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概要：星巴克能够充当一种廉价的第三方空间，为创业者和相关人士提供社交和信息沟通的机会，从而增加创新机会，提升当地经济水平。（文中带粗体的生词请在文末点击左下角阅读原文查看）
How Starbucks caffeinates local economies
Call it the frappuccino effect
July 4th 2024
Starbucks offers endless opportunities for innovation. Parts of social media delight in hacking the chain’s menu to create highly instagrammable drinks. Fancy a “cake batter Frappuccino”? Simply order a “vanilla bean crème Frappuccino”, add a pump of hazelnut syrup and ask the barista to put a cake pop in the blender. How about some “liquid cocaine”? That involves four shots of espresso with four pumps of white-chocolate syrup, served over ice.
星巴克为创新提供了无限的机会。部分社交媒体喜欢破解该连锁店的菜单，创造出非常适合在Ins上分享的饮料。想来一杯“蛋糕糊星冰乐”吗?只需点一杯“香草豆奶油星冰乐”，加一泵榛子糖浆，再让咖啡师在搅拌机里放一个棒棒糖蛋糕。来点“液体可卡因”怎么样? 这包括四杯浓缩咖啡espresso和四杯白巧克力糖浆，加冰。
A new working paper suggests the purveyor of coffee-based milkshakes offers other innovation, too. Choi Jinkyong, Jorge Guzman and Mario Small, all of Columbia University, find that a new Starbucks in an American neighbourhood without a coffee shop leads to the creation of between 1.1 and 3.5 new companies a year over the next seven years. That, the authors argue, owes to the café’s role as a “third place”—somewhere people can gather without a purpose. Branches “help entrepreneurs form and mobilise networks”, they write.
一份新的工作研究显示，这家咖啡奶昔供应商还提供了其他创新。哥伦比亚大学的Choi Jinkyong、Jorge Guzman和Mario Small发现，在没有咖啡店的美国社区中，一家新的星巴克在未来7年内每年会产生1.1-3.5家新公司。作者认为，这是因为咖啡馆扮演了“第三方地点”的角色—— 一个人们可以无目的聚集的地方。他们认为，星巴克门店可以“帮助企业家形成和动员人际网络”。
Perhaps Starbucks spots neighbourhoods where the flat-white-sipping entrepreneurs of tomorrow will settle and boost business-creation numbers. To control for this, the authors lean on two sources of randomness: nimbyism and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, a basketball player. They compare places that gained a Starbucks with those where the chain had hoped to expand only to be foiled by planning objections, ensuring it was not the chain’s foresight which explained the later business growth. They also look at places that gained a branch following a partnership with Mr Johnson which aimed to push the chain into poor neighbourhoods, and were thus not its usual sort of site.
也许星巴克发现了未来的喝着馥芮白咖啡的企业家们将定居的社区，从而增加了创业企业的数量。为了控制这一变量，作者采用了两个随机性来源：邻避主义和篮球运动员“魔术师”埃尔文·约翰逊。他们将拥有一家星巴克的地方与那些星巴克希望扩张却因地方计划反对而受挫的地方进行了比较，以确保星巴克的远见不是后来创新业务增长的原因。他们还考察了一些与约翰逊先生合作后开设了分店的地方，目的是拓展到星巴克贫困社区的门店，而非其通常开设分店的地方。
The authors provide further evidence that the benefits are thanks to a new third space. They find no similar effects for Dunkin’ Donuts, which does not typically provide much seating. By contrast, Caribou Coffee, a chain in the Midwest, has a similar model to Starbucks and provides similar benefits.
作者提供了进一步的证据证明，创新的增加归功于新的第三方空间。他们发现甜甜圈连锁店Dunkin’ Donuts没有类似的效果，因为通常那里不提供太多座位。相比之下，中西部地区的连锁店Caribou Coffee采用了与星巴克类似的模式，因此也有类似的效果。
Although the paper is not yet peer-reviewed, it has historical plausibility. London’s coffee houses were the site of 18th-century innovation. They were known as “penny universities”: for the price of a cup one could gain access to the era’s finest minds. Lloyd’s of London, an insurance market, is the descendant of Lloyd’s coffee house; London’s stock exchange has a similar pedigree.
虽然这篇论文还没有经过同行评议，但它在历史上具有合理性。伦敦的咖啡馆是18世纪创新的发源地。这些咖啡馆被称为“平价大学”：只花一杯咖啡的钱，就能接触到那个时代最优秀的人才。保险市场伦敦劳合社(Lloyd’s of London)是劳合社咖啡馆(Lloyd’s coffee house)哺育出来的成果，伦敦证券交易所也类似。
The results also provide a puzzle. Starbucks drew from Europe’s cafés. Yet the presence of third spaces across the continent has not been enough to overcome its innovation struggles. Maybe there is something about the chain itself. Italians should trade their espresso for a “cotton candy Frappuccino” just in case. ■
研究结果也存在一个困惑。星巴克借鉴了欧洲的咖啡馆。然而，第三方空间在整个欧洲大陆并未克服当地的创新困境。也许这与星巴克本身有关。为了以防万一，意大利人应该把他们的浓缩咖啡换成“棉花糖星冰乐”。■
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