Nobel Prize Winners Studied Agreements Affecting Everyone(翻译)

Two professors at American universities have won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. They were honored for their work on business agreements that affect billions of people worldwide: contracts.
两位美国大学教授获得了诺贝尔经济学奖，这是为了表彰他们在影响全球数十亿人的商业协议，也就是契约方面的研究工作。

"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Richsbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2016 to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom for their contributions to contract theory."
“瑞典皇家科学院决定将2016年瑞典国家银行纪念阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔经济学奖授予奥利弗·哈特（Oliver Hart）以及本特·霍尔姆斯特伦（Bengt Holmstrom），以表彰他们对契约理论所做出的贡献。”

Goran Hansson, the Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the prize Monday.
瑞典皇家科学院秘书长格荣·汉森（Goran Hansson）周一公布了这一奖项。

Oliver Hart is a professor at Harvard University. Bengt Holmstrom is at the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or M.I.T.
哈特是哈佛大学教授，而霍尔姆斯特伦就职于附近的麻省理工学院。

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prize was awarded for work on the theory of contracts. These agreements affect almost every part of modern life.
瑞典皇家科学院表示，该奖项是为了表彰他们在契约理论方面的工作。这些协议几乎影响到了现代生活的各个部分。

Contracts are everywhere
契约无处不在

Insurance, loans, buying agreements, employment, property rights, political constitutions and marriage are all kinds of contracts.
保险、贷款、采购协议、就业、产权、政治建制和婚姻是都是各种类型的契约。

Hart and Holmstrom developed a theory for understanding how contracts work. Their research has been used to design contracts. It relates to contracts in private markets and in public policy.
哈特和霍尔姆斯特伦开发了一种认识契约如何工作的理论。他们的研究已被用于设计各种契约，它涉及到私营市场和公共政策中的各种契约。

Contracts are agreements between a principal and an agent. One example of this relationship is the one between an employer and an employee.
契约是指委托人和代理人之间的协议。雇主和雇员之间的关系就是其中一个例子。

The leader of a company and its shareholders also have a contractual agreement.
公司负责人及其股东也有契约式协议。

Hart and Holmstrom's work raised questions about tying the pay of high-level officials to a company's current profits. They found that performance-based pay might not be the best policy in some cases. Doing so, may give a business leader an incentive to make decisions that increase profits for a short period of time. Those same decisions may harm the company over the long term.
哈特和霍尔姆斯特伦的工作提出了关于将高管薪酬同公司当前利润挂钩的问题。他们发现，在某些情况下，基于绩效的薪酬可能不是最佳策略。这样做可能会鼓励企业领导者做出短时间内增加利润的决定。这些决定从长远看可能会损害公司。

The two also studied insurance contracts. They argued that people may become careless if insurance companies fully replaced things that are damaged in an accident, such as cars. So, insurance companies often have contract holders pay a deductible toward repair. Insurers also limit what they are willing pay for or replace in many cases.
这两人还研究了保险契约。他们认为，如果保险公司完全更换事故中损坏的物品，例如汽车，人们可能会变得粗心。所以，保险公司通常会让投保人在维修中承担一个免赔额。在很多情况下，保险公司还会限制他们赔偿或更换的意愿。

Holmstrom worked with others to describe how contracts meant to improve one kind of performance can hurt overall job performance. For example, if teacher pay is tied to student test scores then many other parts of a teacher's job could be negatively affected.
霍尔姆斯特伦同他人一起合作，称契约意味着提高某种绩效可能会损害整体工作绩效。例如，如果教师薪酬同学生考试分数挂钩，那么教师的许多其它工作可能会受到负面影响。

Hart and Holmstrom worked together to show that contracts cannot describe every part of a job. Contracts are in some ways always incomplete.
哈特和霍尔姆斯特伦一起合作证明了契约无法描述工作的每个细节。契约在某些方面总是不完整的。

The two said contracts cannot predict every need and requirement in the future. Holmstrom researched the subject for many years. He advised that contracts should make clear what needs to be done to deal with future disagreements between parties rather than center on specific requirements.
这两人表示，契约无法预测未来的所有需求。霍尔姆斯特伦研究这个主题已经多年。他建议契约应该明确需要做些什么来处理双方未来的分歧，而不是集中于具体要求。

The new Nobel prize winners also examined whether some jobs are better done by government or private industry.
两位诺贝尔奖新得主还调查了是否一些工作最好由政府或私营企业来承担。

In 1997, Hart worked with others in a study that showed the incentive to reduce costs is usually stronger among private contractors. The research called into question the policy of some privately run public services, like prisons.
1997年，哈特在一项研究中与他人合作，该研究表明在私营承包商中降低成本的动力更大。这项研究对一些私营公共服务政策提出了质疑，例如监狱。

The Nobel committee praised Hart and Holmstrom for providing the tools to think about and design better contracts in many different fields.
诺贝尔奖委员会称赞哈特和霍尔姆斯特伦提供了工具，让人们可以在很多不同领域探讨和设计更好的契约。

Oliver Hart was born in London. He spent much of his professional life at American universities. Co-winner Bengt Holmstrom was born in Helsinki, Finland. He also spent most of his career in the United States.
哈特出生在伦敦，他在美国大学度过了大部分职业生涯。共同获奖者霍尔姆斯特伦出生在芬兰赫尔辛基，他也在美国度过了大部分的职业生涯。

The two have been friends for years. The Nobel Prize committee's twitter account Tweeted Hart's reaction:
这两人已是多年好友。诺贝尔奖委员会的推特账户发推文谈到了哈特的反应。

The two will share the economics prize worth $924,000. It is the only Nobel prize not established by Alfred Nobel. Sweden's central bank established the prize in his honor.
这两人将分享诺贝尔经济学奖，奖金达92.4万美元。这是唯一一项并非由诺贝尔本人设立的诺贝尔奖项。为了纪念他，瑞典国家银行设立了该奖项。

The Nobel prize for literature will be announced Thursday.
诺贝尔文学奖将于周四公布。