美国国家公共电台 NPR 2020诺贝尔经济学奖揭晓 两位美国经济学家获奖（在线收听）

When you hear the word auction, you might think of a cattle barn or an art gallery. But auctions are now used to selling everything from Internet search ads to carbon pollution credits. Two Stanford professors were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics today for research on designing better auctions. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.

当你听到拍卖这个词时，你可能会想到牛棚或美术馆。但是现在拍卖品涵盖从互联网搜索广告到碳污染信用额度的各个领域。两位斯坦福大学的教授因研究如何设计更好的拍卖品而被授予诺贝尔经济学奖。NPR新闻的斯科特·霍斯利将带来详细报道。

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Economist Robert Wilson was born in Geneva, Neb., and he came by his interest in auctions early on.

斯科特·霍斯利连线：经济学家罗伯特·威尔逊出生于内布拉斯加州杰尼瓦市，他很早就对拍卖感兴趣。

ROBERT WILSON: When I was a boy, I would go to the cattle auction on — every Saturday morning, sit up in the bleachers and watch the cows be paraded in.

罗伯特·威尔逊：小时候，我会在每个星期六早上去看家畜拍卖，坐在看台上看着一头又一头的奶牛被带进来。

HORSLEY: Buying or selling one steer at a time is not exactly the stuff of Nobel Prizes. But at Stanford, Wilson and his protege Paul Milgrom turned their attention to more complicated auctions for things like wireless telephone licenses, where the value might depend on a company's ability to assemble a nationwide network. The two put theory into practice in the 1990s, when they helped the FCC design auctions that raised more than a hundred billion dollars for the government.

霍斯利：一次买卖一头奶牛并不完全是诺贝尔奖的内容。在斯坦福大学，威尔逊和他的追随者保罗·米尔格罗姆将他们的注意力转向了更复杂的拍卖，比如无线电话许可证，这种拍卖品的价值可能取决于一家公司组建全国性网络的能力。两人在上世纪90年代将理论付诸实践，当时他们帮助美国联邦通信委员会（简称FCC）设计了拍卖会，为政府筹集了超过1000亿美元的资金。

Their work has also helped to design auctions for electricity and fishing permits, and they're thinking of ways it could be used to distribute medical supplies. Milgrom says markets don't automatically function the way you'd like them to, so it's important to have good rules.

他们的研究还帮助设计了电力和捕鱼许可证的拍卖，他们正在考虑如何将其用于分发医疗用品。米尔格罗姆表示，市场不会自动按你所希望的方式运作，因此制定良好的规则很重要。

PAUL MILGROM: All of us remember early in the pandemic the terrible disorganization we had in allocating, for example, respirators where the states were competing against each other and simply bidding up the prices. In times of crisis, we don't just want prices going through the roof. We need well-thought-out systems.

保罗·米尔格罗姆：我们所有人都记得在新冠疫情初期，我们在分配呼吸机时出现了可怕的混乱，各州相互竞争，而这只会抬高价格。在危机时期，我们不仅仅希望价格暴涨。我们需要深思熟虑的系统。

HORSLEY: Wilson and Milgrom are neighbors as well as colleagues. So after he got the congratulatory call from Sweden very early this morning, Wilson walked across the street to give Milgrom the good news. When he rang the doorbell, it automatically lit up Milgrom's cellphone, perhaps using some of the very spectrum the pair helped to auction off. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

霍斯利：威尔逊和米尔格罗姆既是邻居又是同事。所以，今天一早接到瑞典的祝贺电话后，威尔逊走到街对面，告诉了米尔格罗姆这个好消息。他按门铃后，米尔格罗姆的手机就自动亮了起来，也许这利用的是二人帮助进行拍卖的某些特定频谱。NPR新闻，斯科特·霍斯利华盛顿报道。