Children born in the winter months already have a few strikes against them. Study after study has shown that they test poorly, don't get as far in school, earn less, are less healthy, and don't live as long as children born at other times of year. Researchers have spent years documenting the effect and trying to understand it.

冬天出生的孩子可谓先天不足。多项研究表明，他们成绩很差，上学时间较短，薪水较低，健康状况较差，寿命也不如其他季节出生的孩子长。研究人员多年来一直在记录这种效应，并试图了解个中缘由。

But economists¹ Kasey Buckles² and Daniel Hungerman at the University of Notre Dame³ may have uncovered an overlooked explanation for why season of birth matters.

但美国圣母大学(University of Notre Dame)经济学家巴克尔斯(Kasey Buckles)和亨格曼(Daniel Hungerman)可能揭露了出生季节关乎命运的一个被人们忽略的解释。

Their discovery challenges the validity of past research and highlights how seemingly safe assumptions economists make may overlook key causes of curious effects. And they came across it by accident.

他们的发现对以往研究的可靠性提出了挑战，并显示出经济学家做出的看上去很可靠的假定可能忽略了一些奇特效应的关键原因。他们有此发现也是出于偶然。