些細なことが社会に安定を与える（英語版）
昨日、2005年にノーベル経済学賞をとったトーマス・シェリング教授のセミナーに行ってきました。50人入ればいっぱいになるネフィールド・カレッジの”大”講義室でこんな有名な人のセミナーが聞けるのもオックスフォードならではでないでしょうか。
感想を英語のブログに書いてくれといわれていたので、まずは英語で書きました。日本語訳は明日にでも書こうと思います。
May 20, 2008
I attended Prof. Thomas Schelling's seminar, who got 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics at Nuffield college.
I always like micro economics as human behaviour and my DPhil is partially about agent-based modelling, which studies macro level phenomena from micro level behaviours. Therefore, I was really looking forward to attend his lecture.
I knew many concepts he explained already, but I really enjoyed his jet-coaster-lecture. He talked a lot of stories here and there until he stopped at his last funny story about he and his friend found exactly the same method to find each other in US.
The jet-coaster ride went through segregation, critical mass, and tipping points, which are very familar with our research topics. While the ride, he repeatedly came back a phrases such as "mechanics" or "mechanism design", which is more related to last year's Nobel economics prize than his Nobel price in 2005.
"mechanics" he meant was "how small simple rules makes stable situation in the society"
In Critical mass, for example, he used a story about women students in Harvard Business School. HBS accepted women student first time about 40 years ago and only about 8 women students registered out of 300 students. This situation was not comfortable for them and some did not shown up. So, HBS set a simple rule to create a "Critical mass".
"If the number of women students is less than 50, they do not need to pay any tuition and will received some financial support, etc".
This seems very generous, but it is NOT because HBS actually does not need to pay a penny for the policy.
The next year, 75 women students registered to he business school. Prof. Schelling said the school designed a mechanic to make a stability in the society.
His message was consistent in other examples such as "racial segregation", a traffic light as "coordination", etc. The society segregate more than they wish and society can go messy more than necessary because of individual level motives, e.g. trying to hand around with guys have similar characteristics as you. And, a small and simple rule makes stability in the society.
I liked, like and will be liking this idea.
Environmentalist tends to say "need more regulation", "needs law to punish them", etc. Badly designed regulation and law will be heavy and create another problems, so we should not make top-down regulation if we can avoid. In contract, a well designed regulation, as he explained as "mechanism design", will be simple and may not cost much to the society, but will create stability in the society.
Dr. Takeshi Takama
www.takeshitakama.com
