosaur gaits that involved attaching weighted sticks to chickens (the biology prize), for studying stinky feet (medicine) and for figuring out why shower curtains tend to billow inwards when you’re taking a shower (physics).

搞笑诺贝尔奖非常愚蠢：生物学奖颁发给一项有关恐龙步态的研究（涉及给鸡捆绑负重棒的方法），医学奖颁发给研究臭脚，物理学奖颁发给探索在你洗澡时浴帘为何往往向里飘的研究。

But one of the Ig Nobel’s charms is that this ridiculous research might actually tell us something about the world.

但搞笑诺贝尔奖的魅力之一是，这些荒唐的研究实际上可能反映了这个世界的一些现实。

David Dunning and Justin Kruger received an Ig Nobel prize in psychology for their discovery that incompetent people rarely realise they are incompetent; the Dunning-Kruger effect is now widely cited.

大卫•邓宁(David Dunning)和贾斯廷•克鲁格(Justin Kruger)因为发现无能的人很少意识到自己无能而获得搞笑诺贝尔心理学奖；邓宁-克鲁格效应如今被广泛引用。

Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith won an Ig Nobel in physics for their discovery that hair and string have a tendency to become tangled — potentially an important line of research in understanding the structure of DNA.

多里安•雷默(Dorian Raymer)和道格拉斯•史密斯(Douglas Smith)因为发现头发和线绳倾向于缠在一起而得到了搞笑诺贝尔物理学奖，该发现有可能是理解DNA结构的重要线索。

Most famously, Andre Geim’s Ig Nobel in physics for levitating a live frog was promptly followed by a proper Nobel Prize in the same subject for the discovery of graphene.

最著名的是，安德鲁•海姆(Andre Geim)因为使一只活青蛙悬浮在半空中而得到搞笑诺贝尔物理学奖，不久后便因发现石墨烯赢得了真正的诺贝尔物理学奖。

A whimsical curiosity about the world is something to be encouraged.

对这个世界充满异想天开的好奇心应该被鼓励。

No wonder that the credo of the Ig Nobel prizes is that they should make you laugh, then make you think.

难怪搞笑诺贝尔奖的信条是它们应该让你发笑，而后引发思考。

In 2001, the Ig Nobel committee did just that, awarding the economics prize to Joel Slemrod and Wojciech Kopczuk, who demonstrated that people will try to postpone their own deaths to avoid inheritance tax.

2001年，搞笑诺贝尔奖委员会就是这样做的，把搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖颁发了给乔尔•斯莱姆罗德(Joel Slemrod)和沃伊切赫•科普楚克(Wojciech Kopczuk)。他们二人证明，人们将为了避免遗产税而试图推迟自己的死亡。

This highlights an important point about the power of incentives — and the pattern has since been discovered elsewhere.

这突显了激励的力量这个重要观点，自那以来其他领域也发现了这种行为模式。

Alas, most economics Ig Nobel prizes provoke little more than harsh laughter.

可惜，多数搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖只引发了刺耳的笑声。

They’ve been awarded to Nick Leeson and Barings Bank, Iceland’s Kaupthing Bank, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and so on.

这些奖项曾经颁发给尼克•里森(Nick Leeson)和巴林银行(Barings Bank)、冰岛Kaupthing银行、美国国际集团(AIG)、雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)等。

The first economics prize was awarded to Michael Milken, one of the inventors of the junk bond.

首个搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖颁发给了迈克尔•米尔肯(Michael Milken)——垃圾债券的发明者之一。

He was in prison at the time.

他当时正在监狱服刑。

Fair game.

这些都没问题。

Still, surely there is something in economics that is ludicrous on the surface yet thought-provoking underneath? (The entire discipline, you say? Very droll.)

不过，经济学里肯定有一些表明看起来荒唐、但实际上发人深省的道理吧？（你说，整个学科都是如此？非常搞笑。

Where is the award for Dean Karlan and Chris Udry? These two bold Yale professors wanted to figure out whether lack of access to crop insurance was damaging Ghana’s agricultural productivity, so they set up an insurance company, sold insurance to Ghanaian farmers, and accidentally got themselves on the hook for half a million dollars if it didn’t rain in Ghana.

迪安•卡兰(Dean Karlan)和克里斯•尤德里(Chris Udry)怎么没有获奖？这两位大胆的耶鲁(Yale)教授想搞清楚的课题是：缺乏购买农作物保险的渠道，是否损害了加纳的农业生产率？于是他们创办了一家保险公司，向加纳农民出售保险，意外地让自己被套牢——如果加纳不下雨的话他们会赔进50万美元。

(Happy ending: it rained.

