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Welcome to Crash Course Economics, I'm Adriene Hill.
欢迎收看经济速成班，我是埃德因·希尔。
and I'm Jacob Clifford, and I have a confession.
我是雅各布·克利福德，我要坦白一件事。
Economists' perfect little models don't exactly reflect real life. Which is disappointing.
经济学家的完美小模型并不能准确反映现实生活，这很令人失望。
Don't worry. You're not wasting your time.
不要担心，你没有浪费时间。
Microeconomics explains ideas and concepts in pretty broad terms,
微观经济学用相当宽泛的术语解释了观点和概念，
and leaves the business specifics to other courses like accounting, management and marketing.
并将商业细节留给了其他课程，如会计学、管理学和市场营销。
Understanding economics can help entrepreneurs become better decision makers.
理解经济学可以帮助企业家成为更好的决策者。
Think of it like a liberal arts education, it's not where you go to learn any specific job,
经济学就像通识教育，它不能让你学到具体工作，
but it can help you see the big picture.
但能帮助你看清大局。
Let's say a lawyer stops practicing law and decides to open up a pizza parlor.
比方说，一位律师停止执业，决定开一家披萨店。
Let's say his total revenue from selling pizza is 50,000 dollars
假设他卖披萨的总收入是5万美元。
and he has to pay 20,000 dollars to cover stuff like the ingredients, the oven, rent and wages.
支付材料费用如原料、烤箱、房租和工资等需要2万美元。
Now, an accountant would calculate his profit, the revenue minus the costs, as 30,000 dollars. Not bad.
会计计算他的利润时，用收入减去成本，还剩3万美元。结果还不错。
But an economist recognizes that there's a cost missing: the opportunity cost.
但经济学家认识到，它错漏了一种成本：机会成本。
Our pizza entrepreneur loses the income he would have earned by being a lawyer, let's say 100,000 dollars.
披萨企业家损失了他作为律师的应得收入，假设是10万美元。
If you factor that in, he is actually losing 70,000 dollars.
如果你将这也考虑进去，他实际损失了7万美元。
But he's his own boss. He might be happier running a pizza shop even though he is making less money.
但他是自己的老板。他可能开一家披萨店更快乐，即使这样赚钱少点儿。
Well, maybe, but the point is, you have to factor in these implicit benefits and costs when you make decisions.
或许吧，但关键是，你在做决定时必须考虑到这些隐性利润和成本。
So there's actually two types of profit.
利润实际有两种。
Accounting profit, which is revenue minus just explicit costs,
一种是会计利润，即收入减去显性成本，
those traditional out-of-pocket costs you think of when you run a business.
后者是你经营一家企业时要考虑得传统的实付费用。
And there's Economic profit which is revenue minus explicit and implicit costs,
还有一种经济利润，它是指收入减去显性和隐性成本，
which is those indirect opportunity costs.
隐性成本也就是间接机会成本。
In this example, putting a dollar price on opportunity cost is pretty easy.
在这个例子中，给机会成本定价很容易。
It's just the income he's not earning as a lawyer.
这是他本该作为律师的收入。
Maybe the idea of putting a price on intangible implicit things seems a little strange, but you do it all the time.
也许给无形隐性的事物定价看起来有点儿奇怪，但你一直都是这么做的。
When you're deciding whether or not to get a job, you calculate the explicit costs,
你在决定是否找一份工作时，会计算显性成本，
like how much it costs to get to work every day,
比如每天上班花多少钱，
but also the implicit costs, the value of the things you have to give up.
但也会计算隐性成本，即你必须放弃的事情的价值。
Maybe you're giving up the money you could earn doing some other job,
也许你放弃了去做其他工作可以赚到的钱，
time with family and friends, or the opportunity to binge watch Gilmore Girls.
放弃了与家人朋友在一起的时间或者疯狂看《吉尔莫女孩》的机会。
How much that actually costs depends on the individual,
实际成本的多少取决于个人，
but if the wage offered is greater than the cost of all those things, you take the job.
