Giving Away Money Costs More Than You Think
派钱的成本比你想的要高
——什么是寻租
人文经济学会资助译制
翻译：mangosteen|校对：FungChuh
You can’t give money away. Now that sounds crazy, but it’s true. This is even more true for government programs that try to give away money through grants, subsidies, and other handouts. Do you want to know why? To explain I’ll need to tell you about something called rent seeking.
你没法把钱派出去。这听来有点傻，但却是真的。尤其是对试图通过补助、补贴和其他施舍形式派钱的政府项目而言。你想知道为什么吗？为了解释，我需要和你谈谈什么是寻租。
Now if you try to give away money, unless you’re giving it to one person or group in particular without opening it up to any competition, people or firms will expend resources in order to get the money you’re giving away. In effect, they’re paying for the opportunity to get the money.
如果你试图派钱，除非你是派给某人或某一团体，排除任何竞争者，否则个人或公司会花费资源竞争你要派的钱。即是，它们会为得到这笔钱的机会付出成本。
Here’s an example you’ll all recognize. Suppose a college gives a scholarship for the best 20-page essay. The scholarship is $10,000. In this case, you have to write about “what kind of flower would you like to be?” The money the college is trying to give away is what economists call a rent.
给个你们都听得懂的例子。假设一所大学要给最佳20页散文的得主发奖学金。奖学金是一万美元。这一次，你要写的题目是「你想成为哪种花？」学校想派的钱就是经济学家所称的租金。
A rent is a prize, something more than you could normally get and more than you could get from any other activity. Now the rent is not the problem, or it wouldn’t be if the school just gave it away in a lottery. The problem comes when we ask people to compete for the money. That competition is called rent seeking.
租金是奖金，它比你通常能得到的多，也比你能从其他活动得到的多。租金不是问题，或者如果这所学校把它以彩票形式送出去就不是。问题出在我们要求人们为这笔钱竞争时。这场竞争就叫寻租。
All the applicants will expend a lot of time and effort trying to make their essay the best. So suppose 100 students apply for the $10,000 scholarship, and on average they spend 15 hours working on the 20-page paper. And suppose their time reading, doing chores, or working in a job is worth about $8 an hour. Let’s add the cost of this competition up.
所有申请人将付出很多时间和精力试图写出最好的散文。所以假设有100名学生申请这一万美元的奖学金，他们平均花费15 小时完成这份20页的散文。假如他们的阅读、做家务或工作的时间价值8 美元一小时。让我们把这场竞争的成本加起来。
The school tried to give away $10,000, but the students spent over $12,000 of effort without really edifying themselves in the process. The scholarship was a net loss overall. Sure the winner’s better off, but even her net benefit is slightly less than $10,000. Then she had to work so many hours to win it. In other words you can’t give away money—at least not without incurring a lot of cost in the process.
学校试图派出一万美元，但学生花了价值超过一万二美元的努力，期间却没得到自我提升。总的来说这个奖学金是净损失。当然赢家更好过了，但她的净收益也略低于一万美元。她还得耗费那么多时间来赢得它。换言之，你无法把钱派出去——至少在过程中无可避免会产生大量成本。
This is an extremely important lesson to remember when we talk about the governmentgivingmoney away. When the government has money to give away, people or firms will spend time and resources competing for that rent through applications, proposals, lobbying, and other means.
在我们讨论政府派钱时，应该牢牢记住这极其重要的教训。当政府有钱要派出去，个人或公司会为这一租金花费时间和资源通过申请、提案、游说或其他方式竞争。
This rent seeking wastes resources, and it leads to contracts being awarded to the companies that are the best at lobbying for the rent, not the companies that are best at producing the service we want to contract for. Worse, much or even most of the money being given away is wasted, dissipated in the competition to win the rent in the first place.
这种寻租浪费资源，且会导致合约落到擅长游说寻租的公司手中，而不是擅长提供高质量服务的公司。更糟糕的是，很多甚至几乎所有要派出去的钱一开始就在租金竞争中浪费掉。
And yet so much of our political discourse focuses on how much money should be given away and to whom, without acknowledging the problem of rent seeking. It’s time for voters and politicians alike to learn that you can’t just give money away.
然而我们太多的政治讨论集中在应该派多少钱，应该派给谁，而没有考虑到寻租的问题。选民和政客都是时候认识到你无法就这么把钱派出去了。
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