The 2021 Nobel Economics Prize has been awarded to Robert Wilson and Paul Milgrom for their work in analyzing auctions and how to make them more efficient.
At the heart of the work for which Milgrom and Wilson have been awarded is the winner's curse.
Wilson's work has shown that the fear of the winner's curse leads rational bidders to bid less than the own valuation.
Milgrom built on this to examine the case of auctions where there is not only a common value but also a private value that differs between bidders. In focusing again on the winner's curse, Milgrom determined that English-style auctions, where the price starts low and is bid upward, are better at avoiding the winner's curse than Dutch-style auctions---where the price starts high and is bid downward.This is because bidders gain more information about an item's value during an English-style auction,as other bidders drop out.
How have such insights help society? For one thing, Milgrom and Wilson developed the Simultaneous Multiple Round Auction'(SMRA). In these auctions, all biddable items are offered at the same time and bidders can bid on any portion of the items.The SMRA is useful,for example,if a company wants to bid for a license in one area only if it can also have the license in another area.
| A．If the auctions were held sequentially,the uncertainty about winning the second auction would depress bids in the first auction. |
| B．It arises from common value auctions where people bid for something whose value is unknown at the time but will be agreed upon later. |
| C．From determining the placement of every ad on a webpage to assigning the rights to fly to hub airports,auctions play a big role in contemporary society. |
| D．Greater uncertainty or the belief that some participants have more information than others will make bidders even more cautious. |
| E．He found that more details about the object's value,such as other bidders' valuations,tend to result in higher revenue. |
| F．This year's Nobel Economics Prize is a clear example of the practical effects on the interests of the public. |
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【推荐1】Psychologists, theologians and preschool teachers alike have long supported a simple but powerful idea — giving to others is good for the world, but it also makes us feel good. In fact, social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn’s research has shown that giving to charity has the same impact on happiness as earning twice as much income.
Dunn has learned that not all generosity is created equal. The less abstract (抽象) an act of charity or kindness is, she says, the greater its happiness-bringing benefits are for the giver. She cites an experience she had in her home community in Canada, where she and a group of neighbors worked together to resettle a Syrian refugee family in 2019. The joy, gratitude and satisfaction she felt doing that work was different from any charitable donations she had given in the past. Her research supports her own experience. “You need to imagine how your dollars are going to make a difference,” she said, in reference to a study that showed people feel happier after donating to support a specific action (purchasing mosquito nets for a malaria-stricken part of the world) than they did after donating to a general social service charity.
“All of us are capable of finding joy in giving,” Dunn said, “But we shouldn’t expect this to happen automatically… It matters how we do it.” She added, “Let’s stop thinking about giving as a moral obligation (义务) and start thinking of it as a source of pleasure.”
This proposal, that we re-frame giving and generosity as fuel for our happiness, is powerful. It has the potential to deepen and broaden the ways in which we practice generosity in our lives and communities. And that, in turn, promotes the positivity and kindness that make the world a better place, day by day, moment by moment.
1. According to Dunn, which of the following is the result of giving to charity?| A．Making givers happy. | B．Increasing people’s income. |
| C．Getting rid of world poverty. | D．Making people more powerful. |
| A．Promising to help the poor. | B．Donating money to charity. |
| C．Saying warm words to a beggar. | D．Buying 3000 coats for the poor. |
| A．Charity. | B．Action. | C．Giving. | D．Obligation. |
| A．Giving is only a moral obligation. |
| B．Giving to charity means more income. |
| C．Abstract kindness brings the giver great benefits. |
| D．Giving and generosity contribute to making a better world |
| A．a science fiction | B．a magazine | C．a website | D．a descript |
【推荐2】For people, many other animals, family matters. Consider how many jobs go to relatives. Or how an ant will cruelly attack intruder (入侵的) ants but rescue injured, closely related nest-mates. There are good evolutionary reasons to aid relatives, after all. Now, it seems, family feelings may stir in plants as well.