但是如果提供的工资高于这些东西的所有成本，你就会接受这份工作。
Businesses use this same logic.
企业使用同样的逻辑。
They calculate their potential revenue and their costs of production,
他们会计算潜在收入和生产成本，
including implicit costs, to make informed decisions.
包括隐性成本，从而做出明智的决定。
This means that companies in competitive markets don't make very much profit.
这意味着在竞争激烈的市场中，公司利润不会太大。
In fact, economists argue that they make no economic profit.
事实上，经济学家认为他们没有经济利润。
To be clear, companies need to make accounting profit to stay in business,
说得再清楚点儿，公司需要通过会计利润来维持业务，
so they do make a profit, just not above and beyond their opportunity costs.
所以它们确实赚了钱，只是没有超出它们的机会成本。
Here's why: If you're the first one to start selling glow sticks at a rave, you might make some economic profit.
原因是：如果你是第一个开始在狂欢中销售荧光棒的人，你可能会获得一些经济利润。
You would cover the cost of glow sticks and possibly all of your opportunity costs,
你能支付荧光棒的成本以及所有可能的机会成本，
the money you could be earning doing something else.
你赚的钱可以做些其他事情。
But if you're making a ton of extra money on top of that,
但如果你在上面大捞了一把，
it's likely that glow stick competitors will jump in the market.
你的荧光棒竞争对手就有可能涌入该市场。
Competition will lower the price and reduce your sales.
竞争会降低荧光棒的价格，减少你的销售量。
New vendors will continue to enter until all that extra profit disappears,
新的供应商将继续进入市场，直到所有的额外利润都没有了，
just like the beautiful light of a glow stick fading away on Sunday morning.
就像在星期天的早晨，荧光棒的美丽光芒消失了。
Businesses that stay in the market make just as much as they would doing something else.
处于市场中的企业赚得利润与它们做其他业务赚得一样多。
In other words, they have zero economic profit, that's what economists call normal profit.
换句话说，它们的经济利润为零，也就是经济学家所说的正常利润。
And it's the minimum level of economic profit a company needs to stay in business.
这是公司经营所需的最低经济利润。
But remember, this is only in very competitive markets that have low barriers for entry.
但请记住，这只是在市场准入门槛很低的竞争激烈的市场中才有。
If it's hard for other companies to enter a market then a business can earn economic profit.
如果其他公司很难进入一个市场，那么企业就能获得经济利润。
So now, let's look at the cost of production. The actual cost of producing things.
现在，让我们来看看生产成本，即生产产品的实际成本。
Economists point out that there's two types of costs: there's variable costs and fixed costs.
经济学家指明，成本有两种：可变成本和固定成本。
Variable costs change with the amount produced.
可变成本随生产数量的变化而变化。
So a variable cost for a pizza restaurant is the costs of ingredients,
比萨店的可变成本是原料成本，
like wheat and cheese, and the wages paid to workers.
比如小麦和奶酪以及付给工人的工资。
The more pizza you make, the more of those resources you need, and the higher those costs.
你生产得披萨越多，需要的资源就越多，成本也就越高。
But fixed costs, as you might imagine, are fixed.
正如你所想，固定成本是固定的。
The cost of an oven or rent don't change, even if you produce more pizza.
即使你生产再多的披萨，烤箱、租金的成本也不会改变。
Now, together fixed costs and variable costs make up the total cost for a specific number of pizzas.
固定成本和可变成本构成了特定数量披萨的总成本。
Now average cost or the cost per unit is the total cost divided by the number of output.
平均成本或单位成本是总成本除以产出数量的结果。
The average cost of producing most things initially falls as more is produced.
大部分产品的平均成本最初随着产量的增加而下降。
So if the owner of the pizza shop spends 10,000 dollars on a brand new oven,
所以如果披萨店老板花1万美元买了一个全新的烤箱，
the average cost of that very first pizza produced is gonna be about 10,000 dollars.
那么第一个披萨的平均成本大约是1万美元。
The average cost of producing two pizzas would be around 5,000 dollars.
