直接發錢能幫助窮人嗎?

Is this the most effective development programme in history?” asks Chris Blattman, a political scientist at Columbia University. He adds, “I think it’s a contender.”

“這是不是史上最有效的發展項目？”哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)政治科學家克里斯布拉特曼(Chris Blattman)問。他補充道：“我認爲這個項目能夠參與角逐。”

The programme is simple enough to explain: give cash handouts of $50,000 to aspiring Nigerian entrepreneurs. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly — but more about the Nigerian cash drop in due course. It is merely the most eye-catching in a stack of research and policy papers to conclude that an excellent cure for the problem of poverty is simply to give poor people money.

這個項目解釋起來非常簡單：給有志成爲企業家的尼日利亞人發放5萬美元的現金。是的，上一句話你沒看錯——更多關於這筆錢的內容會在後面講到。這只是一大堆研究論文和政策文件中最引人注目的一部分，即認爲解決貧困問題的一個良策是直接給窮人發錢。

That idea seems almost naive. Instinctively, we tend to feel that victims of famines and earthquakes need food and shelter rather than inedible cash. We may feel, also, that cash will be wasted — stolen, spent on drink, frittered away on treats or siphoned off by grasping relatives. Even if the money is well spent, will it generate self-sustaining economic growth? Yet an increasing number of development policy types are reaching the conclusion that cash beats many of the alternatives.

看起來，這個想法幾乎可以說是天真的。我們本能地覺得，饑荒和地震的受害者需要的是食物和庇護所，而不是不能拿來吃的金錢。我們還可能覺得，這些錢會被浪費——被偷了、用來喝酒了，浪費在享樂上了，或者被貪心的親戚捲走了。就算這些錢得到了很好的利用，是否就能夠帶來可自我維持的財務增長呢？然而，越來越多種類的發展政策正得出結論：錢勝過了許多替代選項。

Ponder the most obvious objection first: that poor people will waste the money. David Evans and Anna Popova of the World Bank surveyed 19 randomised trials across the world studying cash transfers. Not one of them found evidence that spending on alcohol or tobacco had increased by a statistically significant amount. Poor people have better things to do with the money and often spend it well or even invest it successfully.

先來考慮一下最顯而易見的反對意見：窮人會浪費這筆錢。世界銀行(World Bank)的戴維埃文斯(David Evans)和安娜波波娃(Anna Popova)對分佈於世界各地、研究現金轉移的19個隨機性試驗進行了調查。兩人都沒有發現任何證據，表明接受現金轉移的人花在菸酒上的支出出現了有統計意義的增長。窮人會用這筆錢去做更好的事情，他們通常會很好地利用這筆錢，甚至進行成功的投資。

Blattman and his colleagues conducted what one might regard as a test-to-destruction of the “just give cash” policy. They handed out $200 at a time to homeless thieves and drug dealers in the slums of Liberia as part of a larger randomised trial. One could hardly think of a cash injection more likely to be squandered. And yet, on average, just $8 was spent on drinking or drugs; the rest was spent on rent, food, clothes and “business investments”. The most successful of these was a barrel full of strong drink that was resold by the cupful on the street.

布拉特曼和他的同事對“直接給錢”政策進行了一種“破壞性試驗”。作爲一個範圍更大的隨機性試驗的一部分，他們一次給利比里亞貧民窟裏無家可歸的小偷和毒販發放200美元的現金。很難想象還有什麼現金投入比這更容易遭到揮霍了。然而，拿到這些錢的人花在喝酒或毒品上的金額平均僅爲8美元；其他則花在了租金、食物、衣服和“商業投資”上。其中最成功的支出是買了一滿桶烈酒，然後在街上一杯杯轉賣出去。

What about the rather different idea of handing out cash in emergency situations — after earthquakes or famines or to refugees? (It is now possible to do this electronically through an ATM card or mobile phone.)

那麼，與此不同的另一個想法怎麼樣？即在緊急情況下發放現金——比如在地震或者饑荒發生後，或者發放對象爲難民。（通過一張可用於ATM機的卡或者手機，現在完全可以通過電子手段做到這件事。）

Clearly there will be times when cash is useless because there is nothing to buy. But if refugees have money, entrepreneurs will scramble to solve logistical problems and supply them with things to spend the money on. Except for a few cases, such as vitamins and vaccines, refugees are likely to understand their own needs best.

顯然，有時金錢毫無用處，因爲沒有可以購買的東西。但一旦難民有了錢，企業家就會努力克服運輸問題，提供他們可以花錢購買的東西。除了維生素和疫苗等少數東西，難民通常最能理解他們自身的需求。

And while cash can be stolen, it is easier to keep electronic cash transfers secure than to ship food long distances through hostile terrain, with each warlord along the way extracting a cut.

