全球视野 | 每月50美元，连续12年，能否减轻贫困？

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文章《It's one of the biggest experiments in fighting global poverty. Now the results are in/这是在全球扶贫领域进行的最重要实验之一。现在结果出来了。》发布在NPR/美国全国公共广播电台上。这篇文章介绍了美国慈善机构GiveDirectly自2017年以来，在肯尼亚进行的一项大规模的现金援助实验，旨在测试名为“全民基本收入”的项目对于减轻全球贫困的影响。该实验每月提供大约50美元的现金补助，并承诺将连续提供12年。文章介绍了一个独立研究团队对于该实验的研究发现。该研究涵盖对比了约5000名接受每月补助金的村民和近12000名未获得资助的对照组，以及其他通过不同分配方式获得补助金的人群。

It's an unprecedented – and massive – experiment: Since 2017 the U.S.-based charity GiveDirectly has been providing thousands of villagers in Kenya what's called a "universal basic income" – a cash grant of about $50, delivered every month, with the commitment to keep the payments coming for 12 years. It is a crucial test of what many consider one of the most cutting-edge ideas for alleviating global poverty. This week a team of independent researchers who have been studying the impact released their first results. 

这是一项前所未有且规模庞大的实验：自2017年以来，总部位于美国的慈善机构GiveDirectly一直在肯尼亚为数千名村民提供所谓的“全民基本收入”，即每月提供约50美元的现金补助，并承诺在未来12年持续发放。这是对许多人认为是减轻全球贫困的最前沿理念之一的关键测试。12月初，一组一直在研究该实验影响的独立研究人员，公布了他们的第一批研究结果。 

Their findings cover the first two years of the effort and compare the outcomes for about 5,000 people who got the monthly payments to nearly 12,000 others in a control group who got no money. But, just as significantly, the researchers also compared the recipients to people in two other categories: nearly 9,000 who received the monthly income for just two years, without the promise of another decade of payments afterward; and another roughly 9,000 people who got that same two years' worth of income but in a lump-sum payment. 

他们的研究涵盖了该项目的头两年，并将大约5000名按月领取补助金的人的结果，与对照组中近12000名未领取补助金的人的结果进行了比较。但同样重要的是，研究人员还将这类受助者与其他两个类别的人进行了比较：近9000人仅在前两年获得月度补助金，但没有之后继续支付的承诺；以及另外约9000人获得相同价值的两年补助金收入，但是以一次性付款的形式。 

NPR has been covering this effort from the start — traveling to Kenya early into the launch at a village near Lake Victoria. During a community meeting that day people's phones suddenly began to ping with a text alert, notifying them that their monthly grant had just been sent to their mobile bank accounts. The crowd erupted in cheers. Some of the younger women broke into song. The joy was a reflection of just how much people in the community had been struggling: The year before this experiment started, 85% of recipients reported experiencing hunger. 

美国全国公共广播电台/NPR从一开始就一直在报道这一工作，早在实验启动初期就前往了肯尼亚，到达了维多利亚湖附近的一个村庄。在当天的社区会议上，人们的手机突然响起了短信提醒，通知他们每月的补助金刚刚发到了他们的手机银行账户上。人群中爆发出欢呼声。一些年轻女性开始唱歌。这种喜悦反映了该社区居民曾经的生活有多么艰难：在这个实验开始的前一年，85%的受助者都表示曾经经历过饥饿。 

So how much of a difference has the experiment made so far? Here are five takeaways from the first batch of findings: 

那么，到目前为止，这项实验产生了多大的影响呢？以下是从第一批研究结果中得出的五个要点：

When it came to measures of well-being such as consumption of protein or spending money on schooling, all of the groups who were given cash were better off than people in the control group that got no money. This fits with previous studies of no-strings cash aid, which find that poor people generally use the money productively rather than wasting it on alcohol, cigarettes or other vices. 

