难得糊涂？  梧桐树专栏

《经济学人》述评：在现实社会中，公共认知和实际情况往往偏差很大，而这种认知偏差会影响人们的政治、经济生活。...

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最新一期《经济学人》发表题为“Ignorance isn't bliss”的梧桐树专栏文章，介绍在现实社会中公共认知（public perceptions）和实际情况往往偏差很大，以及这种认知偏差对于人们政治、经济生活的影响。

人们对于“未知的未知”（unknown unknowns）的认知不容易出错，反而是“不言而喻的真理”（self-evident truth）恰恰是完全错误的。现实社会生活中，这种集体错误认知（public misperceptions）非常普遍：美国人“认为”全国有33%人口是外来移民，但实际只有14%；英国人“认为”全国有24%人口是穆斯林，但实际上只有五分之一，即5%；同样，26%英国人“认为”对外援助是最大的政府开支，超过养老和教育，但实际上对外援助只是另外两项开支的零头，仅占全部开支的1%。

文章认为，造成这种错误认知的原因主要是数字感不强（innumeracy），另外大众容易受小道消息（anecdotal evidence）特别是那些有可能对自己或家人造成威胁的消息的影响，所以民众“认为”的犯罪率或未成年少女怀孕率都容易被高估。

现实中，民众并不会意识到自己的认知是错的，这样就容易给施政者带来两方面的难题：一、民众死活不相信官方数据；二、民粹主义抬头（rise of populists）。之前介绍美国大选的文章里提的最多的一个词大概就是“民粹主义”，其根本原因就是民众不相信来自官方主流的声音，因为他们认为所谓“理性的事实说明”（reasoned presentation of the facts）都来源于政府或主流媒体，而这个源头就不可信。

如果说集体认知偏差对于政治的影响具有公共属性范畴的话，那么这种认知偏差对于经济的影响可能更具私人属性，特别是金融理财方面。文章介绍，有一半的美国人认为开放式基金是稳赚不赔的（a guaranteed return）；另外超过40%美国人搞不清楚单利（simple interest）和复利（compound interest）的区别；40%美国人低估了退休人员平均寿命至少五年以上；77%美国人认为已为退休做好准备，但仅63%开始为退休存钱。这种认知偏差（misapprehensions）对于得靠自己理财才能安度晚年的时代里（退休后的养老金比退休前的工资要少很多），显得令人捉急。而且理财产品往往设计复杂，人们又有“货物出售，概不退换”（the idea of caveat emptor, or buyer beware）的观念，所以认知偏差（misapprehesions）会引起麻烦。文章认为，人们需要认清，理财产品不是普通产品：1）长期理财产品的价格并不直观；2）理财产品往往需要长周期才会带来回报，换句话说万一产品有问题，那也得好几年以后，这里会有机会成本；3）买方和卖方存在信息不对称（an asymmetry of information）。

解决无知得靠教育，但在问题得到解决之前，治理者和政治家们不能糊涂，必须清醒地认识到存在公共认知偏差，采用相应的对策。同时，小编觉得，对于个体，我们要勇于承认自己的无知，这个世界上存在太多司空见惯的事情，保持理性和怀疑，才是智慧的源泉。

封面选自Economist

彩蛋 - 学外语

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最近一段时间《经济学人》官网可能不太稳定。小编先做回搬运工，把原文附上。

还是原来的口号：相信厚积薄发的力量！欢迎大家多给反馈！IT IS not the “unknown unknowns” that catch people out, but the truths they hold to be self-evident that turn out to be completely wrong. On many issues, the gap between public perceptions and reality is very wide. The polling company Ipsos Mori found that Americans think 33% of the population are immigrants, for example, when the actual number is 14%. A 2013 poll found that Britons thought 24% of the population was Muslim—almost five times the correct figure of 5%.

Misperceptions about economic policy are common, too. Asked to name the top two or three areas of government spending, 26% of Britons cited foreign aid, more than picked pensions or education. In fact, aid spending is a small fraction of the other two and only 1% of the total.

Some of this is to do with innumeracy. Only a quarter of Britons could work out that the odds of throwing two consecutive heads in a coin toss was 25%. People are also heavily influenced by anecdotal evidence and by fears for themselves or their families—hence the tendency to overestimate the prevalence of crime or teenage pregnancy. (Asked how many teenage girls get pregnant each year, Americans plumped for 24%; the actual figure is 3%.)

More worrying is the possibility that people simply do not trust the official numbers. When Britons were asked why they overestimated the percentage of immigrants within the population, two answers dominated. One camp said that the government undercounted the numbers because of illegal immigration; a second group simply insisted their own answer was right, regardless of the evidence.

This points to the difficulty facing mainstream politicians who are trying to halt the rise of populists like Donald Trump. Reasoned presentation of the facts may not help since the source of the information, whether it is the government or the mainstream media, will always be suspect. Those advocating that Britons vote to leave the European Union in next month’s referendum, for example, dismiss warnings about the economic impact from the IMF, OECD and Bank of England on the grounds that, “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”

If public misperceptions can distort economic debate, they are also a problem when it comes to financial markets. Financial products are often complex and buyers can be confused by the terminology. One survey found that only half of Americans knew that mutual funds did not offer a guaranteed return. A lack of mathematical knowledge is a further difficulty. Another survey asked 50-somethings questions that related to financial literacy; asked to calculate how much each of five prize-winners would get from a lottery jackpot of $2m, only 56% of respondents could answer the question. More than two-fifths did not know the difference between simple and compound interest.

The trend has been for individuals to shoulder more responsibility for their financial well-being than they did in the past. This is particularly true in the case of pensions, where companies are retreating from the paternalistic approach of offering pensions linked to a worker’s final salary. In the brave new world of defined-contribution schemes, workers get a pot at retirement which they must eke out for the rest of their lives.

These are difficult calculations to make. A survey by the Society of Actuaries found that around 40% of Americans underestimated the average life expectancy of retired people by five years or more. Around 77% of Americans are very or somewhat confident that they are well prepared for retirement but only 63% say they have saved any money towards it, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

These misapprehensions illustrate the problem with the idea of caveat emptor, or buyer beware, when it comes to retail customers of financial services. Investment products are not the same as other goods. First, the price is not immediately obvious, given the impact of annual charges and fees on a customer’s long-term return. Second, the usefulness of the product may only become apparent after several years. A mutual fund is not like a corked wine that people can hand back to the waiter right away. By the time customers find out things have gone wrong, their financial future may be badly damaged. Third, there is an asymmetry of information between the seller and the buyer.

Educating children and adults to be financially literate might help in the long term. Until then regulators, just like politicians, must deal with the public as they are, not how they might like them to be.

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