Free exchange

自由兑换

Advertising may make people miserable, but it still has its uses

广告可能会让人痛苦，但它仍然有它的用途

Workers keen to buy more luxury goods keep toiling away

渴望购买更多奢侈品的工人们一直在辛勤工作

EVERY YEAR, as Americans polish off their Thanksgiving feasts, a particular genre of advertisement begins to air. The details vary, but the plot does not: one family member surprises another with the Christmas gift of a luxury car, often adorned with a cartoonishly large bow. The recipient never betrays a hint of the dismay one might expect of someone whose partner has spent tens of thousands of dollars without consultation. Such a car can easily cost more than the median annual income of an American household, and most people who see these ads will not be able to afford one. But the envy such spots induce serves an economic purpose, even as it leaves the majority feeling worse about themselves.

每年，当美国人结束他们的感恩节大餐时，一种特殊类型的广告开始播出。细节各不相同，但情节却没有变化:一个家庭成员用一辆豪华轿车作为圣诞礼物给另一个家庭成员带来惊喜，车上通常装饰着一个卡通造型的大蝴蝶结。如果你的伴侣未经咨询就花掉了数万美元，你可能会感到沮丧，但广告中的接收方从来没有流露出（对此应有的）一丝沮丧。这样一辆车的价格很容易就会超过美国家庭年收入的中位数，而且大多数看过这些广告的人都买不起。但是，这些细节所引发的嫉妒心理是出于经济目的，即使它让大多数人对自己感觉更糟。

词汇

polish off/草草完成；打败

genre/类型；种类

adorned/被修饰的

recipient/接受者

dismay/沮丧，灰心；惊慌

 

Ads and other forms of marketing ostensibly serve a straightforward economic role. Firms selling goods and services need to tell consumers about the availability and desirability of their wares, and spend on advertising to do so. By informing consumers about the relative merits of various products, ads improve the quality of purchasing decisions and, conceivably, leave both firms and shoppers better off than they would be in an ad-free world.

广告和其他形式的市场营销表面上扮演者直接的促进经济的角色。销售商品和服务的公司需要告诉消费者他们产品的实用性和渴求性，并为此花费广告费用。通过让消费者了解各种产品的相对优点，广告提高了购买决策的质量，而且可以想象，与没有广告的世界相比，广告会让公司和消费者都过得更好。

词汇

Ostensibly/表面上

Yet advertising might fall short of this ideal in many ways. It need not be honest or representative of the full range of available products, for example. Some firms target impressionable children, in ways which could contribute to long-run health risks. London has recently banned junk-food advertising on its transport network, a prohibition campaigners want to extend. And honest or not, successful ads induce a desire to spend, perhaps on things the audience does not need or cannot afford. The information content of ads for fancy vacations, bespoke cars or diamond-studded watches does not much matter for people whose budgets cannot accommodate them. Their main takeaway is that others get to enjoy things that they themselves cannot afford. If the effect of advertising is mostly to encourage people to want things that they cannot have, rather than to direct them towards items that are a good match for their needs and tastes, then it is possible that spending on advertising leaves society worse off overall.

然而，广告在许多方面可能达不到这一理想。例如，它不必诚实或代表所有可用的产品。一些公司瞄准易受影响的儿童，其方式可能导致长期的健康风险。伦敦最近禁止在其交通运输网上投放垃圾食品广告，这是一项禁令倡导者想要扩大的禁令。不管诚实与否，成功的广告会诱导人们花钱的欲望，也许是在观众不需要或负担不起的东西上。高档度假、定制汽车或镶钻手表广告的信息内容，对预算负担不起的人来说并不重要。他们的主要观点是，其他人可以享受他们自己买不起的东西。如果广告的作用主要是鼓励人们想要他们不能拥有的东西，而不是引导他们购买与他们的需求和品味相匹配的东西，那么很有可能，在广告上的花费会让整个社会变得更糟。

词汇

Impressionable/敏感的；易受影响的

Bespoke/定做的；预定的

Takeaway/要点；外卖

 

Some recent research suggests this might indeed be the case. A forthcoming paper by Chloé Michel, now at Swiss Re, Michelle Sovinsky of Mannheim University, Eugenio Proto of Bristol University and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University attempts to unpick the effect of advertising on welfare. The researchers used three decades’ worth of survey results from a sample of nearly 1m Europeans, spread across 27 countries, to compare information on self-reported life satisfaction with variation in total advertising spending as a share of GDP. After taking account of other macroeconomic variables such as unemployment, and individuals’ socioeconomic characteristics, they find a significant and inverse relationship between spending on advertisements and national welfare. They estimate that a doubling of ad spending is associated with a subsequent drop in reported satisfaction of 3%—an effect about a quarter as strong as a spell of unemployment.

最近的一些研究表明，情况可能确实如此。瑞士再保险(Swiss Re)的克洛伊•米歇尔(Chloe Michel)、曼海姆大学(Mannheim University)的米歇尔•索文斯基(Michelle Sovinsky)、布里斯托尔大学(Bristol University)的尤金尼奥•普罗托(Eugenio Proto)和华威大学(Warwick University)的安德鲁•奥斯瓦尔德(Andrew Oswald)即将发表一篇论文，试图揭示广告对福利的影响。研究人员对分布在27个国家的近100万名欧洲人进行了为期30年的调查，以比较自我报告的生活满意度与广告支出占GDP的比例变化之间的关系。在考虑了失业、个人社会经济特征等其他宏观经济变量后，他们发现，广告支出与国家福利之间存在显著的负相关关系。他们估计，广告支出翻倍与随后报道的3%的满意度下降有关——这一效果大约相当于一段失业时期的四分之一。

词汇

Unpick/拆散；拆开；割开

 

It is possible that this result reflects the effect of some other factor which influences both advertising and well-being. And the authors are careful to note that they cannot be certain about the causal mechanism at work. But their findings may illustrate an aspect of the economy that has puzzled some economists for more than a century. In “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, published in 1899, Thorstein Veblen, a Norwegian-American economist, explored the nature of what he termed “conspicuous consumption”. Veblen argued that consumption is not merely about satisfying needs, but is also used to signal status and prestige.