在衡量福祉的指标时，如蛋白质摄入量或是在教育上的花费方面，所有获得现金援助的组别的表现，都比没有获得现金援助的对照组要好。这与之前关于无条件现金援助的研究相吻合。这些研究发现贫困人口通常会把钱用于生产性活动上，而不是浪费在酒精、香烟或其他恶习上。 

But the big news came on a different measure: people's likelihood of starting a business. On this front, those who got the money in a lump sum vastly outperformed people who were promised the same amount for just two years but received it in monthly installments. For instance lump-sum recipients had 19% more enterprises – businesses such as small shops in local markets, motorbike taxis and small-scale construction concerns. And the lump sum recipients' net revenues from their businesses were a whopping 80% higher. 

然而，最重要的消息涉及到另一项指标：人们创业的可能性。在这一方面，那些一次性领取补助金的人，远远优于那些只承诺了相同金额但是按月分期支付的人。例如，一次性获得资金的人拥有的企业数量要多19%，这些企业包括当地市场上的小商店、摩托车出租和小规模的建筑工程。而一次性领取者的企业净收入也高出80%。 

A member of the research team, MIT economist Tavneet Suri, says these results add to the evidence that many poor people are trapped in poverty by a lack of capital for precisely the kinds of transformative investments they would need to vault them into higher incomes. 

研究小组成员之一、麻省理工学院经济学家塔夫尼特·苏里表示，这些结果进一步证明，许多贫困人口之所以无法摆脱贫困，正是因为缺乏投资资本，那些能够使他们迈向更高收入的转变性投资所需的资本。 

"I might have this amazing opportunity to invest that's going to get me great returns," says Suri. "But there's no way to borrow. I don't have title to my land, so I can't use my land as collateral. Or I just don't have great ways to save money – because putting it under my mattress is not a great way to save." In short, without an intervention like the lump-sum grants, she says, an individual struggling with poverty might think, "I can't make this investment that would help get me out of poverty." 

苏里说：“我可能有一个绝佳的投资机会，这将会给我带来丰厚的回报。但我没有办法借到钱。我没有土地所有权，所以不能用土地做抵押。或者说，我没有很好的存钱方法，因为把钱放在床垫下并不是一种很好的存钱方法。”简而言之，苏里表示，如果没有像一次性补助金这样的干预措施，挣扎在贫困线上的人可能会认为：“我无法进行这项可以帮助我摆脱贫困的投资。”

GiveDirectly's head of research, Miriam Laker-Oketta, notes that it wasn't all that surprising that the study team, which worked independently of her organization, found that the lump-sum recipients were more likely to make investments compared with those who got paid in monthly installments. Prior studies of smaller scale cash-aid programs — including an earlier experiment arranged by GiveDirectly itself — have pointed to similar results. 

GiveDirectly的研究负责人米里亚姆·拉克-奥克塔指出，独立于她机构工作的研究团队发现，与按月分期支付的人相比，一次性领取现金的人更有可能进行投资，这并不令人感到惊讶。之前对规模较小的现金援助项目进行的研究，包括早些时候由GiveDirectly自己组织的一项实验，都得出了类似的结果。 

But this new experiment tests, for the first time, both the lump sums and the two years worth of monthly installments against the much larger promise of 12 years of income, again delivered in monthly installments. 

但这次的新实验首次测试了一次性支付和为期两年的月度分期支付，与更大的为期12年的支付承诺（同样按月分期支付）的对比。 

So it's notable that here too, the lump-sum recipients did best in the matchup – opening more businesses and earning more money from them even when compared to those who knew they'd be getting monthly payments for the full 12 years. 

因此，值得注意的是，一次性获得资金的受助者在对比中表现最佳，即使与那些知道他们将在整整12年内每月获得支付的人进行比较。一次性获得资金的受助者开设了更多的企业，并从中赚取了更多的钱。 

Andrew Zeitlen, an economist at Georgetown University who studies cash aid, says it's an impressive finding of a "well-executed study." After all, says Zeitlin, who was not involved with the research, "the long-run value of that universal basic income substantially exceeds the value of the lump sum transfers. It's an order of magnitude difference." So, the fact that lump sums had more impact even than this much bigger eventual payout points to the advantage of giving money at once instead of piecemeal. 

