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　　The psychology of saving

　　“THERE ARE IDIOTS. Look around.” So began a famous economics paper by Larry Summers — a lauded academic before he became US Treasury secretary. It is perhaps the most concise expression of behavioural economics, the branch of economics that tries to take psychology seriously.“傻瓜是存在的。看看周围吧。”拉里?萨默斯(Larry Summers)的一篇著名的经济学论文是这么开头的——在成为美国财政部长前，他是一名受到赞誉的学者。这句话可能是对努力严肃对待心理学的经济学分支——行为经济学的最精简表述了。

　　Behavioural economics is appealing not only because it is realistic but also because it is vastly more charming than the traditional variety. Championed by economists such as Richard Thaler (co-author of Nudge and author of a new book, Misbehaving ) and psychologists such as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman (author of Thinking, Fast and Slow), it has triumphed in the “smart thinking” section of the bookshop and exerted increasing influence in academia.行为经济学的吸引力不仅在于它贴近现实，还因为它比传统的经济学迷人得多。在理查德?塞勒(Richard Thaler，《助推》(Nudge)合著者之一，新书《不当行为》(Misbehaving)作者)等经济学家，和诺贝尔奖得主丹尼尔?卡尼曼(Daniel Kahneman，著有《思维，快慢有别》(Thinking, Fast and Slow))等心理学家的推动下，行为经济学不仅在书店里的“智慧思考”分架上大获成功，在学术界的影响力也日益增强。

　　It can be hard to turn psychological insights into rigorous academic models, and even harder to turn them into good policy. But there is at least one dramatic success for behavioural economics — the way that it has shaped pensions. At a recent Financial Times event, Professor Thaler rightly celebrated this as the field’s greatest triumph.要把心理学见解转化成严格的学术模型可能十分困难，而要把它们变成好的政策就更难了。但行为经济学至少取得了一项巨大成功——在打造养老金计划方面。在英国《金融时报》最近的一次活动上，塞勒教授盛赞这是该领域最大的成功，他的说法合情合理。

　　Other than Thaler’s own evangelism, the reason for this success is twofold. First, when it comes to pensions there is a large gap between what we do and what we should do. Second, bridging that gap is fairly simple: we need to encourage people to save more, and in most cases those savings should flow into simple, low-cost equity tracker funds. The only comparable example that springs to mind is smoking: many smokers are making themselves unhappy and would be better off if they could find a way to stop. And as a classic research paper in behavioural economics concludes, taxes on cigarettes seem to make smokers and potential smokers happier by prompting them to quit, or never start.除了塞勒自己的宣传以外，这一成功的原因分为两个部分。首先，在养老金方面，我们实际做的事情和我们应该做的事情之间存在极大差距。第二，缩短这一差距相当简单：我们需要鼓励人们进行更多储蓄，在大多数情况下，这些储蓄应该流入简单和低成本的股票指数基金。跃入脑海的唯一具有可比性的例子是吸烟：许多吸烟者因吸烟而不快乐，如果他们能找到办法停止吸烟，他们会过得更好。正如一篇行为经济学的经典研究论文的结论，对香烟征税似乎会使吸烟者和潜在吸烟者更快乐，因为征税会促使他们戒烟或永远不尝试吸烟。

              

Given the problem — people need to be nudged into saving more — the biggest pension policy breakthrough has been automatic enrolment, a cornerstone of modern UK pension policy and widely used in the US too. A typical defined contribution pension invites people to pay money into a pension pot, often enjoying tax advantages and matching contributions from an employer. Yet people procrastinate: money seems tight, retirement is a long way off, and who wants to fill in forms? Automatic enrolment reverses the default, deducting pension contributions from our payslips unless we take active steps to opt out. The process respects our autonomy — you can opt out if you wish — but makes it easy to do what we probably should be doing anyway.考虑到人们需要助推才会进行更多储蓄的问题，养老金政策的最大突破是自动参加机制。该机制是英国现代养老金政策的一个里程碑，在美国也得到了广泛应用。典型的固定缴款养老金计划要求人们向养老储备金中缴款，这些缴款通常享受税收优惠，同时雇主也会相应缴款。然而人们却总是拖延缴款：钱包似乎很紧，退休还很遥远，况且谁想填那些表格呢?自动参加机制把默认做法掉过来。除非我们主动采取措施退出养老金计划，否则该机制会从我们的薪水中自动扣除养老金缴款。这个过程尊重了我们的自主性——如果你希望的话，你可以选择退出——但却让我们很可能反正总该做的事情变得简单易行。

