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Finance and economics: Free exchange Optimising romance
財經：自由交流，優化浪漫
To find true love, it helps to understand the economic principles underpinning the search.
為找到真愛，理解支撐尋找的經濟學原理是有幫助的。
DATING is a treacherous business.
約會是一個有風險的事情。
There may be plenty of fish in the sea, yet many are unhygienic, self-absorbed, disconcertingly attached to ex-fish, or fans of Donald Trump.
人海茫茫，各種各樣的人都有。但是大多數都是不講衛生、自私自戀，尷尬地依附于前任或者是特朗普的粉絲。
Digital dating sites, including a growing array of matchmaking apps, are meant to help.
數字約會網站，包括數量正在不斷增加的各種配對app意在幫人們一把。
Their design owes more to hard-nosed economics than it does to the mysteries of the heart.
它們的設計更多的是歸功于實用經濟學，而不是心靈的秘密。
In a sense, searching for a mate is not so different from hunting for a job.
從一定意義上說，尋找真愛與尋找工作沒有什么不一樣。
Jobs, like prospective partners, have their strengths and weaknesses, which makes finding the right one a matter of complicated trade-offs.
工作如同是意中人，既有優點也有缺點，這讓找到正確的那個成了一件耗時費神之事。
Such exchanges are different from other transactions, in that both parties must be enthusiastic about the match for it to happen.
這種交流不同于其他的交易，雙方必須對即將發生的配對充滿激情。
A supermarket, in contrast, does not particularly care whose wallet it is draining, nor does the power company agonise about whether a customer is worthy of its watts.
與之相比，超市是不會特別在意自己正在榨取誰的錢包，電力公司也不會對客戶是否值自己發的電而煩惱。
Alvin Roth, who won a Nobel prize in economics for his work on market design, made a career of studying such “matching markets”, where supply and demand are not balanced by price.
曾因市場設計研究獲得過一次諾貝爾經濟學獎的阿爾文·羅斯的專項就是研究此類“配對市場”。在配對市場中，供需的平衡不取決于價格。
Instead, people transact based on information.
相反，人們是基于信息進行交易的。
An apple-seller can nudge down his prices until the whole cart is sold.
一位蘋果商販可能會把價格慢慢降至整筐蘋果被售出為止。
Yet if Apple were looking to hire two workers, it would not set a salary so puny that only two people applied.
但是，如果蘋果公司要雇傭兩位員工，它就不會設置一種適用范圍小到只有兩個人申請的薪水。
The quality of new hires often matters at least as much as their salaries.
新員工的質量至少經常是與他們的薪水同樣重要的。
Mr Roth, who won the prize jointly with Lloyd Shapley in 2012, found that the structure of matching markets made a significant difference in determining who wound up with whom.
曾在2012年與勞埃德·沙普利分享諾獎的羅斯發現，配對市場的結構會在決定誰與誰配對方面產生明顯的差異。
Systems designed to elicit people's true preferences generated better matches between hospitals and doctors, for example.
例如，為突出人們的真正喜好而設計出來的系統曾在醫院和醫生之間產生了較好的配對。
But the entire medical profession has an interest in improving matches, and so can set up a national clearing house to do just that.
但是，整個醫療行業的興趣在于改進配對，以便能夠搭建起一個全國性的交換平臺來做這種事。
The lovelorn must instead rely on an array of digital matchmakers.
單戀之人反而必須依賴眾多的數字配對者。
Good matches depend on good information.
好的配對取決于好的信息。
Even without digital help, people usually have some inkling of how much they have in common.
即便沒有數字的幫助，人們通常也會對雙方的共同之處有個大概的認識。
Cosmopolitan strivers move to New York, say, rather than sleepier cities, in part because they will meet other ambitious types with similar interests.
比如說，去大城市打拼的人之所以要去紐約而不是一些沉悶的城市，部分原因就在于他們能在大城市中遇到同樣野心勃勃之人。
Within New York, the places people choose to spend their time—whether Yankee Stadium or a yoga studio—determine which sorts of people they come into contact with.
在紐約，人們選擇去消磨時間的地方——不管是洋基體育場還是瑜伽館——決定了他們所遇到的人的類型。
Because it is expensive to live in New York, and to spend time sweating in a yoga studio or swearing in the stands, people in such settings can be reasonably confident those around them are in some sense like-minded.
因為鑒于在紐約生活去瑜伽館中流汗或是在看臺上發泄的成本很高，因而在這種環境下，人們是能夠對周圍多少都是志同道合的人充滿信心的。
But one critical bit of information is missing: whether there is mutual interest.
但是，一個關鍵的信息在這里被遺漏了：是不是有共同的興趣。
The act of asking someone out is fraught.
當面邀某人約會的行為是令人擔憂的。
In the non-digital world, approaching a potential partner brings the risk of awkwardness or humiliation.
在非數字世界中，接近一個潛在的同伴帶來的是尷尬和受辱的風險。
Digital dating reduces this cost dramatically.
數字配對極大地降低了這方面的成本。
Apps like Tinder and Happn, for example, reveal that a user likes another only when the feeling is mutual.
例如，像Tinder和Happn這樣的app揭示，用戶只在有共同感受的情況下才喜歡另一個用戶。