乔治城大学经济学家安德鲁·齐特伦表示，这是一项“执行良好的研究”中的令人印象深刻的发现。没有参与研究的齐特伦说：“毕竟，全民基本收入的长期价值，大大超过了一次性转移支付的价值。这是数量级的差别。”因此，一次性支付的影响甚至比最终支付的金额还要大。这一事实表明了一次性提供资金比零散支付更有优势。 

Just as important, says Suri, is a second twist: Those who were promised 12 years of monthly payments still out-performed people who could only count on two years of payments. And – here's the key – the way that the 12-year-group was able to invest more in their enterprises was by effectively converting their monthly payments into a lump sum. 

苏里说，同样重要的是第二个转折点：那些被承诺12年按月支付的人的表现，仍然优于那些只能指望两年支付的人。而且关键在于，12年这组能够对企业进行更多投资的方式是将月度支付有效地转化为一次性支付。

They did this by making use of a creative financing tool known as a "rotating savings club." Every month members of the club pool their money and then take turns getting the entire payout from that pot. 

他们通过利用一种被称为“轮流储蓄俱乐部”的、创造性的融资工具来实现这一目标。俱乐部的成员每个月都将他们的钱汇集在一起，然后轮流从这个共同储蓄池中获得全部资金。 

Rotating savings clubs are enormously popular among Kenyans who don't have access to traditional banking. Even people who got the monthly income for just two years managed to put about 8% more money in a rotating savings club than those who got no aid. 

在无法获得传统银行服务的肯尼亚人中，轮流储蓄俱乐部非常受欢迎。即使是那些只获得了为期两年月度收入的人，也能比那些没有得到任何援助的人在轮流储蓄俱乐部中多存了约8%的钱。

But people in the 12-year-monthly income group used the clubs at an astonishing rate – contributing nearly 70% more money than those in the control group. 

然而，为期12年的月度收入组的人，以惊人的比率使用这些俱乐部。他们的贡献金额几乎比对照组的人多出了近70%。 

Suri says one explanation could be that people who were promised a full 12 years of monthly income knew their neighbors would also be getting the income because every adult in the village was made that same promise. This expectation of years of income to come for everyone involved likely provided people the confidence needed to invest in a savings club: After all, says Suri, you're relying on your fellow members to keep contributing to the pot after they've gotten their own payout. 

苏里表示，一种解释可能是，那些被承诺获得整整为期12年月度收入的人知道他们的邻居也将获得相同的收入，因为村里的每个成年人都得到了同样的承诺。对于每个参与者都有望在未来几年获得收入的这种期望，可能为人们投资于储蓄俱乐部提供了信心：苏里说，毕竟，你指望你的同伴在获得自己的补助金后，继续为储蓄俱乐部做贡献。

This broad-based, "universal" nature of the aid may also help explain another surprising finding, says Suri: The fact that people who chose to invest their cash grants did so by starting businesses. "I thought we would see tons of investment in agriculture" – basically improvements to the tiny plots on which many villagers raise subsistence crops, she says. "Go buy fertilizer. Go buy a pump to bring in more water." 

苏里表示，援助的这种广泛性和“普遍性”也有助于解释另一个令人惊讶的发现：选择将现金补助用于投资的人，都是通过创业来投资的。 

That's what earlier studies suggested. 

这也是早先研究的结论。 

But the prior interventions that those studies had analyzed were not "universal" in the sense that, instead, the aid was given to only a subset of people in a community. By contrast, this experiment – by providing the aid to every adult in a given village – "allows us to learn about the interdependence between people," says Zeitlin. In particular, he says, it shows how the aid could boost businesses not just with capital but also by creating a large pool of new potential customers. 