两个披萨的平均成本大约是5000美元。
And once you get to 10 pizzas, it's like 1,000 dollars, that's an expensive pizza.
一旦生产10个披萨，就相当于1000美元一个了，它会非常昂贵。
The more units he makes, the lower the average cost per pizza,
生产的个数越多，披萨的平均成本就越低，
because fixed costs can be spread over a large number of units.
因为固定成本可以分摊到大量的单个披萨上。
Now obviously the owner wouldn't have bought that oven if he expected only to make 10 pizzas.
很明显，如果店主只想做10个披萨，就不会买那个烤箱。
Buying expensive equipment only makes sense if you plan on making a lot.
只有在你计划大量生产时，购买昂贵的设备才有意义。
That's one reason why large companies often have a cost advantage over small companies.
这就是为什么大公司往往比小公司有成本优势的一个原因。
So the cost to produce only one car would be really, really high. Like millions of dollars.
所以只生产一辆汽车的成本真的很高，大约是几百万美元。
But the average price of a new car in the US is over 33,000 dollars.
但美国一辆新车的平均价格只有3.3万多美元。
To keep their average cost down, car manufactures make hundreds of cars per day in huge, expensive factories.
为了降低平均成本，汽车制造商每天都在昂贵的大工厂里生产数百辆汽车。
Their total total costs are astronomical, but the average cost per car is relatively low.
它们的总成本是天文数字，但每辆车的平均成本相对较低。
Unless you want an Aston Martin or something.
除非你想要一辆阿斯顿·马丁或者其他豪车。
This is called economies of scale.
这被称为规模经济。
Companies that produce more can utilize mass production techniques
生产更多产品的公司可以利用大规模生产技术，
and spread out their fixed costs over a lot of units.
将固定成本分摊到很多单位上。
Economies of scale work so well, some companies get big enough to dominate their industry and limit competition
规模经济运行得非常好，以至于一些公司可以大到支配它们的行业，限制竞争。
We'll get to that. For now let's go back to the pizza example.
我们之后会讲，现在我们回到披萨的例子上。
Economies of scale means that a larger pizza restaurant may have a slight cost advantage
规模经济意味着大型披萨店与小型披萨店相比，
compared to a smaller restaurant because they can afford things like ovens with conveyor belts.
可能会有轻微的成本优势，因为它们买得起带传送带的烤箱等设备。
To get the average cost to fall even further,
为了让平均成本进一步下降，
a restaurant could automate the entire process and have robots produce 1000 pizzas per hour,
披萨店可以自动化整个过程，让机器人每小时生产1000个披萨，
but that doesn't make sense if no one wants to buy all those pizzas.
但如果没人想买这些披萨就没有意义了。
Although it's great to keep costs down, the goal of a business is not to have the lowest average cost.
虽然降低成本很好，但企业的目标并不是要有最低的平均成本。
The goal is to make the right number of pizzas that maximize profit.
它们的目标是产出合适数量的披萨，使利润最大化。
To produce the right amount, a business should follow the profit maximizing rule:
要产出合适的数量，企业应遵循利润最大化原则：
continue to produce as long as the marginal revenue of the last unit produced is greater or equal to the marginal cost.
只要最后一个单位的边际收入大于或等于边际成本就继续生产。
This is often shortened down to "produce where MR equals MC". Let's break it down.
这通常被缩减为“produce where MR equals MC”，我们分解一下它。
Marginal revenue is the additional revenue earned from selling another unit.
边际收入是每增加一个单位的销售量赚取的额外收入。
So if a pizza company can sell every pizza for 10 dollars then their marginal revenue for each is 10 dollars.
所以如果一家披萨公司能以10美元的价格出售披萨，那么每个披萨的边际收入是10美元。
Marginal cost is the additional cost of producing another unit.
边际成本是每一单位新增产品带来的额外成本。
It is the change in total cost from producing one more pizza.