A Canadian biologist planted the seed of the idea more than a decade ago, but many plant biologists regarded it as heretical-plants lack the nervous systems that enable animals to recognize kin (家族), so how can they know their relatives? But with a series of recent findings, the belief that plants really do care for their most genetically close peers-in a quiet, planty way-is taking root. Some species control how far their roots spread, others change how many flowers they produce, and a few tilt (倾斜) or shift their leaves to minimize shading of neighboring plants, favoring related individuals.
“We need to recognize that plants not only sense whether it’s light or dark or if they’ve been touched, but also whom they are interacting with,” says Susan Dudley, a plant evolutionary ecologist, whose early plant kin recognition studies sparked the interest of many scientists.
Beyond broadening views of plant behavior, the new work may have a practical side. In September 2018, a team in China reported that rice planted with kin grows better, a finding that suggested family ties can be used to improve crop yields. “It seems anytime anyone looks for it, they find a kin effect,” says Andre Kessler, a chemical ecologist at Cornell University.
1. Why are ants mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To show how cruel ants are to their enemies. |
| B．To lay foundation for the idea of plants’ family feelings. |
| C．To introduce the topic of how family matters to animals. |
| D．To explain why people usually give more jobs to their relatives. |
| A．Indescribable. | B．Understandable. | C．Impossible. | D．Traditional. |
| A．They stop producing flowers to avoid competition. |
| B．They spread their roots far so as to protect their peers. |
| C．They care for their injured peers by silently taking roots. |
| D．They move their leaves to share sunlight with their close peers. |
| A．Different plants mustn’t be planted together. |
| B．Corn planted with corn can produce more than that with rice. |
| C．China has put the idea into wide practice and achieved great success. |
| D．The closer rice is planted with their relatives the more they will produce. |
【推荐3】Sound may offer a creative way to take the ocean's temperature. Climate change is steadily warming the seas, which have absorbed about 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. This warming contributes to sea-level rise, endangers species and influences weather patterns.
But tracking the warming is tricky. Ship-based observations capture only snapshots in time over a tiny portion of the water. Satellite observations cannot enter very deep below the surface. The most detailed picture of ocean heat comes from Argo, which can drop down to around 6,500feet. But there are only about 4,000 such floats, and they cannot sample deeper parts of the oceans.
In Science, researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences compared the travel speeds of sounds produced by undersea earthquakes to detect ocean warming over wider areas. Because sound travels faster in warmer water, differences in speed can reveal changing temperatures. "They're opening up a whole new area of study," says Princeton University geophysicist Frederik Simons, who was not involved in the research.
Inspired by those early efforts to measure ocean heat with sound, Caltech researcher Wenbo Wu thought to monitor low-frequency sound waves sent out by earthquakes below the seafloor. “I know these earthquakes are very powerful sources, "Wu says, "So why not try to use the earthquakes?"”
He and his team tested the idea near Indonesia’s island of Nias, where the IndoAustralian Plate is bumping under the Sunda Plate. The researchers gathered sound data from 4,272 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater from 2004 to 2016, and they compared sound wave speeds from quakes that originated in the same spot over the years. By modeling the differences, often just fractions of a second, they found that the ocean near Nias was warming by about 0.08 degree Fahrenheit per decade—more than the 0.047 degree F suggested by Argo’s data. Less than one degree F does not sound large, but it takes considerable heat to warm the entire eastern Indian Ocean.
The new method is promising, says University of Hawaii oceanographer Bruce Howe, who was not involved in the work. Meanwhile Simons and his colleagues are exploring an alternative technique, employing dozens of underwater microphones called hydrophones to catch more earthquake sounds. He notes that finding out the floats’ precise locations will be challenging, however. Overcoming such challenges would fill in important gaps, Wu says, “We really need different methods of gathering the data as much as possible.”
