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Finance and economics
财经版块
Free exchange
自由交换专栏
I love your bag! Thanks, it’s a lemon.
我喜欢你的包包! 谢谢，这是个柠檬包。
An economist’s guide to the luxury-handbag market.
一位经济学家对奢侈手提包市场的指南。
You could spot a fake a mile off.
曾经你在一英里开外就能认出假货。
The plasticky “Prado” wallets arranged on bedsheets on the pavements lining Canal Street in New York bore only a passing resemblance to the ones for sale in the Prada store in Soho.
在纽约坚尼街两旁的人行道上，摆放在床单上的塑料“普拉多”钱包与苏豪区普拉达专卖店出售的钱包只有极少的相似之处。
The fake Chanel bags they lay next to were lumpy, misshapen and smelled a little like petrol.
旁边放着的假香奈儿包凹凸不平，有些变形，闻起来还有点汽油味。
An attempt to make a quick buck by buying one and passing it off as genuine—perhaps by taking it to a small local consignment store—would have been met with raised eyebrows and a chuckle.
试图买一个假货，再冒充真品（可能是放在当地的一家小店寄售）来赚快钱，这种做法可能会让人们惊讶地扬起眉毛和发笑。
What an innocent time.
这是多么纯真无欺的时光啊。
Now booming demand, technological improvements and sheer opportunism have transformed the market for buying and selling luxury bags.
如今，旺盛的需求、技术进步和机会主义已经改变了奢侈品包的买卖市场。
LVMH, a luxury conglomerate, sold about 10bn-euros worth ($13bn) of leather goods in 2013.
奢侈品集团路威酩轩在2013年卖出了价值约100亿欧元(130亿美元)的皮具。
By 2023 it was selling 42bn-euros worth.
到2023年，销售额达到了420亿欧元。
Dedicated reselling platforms, such as the RealReal and Vestiaire Collective, have expanded rapidly.
专门的转售平台，如RealReal和Vestiaire Collective，已经迅速扩张。
Revenues from reselling luxury bags and clothing now add up to around $200bn a year.
现在，转售奢侈品包包和服装的收入每年总计约2000亿美元。
So producers of counterfeits have upped their game, too.
因此，冒牌货的生产商也升级了游戏。
Women now gather in Reddit groups to “QC” (quality check) bags they order from China via WeChat.
现在女性聚集在Reddit群组里对她们通过微信从中国买来的包包进行“质量检查”。
Called “superfakes” by the New York Times, such dupes are often spot on—down to having the correct number of stitches on each side of the classic Chanel quilted diamond (up to 11, apparently).
这种被《纽约时报》称为“超级假货”的冒牌商品，通常仿造得分毫不差：每一面上的针脚数量都和香奈儿经典绗缝钻石包一样(显然，最多11针)。
They cost about a tenth of the regular price.
这种仿货的价格大约是正常价格的十分之一。
Thus the market for secondhand luxury bags is now vast, widespread and complicated enough that those interested in buying a genuine handbag risk being swindled.
因此，二手奢侈品包的市场现在十分庞大、普遍和复杂，以至于那些有兴趣购买正品包的人面临被骗的风险。
As a result, it ought to be of interest to economists, who have long been gripped by questions about how markets function when “information asymmetries” exist—when the seller of a good knows more about its quality than the buyer does.
因此，这个市场应该会引起经济学家的兴趣，他们一直以来都被“信息不对称”情况下市场如何运作的问题所吸引。信息不对称即商品的卖家比买家更了解商品的质量。
The topic was the subject of “The Market for ‘Lemons’”, a paper about the used-car market published by George Akerlof in 1970, for which he won a Nobel prize 31 years later.
乔治·阿克洛夫在1970年发表的关于二手车市场的论文《“柠檬”市场》就是以这个话题为主题，31年后，他因这篇论文获得了诺贝尔奖。
In Mr Akerlof’s model there are just four kinds of car: new cars and used cars; good cars and bad cars.
在阿克洛夫的模型中，汽车只有四种：新车和二手车，好车和坏车。
(In America bad cars are known as “lemons”.)
(在美国，坏车被称为“柠檬”。）
New cars are worth more than used ones and good ones should be worth more than bad ones.
新车比二手车更值钱，好车应该比坏车更值钱。
Mr Akerlof assumes that a car’s owner will learn over time if it is a lemon.
阿克洛夫认为，随着时间的推移，车主会明白自己的车是不是柠檬。
But this will not be obvious to a potential buyer.
但对于潜在买家来说，车子是不是柠檬并不明显。
They will therefore offer the same price whether a car is good or bad, and the price will take into account the possibility that the car might be a lemon.
因此，无论一辆车是好是坏，买家都会出相同的价钱，而且这个价钱会把这辆车是柠檬的可能性考虑在内。
Unable to fetch a fair price, sellers of good cars will withdraw, further driving down prices.
由于无法卖出公道的价格，好车的卖家将退出市场，从而进一步压低二手车的价格。
Gresham’s law will assert itself: just as bad money chases out good, lemons chase out solid cars.
格雷欣定律将证明：就像劣币驱逐良币一样，柠檬会驱逐好车。
As such, the market for decent used cars may vanish entirely.
因此，好二手车的买卖市场可能会完全消失。
It is not hard to spot the parallels with the market for luxury handbags: bags are either new or used; they are either real or fake.
不难发现这与奢侈品包市场的相似之处：包要么是新的，要么是二手的；要么是真的，要么是假的。
The seller will know if they bought their bag from a boutique on Fifth Avenue, ordered it via WeChat or even picked it up on Canal Street—but their potential buyer will not.
卖家知道自己的包是从纽约第五大道的精品店购买的，还是通过微信订购的，还是在坚尼街淘来的，但潜在买家不知道。
