十个通俗易懂的经济学（小墨科普三分钟解读经济学的基本原理）

视频·中文

【墨子沙龙】3分钟解读经济学基本原理-中文版_腾讯视频

视频·英文

【墨子沙龙】3分钟解读经济学基本原理-英语版_腾讯视频

文字·中文

经济学是一门重要的社会科学，与自然科学不同的是，它研究的主题和对象是人和社会；与人文学科不同的是，它是用科学的方法，冷静的态度去研究人和社会。

简而言之，如果你接受了经济学的专业训练，不只是依靠人类的直觉来看待问题，世界在你眼中，可能呈现完全不同甚至相反的面貌。

在经济学这门科学中，有两个基本的假设，第一个假设，叫做资源的稀缺性。

我们都知道，地球上的资源是有限的。比如土地，原材料，甚至人才。但有一些资源是我们不太容易注意到的无形资源，比如时间。

相对于金钱、权力，时间才是人类最稀缺、最重要的资源。时间对每个人都是公平的，无论贫富，大家一天都只有24小时。在目前的社会，再先进的科技也不能将你的生命延长至无限。

可以说，经济学中的成本问题、价格问题，都要把时间资源这个因素考虑进去。比如，一家餐馆，做的再好吃，价格再便宜，如果地方偏僻，非常难以寻找，也很难长期持续下去，而在商业区、办公区、景区的餐厅，同样质量的饭菜，价格略高，人们仍然会因为方便而选择他们。

经济学的第二个假设，叫做人是理性的。

虽然人并非绝对理性的动物，但这个假设在大多数情况下是成立的。人类做选择时，要权衡一下好处和坏处，成本和收益，尤其是处理经过深思熟虑或重复性很强的决策问题时。

在这两个假设的基础上，经济学家就可以系统分析人和社会怎么管理稀缺资源，分析人的行为、分析社会现象，推出很多结论，并以此作为做决策的依据。

但要做出理性的决策，只有出发点还不够，还需要有个落脚点，那就是效率。

普通人看重公平，经济学家重视效率。公平是指如何将“饼”（PIE）均分给每个人，而经济学家在意的是如何将“饼”做到最大，杜绝浪费。

任何问题中既有公平问题又有效率问题。以偷窃为例，如果你的一千元被小偷偷走了，财富从一个人转移到另一个人手中，普通人会觉得这很不公平。

然而经济学家认为，一千元从A手中到了B的手中，社会中的财富只是发生了转移，总值没有降低。听起来是不是太冷酷无情了？

先别着急，经济学家还没说完：发生了偷窃，为了防止这种事情再度发生，我们就要装防盗门。装防盗门的成本要从1000元中扣除，那么，我们的饼就缩小了。如果盗窃没有发生，饼就不会缩小，所以从经济学的角度来看，盗窃是对经济发展有害的。

官员腐败除了是不道德的，也会降低效率。腐败的官员如何才能从企业手中拿到钱？他首先要设置一些问题，一些只有他可以解决的问题。

如果企业不行贿，他们就无法得到发展，就业率就会因此降低，普通人的生活会受到影响。这也是为什么我们在提倡行政简单化，减少行政审批的流程，这样既可以反腐败，又可以提高效率。

经济学家通过科学分析，看到了我们直觉所不能看到的问题，听完小墨的解说，你是否对经济学也产生了兴趣呢？想要了解更多科普知识，比如量子物理、天文、化学、脑科学、基因等等等等，欢迎关注墨子沙龙，我们会持续发布更多的科普小视频~~

文字·英文

Economics is an important social science, and what makes it different from natural sciences is that its research object is human sand society. However, it takes a scientific approach and calm attitude to study humans and society unlike the humanities.

Simply put, if you received professional trainingin economics and no longer rely on only human intuition to look at problems,the world may present a completely different, or even opposite, side in your eyes.

In economics, there are two most basic assumptions,and the first one is called the scarcity of resources.

We all know that the resources on Earth arelimited, for example land, raw materials, or even talented people. But some resources are intangible and don’t easily get noticed by us, such as time.

Rather than money or power, time is the most scarce and important resource for humans. It is fair to everyone regardless of wealth—everyone only has 24 hours a day. In our current society, even the most advanced technology can’t prolong your life to infinity.

You could say that in economics, the problems ofcost and price all need to take the factor of time resource into account. For example, if a restaurant makes delicious food with a cheap price, but islocated somewhere remote and difficult to find, then it is unlikely that itwill be able to keep open for a long time. In a business district, office areaor scenic spot, a restaurant with the same quality of food but higher pricewould still be chosen by people out of convenience.

The second assumption of economics is that humansare rational.

Although humans aren’t completely rationalanimals, this assumption is true in most cases. When humans make choices, we will weigh out the advantage and disadvantages or cost and profit, especially when dealing with problems that have been thought about for a long time or are repeatable.

Based on these two assumptions, economists cansyste matically analyze how people and society manage scarce resources. They cananalyze human behavior, social phenomena and come up with many conclusions,then use these as a foundation for making decisions. But to make rational decisions, only having an initial motive isn’t enough, a final purpose isalso required. That is efficiency.

Ordinary people value fairness, but economistsvalue efficiency. Fairness refers to how to split the pie evenly between everyone, while what economists care about is how to make the pie as big aspossible and eliminate waste.

Both fairness and efficiency are issues present inany problem. Take stealing as an example. If a thousand yuan was taken by athief, and the wealth passed from one person to another, ordinary people would find it very unfair.

However, from an economist’s point of view, the thousandyuan was merely transferred from Person A to Person B, with the wealth insociety only having shifted, and the total value not decreased. Doesn’t that sound really cold and callous?

But wait, the economist hasn’tfinished yet: if theft happens, to prevent it from happening again, we will install a security door. The cost of doing this is deducted from the 1000 yuan,so, our pie has shrunk. If the theft hadn’t happened, then our pie wouldn’t shrink, so from the economic point of view, theft is harmful to economic development.

In addition to being unethical, corruption wouldalso lower efficiency. How would a corrupt government official get money fromcompanies? He would first have to create some problems, which only he cansolve.

If companies don’t pay bribes, they won’t beable to develop, leading to the reduction of employment rates, and the lives ofordinary people would be affected. This is why we promote administrative simplification and reducing the process of administrative approval, which canboth fight corruption and increase efficiency.

Through scientific analysis, economists can seethings that our intuitions can’t. After listening to Mitzi’s explanation, have you alsobecome interested in economics? If you want to know more about pop-science,such as quantum physics, astronomy, chemistry, neuroscience, genes etcetera,you are welcome to follow Micius Salon, we will continue to release morepop-science videos.

关于“墨子沙龙”

墨子沙龙是由中国科学技术大学上海研究院主办、上海市浦东新区科学技术协会及中国科大新创校友基金会协办的公益性大型科普论坛。沙龙的科普对象为对科学有浓厚兴趣、热爱科普的普通民众，力图打造具有中学生学力便可以了解当下全球最尖端科学资讯的科普讲坛。