1. What do people do to take ocean’s temperature?| A．Ships sail across all the oceans to take photos. |
| B．Satellites are used to provide data on ocean heat. |
| C．Argo enters the deepest seas for detailed pictures. |
| D．The numbers of floats hit a record high for samples. |
| A．Because its speed varies with the temperature of water. |
| B．Because it accompanies earthquakes below the seafloor. |
| C．Because it is approved by Chinese and US researchers. |
| D．Because its value has been proved by previous efforts. |
| A．They use hydrophones as floats. |
| B．They exchange their data with Argo. |
| C．They meet the same trouble at work. |
| D．They employ new research methods. |
| A．Undersea earthquakes | B．Climate and seas |
| C．Sound and ocean heat | D．New method found |
【推荐1】The broad definition of migration, “permanent change of residence”, usually includes a move across a city or a town. What we are concerned about is movement between nations, not internal migration within nations, although such movements often go beyond international movements in volume.
Students of human migration speak of “push” and “pull” factors, which influence an individual’s decision to move from one place to another. Push factors are associated with the place of origin. A push factor can be as simple a matter as difficulty in finding a suitable job, or as painful as war, or severe famine.
Pull factors are those associated with the place of destination. Most often these are economic, such as better job opportunities or the availability of good land to farm. The latter was an important factor in attracting settlers to the United States during the 19th century. In general, pull factors add up to an apparently better chance for a good life and material well-being than is offered by the place of origin. When there is a choice between several attractive potential destinations, the deciding factor might be a non-economic consideration such as the presence of relatives, friends, or at least fellow countrymen already established in the new place who are willing to help the newcomers settle in Considerations of this sort lead to the development of migration flow.
Besides push and pull factors, there are what the sociologists call “intervening(干预)obstacles”. Even if push and (or) pull factors are very strong, they still may be outweighed by intervening obstacles, such as the distance of the move, the trouble and cost of moving, the difficulty of entering the new country, and the problems likely to be encountered on arrival.
The decision to move is also influenced by “personal factors” of the potential migrant. The same push-pull factors and obstacles operate differently on different people, sometimes because they are at different stages of their lives, or just because of their varying abilities and personalities. The prospect of packing up everything and moving to a new and perhaps very strange environment may appear interesting and challenging to an unmarried young man and rather difficult to a slightly older man with a wife and small kids. Similarly, the need to learn a new language and customs may excite one person and frighten another.
Regardless of why people move, migration of large numbers of people causes conflict. The United States and other western countries have experienced adjustment problems with each new wave of immigrants. The newest arrivals are usually given the lowest-paid jobs and are resented by native people who may have to compete with them for those jobs. It has usually taken several decades for each group to be accepted into the mainstream of society in the host country.
1. Suppose Thomas is thinking of migrating to a new place but he is faced with several choices of destinations , what may contribute to his final decision?| A．Good land to farm. | B．The people he knows. |
| C．The distance travelled. | D．Better job opportunities. |
| A．Because they differ in their abilities to learn a new language and customs. |
| B．Because different stages of lives will lead to their different decisions about migration. |
| C．Because their abilities to compete for a better job or a better farm land are different. |
| D．Because the older one is more likely to be accepted into the mainstream of the new society. |
| A．Push-pull factors are so strong as to be more important than intervening factors. |
| B．Pull factors may include one’s difficulty in finding a job or suffering from famine. |
| C．New immigrants always need to suffer great hardships to fit in with the new environment. |
| D．The same push-pull factors may exert similar effect on people with different personalities. |
| A．the motives of international migrants |
| B．the problems of international migrants |
| C．the migration problems inside the country |
| D．the adjustment problem among migrants |
【推荐2】Dear boss — You have always tried to attract young consumers, and our consultants have always come up with new ways to label them. The trouble is that coming up with rules to define a group of humanity is more art than science. It is likely to become an exercise in applying stereotypes; not every youngster is drinking kombucha in a Brooklyn storehouse. Luckily you have me, and I’m here to tell you that much of what is written about marketing to today’s most prized consumers is a myth.
Start with the idea that, glued to smartphones, youngsters barely notice the physical world and passively follow the latest hit from Instagram or TikTok. It’s true that the days of marketing chiefly through television, newspapers and magazines are long gone. However, social media has not just changed the ways people discover brands; it has weakened the power of marketing as a whole. Online, talk is cheap and prices are readily Googled. Digital natives, therefore, can easily fact-check our suspicious marketing claims and ads. Surveys suggest that young Americans are among the most price-sensitive food shoppers, even though they have accumulated less wealth than earlier generations had by the same age.