　　A clever supplement to this approach is “Save More Tomorrow”, a scheme in the US whereby people make an advance commitment to redirect part of their pay rises into the pension. At a 50/50 ratio, for example, a 2 per cent pay rise becomes a 1 per cent pay rise and a 1 percentage point increase in pension contributions. It doesn’t take long for a 3 per cent contribution (which is inadequate but typical in the US) to become something more sensible, such as 10 or 15 per cent. Thaler has been a driving force behind both ideas.对这一做法的一个聪明的补充是美国的“明天存储更多”(Save More Tomorrow)计划。在该计划下，人们可以进一步承诺，将自己薪水上涨的一部分转存入养老金之中。比如，在50/50的比例下，2%的涨薪会变成1% 的涨薪和1%的养老金缴款上涨。用不了多长时间，3%的缴纳比例(这个比例不够，但在美国非常普遍)就会升为更合理的比例，比如10%或者15%。塞勒在背后推动了这两种理念。

　　Of course, these tactics do not work for everyone. I once spoke at a book festival in Australia and found that a slice of my modest fee had been automatically invested in an Australian pension for me. This benefited nobody except some administrators and the postman who delivered the letters from Australia, detailing the evaporation of my tiny pension pot.当然，这些策略并非对每个人都适合。我曾在澳大利亚的一个书展上发表了演讲，然后发现我微薄的演讲费中的一部分自动投入了一个澳大利亚养老金计划。任何人都无法从中受益，除了某些管理者和从澳大利亚给我寄送信件的邮差——信里详细说明了我那笔小小的养老储备金是怎么蒸发的。

　　A more serious difficulty is choosing the right level of default contribution. A default that is too aggressive — automatically deducting 25 per cent of salary — jolts most people into opting out. A default that is too low, such as 3 per cent of salary, could conceivably be worse than the old opt-in default of zero. Many people who might have taken an active choice to save 6 or 7 per cent rather than nothing end up settling instead for the default. As mentioned, 3 per cent is a common level for automatic enrolment in the US, for no good reason other than historical accident. Yet it is dangerously low.一个更为严峻的难题是选择默认缴款比例的合适水平。默认缴款比例太高——比如自动扣除25%的薪水——会促使大多数人选择退出。而默认缴款比例太低——比如薪水的3%——可以想象还不如过去自愿加入计划、默认缴纳比例为零的情况。许多本可能主动选择存入6%或者7%薪水、而非完全不存的人，最后会选择默认的缴纳比例。就像刚才提到的，3%是美国自动参加养老金机制的一般缴纳水平，而这只是因为一些历史性原因。然而这个水平低得很危险。

　　There is also a painful conflict of interest at the heart of any corporate pension plan. From the perspective of classical economics, companies will offer generous pensions if they want to attract capable staff. It is expensive to subsidise a pension but staff value the subsidy, making it worthwhile.在任何企业养老金计划的核心，还存在痛苦的利益之争。从经典经济学的角度出发，如果企业想要吸引有能力的员工，就会提供丰厚的养老金。尽管为养老金提供补贴的成本高昂，但员工看重这种补贴，因此这样做是值得的。

　　From the more realistic perspective of behavioural economics, a tension emerges. A benevolent planner, armed with behavioural insights, would nudge people into a passive pension investment with almost no conscious thought. But a corporate human resources director would want to remind employees how generously their pensions are being subsidised. That means frequent reminders and ample opportunity to admire the pension pot — even if such admiration leads to anxiety about uncertain returns, or expensively trading shares within the pension.从行为经济学更贴近现实的角度出发，会出现一种紧张状态。一个对人的行为具有洞察力的善良规划者，几乎无需有意识的思考就会鼓励人们加入被动养老金投资计划。但一名企业人力资源总监则希望提醒雇员，他们的养老金得到了多么丰厚的补贴。这意味着员工会常常受到提醒，并面对大量赞叹养老储备金的机会——即使这种赞叹会导致员工对不确定的回报产生焦虑感，或者在养老金账户内进行成本高昂的股票交易。

　　There are approaches that might keep both the behavioural economist and the HR director happy. For example, a pension pot that is expressed in terms of daily or weekly income in retirement, adorned with photographs of cruise ships, seems more appealing than an abstract and rather meaningless lump sum.有一些方法或许能让行为经济学家和人力资源总监都感到满意。比如，用每日或每周退休金收入来体现养老储备金，配上游轮的照片，这似乎会比抽象和毫无意义的养老金总额更具吸引力。

　　We cannot blame behavioural economics for this tension but it is real. As automatic enrolment becomes the norm, it will be important to keep an eye on how corporations respond.我们无法因为这种紧张状态责怪行为经济学，但这种状态确实存在。随着自动参加机制变为常态，盯着点企业的反应就非常重要了。

　　Tim Harford is the author of ‘The Undercover Economist Strikes Back’. Twitter:@TimHarford本文作者蒂姆?哈福德(Tim Harford)著有《卧底经济学家反击战》(The Undercover Economist Strikes Back)

　　Twitter: @TimHarford

　　译者/许雯佳

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