这是新增一个披萨带来的总成本变化。
So if the marginal cost of another pizza is 5 dollars
所以，如果新增披萨的边际成本是5美元，
and you can sell it for 10 dollars then you should definitely produce that pizza.
并以10美元的价格出售，那么你一定要生产那个披萨。
You would make a 5 dollars profit off it.
你可以从中获利5美元。
If the marginal cost of next pizza is 9 dollars then you should produce that pizza too.
如果下一个披萨的边际成本是9美元，那么你也应该生产它。
But if the marginal cost of the next pizza is 12 dollars, you shouldn't make it.
但如果下一个批萨的边际成本是12美元，你就不应该生产它了。
The additional cost is greater than the additional revenue.
因为额外成本大于额外收入了。
Notice in this example the marginal cost is increasing.
注意，在这个例子中，边际成本一直在增加。
That's true for the production of almost everything.
几乎所有产品都是如此。
The more you make, each additional unit is eventually going to cost more.
你生产得越多，每一个新增单位的成本就越高。
Let's learn why in the Thought Bubble.
我们从“Thought Bubble”中学习一下原因。
Businesses have all kinds of variable costs,
企业有各种各样的可变成本，
but let's imagine a pizza shop where the only variable cost is labor.
但让我们假设披萨店的唯一可变成本是劳动力。
And while we're using the power of imagination, let's say that they're making rainbow-flavored pizza.
我们继续使用想象的力量假设他们在制作彩虹口味的披萨。
Anyway when one worker is hired, that worker does absolutely everything himself.
不管怎样，只雇佣一个工人时，他要自己完成所有的流程。
He purees the rainbows, assembles the pizza, puts it in the oven, and delivers it.
煮彩虹果泥、组装披萨，把它放进烤箱，然后送货。
But when a company hires a second worker, they can start to specialize.
但工厂雇佣第二个工人时，他们开始有专业分工。
One worker prepares the ingredients while the other makes the pizza and puts it in the oven.
一个工人准备材料，而另一个工人制作披萨，并将它放入烤箱。
Now, this specialization decreases the the marginal cost of each pizza.
这种专业化减少了每个披萨的边际成本。
If one worker can make 5 pizzas in an hour, but two workers can produce 20 pizzas
如果一个工人每小时可以制作5个披萨，但两个工人可以生产20个披萨，
then the additional cost of each of those pizzas will be lower.
那么每个披萨的额外成本将会降低。
But the benefits of specialization are limited.
但是专业化的好处是有限的。
As the company continues to hire more and more workers,
随着工厂继续雇佣越来越多的工人，
the total amount of pizzas they produce each hour is going to increase at a slower rate.
他们每小时生产的披萨总量的增长速度会放缓。
They've run up against the law of diminishing marginal returns.
这违反了边际收益递减法则。
As you add variable resources, like workers, to a set number of fixed resources, like ovens,
当你添加工人等可变资源到一定数量的固定资源比如烤箱时，
the additional output generated from each additional worker will eventually decrease.
每个新增工人的额外产出将最终减少。
There are just too many cooks in the kitchen.
厨房里的厨师太多了。
Now, eventually, they'll get to a point where hiring another worker only adds one more pizza to their hourly total.
最终的结果是，再多雇佣一个工人，每小时只能多增加一个披萨。
Now, the marginal cost of that last pizza is huge.
此时，最后一个披萨的边际成本是巨大的。
And it's likely to be higher than the additional revenue the company is gonna get from selling that pizza.
它可能会高于公司出售那个披萨产生的额外收入。
So to maximize profit, a company should make sure they produce the right number of pizzas.
所以为了最大化利润，公司应该确保自己生产的披萨数量合适。
Where the marginal cost of the last unit produced is going to be up to,
即最后一个单位的边际成本将会上升，
but not greater than, the marginal revenue.
但不会高于边际收入。
Thanks Thought Bubble.
感谢“Thought Bubble”。
The Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns applies to all sorts of tasks.