There is a similar urge to think that physical shops no longer matter. Young consumers love their Amazon deliveries. It makes sense for our company to make sales via social media and ship directly to customers’ homes. But what works best is the close integration of the digital and physical worlds. Remember those online-only beauty brands like Glossier, which took the world by storm during the pandemic. It turns out that they struggle to get repeat business and have had to pair up with physical shops. What really matters is avoiding insincerity. Dishonesty is easily exposed online, where everyone loves a takedown. Remember the strong resistance to Boohoo, a fast-fashion firm, when it appointed Kourtney Kardashian, a celebrity leading a luxurious life, as a “sustainability ambassador”? And commit only to causes you can tangibly support and be frank when you are putting profits first. Anyway, nobody is perfect. To pretend otherwise is so 2013.
1. Why is there trouble with finding rules to define a group of people?| A．Because fixed ideas may be inappropriately employed. |
| B．Because not everybody is into drinking tea at a storehouse. |
| C．Because art is more challenging to learn than science. |
| D．Because the consultants are not as expert as the author. |
| A．To reveal their incompetence in saving money. |
| B．To illustrate they are sensitive to the prices of food online. |
| C．To demonstrate marketing has a great impact on their spending habits. |
| D．To prove they are not passive receivers of online marketing tricks. |
| A．Celebrities work as reliable ambassadors. |
| B．Young customers don’t visit physical shops. |
| C．Dishonesty in marketing was not rare in 2013. |
| D．Traditional media still play a major role in marketing. |
| A．How to Expand Youth Market: From Ideas to Practice |
| B．How to Sell to the Young: From Myth to Truth |
| C．How to Attract Young Customers: Honesty and Profits |
| D．How to Increase Sales Online: Labeling and Marketing |
【推荐3】You may not be aware, but digital currency (货币) is a big part of the Internet world. QQ Coins can buy you accessories (配饰) for your QQ images. More importantly, a new digital currency, Bitcoin, is bringing the world’s commerce online.
If you’re traveling, you can spend Bitcoins at restaurants and hotels listed at BitcoinTravel.com. In China, Bitcoins can be used to buy goods at about 134 online shops on Taobao. And at a café named 2nd Place in Beijing, you can even buy fresh coffee with Bitcoins.
So what makes Bitcoin so attractive to investors?
First of all, the Bitcoin system is not controlled by anyone. One central authority cannot make policies to change the value of Bitcoins. The fixed amount of Bitcoins also means they cannot lose value through inflation(通货膨胀), as all forms of paper money have done over time.
In addition, accounts in the Bitcoin system are anonymous and transparent. Users can set up an account easily and track every Bitcoin. All of these features seem to make Bitcoins immune(有免疫力的) from loss, but that is not entirely true.
“The value of Bitcoins can vary wildly as no central government makes the price of them steady. If the value drops suddenly, investors cannot get any compensation(赔偿),” Zhao Qingming, a senior researcher at China Construction Bank, told China Economic Weekly. And Bitcoins, unlike company shares, are not backed by any tangible assets（有形资产）, which also adds to their risk.
While China will not recognize the digital currency anytime soon, Xinhua said, lawmakers and officials at a hearing on Nov. 18 in the US made positive comments about Bitcoin.
Ben Bernanke, outgoing chairman of the Federal Reserve, told the Washington Post that “these types of creations, such as Bitcoin… may hold long-term promise, particularly if its system promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system.”
1. Bitcoin is ______.| A．actually exactly like QQ Coins | B．only used online |
| C．a new currency used both online and in real life | D．a country’s new digital currency. |
| A．online goods | B．goods at 134 online shops on Taobao |
| C．books in physical shops | D．coffee at a café named 2nd Place |
| A．the value of it can rise and fall wildly. |
| B．It cannot lose value through inflation. |
| C．Every bitcoin in your account can be followed. |
| D．It can even be used at some specific restaurants and hotels. |
