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A publisher might buy a printing company in order to have more control over its assets, and ensure its presses are used to print its own books first.
出版商可能會為了對其資產有更多的控制權并確保印刷設備首先被用于印刷自家的圖書而收購一家印刷公司。
Yet if the takeover means that the workers tending the presses see smaller rewards for their efforts, and their managers cannot keep tabs on them, they might shirk the extra sorts of work that keep the presses running as productively as possible.
然而，如果這一收購意味著維護印刷機的工人看到的是較小的對于他們努力的報答，同時他們的管理人員又不可能時時刻刻地監視他們，他們就可能減少保持印刷設備盡可能高效運轉的額外工作。
So the theory has real-world relevance; Mr Hart used it to explain precisely why inmates may fare worse at privately run prisons than at public ones.
因此，這一理論具有現實世界相關性；哈特曾用它精準地解釋了為什么囚犯在私立監獄可能比在公立監獄過得差。
Managers of both care about the bottom line, but the incentive to cut costs is sharper in private prisons, because the profits flow into the pockets of owners who benefit directly.
兩類監獄的管理人員都關注盈虧底線，但是，在公立監獄，消減成本的激勵更加鋒利，因為盈利流入直接獲益的所有者的口袋。
The work of Mr Holmstrom, a Finnish economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, centres on the behaviour of individuals rather than organisations.
麻省理工芬蘭裔經濟學家霍爾姆斯特羅姆的研究重點是個人而非組織的行為。
Many of the basic power dynamics in society boil down to the relationship between one person—a principal—who needs another—an agent—to do something for him.
在社會中，許多基本的權力動力學可以歸納為一個人——委托人——需要另一個人——代理人——為其做事之間的關系。
The principal can use contracts to shape the incentives facing the agent, the better to get him to direct his activities.
委托人可以利用契約形成面向代理人的激勵，能夠讓他以之指導他的行為更好。
Yet getting the incentives just right is no easy feat.
然而，把激勵設置的正合適不是那么容易的。
A firm owner setting pay for a senior manager wants to get his employee to deliver the best possible results.
為高級管理人員制定薪水的企業所有者想讓他的雇員呈現最好的可能結果。
Linking a bonus to performance—to profits, for example—would seem to be the order of the day.
把獎金與業績——如利潤——掛鉤似乎會成為當今的潮流。
Yet profits rise and fall for reasons which have nothing to do with managerial effort, such as the health of the economy.
然而，利潤會因為經濟體健康等與管理努力毫不相干的種種原因而上升和下降。
Bonus payments that mostly reward this sort of noise actually dull the incentives facing the manager.
大都獎勵給這類干擾的獎金支付實際上是削弱了面向管理人員的激勵。
Better to base contracts only on information (like profits relative to the industry average) which sheds light on the manager's true performance.
最好將契約只建立在彰顯出管理人員真正業績的信息 (如相對于行業平均水平的利潤) 的基礎之上。
Yet surprisingly often, firms opt not to structure pay in this way.
然而，令人吃驚的是，企業經常選擇不用這種辦法構成工資。
Mr Holmstrom's work describes why that might be so.
霍爾姆斯特羅姆的研究描述的正是可能如此的原因。
Most jobs are made up of many different tasks, for instance, some of which are easier to assess than others.
例如，大多數工作都是由許多不同的任務構成的，有些任務要比另外一些更容易評估。
Bonuses linked to the easily measured stuff, like profits, encourage agents to spend more time boosting those measures, at the expense of other, harder-to-measure things that are nonetheless important, like brand reputation or product quality.
與利潤等容易衡量的東西相掛鉤的獎金鼓勵代理人，以品牌聲譽或產品質量這些雖然重要但更難以衡量的東西為代價，花更多的時間去提高這些尺度。
In some cases, firms might therefore opt to pay fixed salaries, or to separate roles into those specialising in the easy-to-assess tasks, who can be offered high-powered incentive pay, and others paid fixed rates for woollier sorts of work.
因而，在某些情況下，企業可能選擇支付固定工資，或是把角色拆分為專門從事容易評估任務的人——他們能夠被提供高水平的激勵工資以及因為較為模糊的工作種類而被付給固定比率的其他人。
Throughout his career, Mr Holmstrom has worked out how the ways contracts can and cannot be made to manipulate others determine the structure of jobs, firms and even industries.
縱觀其學術生涯，霍爾姆斯特羅姆一直都在設法解決契約能不能以某種具體的方式被打造出來以便影響決定工作、企業乃至行業結構的其他人。
Like many of the most deserving laureates, Mr Hart and Mr Holmstrom opened whole new lines of inquiry to later economists (indeed, the winner of the prize in 2014, Jean Tirole, did important work in response to their contributions) .
如同許多最值得的得主一樣，對于后來的經濟學家而言，哈特和霍爾姆斯特羅姆開辟了質疑的全新線索 (實際上，2014年得主讓·梯若爾在響應他們的貢獻方面做出了重要的工作)。
The Nobel committee should be applauded for rewarding economists who place power dynamics front and centre.
諾獎評委會理應因為獎勵將權力動力學置于前沿和中心的經濟學家而得到掌聲。
Economic life is messy, but it is also, occasionally, comprehensible.
經濟生活是凌亂的，但偶爾也是可以理解的。
