SOUP kitchens serve the needy for free; restaurants serve the hungry for money. In parts of South Asia, eateries near mosques sometimes fall into a third category. They feed the poor sitting patiently outside, whenever a pious or charitable passer-by pays them to do so. Alms-giving of this kind provides one traditional safety net for the destitute in developing countries. But it is, thankfully, not the only one.

慈善厨房为需要帮助的人们免费供应食物，而饭店却是靠填饱食客的肚子来赚钱。在南亚的部分地区，有时清真寺附近的餐馆可能属于第三类。只要虔诚仁慈的过路人付钱给他们，这些餐馆就会为外面苦苦等待的穷人们提供食物。这种施舍为发展中国家的穷人提供了传统的安全网。但幸运地是，这不是唯一的社会安全网。

According to a new report by the World Bank, developing countries spend an average of 1.5% of GDP on social safety nets designed to stop people hitting rock-bottom. (The rich countries in the OECD spend on average 2.7%.) Among these are workfare schemes, pensions, free school meals and cash handouts, sometimes conditional on recipients sending their children to school, getting them vaccinated and the like. This spending has reduced the number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day) by 36% on average in the countries examined by the World Bank.

根据世界银行的一份最新报告称，发展中国家平均1.5%的国内生产总值（GDP）投入到社会保障体系，旨在防止人们的生活水平“触底”。（而经济合作和发展组织的发达国家成员的平均支出为2.7%）这种社会保障体系包括提供职业规划、养老金、学校免费供餐和发放现金补助等，有时还会根据情况让受助者们将孩子送到学校，接种疫苗等等。在世界银行调查的国家中，这项开支减少了平均36%的极端贫困人口（指每天花费不到1.90美元的人）。

South Asia’s mosque-side restaurants will serve anyone willing to wait for a benefactor. Other schemes try harder to sift out undeserving cases. Public-works programmes, for example, provide money only to those willing to perform hard labour, like digging ditches or planting trees. In principle, these projects should attract only the most needy. In practice, they do not always work that way. Across the countries studied by the World Bank, public-works schemes do no better in screening out the better-off 40% of the population than other forms of safety net, such as conditional cash handouts.

在南亚，清真寺附近的餐馆会为任何愿意等待施舍者的人服务。其他的一些社会保障项目则更多地要筛选出真正需要援助的人。比如，像挖沟渠或植树这样的公共工程项目，只有那些愿意付出劳动的人才能获得报酬。从原则上来讲，这些项目只招收那些最需要帮助的人。而实际上，这些人也不需要那么卖力的工作。在世界银行调查的国家中，与其他形式的保障体系（如有条件的现金补助等）相比，公共工程的效果也好不了多少，从受助人口中筛选出40%生活条件好的人。

Safety nets play a bigger role in some places than others (see chart). In South Sudan, two schemes financed by donors and run by the World Food Programme cost the equivalent of 10% of the new country’s measly GDP. East Timor’s pensions, paid to veterans of the resistance to Indonesian occupation, amount to 6.5% of GDP. Among the bigger emerging economies, Latin American countries are notably more generous than Asian ones. Mexico, for example, spends 1.7% of GDP on safety nets. The share in China, which is at a similar stage of development, is only half as large.

社会保障体系在一些地区占据更大的比重（见图表）。 在南苏丹，由捐助者资助并由世界粮食计划署管理的两个项目的支出相当于新兴国家可观国内生产总值(GDP)的10％。在东帝汶，用于抵抗印尼占领的退伍军人的养老金占国内生产总值(GDP)的6.5％。一些较大的新兴国家——拉丁美洲国家明显比亚洲国家的投入更多一些。比如墨西哥，将国内生产总值（GDP）的1.7%都用于社会保障。而在处于类似发展阶段的中国，支出只有墨西哥的一半。

Regions also differ in their preferred style of safety net. Conditional cash transfers are popular in Latin America; public works in South Asia. East Asia tends to favour non-contributory pensions.

世界各地社会保障体系的首选方式也各不相同。有条件的现金补助在拉丁美洲国家很流行；而在南亚国家，通常使用公共工程项目。东亚国家更倾向于非缴费型的养老金。

One reason for Asia’s relative stinginess may be a lingering belief that safety nets erode people’s work ethic and foster dependency. A former Singaporean official once talked disdainfully of a “crutch economy”, in which the rich were taxed heavily to support the poor. But even in Asia, safety nets are spreading. With the help of donors (including the World Bank), Indonesia expanded its “family hopes” cash-transfer scheme from 2% of the population in 2012 to 9% by 2016. The Philippines (also with outside help) expanded its scheme from 4% of the population in 2009 to 20% in 2015.

亚洲国家在这方面相对吝啬的一个原因是人们一直认为社会保障体系会侵蚀人的职业道德，让他们产生依赖性。新加坡的一位前政府官员曾经批判过“拐杖经济”，即向富人们征重税以救济穷人。但即使是在亚洲国家，社会保障体系也在不断完善。在捐款机构（包括世界银行）的帮助下，印度尼西亚将其“希望家庭”现金补助项目受惠人口由2012年的2%扩大到2016年的9%。菲律宾（也是在外界的帮助下）将其社会安全项目受惠人口由2012年的2%扩大到2015年的20%。

Will this new generosity create “crutch economies”? Quite the opposite. The World Bank cites a randomised trial of cash-transfer schemes in six countries, including Mexico, Indonesia and the Philippines, which found no evidence that beneficiaries worked less. Safety nets can also save households from desperate measures, such as selling assets at knockdown prices or taking children out of school so they can work. Such responses to immediate need can harm a household’s long-run prospects. The safety nets Asia is weaving might even spare some people from long, listless waits outside a mosque, hoping to be fed by the piety of strangers.

这种慷慨会造成“拐杖经济”吗？恰恰相反。世界银行在包括墨西哥、印度尼西亚、菲律宾在内的六个国家进行了有关现金补助项目的随机测验，结果证明那些受惠者的工作并没有减少。社会保障体系也可以让贫困家庭避开那些让人绝望的措施，如为了工作需要低价变卖房子，或是让他们的孩子失学。这些只能解一时之忧的方法会影响到一个家庭的未来发展。穷人们在清真寺外长时间无精打采的等待，希望得到虔诚的陌生人施舍，而亚洲的社会保障体系的组织工程有望让一些人免于这样的处境。

编译：YFBFSU

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人（2018.04.14）