儘管錢可能會被盜取，但保證電子現金轉移的安全要比經由敵對領土長距離運輸食物更容易，在後一種情況下，沿途的每一個軍閥都會雁過拔毛。

Donor agencies are starting to experiment with cash transfers in humanitarian crises. A commission chaired by Owen Barder of the Center for Global Development recently made its recommendations to the UK’s Department for International Development. The first one: “Give more unconditional cash transfers. The questions should always be asked, ‘Why not cash?’ and ‘If not now, when?’”

捐助機構已開始嘗試在人道主義危機中進行現金轉移。由全球發展中心(Center for Global Development)的歐文巴德(Owen Barder)領導的一個委員會最近對英國國際發展部(DFID)提出建議。第一個建議是：“進行更多無條件現金轉移。我們總是需要問自己這樣的問題，‘爲何不給現金呢？’以及‘如果不是現在，什麼時候呢？’”

So what about those Nigerian entrepreneurs? We already knew that small business grants could have big impacts. A few years ago I reported on an experiment conducted by David McKenzie, Suresh de Mel and Chris Woodruff in Sri Lanka after the catastrophic tsunami of 2004.

那些尼日利亞企業家又如何呢？我們已經知道，小筆的商業資助金能夠產生巨大的影響。幾年前，我曾經報道過戴維麥肯齊(David McKenzie)、蘇雷什德梅爾(Suresh de Mel)和克里斯伍德拉夫(Chris Woodruff)在2004年發生海嘯災難後的斯里蘭卡進行的一次試驗。

They gave out modest grants of around $100 to $200 to business owners, and found that on average these cash injections were invested with very high returns — around 10 per cent a month. But these were tiny one-person businesses.

他們向企業主發放了100美元到200美元左右的小筆現金，發現這些現金投入的平均投資回報率非常高——大約爲每月10%。但這些是由一個人組成的微型企業。

Now David McKenzie has conducted this Nigerian trial of much larger handouts, with the aim of producing larger businesses with the potential to create jobs. The trial examined a business-plan competition — a policy wonk’s version of Dragons’ Den — that was funded by the Nigerian government and run by the World Bank and the Department for International Development. Several hundred applicants won outright but several hundred more were chosen by lottery from the runners-up. By comparing the lottery winners and the lottery losers, McKenzie could see the impact of the cash grant. It was large: three years on, the lucky winners were almost twice as likely as the losers to be running a business, and three times as likely to be employing more than 10 people. Such employers are exceedingly rare in Nigeria but a third of the lottery winners were among their ranks.

現在，戴維麥肯齊在尼日利亞進行的這個試驗發放的金額要大得多，目的是產生有可能創造工作機會的更大的企業。這項試驗研究了一項商業策劃比賽——一個政策專家版的《龍穴》（Dragons’ Den，一檔英國商業真人秀節目——譯者注）。該比賽由尼日利亞政府出資，舉辦者爲世界銀行和英國國際發展部。有幾百名申請者直接贏得資助，但還有另外幾百人通過從餘下申請者中抽獎發放資金。通過比較被抽中和沒被抽中的人，麥肯齊能夠發現現金資助的影響。這種影響是巨大的：3年過去了，被幸運抽中的人開辦企業的機率幾乎是落選者的兩倍，而前者僱傭逾10名員工的機率則是後者的3倍。這樣的僱主在尼日利亞極其稀少，但有三分之一的被抽中者是這樣的僱主。

Of course, $50,000 is a lot of money and one might expect it to do some good — but McKenzie estimates that the cost per job created compares very favourably with popular entrepreneurship programmes such as mentoring or training. The truth is that while entrepreneurs in Nigeria and other poor countries are held back by corruption, red tape, poor roads and patchy electricity, they are also constrained by a lack of the funds needed to get their ideas off the ground. That is a solvable problem.

當然，5萬美元是一大筆錢，人們理應期待這筆錢能發揮一些作用——但據麥肯齊估計，這種方式創造每一份工作的成本遠遠優於指導和培訓等流行的創業項目。真相是，尼日利亞和其他窮國的企業家不僅受腐敗、繁文縟節、糟糕的路況和時有時無的電力掣肘，還受限於缺乏實現他們的想法所需的資金。而這是一個可以解決的問題。

But does McKenzie agree with Blattman that he may have discovered the most effective development programme in history? No, he tells me with a chuckle. The most effective development programme, he says, is to let people move to another country. Now that’s a topic for another day.

那麼麥肯齊是否同意布拉特曼的說法，認爲他或許發現了史上最有效的發展項目？並非如此，他輕笑着告訴我。他說，最有效的發展項目，是允許人們遷移到另一個國家。而這又是另一個議題了。