我们为何对价格机制说不？
Eternal enigma
作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家提姆•哈福德(Tim Harford)
2008年6月10日 星期二
有一次，我朋友俩口子围绕在街边便利店或加油站购买的一包品牌柠檬片价格展开了争论。妻子抱怨称，这些柠檬片不值她支付的那个价格。而丈夫则指出，她已经买了——尽管有些勉强——也知道它们确实是什么味道，因此这些柠檬片肯定值那个钱。你肯定猜得出，他们俩谁是经济学家。
我们经济学家知道很多有关定价的知识，但我们往往对其他人考虑价格的方式感到困惑。在一位经济学家看来，套装度假产品“迪斯尼(Disneyland)儿童免费游”是有利可图的，它能向拥有两份收入而没有子女的夫妇收取更高价格，此类消费者可能会有更多的钱花。而对于其他人，这种想法不假思索地被抛在了脑后。
如何阐述一项定价政策显然十分重要——这令那些能够将定价全都变成数学公式、并让政策的阐述变得毫不相干的经济学家们感到不安。向公平贸易咖啡、有机面包或低排放汽油收取更高价格，似乎是可以接受的。而企业不会说：“我们就是钟意对工人剥削程度更高的咖啡、添加杀虫剂的面包和污染更重的汽油，因此我们愿意低价销售，并接受较低的利润率。”然而，在光鲜的外表之下，所有定价政策都是一回事。
在一位经济学家看来，所有人最常见的一个谜题，是在面临短缺时，为何价格罕有上涨。去年圣诞节，Wii游戏机供不应求，Xbox 360曾在2005年缺货，而PlayStation 2代游戏机在更早的时候也出现过短缺，如此等等，但它们的零售价格却未改变。为了拿到一张热卖的音乐会门票，你通常需要去找票贩子，因为正规的音乐会推广方不敢索要高价，使需求降至供应的水平。当美国石油公司在卡特里纳飓风(Hurricane Katrina)后调高汽油价格时，消费者纷纷表示愤怒——尽管事实是，炼油设施遭受严重破坏，石油公司不可能以通常的低价供应所有消费者，这是不言自明的事情。
我一直在思考这个问题，直到经济学家们做出了一个非常聪明的解释，说明了价格为何不会上涨到令供需平衡的水平。票价之所以维持在低位，可能是要鼓励热衷购买纪念品的年轻观众。受追捧的餐厅愿意拥有等候订位的顾客名单，或许是因为这有助于提高餐厅的声望。即使我开始认为，这些解释听上去有些牵强：这些额外的好处，真的超过了商家因涨价而丧失的收入了吗？
当然，直觉上的解释是：我们非理性地拒绝高价，即使这样做的后果是施行定量配给、排长队和不确定我们能否买到自己真想要的东西。
这令经济学家感到困惑，但我们可能至少能从中获得安慰：即便对合理价格的信任没有直接的逻辑，但至少有一种进化的逻辑。戴维•弗里德曼(David Friedman)——已故经济学家密尔顿•弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)之子，一位经济学理论的表述大师——辩称，我们的祖先是在一种大多数交易都是一对一的环境中进化过来的。在这种环境下，本能地拒绝接受通常价格以外的东西是一种优势。对涨价表示出非理性愤怒的人，其实都是强有力的谈判者。
我们对于公平价格的执著偏好，在一种不再普遍的环境中进化；但进化不会做出迅速的反应，这可能是我们之所以仍对涨价愤怒尖叫的原因。它也是票贩子之所以仍能维持生计的原因所在。
译者/梁艳裳
阅读本文章英文,请点击 Eternal enigma
Eternal enigma
By Tim Harford
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Friends of mine, husband and wife, once argued over the price of a branded packet of lemon slices bought at some convenient corner shop or petrol station. She complained that the slices weren't worth the price she had paid. He pointed out that she had bought them – albeit grudgingly – knowing exactly how they tasted, and that therefore they had to be worth what she had paid. No prizes for guessing which of them is an economist.
We economists know a lot about pricing, but we tend to be baffled by the way the rest of humanity thinks about it. The package holiday offer, “Kids go free to Disneyland”, is, to an economist, a profitable attempt to charge more to couples with two incomes and no children, who are likely to have more cash to burn. To everyone else, it is an idea waved through unquestioningly.
How a pricing policy is presented clearly matters – which is disconcerting to economists, who can translate all the pricing into mathematical equations and make the presentation irrelevant. It seems to be acceptable to charge a higher mark-up for fair trade coffee, organic bread or lower-emission petrol. It is not acceptable for businesses to say, “we are such fans of exploitative coffee, pesticide-laced loaves and dirtier petrol that we're willing to discount them and accept a lower profit margin.” Underneath the gloss, the pricing policies are, nevertheless, identical.
The most common puzzle of all, to an economist, is why prices so rarely rise in the face of a shortage. There was a shortage of Wii games consoles last Christmas, Xbox 360s in 2005, PlayStation 2 consoles before that, and so on, yet the retail price remained the same. To secure tickets for a hot concert, you will usually need to go to a ticket tout, because the regular concert promoters wouldn't dare charge a price that might bring demand down to the level of supply. And when US oil companies raised gasoline prices after Hurricane Katrina, there were howls of outrage – despite the fact that the refining infrastructure was badly damaged and it was self-evidently impossible to supply everyone at the customary lower price.
I have pondered before the very clever explanations economists produce to explain why prices do not rise to equalise supply and demand. Perhaps ticket prices are kept low to encourage a memorabilia-buying younger crowd. Perhaps popular restaurants like to have a waiting list for reservations because it adds to the cachet. Even I am starting to feel that these explanations sound strained: are these side-benefits really enough to outweigh the lost revenue from higher prices?
The intuitive explanation, of course, is that we irrationally object to high prices even when the alternative is rationing, long queues, and uncertainty over whether we can buy what we really want.
That is discomfiting for economists, but we might at least take solace in the idea that even though there is no immediate logic to a belief in the right price, there is at least an evolutionary logic. David Friedman – son of the late Milton Friedman, and a superb communicator of economics – has argued that our ancestors evolved in an environment where most transactions were one-on-one bargains. A hard-wired refusal to accept something other than the customary price would, in such a setting, be an advantage. Anyone who reacts to a price rise with irrational rage turns out to be a strong negotiator.
Our stubborn preference for a just price evolved in a setting that is no longer common; but evolution does not respond quickly, which may be why we still shriek with outrage at price hikes. It would also explain why ticket touts still make a living.价格机制,Eternal enigma经济观察,我们为何对价格机制说不
