【双语阅读】经济学人：为什么说星巴克不是一家简单的咖啡馆？

星巴克不仅以独特饮品风靡全球，更在创新领域扮演重要角色。其门店成为社交媒体上的创意展示台，激发无限可能。同时，哥伦比亚大学研究揭示星巴克作为“第三空间”，显著促进美国社区创新与商业增长，通过对比实验及历史视角，展现其在全球范围内激发创新活力的独特魅力。

How Starbucks caffeinates local economies

星巴克如何为当地经济注入活力

Call it the frappuccino effect

可以称之为“星冰乐效应”

Starbucks offers endless opportunities for innovation. Parts of social media delight in hacking the chain’s menu to create highly instagrammable drinks. 

星巴克在创新领域开辟了广阔天地。社交媒体平台上，一群创意无限的探索者热衷于解锁星巴克菜单的无限可能，精心调配出令人眼前一亮的 Instagram 风饮品。

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.

想要体验“蛋糕面糊星冰乐”的梦幻滋味？只需简单几步：点一杯“香草星冰乐”为基底，加一份榛果糖浆，再让咖啡师在搅拌机里加入一个蛋糕球，瞬间，一杯创意之作便应运而生。而谈及“液体可卡因”这样的挑战尝试，则是四份浓缩咖啡与四份白巧克力糖浆的激情碰撞，冰镇后奉上，让人一试难忘。

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. 

近期，一篇来自哥伦比亚大学的研究论文，以新颖视角揭示了星巴克在推动社会创新方面的深远影响。崔晋勇、豪尔赫·古兹曼与马里奥·斯莫尔的研究表明，在美国那些原本缺乏咖啡店的社区，星巴克新店的入驻，宛如催化剂般，在未来七年间，每年平均催生了1.1至3.5家新公司的诞生。

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.

他们将这一现象归功于星巴克作为“第三空间”的独特魅力——一个超越传统界限，鼓励人们自由交流、思想碰撞的温馨角落。星巴克分店不仅为人们提供了休憩的港湾，更成为了企业家们网络构建与灵感激发的温床。

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. 

也许星巴克能够洞察到未来的企业家们将定居的社区，从而增加了创业的数量。为了严谨论证这一观点，研究团队巧妙运用了两个随机因素：邻避主义和篮球巨星“魔术师”埃尔文·约翰逊。

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. 

他们对比了成功入驻的星巴克地点与因规划反对而未能落地的备选地点，以此排除星巴克选址策略的预见性对商业增长的影响。

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.

同时，通过考察约翰逊助力下开设的星巴克分店，这些分店特意选址于贫困社区，进一步证实了星巴克在促进创新方面的普遍适用性，而非仅限于其传统偏好区域。

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.

此外，研究还通过对比实验，强化了星巴克作为新型第三空间的价值。相较于座位紧凑的唐恩都乐，星巴克以其独特的氛围与空间布局，显著促进了创新活动的发生。值得注意的是，中西部地区的卡布利咖啡亦展现出与星巴克相似的积极影响，进一步印证了第三空间对创新生态的积极作用。

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.

尽管该研究尚未经过严格的同行评审，但其背后的历史逻辑却不容忽视。回望18世纪的伦敦，咖啡馆作为“便士大学”，曾是思想交流与创新的摇篮，孕育了诸如劳合社与伦敦证券交易所等现代商业巨擘。

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.

至于为何星巴克能在全球范围内激发创新活力，而欧洲的传统第三空间却未能达到同样效果，这或许正是星巴克独有的魅力所在。或许，意大利的朋友们也不妨一试“棉花糖星冰乐”，或许在那份甜蜜与创意中，就能找到激发新灵感的钥匙。

(红色标注词为重难点词汇)

重难点词汇：

barista [bəˈristə] n. 咖啡师

espresso [eˈspresoʊ] n. 浓缩咖啡

purveyor [pərˈveɪə(r)] n. 承办商；供应商

plausibility [ˌplɔːzəˈbɪləti] n. 似乎有理；能言善辩

pedigree [ˈpɛdəˌɡri] n. 血统；家谱；世系