利用数字技术缩小机会差距

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在商业、教育、金融等各领域，数字技术提供了缩小机会差距、促进社会公平的新机遇。

Although many societies aspire to provide equal opportunities for everyone, that is easier said than done. People born into different economic and social statuses have unequal educational or financial starting points. This often leads to very different career and life opportunities.

尽管许多社会都渴望为每个人提供平等的机会，但这说起来容易做起来难。出生在不同经济和社会地位的人在教育或者财务的起点上是不平等的，这往往会带来截然不同的职业和生活机会。

Digital technology was not invented to tackle inequality, and there is even a risk that it could widen existing economic and social disparities. But, as the case of China illustrates, new platforms also offer many possible ways to narrow the opportunity gap.

数字技术的发明不是为了解决社会不平等，它甚至还可能扩大现存的经济和社会差距。但正如中国的情况所表明的那样，新平台也提供了许多缩小机会差距的可能途径。

Consider four examples. The first is the promotion of micro and small enterprises via e-commerce. The Chinese platform Taobao.com, part of the Alibaba Group, is the largest online marketplace by volume among emerging economies. It allows tea growers, furniture makers, suitcase manufacturers, and other small producers and merchants, including those from remote villages, to reach their customers in Shanghai and Beijing (and even overseas) easily and cheaply. Previously, these entrepreneurs were unable to sell directly in sufficiently large volumes because of high intermediary charges. But in the e-commerce era, they can.

举四个例子说明。第一个是通过电子商务促进小微企业发展。阿里巴巴集团（Alibaba Group）旗下的中国平台淘宝网（Taobao.com）是新兴经济体中规模最大的在线市场。它使包括来自偏远乡村的茶农、家具制造商、箱包制造商和其他小型生产商和商人能够便捷、廉价地触及上海和北京（甚至海外）的顾客。此前，由于中介费过高，这些企业家无法直接大量销售。但在电子商务时代，他们可以做到。

Although e-commerce platforms can benefit companies everywhere, they disproportionately boost small businesses in rural and remote areas, and thus help to equalize opportunity. Moreover, as a forthcoming World Bank report entitled “E-Commerce Development: Experience from China” points out, such platforms also promote gender equality. Whereas the vast majority of offline entrepreneurs are men, their online counterparts are as likely to be female as male.

尽管电子商务平台可以使各地的公司受益，但它们更有力地促进了农村和偏远地区的小企业发展，从而有助于机会均等。此外，世界银行即将发表的题为《电子商务发展：中国的经验》的报告指出，这些平台也促进了两性平等。尽管绝大多数线下创业者都是男性，但在他们的线上同行中，女性的数量并不比男性少。

Second, FinTech can help to meet the financing needs of micro and small businesses. Ant Financial, which is partly owned by the Alibaba Group, generates credit scores by using cash flow data, online customer reviews, and other digital indicators. It then uses these scores to make uncollateralized loans to millions of micro and small enterprises in China that previously could not obtain a traditional bank loan.

第二，金融科技可以帮助满足小微企业的融资需求。阿里巴巴集团所属的蚂蚁金服（Ant Financial）利用现金流数据、在线客户评论和其他数字化指标来生成信用评分，然后基于这些评分向中国数百万的小微企业发放无抵押贷款，而此前这些企业无法获得传统银行贷款。

Research by Harald Hau, Yi Huang, Hongzhe Shan, and Zixia Sheng shows that micro-entrepreneurs who received an unsecured loan from Ant Financial enjoyed substantially faster growth in sales and other business indicators than those who did not secure such credit. To ensure that the results did not simply reflect the fact that firms receiving a loan were already bigger and better than the others, the researchers compared those companies whose credit scores were barely above the cut-off line for a loan with those that were just below it.

哈拉尔德·豪、黄毅、单宏哲和盛子夏的研究表明，获得了蚂蚁金服无担保贷款的微型创业者，在销售和其他业务指标上的增长速度显著高于没有获得这种信贷的人。为了确保研究结果不只是反映了获得贷款的公司已经比其他公司更大更好这一事实，研究人员将那些信用评分仅略高于贷款资格线的公司与那些略低于资格线的公司进行了比较。

These two sets of firms were essentially the same before Ant Financial established its loan program. But the businesses that received an unsecured loan grew much more robustly than those that just missed out. This suggests that a small fintech loan can make a big difference for many micro-entrepreneurs.

