Economic ordeals are allocation mechanisms that impose non-financial ‘deadweight costs to qualify for a transfer’ (Nichols and Zeckhauser 1982: 372). Examples include long waiting times, travel and form-filling as conditions for certain healthcare services. Appropriately designed, ordeals can enhance target efficiency so that the goods being allocated better reach the intended recipients. The logic behind this is simple: ‘Say one welfare eligible would receive 100 utiles from a particular transfer, yet another would receive only 10. Then an ordeal that imposes an 11 utile loss in order to qualify for the transfer will be an effective sorting device’ (Nichols and Zeckhauser 1982: 376). In other words, recipients who would receive smaller benefits are expected to be dissuaded by the ordeal and refrain from requesting the good, whereas recipients who would receive larger benefits from the transfer are expected to seek out the good even if there is a deadweight cost. Moreover, unlike financial participation, which can similarly dissuade users with relatively little to gain from the good in question, ordeals are in no direct way financially regressive: the poor are not necessarily more dissuaded by losing time or by having to fill in a form than the rich are.

经济考验是一种分配机制，强加非金融“无谓成本以符合转让的条件”（Nichols and Zeckhauser 1982：372）。例子包括等待时间长，旅行和填写表格作为某些医疗保健服务的条件。经过适当设计的折磨可以提高目标效率，从而使分配的货物更好地到达预期的接收者。这背后的逻辑很简单：“假设一个福利合格者将从特定的转移中获得100功利，而另一个福利仅获得10功利。那么为了获得转移资格而遭受11功利损失的折磨将是一种有效的分拣工具（Nichols and Zeckhauser 1982：376）。换句话说，那些希望获得较小利益的受助人将被磨难劝阻，并避免索要货物，而希望从转让中获得更大收益的受助人即使有无谓的成本也要寻找商品。此外，与财务参与不同（通过财务参与可以使用户从相关商品中获得相对较少的收益）类似，苦难也并非直接导致财务上的倒退：穷人不一定会因为浪费时间或必须填写表格而被劝阻。有钱人。