2016年下半年BEC初級考試時間為11月26日，所剩備考時間不多了，下面是yjbys網小編提供給大家關於BEC初級閱讀精選，希望對大家的備考有所幫助。
網上拍賣的經濟學(上)
你也許會認為，如果說有一件事經濟學家應該能告訴你如何去做，那就是在拍賣網站eBay上成功登記拍賣物品。畢竟，拍賣理論家在這行享有盛名;其中一位拍賣理論家蘇珊o阿西(Susan Athey)在今年4月贏得了約翰o貝茨o克拉克(John Bates Clark)經濟學獎章。(克拉克獎章獲得者還有保羅o薩繆爾森(Paul Samuelson)、約瑟夫o斯蒂格利茨(Joseph Stiglitz)和史蒂文o萊維特(Steven Levitt)，比諾貝爾獎(Nobel)獲獎者還要罕見。)
You might think that if there's one thing an economist should be able to tell you how to do, it's successfully list an item on the auction website eBay. Auction theorists are, after all, celebrated in the profession; one of them, Susan Athey, won the John Bates Clark medal in April. (Clark medallists, who include Paul Samuelson, Joseph Stiglitz and Steven Levitt, are scarcer than Nobel laureates.)
然而，儘管拍賣理論已經很發達，但其預測容易受到現實中一些波瀾的影響。比如說，標準經濟學假設人是理性的，這種假設通常是對的：在啤酒價格上漲時，多數人都會少喝一些啤酒。不過，拍賣要求有 "如果他認為她認為我認為他那麼認為"的推理鏈條，而這種鏈條往往存在薄弱環節。如果任何出價方有任何理由懷疑其他出價方是不理性的，那麼，這些環節就會輕易斷裂。
Yet although the theory of auctions is well-developed, its predictions are sensitive to wrinkles in reality. For example, the standard economic assumption that people are rational is usually a good one: when the price of beer rises, most people drink less beer. But auctions require "if he thinks that she thinks that I think that he thinks" chains of reasoning that tend to have weak links. Those links can easily break if any bidder has any reason to suspect that any other bidder is irrational.
另一個理論難題是進入拍賣。多數拍賣理論家假定有固定人數的拍賣方存在，他們全都準備好了要出價。不過，雖然經濟學家可以假設出價方存在，eBay的賣方卻不得不去吸引這些人。
Another theoretical conundrum is entry to the auction. Most auction theorists assume a fixed number of bidders, all poised and ready to bid. But while economists can assume bidders into existence, eBay sellers have to go out and hook them.
這不是拍賣理論的一個微小疏忽。為行動電話運營商舉行的大規模 "3G"拍賣背後的經濟學家--保羅o克倫佩雷爾(Paul Klemperer)已經表明，一場拍賣中看似微不足道的特點可能會讓出價方卻步，造成巨大(和災難性的)影響。出於這些和其它原因，明智的拍賣理論家在沒有充分了解整個背景的情況下，會避免預測某個具體的拍賣計劃會有什麼效果。
This is no minor oversight of auction theory. Paul Klemperer, one of the economists behind the massive "3G" auctions for mobile phone operators, has shown that trivial-seeming features of an auction can have big (and disastrous) effects by repelling bidders. For these reasons and others, wise auction theorists would avoid predicting how a specific auction design will work without knowing much more about the context.
網上拍賣的經濟學(下)
對經濟學家來說，幸運的是，eBay不僅提出了問題，也給出瞭解決辦法。由於每天都有數不勝數的拍賣開拍，這個拍賣網站提供了大量資料。如果可以公開獲得的資料不夠用，還可以很容易地進行"現場"實驗，在出價方的自然生活環境中研究他們。
Fortunately for economists, eBay offers solutions as well as problems. With hundreds of thousands of auctions starting every day, the auction site provides masses of data. And if the publicly available data isn't enough, it's also easy to conduct an experiment "in the field", studying bidders in their natural habitat.
亞利桑那大學(University of Arizona)經濟學家戴維·賴利(David Reiley)自eBay出現之前就一直在研究網上拍賣。在最近與拉瑪·卡特卡爾(Rama Katkar)合著的一篇論文中，他對eBay拍賣中的保留價格應該公開還是保密的問題進行了研究。
David Reiley, an economist at the University of Arizona, has been studying online auctions since before eBay existed. In a recent paper with Rama Katkar, he investigated whether reserve prices in eBay auctions should be open or secret.
拍賣理論提出一種看法，認為保留價格保密更好。保留價格保密可以讓出價方看到彼此逐漸攀升的出價，從而激起他們的信心，讓他們相信自己不是唯一欣賞這件物品的人。即便出價太低、達不到保留價的水平，它們也能達到一個重要目的--安撫出價方，讓他們知道其他人也感興趣。在eBay上公開保留價格就不可能起到這種安撫作用了;任何人都不能提交低於公開保留價格的`出價，而沒有任何來自其他出價方的信心訊號，就可能出現沒有人出價高出保留價的危險。
Auction theory offers an argument that a secret reserve price is better. A secret reserve price allows bidders to see each others' gradually ascending bids and thus draw confidence that they are not alone in prizing the item. Even though the bids are too low to beat the reserve, they serve an important purpose of reassuring bidders that others are also interested. An open reserve price on eBay makes that reassurance impossible; nobody can submit a bid below the open reserve, and lacking any signs of confidence from other bidders, there is a danger that nobody may submit a bid above it either.
要判斷這種理論觀點在實踐中是否真的有價值，有太多不可精確估量的因素。因此，卡特卡爾和賴利通過拍賣50對匹配的收藏卡片對這個理論進行了檢驗。他們的方法是，在保留價相同的情況下，一半公開保留價，一半保密保留價。他們的結論與這種理論觀點截然相反：保密的保留價達不到預期目的。它們不是激發出價方的興趣，反而似乎是讓他們退卻，這也許是因為他們擔心，保留價之所以保密，是因為它高得離譜。由於不想浪費自己的時間，許多出價方就會點選瀏覽器上的 "返回"鍵，再找別的地方出價。
There are too many imponderables to tell whether this theoretical argument is what really counts in practice. So Katkar and Reiley put the theory to the test by simply selling 50 matched pairs of collectible cards, half with an open reserve price and half with a secret reserve price of the same level. Their conclusion, contrary to the theoretic argument, is that secret reserve prices are counterproductive. Far from stimulating interest they seem to put off bidders,who perhaps fear that a secret reserve is secret because it is far too high. Not wishing to waste their time, many of them just click "back" on their browsers and find somewhere else to bid.
這個結論也許不會撼動世界，但方法非常重要。戴維·賴利是最早發現網際網路正在生成大量可研究資料的經濟學家之一。如今，eBay、亞馬遜(Amazon)到等眾多網站提供的這種資料，正在豐富經濟學研究。它可能也會讓少數eBay拍賣方富起來。
The conclusion may not shake the world but the method is important. David Reiley was one of the first economists to realise that the internet was generating vast amounts of researchable data. Now that data, from sites ranging from eBay and Amazon to , is enriching the study of economics. It may enrich a few eBay sellers, too.
蒂姆·哈福德的著作《臥底經濟學家》(The Undercover Economist)(小布郎出版社(Little, Brown))目前已經出版平裝本。
Tim Harford's book "The Undercover Economist" (Little, Brown) is out now in paperback.
