晨起的“经济动力”

晨起的“经济动力”
 
 
作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家提姆•哈福德(Tim Harford)
2006年10月31日 星期二
 

 
 
在欧美，时钟在上周末回拨，这意味着可以在床上美美地、毫无负疚感地多躺上一个小时。每年我都梦想着能有一个每天都回拨时钟的世界。当然，那会造成麻烦，特别是两个星期后，我就会在日落后醒来。我还会在所有的好餐馆都关门时起床。因此，我听从命令，每年只把时钟回拨一次，然后——唉——再在春季往前拨。

我每年一度的内心独白说明了晨起晚睡的两个原因：第一，享受阳光；第二，因为别人都那么做。不过，如果这两大原则发生抵触怎么办？哪一点更重要呢，是跟别人在同一时间起床，还是跟太阳一同醒来？这听起来也许是一个愚蠢的问题，不过，如果你是一个为伦敦报纸撰稿的驻香港记者，或者是一位需要在太平洋时间早上6：30华尔街股市开门时保持清醒的硅谷(Silicon Valley)分析师，这个问题可就不愚蠢了。

协调一致不仅对全球精英很重要，对与精英打交道的人也许同样重要。如果有足够多的加州金融家早上5点上班，那么加油站和咖啡店也会提前开门：加州的咖啡店服务生不需要与曼哈顿的咖啡店服务生协调一致，但加州的金融家提供一条有力的纽带，足以确保他们这么做。

澳大利亚昆士兰的所有居民都能向你担保这一点。虽然澳大利亚东海岸其它各州都实行夏令时(DST)，但昆士兰没有这样做，不过，还是有人会在冬季提前起床，以求保持同步。或者想一想墨西哥北部的各个州吧，它们将自己的时区调得和相邻的美国几个州一致，而不是与本国的其它地区一致。

三位经济学家——丹尼尔•汉默梅希(Daniel Hamermesh)、凯特琳•诺尔斯•迈尔斯(Caitlin Knowles Myers)和马克•波科克(Mark Pocock)——想出了一个办法，来查明这些协调效应到底有多重要。他们的一项工具基于一个“历史遗留现象”：美国的电视节目表随着时区的不同而变化。这种做法起源于上世纪20年代。当时，美国东部和中部时区接收同步的实况无线电广播，从时钟上看，中部时区的广播要早一个小时。人烟稀少的山地时区和太平洋时区只能收听重播。纯粹出于传统而不是其它什么原因，晚间节目的黄金时段在东部和太平洋时区是晚上10点，在中部和山地时区是晚上9点。

不过，看看亚利桑那州这类不实行夏令时的州吧。夏季，它是山地时区；冬季，它是太平洋时区，不过晚间节目仍是按山地时间播放。这种诡异的安排——还有其它一些做法，使得汉默梅希和他的同事们可以说明电视节目表对人们日常生活的影响。

令人郁闷的是，深夜脱口秀节目主持人大卫•莱特曼(David Letterman)对人们行为的影响甚至比太阳还要大。如果把电视节目表推迟一小时，5%的人就会晚一点看电视——几乎是实际看电视人数的三分之一。但是，如果日落迟一个小时（因为这个观众处在某个时区的最西边），只有0.5%的人会晚一点看电视。

这种现象本身也许并不令人吃惊，但结果波及到睡眠方式：在决定人们早上何时起床方面，电视比日出的影响力更大。它甚至支配着不怎么看电视的人的行为，因为他们需要与其他人协调一致。与他人协调一致似乎比官方时间更重要，甚至比阳光本身还重要。

译者/徐柳

 

THINK INSIDE THE BOX
 
 
By Tim Harford
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
 
 
The clocks go back tomorrow, which means an extra, delicious, guiltless hour in bed. Every year I dream of a world where the clocks go back every day. Of course, that would create trouble, notably that in a fortnight I’d be waking up after sunset. I would also be getting out of bed about the time all the good restaurants were closing. So I toe the line and put the clocks back only once a year, and - sigh - put them forward again in the spring.

My annual inner monologue suggests two reasons to get up in the morning and go to bed at night: first, to enjoy the sunshine; and second, because that is what everybody else does. But what if the two imperatives collide? What matters more, waking up at the same time as everyone else, or waking up with the sun? It might sound like a daft question, but not if you’re a Hong Kong-based journalist writing for a London-based newspaper, or a financial analyst in Silicon Valley who needs to be awake when the market opens on Wall Street at 6.30am Pacific Time.

Co-ordination may be important not just for the global elite but for those who deal with them. If enough Californian financiers are going to work at 5am, the gas stations and coffee shops will start to open early too: the baristas don’t need to co-ordinate with the baristas in Manhattan, but the financiers provide a link that is powerful enough to make sure that they do anyway.

Any resident of Queensland, Australia can assure you of this. Queensland doesn’t switch on to Daylight Saving Time when the other east coast states do, but some people simply get out of bed earlier in the winter to stay in sync. Or consider the states in northern Mexico, which align their time zones with the neighbouring US states rather than the rest of the country.

Three economists, Daniel Hamermesh, Caitlin Knowles Myers, and Mark Pocock, have devised a way to find out how important these co-ordination effects really are. One of their tools is based on a historical relic: the fact that television schedules in the US vary by time zone. This practice originated in the 1920s, when the Eastern and Central time zones received simultaneous live radio broadcasts, the Central time zone broadcast being an hour earlier on the clock. The sparsely populated Mountain and Pacific time zones had to listen to repeats instead. For no other reason than pure tradition, prime time evening shows screen at 10pm Eastern and Pacific, 9pm Central and Mountain.

But then take a state such as Arizona, which does not observe Daylight Saving Time. In summer it is in the Mountain time zone; in winter it is in the Pacific time zone but with the evening shows still at Mountain timings. That sort of quirky set up - there are others - allows Hamermesh and his colleagues to show the impact of the television schedules on people’s daily routines.

Rather depressingly, late-night talkshow host David Letterman outshines the sun in his effect on what people are doing. Push the television schedules an hour later and 5 per cent of people will be watching television later - nearly a third of those actually watching the television. But if sunset is an hour later (because the individual is at the western end of a time zone) only half of 1 per cent of people will watch later television.

That itself might not be surprising, but the effect spills over on to sleeping patterns: the television, more than the sunrise, determines when people get up in the morning. It even governs the behaviour of people who don’t watch much television, since they need to be co-ordinated with everyone else. It seems that co-ordination with other human beings is more important than official time, or even than sunlight itself.