这一结果可能反映了一些影响广告和幸福的其他因素的作用。作者谨慎地指出，他们无法确定起作用的因果机制。但他们的发现可能说明了一个令一些经济学家困惑了一个多世纪的经济问题。在1899年出版的《有闲阶级论》一书中，挪威裔美国经济学家Thorstein Veblen探讨了他所称的“炫耀性消费”的本质。维布伦认为，消费不仅是为了满足需求，而且还被用来表明地位和威望。

词汇

Mechanism/机制；原理

Conspicuous/显著的；显而易见的

Prestige/威望，声望

 

The priciest cars may offer more nifty features and a smoother ride than a cheaper marque, but the vast difference in price is not primarily down to such advantages. Rather, the buyer is paying for such cars’ value as a status symbol, which derives from the fact that very few people can afford one. (Following his insight, economists use the name “Veblen good” for items for which demand rises with price, though it is not the high price itself that generates the increased demand but rather the exclusivity that the high price confers.) These luxury items defy normal economic logic. In the mass market, productivity-boosting innovations that allow firms to sell better products at lower prices are a route to success. For producers of conspicuous-consumption items, such cost-cutting does not conquer the market but destroys it.

最昂贵的汽车可能比更便宜的汽车提供更漂亮的功能和更平稳的行驶体验，但价格上的巨大差异并不主要是因为这些优势。相反，买家是在为这些汽车作为身份象征的价值买单，这是因为很少有人买得起。(按照他的观点，经济学家用“Veblen good”这个名字来指代需求随着价格上涨而上涨的商品，尽管产生需求增长的不是高价本身，而是高价带来的排他性。)这些奢侈品违背了正常的经济逻辑。在大众市场上，提高生产力的创新可以让公司以更低的价格销售更好的产品，这是一条成功之路。对于炫耀性消费产品的生产商来说，这样的成本削减不但没有征服市场，反而摧毁了市场。

词汇

Nifty/俏皮的；漂亮的

Marque/（汽车或其他高档品的）牌子，商标

Exclusivity/排外性；独占权

Defy/藐视；公然反抗

 

Less good than a feast

购买奢侈品，不如享用一次盛宴

 

The notion that people might buy high-cost items in preference to serviceable alternatives simply to set themselves apart from the less well-off would seem absurd, were the economy not chock-a-block with examples, from designer handbags to silver cutlery to oxygenated energy drinks. Advertising enables the process. For goods to grant high status, there must be consumers who want but cannot have them. Ad campaigns featuring sleek cars bedecked with oversized bows add to the value of luxury brands by informing the masses of how desirable they are—and how inaccessible.

如果不是市场上上充斥着各种各样的商品，从名牌手袋到银餐具，再到含氧的能量饮料，那种认为人们可能会购买高价商品，而不是实用的替代品，只是为了与不那么富裕的人区别开来的想法，将显得荒谬可笑。广告使这一过程成为可能。要使商品具有较高的地位，就必须有想要但不能拥有它们的消费者。以配有超大蝴蝶结的时髦汽车为特色的广告宣传活动，通过向大众宣传这些汽车是多么令人渴求——又是多么难以接近，从而增加了奢侈品牌的价值。

词汇

Notion/概念；见解；打算

chock-a-block/充满的，塞满的；挤满的

cutlery/餐具

sleek/使…光滑；掩盖

bedecked/以…装饰或点缀的

Veblen, though, saw the rich as a largely unproductive class of capital-owning moochers, who profited off the useful labour of working people (hence the “leisure class”). In recent decades, however, the share of Americans working long hours has grown, and has risen fastest among those earning the highest wages—an odd exception to the global norm that working time declines with income. The status envy induced by conspicuous consumption may play a role.In rich countries, most people’s basic needs have long since been met. To keep workers striving—those on higher incomes especially—there must always be more desirable consumer goods and services just out of reach. Perpetual dissatisfaction may well boost economic growth by keeping highly productive workers who might otherwise enjoy more time with their families chained to their desks. But it is a funny sort of prosperity that depends on people never being satisfied with their lot.

然而，维布伦认为富人基本上是一个没有生产力的资本拥有者阶层，他们从劳动人民的有用劳动中获利(因此被称为“休闲阶层”)。然而，近几十年来，长时间工作的美国人的比例有所上升，而且在收入最高的人群中增长最快——这是一种奇特的例外，因为全球普遍认为工作时间会随着收入下降。炫耀性消费引发的地位嫉妒可能是其中一个原因。在富裕国家，大多数人的基本需求早已得到满足。为了让工人们继续奋斗——尤其是那些收入更高的工人——必须始终有更多令人满意的消费品和服务是他们恰好无法企及的。长期的不满情绪很可能会促进经济增长，因为高生产率的员工可能会有更多的时间和家人待在一起，而他们本来可以把更多的时间用在工作上。但这是一种有趣的繁荣，它依赖于人们从不满足于自己的命运。

词汇

Moocher/乞丐；敲诈者；揩油者

Perpetual/永久的；不断的