On Tuesday US stock markets and the dollar-yen rate took a tumble after someone hacked into Associated Press’s Twitter account and then tweeted that there had been a terrorist attack on the White House. Earlier this month, on two separate days, the gold price fell the most it has in 30 years. 周二，美国股市和美元兑日元汇率大幅下挫，原因是有黑客盗取了美联社(Associated Press)的Twitter账号，并发布消息称白宫发生了恐怖袭击。本月早些时候，金价连续两个交易日暴跌，更创下30年来最大单日跌幅。
Neither move had solid foundations. A look at a TV screen or the rest of the internet – let alone Twitter itself – would have told investors there had been no such attack. And commentators have come up with a range of esoteric explanations as to why gold sold off so sharply, but none of them hold much water. Gold is traditionally a haven when things elsewhere are going wrong. But the gold price fell at the same time as the S and P 500, the US’s leading share index, and the yields on ten-year US treasury bonds. 这两次大跌都没有合理的依据。本来，看看电视或者浏览一下网上其他内容——更别提Twitter本身了——投资者就能知道，实际上白宫并没有发生恐怖袭击。评论员就金价遭遇大规模抛售给出了一系列深奥的解释，但其中没有一个经得起推敲。传统而言，当其他资产的情况变糟时，黄金会充当一种避险工具。但这一次，在美国主要股指标准普尔500指数(S and P 500)和美国10年期国债收益率下滑的同时，金价也下跌了。
What links both cases is the unavoidable conclusion that investors sold because other investors sold – in other words, a herd instinct kicked in. Until economists and regulators are able to incorporate the fact that human beings behave in such ways into their models and rules, our understanding of the financial crisis, and our ability to avoid another one, will remain limited. 这两个例子能够得出一项不可避免的共同结论：投资者抛售是因为其他投资者也在抛售，换句话说，是由于羊群效应。除非经济学家和监管者能够正视人类如此行为的现实、将之考虑进他们的模型和规定，否则我们对此次金融危机的理解以及避免另一场危机的能力将是有限的。
Fortunately, many authorities, driven to tighten up inadequate supervisory regimes in the wake of the crisis, are trying to include more behavioural economics in their oversight. In the UK the newly-minted Financial Conduct Authority (single objective: protecting and enhancing confidence in the UK financial system) has committed to analysing how people behave in order for it to intervene in markets “more effectively, and in new ways”. The FCA’s chief executive, Martin Wheatley, believes that behavioural economics will help it assess potential problems better and choose more appropriate remedies. 幸运的是，很多监管机构正努力将行为经济学更多运用到他们的监管之中，在此次金融危机之后，这些监管机构不得不收紧不够完善的监督机制。在英国，新成立的金融市场行为监管局（Financial Conduct Authority，目标只有一个：保护并增强市场对英国金融体系的信心）已承诺，将致力于对人们的行为进行分析，从而“更有效地、并以崭新的方式”实施市场干预。该机构首席执行官韦奕礼(Martin Wheatley)认为，行为经济学将有利于该机构对潜在问题进行更好的评估，以及选择更为合理的补救方法。
The problems the FCA has chosen to focus on are not – so far at least – of the order of what brought down Lehman Brothers. Instead, it has raised the possibility of looking at familiar problems in a different way (why, for example, do consumers choose credit cards with low teaser rates for an initial period, then very high rates and charges after that?) and provided sensible advice on how to write letters so that consumers will actually read them (put bullet points at the top of the letter and cut the waffle). 金融市场行为监管局选择关注的问题并非“什么拖垮了雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)”之类的问题，至少目前是这样。它只是提出了一种可能性，即我们可以换一种方式来看待似已熟悉问题（例如，消费者为何会选择使用初期“诱惑利率”很低、之后利率和费用非常高的信用卡？），它还就如何撰写让消费者愿意真正去读的信件提供了合理建议（把要点列在信的开头，去掉废话）。
But it suggests a radically different approach by a post-crisis regulator to understanding consumer and corporate behaviour; one that tries to include in its assessments the fact that human beings do not make choices in a calculated way. 但这意味着，危机后的监管机构采取了完全不同以往的方法，来理解消费者和企业行为；它在做出评估时努力考虑如下事实：人类的选择行为并不像计算般精确。
Doing so is fraught with difficulties. As the FCA itself admits, designing and implementing “behaviourally informed remedies” is not only new but will require extensive testing and research. 这样做面临许多困难。如金融市场行为监管局自己所承认的，设计和执行“考虑行为学的解决办法”不仅是一项崭新的挑战，还将需要大量测试和研究。