（大团圆结局：加纳下雨了。

Also, crop insurance is very helpful.)

而且，农作物保险非常有用。

Psychologists Bernhard Borges, Dan Goldstein, Andreas Ortmann and Gerd Gigerenzer found they could construct a market-beating portfolio of stocks by stopping people on street corners, showing them a list of company names, and asking which they recognised.

心理学家伯恩哈德•博尔格斯(Bernhard Borges)、丹•戈尔茨坦(Dan Goldstein)、安德烈亚斯•奥特曼(Andreas Ortmann)和格尔德•希赫伦策(Gerd Gigerenzer)发现，通过拦下街头的行人、向他们展示公司名列表并询问他们认识哪些公司，他们就可以打造一个跑赢大盘的股票投资组合。

Surely an Ig Nobel in finance?

肯定值得一个搞笑诺贝尔金融奖吧？

Another psychologist, Dan Ariely, already shared an Ig Nobel prize for medicine in 2008 for demonstrating that expensive placebos work better than cheap placebos.

另一位心理学家丹•艾瑞里(Dan Ariely)因为证明昂贵安慰剂比便宜安慰剂的效果更好，已经在2008年和他人分享了搞笑诺贝尔医学奖。

But in recent research with Emir Kamenica and Drazen Prelec, described in Ariely’s forthcoming book Payoff, Ariely paid people to build robots out of Lego.

但在最近与埃米尔•卡梅尼察(Emir Kamenica)和德拉任•普雷莱茨(Drazen Prelec)的研究（记录在艾瑞里即将出版的新书《Payoff》里）中，艾瑞里雇佣人们用乐高(Lego)搭机器人。

The researchers’ aim: to examine the nature of the modern workplace by dismantling the Lego in front of their subjects’ eyes, to see if they could dishearten them.

研究人员的目的是：在研究对象面前拆解乐高积木，观察这是否会让他们灰心，以此来考察现代职场的本质。

(They could.) An Ig Nobel in management beckons.

（他们确实感到沮丧。）这种成果呼唤一个诺贝尔管理学奖。

Richard Thaler deserves an Ig Nobel in economics for his long-running column Anomalies, in which he asked his fellow economists a series of questions that seem straightforward but are enormously difficult for economics to answer.

理查德•塞勒(Richard Thaler)因其长期撰写的专栏《Anomalies》而值得一个搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖。在专栏中，他会问经济学同僚一系列看似显而易见、但以经济学来看非常难回答的问题。

Why do investment banks pay high wages even to the receptionists? Why do people overpay in auctions? Why are people often nice to each other? If the Ig Nobel committee wants to repeat the Andre Geim trick, it should hurry up: Thaler may well win the economics Nobel before his Ig Nobel can be awarded.

为什么投行甚至会给前台发高薪？为什么人们会在拍卖中超额支付？为什么人们经常善待他人？如果搞笑诺贝尔委员会希望重复安德鲁•海姆的经历，那就应该抓紧：塞勒很可能会在获得搞笑诺贝尔奖之前拿到诺贝尔经济学奖。

But my preferred candidate for an Ig Nobel prize in economics is Thomas Thwaites.

但是我青睐的搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖候选人是托马斯•思伟茨(Thomas Thwaites)。

A few years ago Thwaites set himself the simple-seeming task of replicating from scratch a cheap Argos toaster (retail price: ￡3.99).

几年前，思伟茨给自己制定了一个看似简单的任务——从零开始制作便宜的Argos面包机（零售价：3.99英镑）。

He smelted iron in a microwave, tried to produce plastic from potato starch, and generally made a colossal mess.

他在微波炉里融化铁，试图用土豆淀粉制作塑料，结果总体上是一片狼藉。

His toaster cost ￡1,187.54, resembled a disastrously iced birthday cake and melted when plugged into the mains.

他的面包机花了1187.54英镑，那台面包机就像是一个可怜的生日蛋糕，插上电源后竟然熔化了。

(A partial success, says Thwaites.)

（部分成功，思伟茨称。

Thwaites’s toaster project thus tells us more about the brilliance and dizzying complexity of the interconnected global economy than any textbook could.

因此，相比课本，思伟茨的面包机项目向我们展示了更多关于这个互联互通的全球经济的美妙和令人眼花缭乱的复杂性。

He is a shoo-in for the economics Ig Nobel.

他完全应该获得搞笑诺贝尔经济学奖。

Perplexingly, however, the Ig Nobel committee awarded him this year’s prize for biology instead after he attempted to live life dressed as a goat.

然而，令人费解的是，在思伟茨尝试打扮成山羊一样生活后，搞笑诺贝尔委员会反而把今年的生物学家颁给了他。

How silly.

多傻啊。