然而，这些研究分析的先前干预措施，在某种程度上，并非像这次实验那样是“普遍”的，因为援助只提供给社区中的一部分人。安德鲁·齐特伦表示，相比之下，这项实验是向特定村庄的每个成年人提供援助，“让我们了解了人与人之间的相互依赖的关系”。他说，它展示了援助不仅可以通过提供资本来促进企业，还可以通过创造一个庞大的潜在客户群体来实现。 

Suri says anecdotal evidence suggests this is precisely what happened. "It's everybody getting the aid, and everybody knows that," she says. 

苏里说，这些传闻证据表明，这正是发生的情况。她说：“所有人都能获得援助，而且每个人都知道这一点。”

Despite the sudden influx of money into these impoverished communities, Suri says that so far the data suggests that inflation there did not go up. 

尽管大量资金突然涌入了这些贫困社区，但苏里说，到目前为止，数据显示那里的通货膨胀率并没有上升。 

One possible reason, she says, is that while people did buy more things, this extra spending was distributed over a wide range of products, depending on the relative wealth of the person getting the aid. 

她说，其中一个可能的原因是，虽然人们确实买了更多的东西，但这种额外的消费分布在各种产品上，具体取决于获得援助的人的相对财富。 

"So it's not all going into one commodity," says Suri. "And that's the advantage of spreading it universally." 

苏里说：“因此，并不是所有资金都流向一种商品。而这正是将其普遍推广的优势所在。”

Suri says the findings thus far already have potential implications for policy. For instance, at present, "a lot of cash transfers that the World Bank runs in poor countries tend to be of the monthly-for-two-years kind of style." And this new data adds substantial evidence to the view that, in fact, "the short-term [parceled out aid] is probably not such a smart policy. Because you could take the money and give it in a lump sum and get much bigger effects." 

苏里表示，迄今为止的研究结果已经对政策产生了潜在影响。例如，目前，“世界银行在贫穷国家运行的很多现金转移项目，往往是按月发放、为期两年进行的方式”。而这一新数据为这样一种观点提供了大量证据，即实际上，“短期（分期提供援助）可能不是一个明智的政策。因为你可以一次性提供资金，从而获得更大的效果。” 

What remains to be seen, she says, is whether the relative benefits of the lump-sum payments endure. Are the businesses that people start durable? Do they generate enough income to actually lift people out of poverty? 

苏里说，还有待观察的是，一次性付款的相对好处是否会持续下去。人们创办的企业是否持久？它们产生的收入是否足以让人们真正摆脱贫困？ 

"The lump sum and the long term [monthly payments] look similar at two years," Suri says. "But the question is, does the lump sum [impact] fade after year five? Year six? Does it just disappear? Or was this enough to keep [the impacts] going forever?" 

苏里说：“一次性支付和长期的（每月支付），在两年内看起来差不多。但问题是，一次性付款的（影响）会在第五年后逐渐消散吗？第六年呢？它是否会突然消失？还是这足以让（影响）永远持续下去？” 

Because if so, she adds, "Then we're good. I don't have to spend 12 years of money. I just have to spend two years' worth and just structure it correctly." 

因为如果是这样的话，她补充说：“那我们就没事了。我不需要花12年的钱。我只需要花上两年的钱，并正确地构建它。” 

To find the answers, Suri says she's committed to continuing this study for as long as it takes. 

苏里说，为了找到答案，她会一直坚持这项研究。 

"For the rest of my life," she says, laughing. "You know, most people want to write a will for their assets – like, who are they going to leave their money to? I'm like, 'Who am I going to leave the universal basic income project to?' It's maybe the most valuable thing I have as a researcher." 

她笑着说：“在我有生之年。你知道，大多数人都想为自己的财产写一份遗嘱。比如，他们要把钱留给谁？我就想，‘我要把全民基本收入项目留给谁？’这也许是我作为一名研究人员最有价值的东西。”