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.

中文翻译：

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座谈会：经济磨难的伦理

经济考验是一种分配机制，它强加非财务的“无谓成本以获得转移资格”（Nichols 和 Zeckhauser 1982：372）。示例包括较长的等待时间、旅行和填写表格作为某些医疗保健服务的条件。设计得当，考验可以提高目标效率，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：“假设一个符合条件的福利会从特定转移中获得 100 个效用，而另一个只会收到 10 个。那么为了获得转移资格而施加 11 个效用损失的考验将是一种有效的分类设备'（Nichols 和 Zeckhauser 1982：376）。换句话说，将获得较小利益的接受者预计会被磨难劝阻，并避免索取物品，而从转移中获得更大收益的接受者，即使有无谓成本，也应该寻找商品。此外，与金融参与不同，它同样可以劝阻用户从所讨论的商品中获得相对较少的收益，考验绝不会直接导致财务倒退：穷人不一定会因为浪费时间或必须填写表格而更容易被劝阻。富人区。