边际收益递减法则适用于各种场合。
For farmers, there's likely to be a large additional yield from fertilizing a field for the first time,
对于农民来说，第一次施肥可能会带来更多的额外产量，
but each time they fertilize the additional gains diminish.
但每施肥一次，额外收益都会减少。
At some point, too much fertilizer can actually cause the total yield to fall.
在某种程度上，过多的肥料实际会导致总产量下降。
This also applies to studying.
这也可以用于在学习上。
The returns from your first hour of studying are high.
你第一个小时的学习回报很高。
Instead of failing your final exam, you may get a C.
期末考试可能会得到一个C等，而不是不及格。
Another hour of studying may get you a B and another hour may get you up to a B+.
多一个小时的学习可能会让你得到B等，再多一个小时可能会让你达到B+。
But every hour you get lower and lower returns.
但你每多一个小时，回报都会递减。
And again at some point, maybe the twelfth hour of studying,
在某一时刻，也许是你学习的第十二个小时，
your grade would actually go down since you stayed up all night and fell asleep during the test.
你的分数实际会下降，因为你熬夜了，导致考试期间睡着了。
Understanding this law helps people balance costs and benefits,
理解这个法则有助于人们平衡成本和利润，
but there's one more cost we need to cover: sunk costs.
但是还有一个我们需要支付的成本：沉没成本。
A sunk cost is a cost that's already been paid and can't be recovered.
沉没成本是已经支付并且无法回收的成本。
Economists stress that sunk costs shouldn't be included when making future decisions.
经济学家强调，在做未来决定时不应该考虑沉没成本。
Assume a business spends 2 million dollars developing a new product, and then no one wants that product.
假设一家企业花了200万美元开发一款新产品，却没人想要这款产品。
They have to come up with something else.
他们必须想别的办法。
The money spent on developing the first product is a sunk cost and should be ignored moving forward.
开发第一款产品花得钱就是沉没成本，在转向下一款产品时应该被忽略。
This type of rational decision making seems like common sense,
这种理性的决策似乎是常识，
but behavioral economists point out that people make irrational decisions all the time.
但行为经济学家指出，人们总是会做出非理性的决定。
Think about dating. Imagine a you've been with someone for a couple years.
以约会为例。想象一下你和某人在一起几年了。
If your relationship starts going sour, you might try to ignore the red flags.
如果你们的关系开始变坏，你可能会试图忽略这些危险信号。
Who wants to give up on a relationship that you've invested so much time in?
谁愿意放弃投入了这么多时间的一段关系呢？
Economics tells us to think about sunk costs and focus instead on the benefits and costs in the future.
经济学告诉我们要考虑沉没成本，不要关注未来的收益和成本。
Get outta there!
快摆脱这种想法！
So there you have it. Everything you need to know to run your own business.
所以情况就这样了。你需要知道的经营生意的一切知识都在这里了。
Except, not really. Economics explains business decision making in broad terms.
但事实并非真的如此。经济学从广义上解释了商业决策。
If you really want to learn all the details, become an entrepreneur and start a business.
如果你真的想了解所有的细节，就成为一个企业家并开始创业吧。
And if you ever get interviewed by Fortune magazine or The Wall Street Journal,
如果你曾接受过《财富》杂志或《华尔街日报》的采访，
make sure to tell them that it all started here, with Crash Course Economics.
一定要告诉他们，这一切都是从经济速成班开始的。
Thanks for watching, we'll see you next week.
感谢您的收看，我们下周见。
Crash Course Economics was made with the help of all these nice people.
它是由这些好心人帮助制作的。
You can help with our costs by subscribing to Crash Course at Patreon,
您可以通过订阅Patreon的速成课程来帮助我们降低成本，
where your support will help keep Crash Course free, for everyone, forever.
这样就能帮助速成班永远免费对所有人开放，
And you get great rewards.
你也能获得大奖。
Thanks for watching and DFTBA!
感谢您的收看，别忘了做个了不起的人！
Let's break it down. Marginal revenue is the additional revenue earned from... Are you OK?
让我们休息一下，边际收入是...的额外收入...你还好吗？
