新发展大学英语阅读与写作4课文翻译Looking good by doing good寻找好行善.docVIP

Looking good by doing good[Jan 15th 2009] Economics focus Looking good by doing good Jan 15th 2009From The Economist print edition Rewarding people for their generosity may be counterproductiveIllustration by Jac DepczykA LARGE plaque in the foyer of Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA), a museum housed in a dramatic glass and metal building on the harbour’s edge, identifies its most generous patrons. Visitors who stop to look will notice that some donors—including two who gave the ICA over $2.5m—have chosen not to reveal their names. Such reticence is unusual: less than 1% of private gifts to charity are anonymous. Most people (including the vast majority of the ICA’s patrons) want their good deeds to be talked about. In “Richistan”, a book on America’s new rich, Robert Frank writes of the several society publications in Florida’s Palm Beach which exist largely to publicise the charity of its well-heeled residents (at least before Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme left some of them with little left to give). As it turns out, the distinction between private and public generosity is helpful in understanding what motivates people to give money to charities or donate blood, acts which are costly to the doer and primarily benefit others. Such actions are widespread, and growing. The $306 billion that Americans gave to charity in 2007 was more than triple the amount donated in 1965. And though a big chunk of this comes from plutocrats like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, whose philanthropy has attracted much attention, modest earners also give generously of their time and money. A 2001 survey found that 89% of American households gave to charity, and that 44% of adults volunteered the equivalent of 9m full-time jobs. Tax breaks explain some of the kindness of strangers. But by no means all. Economists, who tend to think self-interest governs most actions of man, are intrigued, and have identified several reasons to explain good deeds of this kind. Tax break