每日英語跟讀 Ep.982: Why Surge Prices Make Us So Mad諾貝爾經濟學得主：不該強推一套會引起道德義憤的規則

When Bruce Springsteen decided to do a run of shows at a Broadway theater with fewer than a thousand seats, he appeared to reject the laws of economics — or at least what would seem to be in his financial best interest.

He limited ticket prices to $75 to $850 and has been allocating them through a lottery that includes identity verification. His goal was to prevent scalping. Yet not everyone who sought tickets got them at those prices. The tickets that have leaked onto the open market on StubHub ranged in one recent search from $1,200 to $9,999.

當布魯斯·史普林斯汀決定在一間不到1000個座位的百老匯劇院推出一檔表演時，他似乎揚棄了經濟學的定律，或至少看來最符合自身財務利益的定律。

他將票價限制在75到850美元之間，並透過必須驗證身份的抽籤來配售門票。他的目的是杜絕黃牛票，但並非每個想要買票的人都能以上述價格購得。外洩到StubHub公開市場的門票，最近某次搜索所顯示的票價範圍介於1200美元到9999美元之間。

It sure looks as if Springsteen left a great deal of money on the table and impeded the laws of the marketplace. After all, some people got tickets for $75 for which others were willing to pay four figures.

But the strategy may be less irrational than the raw numbers suggest. And understanding the hidden logic behind concert pricing — or how the Home Depot responds to a hurricane, or even how your neighborhood restaurant handles the Valentine’s Day crunch — can provide a guide to solving some of society’s biggest problems while satisfying people’s deep need for a sense of fairness.

看來史普林斯汀的確少賺了很多錢並且妨礙了市場法則，別忘了，有些人拿到的是其他人願意付四位數購買的75美元門票。

然而，這個策略可能不像原始數據所顯示的那般不合理。了解演唱會門票定價的背後邏輯，或者家得寶如何應對颶風，或是鄰近餐廳如何處理情人節危機，皆可提供指引，讓我們在滿足人們對於公平的深層需求之際解決社會上一些最嚴重的問題。

Understanding this logic can also win you a Nobel. At least, it did recently for the University of Chicago economist Richard H. Thaler, who was honored for work that includes study of what constitutes fairness in markets. He has shown that the simplistic Economics 101 version of how markets work — in which a seller raises prices however much it takes to match demand — can be inefficient, or offend people’s moral sensibilities, or both.

Technology is making “variable” or “dynamic” pricing — the same strategies that ensure airplane seats, hotel rooms or Uber cars are almost always available if you’re willing to pay the price — more plausible in areas with huge social consequences.

而懂得這個邏輯也可讓你贏得諾貝爾經濟學獎，至少芝加哥大學經濟學家塞勒不久前就做到了，他的得獎成就包括對市場公平性的研究。他已指出，經濟學101基本版市場運作方式，亦即賣方會把價格提高至需求面可接受的最高程度這過分簡單化的觀點，可能效率不高或冒犯人們的道德感，抑或兩者兼有。

科技正在能產生巨大社會影響的領域內，讓「變動的」或是「動態的」定價變得更為可行，而這跟你若願意付那個價格，飛機座位、旅館房間或Uber汽車服務讓你幾乎都能取得的策略相同。

Dynamic pricing of electricity could help bring down pollution, reduce energy costs and make renewable energy more viable. Constantly adjusting prices for access to highways and congested downtowns could make traffic jams, with all the resulting wasted time and excess emissions, a thing of the past. Any sector where supplies tend to be fixed but demand fluctuates — the water supply, health care — would seem like prime candidates for variable pricing.

But technologists, entrepreneurs and regulators who would go down this path first need to learn a few lessons from Thaler — and Springsteen.

“A good rule of thumb is we shouldn’t impose a set of rules that will create moral outrage, even if that moral outrage seems stupid to economists,” Thaler said.

電費的動態定價有助於減少汙染、降低能源成本且讓再生能源更加可行。經常調整進入高速公路和擁擠市中心的價格，則可讓交通堵塞與因而產生的所有時間浪費與過度排放成為過去。供應趨於固定但需求波動的任何部門，諸如供水與醫療保健，似乎都很容易實施變動定價。

但想要走上變動定價這條路的技術專家、企業家與監管單位，則先得從塞勒，還有史普林斯汀那兒先學到一些教訓。

塞勒說：「一個很好的經驗法則是，我們不應該強推一套會引起道德義憤的規則，即便對經濟學家來說那種道德義憤顯得愚蠢。」

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/320172/web/