Economic phenomena that violate the laws of the market
1? The market demand is weak and the final consumption rate drops.
After the economic bubble subsided in the early 1990s, the weak market became the main factor restricting China's economic development, and how to stimulate consumption became a theme of China's economy. There is an increasing backlog of materials, which has become a major reason why it is difficult for enterprises to pay off their triangular debts. As early as the end of 1996, the value of overstocked materials in China has reached more than 500 billion yuan. Some analysts have analyzed that the inventory of goods decreased in the second quarter of this year, but analysts obviously ignored one factor: the current inventory decline is closely related to the decline in the operating rate of enterprises. By 1998, the number of enterprises in China has reached 2 1.3%.
With the increase of commodity inventory, the final consumption rate (the proportion of final consumption to GDP) has decreased year by year. Since 198 1, China's final consumption rate has basically decreased by 0.6 percentage points every year, from 67.5% of 198 1 to 58.8% of 0997. The consumption rate of residents dropped from 53. 1% to 47.5%, which was significantly lower than the international level of 60%. At present, the final consumption rate has dropped to the lowest level in history. For a country that can only focus on domestic demand, too low consumption rate and too high savings rate will become serious obstacles to the normal cycle of reproduction. The contribution rate of consumer demand to GDP growth has also decreased year by year. According to authoritative data, 1998 has been declining for the fourth consecutive year since 1994, and the contribution rate of consumption demand to GDP is estimated to be close to 40%, which is lower than 1997 by 15.5 percentage points. Weak consumption has become an important factor restricting economic growth.
2? Savings of urban and rural residents continued to increase.
1978 at the beginning of the reform and opening up, the savings deposits of urban and rural residents nationwide were 265.438+0.6 billion yuan, and 1997 rose to 4,627.98 billion yuan. The savings balance of urban residents 1984 ~ 1988 increased by 58.2 billion yuan, 1989 ~ 1993 increased by 380 billion yuan, and 1994 ~ 1998 increased by 770 billion yuan. At the end of March this year, the balance of savings deposits of urban and rural residents reached 57.810.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.8%. The sustained and high growth of savings deposits is the product of the comprehensive effects of national macroeconomic adjustment, industrial structure imbalance, weak commodity demand, serious unemployment and residents' increased sense of crisis about expected income. From the perspective of deposit structure, of the current 578147 billion savings deposits, more than one trillion are private deposits of public funds, gray income or black income, and about 60% are time deposits. With the gradual implementation of deposit real-name registration system and the strengthening of financial supervision, it is estimated that about 20% of public funds will be quickly separated from savings deposits within 1 ~ 2 years; Another 39% of the deposits are for purpose and will be used for other purposes after maturity. Optimistic analysis shows that these factors are beneficial to the development of bank savings business, and once these factors are eliminated and alleviated, bank savings business will inevitably be impacted by shock and contraction. In other words, deposits will not keep rising like this.
3? Huge overcapacity
The decline of final consumption rate and the rise of savings deposits of urban and rural residents have always been regarded as a simple causal relationship. However, the data shows that while the savings rate is rising, the total retail sales of social goods are also rising. If we look at the demand elasticity of various commodities, the difference in consumption is not that people hold money and wait and see, but that social supply far exceeds demand. What supports the huge and ineffective supply of society is the serious overcapacity in some industries in China.
China's per capita GNP is only $840, which is more than 40 times different from that of developed countries. According to per capita personal income, the gap is even greater. According to the survey, in rural areas, there are still 80% gaps in color TV sets, washing machines and refrigerators. In addition to the lack of electricity and water, TV signals can't reach Taiwan. The most fundamental reason is the slow growth of farmers' income and weak purchasing power. It can be seen that the current "surplus" is not a commodity surplus caused by weak demand at all, but a huge overcapacity caused by policy factors such as misleading investment. It is a low-level "commodity surplus" formed on the basis that tens of millions of poor people in China have not had enough to eat and wear warm clothes.
The huge overcapacity in China at present is mainly the result of the convergence of industrial structure in 1990s. Some economists have warned about this problem for a long time, and the country also publishes a list of industries with saturated investment every year. However, because governments at all levels in China have the function of resource allocation, and economic growth indicators are the main aspect of assessing officials' performance every year, driven by the interests of local governments, departments and individuals, this warning basically failed to deter local governments from "slapping their heads" to decide investment plans.