And there is a bigger obstacle. It feels intuitively right that we should be analysing the way people behave in order to help us understand why financial markets do what they do. But this may have less to do with behavioural choices and more with the personalities that choose to operate in them. 另外，还有一个更大的障碍。从直觉出发，我们认为，应该分析人们的行为方式，以帮助我们更好地理解金融市场的各种表现。但促使一个人选择某种行为方式的性格特点，可能比这种选择本身更重要。
There is a compelling body of evidence that suggests that those most likely to go into the riskier areas of the financial services profession are precisely those least suited to judging risk. Susan Cain’s recently published book Quiet cites a series of studies which suggest, first, that extroverts tend to be attracted to the high-reward environments of investment banking, deals and trading and, second, that they tend to be less good at balancing opportunity and risk than their introverted peers. 有充分证据证明，最有可能进入金融服务行业中风险较高领域的那些人，正是最不善于判断风险的那些人。苏珊•凯恩(Susan Cain)在最近出版的那本《安静：内向性格的竞争力》(Quiet)中援引了一系列研究，其结论是：首先，投行、并购、金融产品交易，这些高回报的领域往往对性格外向者很有吸引力；其次，性格内向者往往比外向者更擅长平衡机遇与风险。
She tells the story of Vincent Kaminski to show what can happen to a business when aggressive risk-takers enjoy too high a status relative to more cautious introverts. Mr Kaminski served as managing director of research for Enron, the energy company which filed for bankruptcy in 2001. In that role, he repeatedly tried to sound the alarm about the company entering into business deals which threatened its survival. When his superiors would not listen, he refused to sign off on these transactions. The consequence? He was stripped of his power to review company-wide deals. 凯恩讲述了文森特•卡明斯基(Vincent Kaminski)的故事来说明，当野心勃勃的冒险家在一家企业中的地位远远高于较为谨慎的性格内向者时，会发生什么事情。卡明斯基曾在已于2001年宣告破产的能源公司安然(Enron)，担任负责研究的董事总经理。在安然任职期间，卡明斯基曾多次试图提醒公司，一些正在进行的商业交易可能威胁公司生存。当上级无视这些提醒时，卡明斯基拒绝签字批准这些交易。结果如何？他被剥夺了审查全公司交易的权力。
As the financial crisis began to flower in 2007, Mr Kaminski was interviewed by the Washington Post and warned that the “demons of Enron” had not been exorcised. In particular he complained that many who understood the risks that the US banks were taking were ignored because of their personality style. “The problem is that, on one side, you have a rainmaker who is making lots of money for the company and is treated like a superstar, and on the other side you have an introverted nerd. So who do you think wins?” 2007年，金融危机开始愈演愈烈时，《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)采访了卡明斯基。他在采访中警告称，“安然事件中的妖魔”一直未被驱除。特别是，他不满地指出，许多人了解美国的银行正面临怎样的风险，但他们因性格内向而遭到忽视。他说：“问题在于，这边有一个人能够呼风唤雨、为公司带来大笔收入，在公司里受到超级巨星般的待遇，那边另外那个人却内向、不合群。你觉得这两个人哪个会赢？”
Recent research, according to Ms Cain, suggests that there may even be an “extrovert gene” – which regulates dopamine – which is associated with a particularly thrill-seeking version of extroversion and is a strong predictor of financial risk-taking. 凯恩表示，近期的研究显示，甚至可能存在一种控制多巴胺的“外向基因”，这种基因与外向性格中追求刺激的那部分相关，很有可能预示着金钱方面的冒险行为。
At the annual meeting of his Berkshire Hathaway investment vehicle 15 years ago, Warren Buffett said that success in business does not depend on IQ. “Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.” 15年前，沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)在伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)年度大会上说，商业上的成功不是由智商(IQ)决定的。他说：“只要你的智商达到普通水平，你所需的就只是一种能够控制冲动的冷静性格，冲动正是导致其他人在投资中陷入麻烦的原因。”
It has often been suggested, since the crisis, that what financial markets need is less testosterone. In fact, perhaps it is less dopamine. 金融危机爆发以来，常常有人说，金融市场需要的是降低睾丸素（一种与好冒险、好竞争有关的激素——译者注）。事实上，或许需要降低的是多巴胺。
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