Aldo Rustichini is a genial Italian economist with a head of hair that seems to have been modelled on Albert Einstein’s. A professor at Cambridge and the University of Minnesota, he quickly transformed my interview with him into a full-blown undergraduate-style tutorial, occasionally asking me questions to check my understanding. Yet this likeable economist has been carrying out work with potentially explosive implications – including the possibility that economic success is genetically transmitted. 我要收藏 阿尔多•.鲁斯蒂奇尼(Aldo Rustichini)是一位和蔼的意大利经济学家，一头白发仿佛是阿尔伯特•.爱因斯坦(Albert Eistein)的翻版。作为剑桥大学(Cambridge)和明尼苏达大学(University of Minnesota)的教授，鲁斯蒂奇尼很快将我对他的采访变成了彻头彻尾的大学生个别辅导，并偶尔提几个问题来考查我的理解程度。但是这位可爱的经济学家一直在从事可能带来爆炸性影响的工作——其中包括经济上的成功可以遗传的可能性。 Rustichini’s latest research – with Stephen Burks, Jeffrey Carpenter and Lorenz Goette – studies the behaviour of about 1,000 trainee truck drivers in the US. The researchers gave the truckers IQ tests and asked them to participate in a number of small experiments. 鲁斯蒂奇尼的最新研究是对约1000名美国实习卡车司机的行为分析。他的研究伙伴是斯蒂芬•.伯克斯(Stephen Burks)、杰弗里•.卡彭特(Jeffrey Carpenter)和洛伦茨•.戈特(Lorenz Goette)。这些研究人员对卡车司机进行了智商测试，并让他们参加了一些小实验。 In one experiment, the truckers were asked to choose between gambles and certain payoffs. In another, the choice was between a sum of money now and more money later. A more complex experiment required the truckers to play an anonymous “trust” game. The first player was given $5 and offered the choice of sending it to the second player. the second player had his own $5 and was asked how much he would send to the first player were he to receive $5 from him, and how much if he didn’t. The researchers promised to double the money sent in either direction – meaning that if the players managed to co-operate then each could get $10. 在一场实验中，卡车司机们必须在赌博和确定的报酬中做出选择。在另一场实验中，他们必须在当前获得一笔钱和稍后获得更多钱之间做出选择。另一场更为复杂的实验要求卡车司机进行匿名的“信任”游戏。研究人员给了第一位游戏者5美元，这位游戏者可以选择把这5美元送给第二位游戏者。第二位游戏者自己也得到了5美元，研究人员询问第二位游戏者，如果他从第一位游戏者那里得到5美元，会送给第一位游戏者多少钱，如果他没有得到，又会送给第一位游戏者多少。研究人员承诺让双方赠送的资金翻倍——这意味着如果游戏者成功合作，那么每人能得到10美元。 An intriguing pattern emerged. The truckers who scored highest on the IQ test were also more patient and more willing to take calculated risks, rejecting unfair gambles and accepting favourable ones. Their choices revealed a more consistent attitude to risk and a more consistent level of patience, too. 有趣的模式出现了。那些在智商测试中得分最高的卡车司机也表现得更有耐心，更愿意冒适当的风险，拒绝不公平的赌博游戏，接受有利于自己的赌博游戏。他们的选择表明他们对冒险的态度前后更加一致，忍耐程度也更具连贯性。 The high-IQ truckers were also better at predicting what other players would do in the trust game, and secured more money overall. When they played second, they were more discriminating, rewarding co-operation and punishing those who would not trust them. 高智商的卡车司机还更善于预测其他游戏者在信任游戏中的行为，而且总体上弄到的钱更多。当他们扮演第二名游戏者时，他们更有鉴别能力，奖励合作者，并惩罚那些不信任他们的游戏者。 High IQ goes hand in hand with patience, calculated risk-taking and interpersonal judgment, it seems – and this is true after statistically adjusting for age and race. 高智商似乎还与耐心、适当的冒险和人际关系判断密切相关——在经过年龄和种族的统计调整后，该结论仍然正确。 Nor is any of this limited to the laboratory. Many trainee truckers 0drop out before completing their first year of work, even though this means they must repay the trucking company their training costs, which run into thousands of dollars. This indicates a lack of patience, an inability to appreciate how much money is at stake or a serious miscalculation in the initial plan to be a truck driver. Whatever the reason, 0dropping out is correlated with Rustichini’s experimental tests of low IQ, impatience and bad judgment of risk or of other people. 所有这些结论都不仅仅局限于实验室。许多实习卡车司机第一年还没干完就不干了，即使这意味着他们必须偿还卡车公司数千美元的培训费用。这表明他们缺乏耐心，未能意识到会损失多少金钱，或是在最初计划成为一名卡车司机时计算严重失误。无论出于什么原因，中途放弃与鲁斯蒂奇尼实验中的低智商、缺乏耐心和对风险或他人判断不佳的表现是有联系的。 Rustichini puts this in a far more striking way: that the ingredients for prospering in a capitalist society all seem to be present together, or absent together. This is not entirely surprising but neither is it obvious. And therein lies the dangerous hypothesis: if all these attributes go hand in hand, it is much more plausible to suggest that economic success is passed on from generation to generation. 鲁斯蒂奇尼对此的表述要惊人得多：在资本主义社会中取得成功的要素似乎不是全部存在，就是全部不存在。这并不非完全出人意料，但也并非显而易见。这其中存在一个危险的假设：如果所有这些特质都密切相关，经济上的成功可以代代相传的观点似乎就更加可信。 “Such a process could be cultural, genetic or both,” comment the researchers in a footnote, “but the genetic version is the most controversial.” Quite so. But even the cultural transmission of economic success is a provocative notion, and a painful one to most economists, who are predisposed to hope that good policies alone may promote economic growth. 研究人员在脚注中表示：“这种传递可能通过文化、可能通过基因，或是两者皆有，但基因遗传的说法最有争议。”此话不假。但对大多数经济学家而言，即便是经济上的成功能通过文化传递这种观点也会引起争议和痛苦。这些经济学家本来希望单靠好的策略就能推动经济上的增长。 Rustichini is not perturbed. For all his amiability, he is quite content to contemplate unwelcome possibilities. 鲁斯蒂奇尼没有感到不安。虽然他亲切友好，但却是非常乐于考虑不受欢迎的可能性。