China's mistakes always seem to be repeated more than twice. The color TV wars and refrigerator wars in the mid-1980s were all caused by the serious convergence of industrial structures in different regions. During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period, the investment hotspots in different places were strikingly similar: Guangdong coastal areas and other places were affected by Hong Kong's industrial transfer and the export-oriented strategy of the Pearl River Delta, the interest-driven and credit and financial restraint mechanisms were not perfect, and the industrial structure of the Pearl River Delta was seriously similar. So far, this trend has spread in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, and quickly spread to other parts of the country. At present, many non-agricultural industries have serious overcapacity.
From the production capacity of 13 listed in the following table, the lowest utilization rate is the expressway, which is only12%; The highest is the real estate industry, with a utilization rate of only 67.9%. Many of the above industries with serious overcapacity are caused by the isomorphism of pillar industries in various places. In the case of increasing retail sales, this idle capacity shows that there are serious problems in China's investment system. It can be said that the serious overcapacity in China is mainly caused by misleading investment and improper allocation of resources, and the leading role of misleading investment is the local government. On the one hand, local governments have been using their influence and control over funds to maximize investment, thus promoting economic development. As a result, several local governments made the same investment decisions at the same time, which led to the emergence of some "hot" industries more than once. It didn't take long for the hot industry to become a "sunset industry". On the other hand, local governments encourage foreign direct investment by providing preferential policies, and the most common way is to subsidize investors so that they can win the competition with the original enterprises. In the past five years, China utilized 654.38+086 billion US dollars of foreign capital, and a considerable part of it was invested in industries with overcapacity, such as automobiles, petrochemicals and retail. The huge overcapacity situation shows that the investment system of Chinese enterprises has not fundamentally changed compared with that before the reform. Under the investment system before the reform, enterprises were constrained by resources, that is, the funds needed for investment. The officials in charge of investment thought that investment was needed in any field, and the funds were invested there. The goal of reform should have been to make the investment of enterprises subject to demand constraints, that is, to produce anything needed by the market. The most noteworthy thing in the above situation is that the interests of the central government and local governments as the main investors are inconsistent, which is the main reason for the imbalance of China's industrial structure at present.
4? Paradox of Anti-market Law: Excess of Goods and Consumers' Lack of Active Choice
China's commodity surplus is based on backward industrial technology, low productivity and weak product competitiveness. According to the general law, in the state of surplus, the buyer will gradually be in a favorable position in the competition between buyers and sellers, the survival of the fittest in the production field will gradually be eliminated, and the rights and interests of consumers in the circulation field will be continuously strengthened. The market pattern in China is completely opposite, not a pattern that buyers choose actively. This situation is completely different from the buyer's position in the state of commodity surplus in developed countries. Under the current market form, the lack of consumer sovereignty is unique in the world economic history of commodity surplus.
Why is it difficult to start finance?
Since 1998, the bean curd residue projects that shocked the whole country have appeared continuously, and even the Three Gorges Project has appeared serious problems. Hope primary school has finally become a bean curd project. In recent years, the annual loss caused by the collapse of construction projects in China is about 654.38+000 billion yuan. At present, 20% of the projects still fail to meet the national quality standards. In recent years, procuratorial organs have investigated and dealt with more than 654.38 million bribery cases, involving the construction industry, accounting for 63%. However, in 1998, the state issued10 billion national debt to invest in infrastructure construction. Compared with two10 billion yuan, the "bean curd residue project" just offsets the role of the national debt. According to the disclosure, 25% of the projects completed after 1995 and under construction in 1996 cost more than 500,000 yuan. About 40% of the10.4 million projects are out of control, or "underground transactions" or "black-box operations" are carried out without public bidding, so the strange phenomenon of "buildings are built and cadres fall down" appears.