在蚂蚁金服推出贷款计划之前，这两类公司的情况基本相同。但获得无担保贷款的企业的增长要比刚好与错过贷款的企业强劲得多。这表明，金融科技赋能的小额贷款可以对许多小微企业家产生重大影响。

Third, digital technology holds out the promise of directly reducing the imbalance in educational resources between poor and rich areas. Many rural schools in developing countries cannot afford to hire high-quality teachers, or to provide effective, up-to-date training for the teachers they have. As a result, rural students tend to do less well than those in better-off areas.

第三，数字技术有望直接减少贫困地区和富裕地区间教育资源的不平衡。发展中国家的许多农村学校负担不起聘请高质量的教师的费用，或者无法为现有教师提供有效的、最新的培训。因此，农村学生的成绩往往不如富裕地区的学生。

YouChange Foundation, a non-profit organization founded and run by Min Tang, a retired Asian Development Bank official, set out to change this. Min persuaded top primary and middle schools in Beijing and other large Chinese cities to have video cameras installed in their classrooms, and to let schools in poor and remote rural areas audit their lessons via online video links.

由亚洲开发银行退休官员汤敏创立并运营的非营利组织“友成基金会”（YouChange Foundation）正着手改变这种状况。他说服北京和中国其他大城市的顶尖中小学在教室里安装摄像机，并让贫困和偏远农村地区的学校通过在线视频链接来旁听他们的课程。

Mr. Tang invited rural schools to try out two models. Under the first, rural teachers observe how certain lessons (in mathematics or language, for example) are taught in the top national schools, and what type of exercises the teachers design and administer. They then adapt and apply these tips to their own rural classrooms the next day. Under the second model, students in the rural schools can watch the classes taught in large cities in real time, and their teachers then act as tutors to provide additional help.

汤先生邀请农村学校尝试两种模式。在第一种模式下，农村教师观摩全国顶尖学校是如何教授某些课程（例如数学课或语言课）的，以及授课教师设计和使用何种类型的练习。随后，他们再将这些技巧应用到自己的农村学校课堂上。在第二种模式下，农村学校的学生可以实时观看大城市的课堂教学，他们的老师则充当导师，提供额外的帮助。

In both cases, rural students seem to learn better and enjoy school more. The YouChange teaching program has thus helped to reduce the educational gap between some of China’s poor rural regions and its much richer urban areas.

在这两种模式下，农村学生的学习效果和兴趣似乎都有提升。因此，友成的教学计划有助于缩小中国一些贫困农村地区和富裕得多的城市地区之间的教育差距。

Finally, new technologies can enhance the rights of small shareholders of listed companies. In 2014, the Chinese authorities introduced a policy requiring all listed firms to allow online participation and voting in their general shareholder meetings. Previously, only large shareholders had participated in these gatherings.

第四，新技术可以增强上市公司小股东的权利。2014年，中国政府出台了一项政策，要求所有上市公司在股东大会上允许股东在线参与和投票。此前，只有大股东参加了这些会议。

Research by Huasheng Gao and his colleagues at Fudan Fanhai International School of Finance suggests that the online option has increased small shareholders’ participation in such meetings, making proposals by company management or large shareholders that might hurt small investors’ interests less likely to be adopted. Digital technology has thus effectively democratized corporate governance by leveling the playing field for small shareholders.

复旦大学泛海国际金融学院高华声及其同事的研究表明，网络投票增加了小股东在此类会议上的参与度，使得公司管理层或大股东提出的可能损害小投资者利益的提案不太可能被采纳。因此，数字技术通过为小股东提供公平的参与环境，有效地实现了公司治理的民主化。

In these and other areas, digital technology presents exciting new opportunities. But public policy also must play an important role. For digital technology to promote economic inclusion, governments need to ensure that virtually everyone has access to digital infrastructure. They should consider introducing tax incentives for digital initiatives that demonstrably narrow the opportunity gap. Policymakers should also ensure that the right laws are in place–and enforced–in order for the digital space to remain open, competitive, and affordable.

数字技术在上述领域和其他领域带来了令人兴奋的新机遇。但公共政策也必须发挥重要作用。为了让数字技术促进经济包容，各国政府需要确保几乎所有人都能使用数字基础设施。他们应该考虑为那些能明显缩小机会差距的数字化倡议引入税收激励。政策制定者们还应确保制定并实施正确的法律，以保持数字空间的开放性、竞争性和可承受性。

Inequality is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Public policy and digital technology can complement each other to build a more inclusive society–both in China and elsewhere.

不平等是我们这个时代最亟待解决的问题之一。公共政策和数字技术可以相辅相成，以建立更具包容性的社会——无论是在中国还是在其他地方。

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