People who outbid others in auctions sometimes pay too much, a phenomenon known as the winner's curse. Yet the plan outlined last week by Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, for pricing the toxic assets clogging up the financial system provides private investors with an unusually strong incentive to overpay: the government is proposing to pick up most of the tab if the assets turn out to be worth much less than was spent on them. Indeed, the more aggressively investors compete in bidding for these assets, the worse off the taxpayers will be. I call this the taxpayers' curse.
拍賣活動(dòng)的中標(biāo)者有時(shí)出價(jià)過高，這種現(xiàn)象被稱為“贏家的詛咒”。但美國(guó)財(cái)長(zhǎng)蒂姆?蓋特納(Tim Geithner)上上周提出的、為充斥金融體系的不良資產(chǎn)定價(jià)的計(jì)劃，向私人投資者提供了異乎尋常的激勵(lì)，誘惑他們高價(jià)收購(gòu)不良資產(chǎn)：如果資產(chǎn)價(jià)值最終遠(yuǎn)低于收購(gòu)價(jià)格，則大部分損失將由政府買單。實(shí)際上，投資者對(duì)這些資產(chǎn)的競(jìng)購(gòu)越積極，結(jié)果對(duì)納稅人就越不利。我將這稱為“納稅人的詛咒”。