The above situation explains why in the past two years, increasing financial input to start the economy has not started. The crux of the problem lies in: we must not only look at the total amount of financial input, but also trace its flow direction and process. In the case of official corruption, strengthening government financial measures means forming huge rents and generating uneconomical rent-seeking activities. Financial funds often flow to rent-seekers through government departments at all levels, such as the widespread phenomenon of project subcontracting. Another channel for the loss of financial input is the interception of government departments at all levels. For example, 1998 audited the state-owned grain sector, and found and investigated 1 18 1 cases that violated financial laws and regulations. In the past six years, the total amount of grain purchase funds in China has created a big hole of 21400 million yuan, of which more than 80 billion yuan has been misappropriated and the rest is a loss. As the rent-seekers and those who participate in the interception of financial funds and the distribution of chemical fertilizers are all high-income groups, the demand for housing and general consumer goods has already been met, and some "successful people" have even reached the living consumption level of "one car, two rooms, one wife and one pair", so these funds are generally converted into bank deposits or enter the securities market, which is difficult to convert into consumer demand.
How much does rent-seeking interception account for in financial investment? This is incalculable. It is estimated that about 40% of poverty alleviation and various government funds in developing countries are lost to personal pockets in the process of use. In other words, the above facts only prove one point: when the government fails to form an effective mechanism to prevent rent-seeking behavior, the result of increasing financial investment in infrastructure construction is only to let wealth flow to the class with strong political power.
Inclined market supply
In May this year, the government intervened in the stock market by publicly supporting the market, and published a commentator's article in People's Daily in June to publicly mobilize people to participate in stock trading, that is, to mobilize people to participate in open and legal large-scale gambling, and at the same time, to reduce interest rates in conjunction with June 10. Under the guidance of the policy, the stock market soared, and a new round of wealth redistribution began through paper money. The purpose of the government is obviously to drive money to the market for consumption. Some economic comments and media headlines have reached the point where spending money is patriotism. However, this method of quenching thirst by drinking poison failed to maintain the prosperity of the stock market for a long time, because after the stock market started, this economic bubble could only gain virtual appreciation through multi-level speculation, and multi-level speculation could only be maintained by increasing monetary investment. At the same time, there has been no large-scale decline in residents' deposits, which means that the measures of "grabbing money" have had little effect.
This has to go back to a basic problem-the structural characteristics of supply and demand in China market.
Different from developed countries, China government is actually at the center of various resource allocation.
A large number of non-state-owned enterprises participate in the completely competitive product market, pursuing efficiency; The public service sector is mostly monopolized by the state, and its existence has multiple objectives, both economic objectives (such as employment) and non-economic objectives, such as national security and strengthening social control. Here only from the consumer demand to classify:
The first category: goods and services with low demand elasticity, such as water, electricity, gas, medical care, education and social insurance (pension, medical care, unemployment). No matter whether the economic situation is good or not, people should consume such goods and services. Social insurance is a kind of social welfare, which has just started in China, and its payment is compulsory by the state. The rest of the projects are basically monopolistic "goods" or services, and the "market" is completely inclined to the suppliers of goods, so the buyer has no initiative to choose. Due to the lack of competition, these industries are generally inefficient and wasteful, and the goods (or services) provided to consumers are of poor quality. However, due to their monopoly, their prices have been rising over the years, especially education and medical care, which were paid to employees as social welfare before the reform (for a long time, employees' wages only included basic living expenses, but not these expenses). In recent years, these reforms have been introduced one after another, and gradually transition to individual payment. The author conducted an oral survey on some families with a monthly income of more than 10,000 yuan and fixed assets of more than several million yuan. They are deeply unbearable for the increase of these two expenses. After comparing the "cost" and "benefit" of education at home and abroad, most of them choose to let their children study abroad for education, and more than half of them let their children go abroad in middle school. From this point of view, as long as China's education system reform is limited to charging fees and expanding the scale, the money flowing out will never flow back.
The second category is commodities with greater demand elasticity than the previous category. There are two kinds of goods in this category: first, products that people need but have reached market saturation in cities, such as refrigerators, televisions and washing machines. Another kind of products is needed by ordinary people, but the purchase is directly controlled by their economic conditions and purchase intention, such as microwave ovens, computers, air conditioners, motorcycles and so on. Although some rural residents don't have this commodity yet, they are either affected by infrastructure, such as lack of electricity and TV receiving system, or they don't buy it or can't afford it. The industries that produce the above products have introduced competition mechanism. On the one hand, enterprises face the competition of similar products in China, on the other hand, they face the competition of similar products abroad. Due to local interests and repeated investment, these industries have had a serious product surplus as early as a few years ago. At present, the main target of market supply in this respect is people with improved purchasing power.
Third, the people are in urgent need, and the price is far from the purchasing power of the people, such as housing. The housing level of ordinary people in China is only eight square meters per capita, which is far from that of developed countries. In recent years, China's housing construction has developed rapidly. However, due to the rampant rent-seeking behavior in the real estate industry, the house price remains high, which is more than 12 times of the annual income of residents (even higher than this level in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou), so the real estate industry has formed a huge gap between supply and demand: on the one hand, there are 72 million square meters of commercial houses in the real estate market that cannot be sold; On the other hand, people do not have enough housing. House prices can't come down because the real estate industry has completely entered a "policy trap": the main body of developers is state-owned enterprises, and more than 80% of loans come from banks. As long as the real estate price does not fall, the value of the developer's book assets can be preserved, and the performance of the operator is still there-this is directly related to the bosses' black veil. But the loan belongs to the bank, and if it is delayed for several years, it will be public to public. What's more, at present, some people advocate the conversion of creditor's rights into equity, which opens a new channel for debtors, so this policy trap is getting deeper and deeper.
Fourth, local governments blindly invest in imported projects, such as cars. In the past two years, the development of automobiles has been regarded as a pillar industry in this province, and there is a huge overcapacity in this industry. In fact, more than 90% of China people's living standards have not reached this level at all: the cost of owning a car includes auto insurance, road maintenance, gasoline, maintenance, parking fees, parking fees and so on. The average domestic car costs between 1500-2000 yuan per month, which greatly exceeds the consumption capacity of ordinary people. Moreover, traffic jams exist in most large and medium-sized cities in China. If we blindly develop private cars, it will not only make the already congested urban traffic more congested, but also cause energy supply and environmental pollution.
The above analysis shows that most products in non-monopoly industries belong to durable consumer goods (the minimum consumption cycle is 3 ~ 5 years), and supply exceeds demand, and there are a lot of idle production capacity; The products of monopoly industries mostly belong to a variety of consumer goods (such as transportation, water, electricity and gas), but because of their monopoly position, consumers can only passively accept them. Some medical care, old-age insurance, education, etc. Originally a social welfare, it is currently in the early stage of reform. Nominally, they haven't been industrialized yet, but because of their monopoly position, they have completely become a high-priced and high-quality seller's market, and buyers have no right to choose. Most of the money deposited by ordinary people in the bank is to prepare for the two types of monopolistic goods and services after purchase. With the gradual deepening of these reforms, it is difficult to drive deposits from banks to the market.
The Root of Government Inefficiency and Market Failure
The above problems present a strange mixture: the market fails and the government fails at the same time. Market failure has the same important roots, that is, incomplete information and incomplete market. Because many local governments in China have become the main body of resource allocation, the industrial structures in various places are repetitive and similar; And the production decisions made by thousands of enterprises have caused repeated production and low efficiency. Incomplete information and incomplete market are also important sources of government inefficiency, which eventually leads to the government providing a large number of negative supplies to the society. Since the macro-control was strengthened from 65438 to 0993, the central government's intervention in the economy has been continuously strengthened. There are two reasons for strengthening regulation: on the one hand, the government overestimates the power of direct regulation; On the other hand, the government also underestimated the power of indirect supervision. However, if direct supervision is to succeed, the indispensable factor is that regulators should not only have a lot of information, that is, they should have information to decide what to do; Secondly, we must have the ability to effectively supervise the economic process, including the ability to effectively supervise the economic operation process and economic results. However, the current situation in China shows that it has not reached a normal state in obtaining real information or in the economic operation process and economic results of post supervision.
The first is the serious distortion of information. This aspect first includes the adulteration and distortion of statistical data of government departments. Because the assessment of local officials takes economic growth as the main indicator, local officials are encouraged to falsify statistical data and respond to the assessment of higher-level governments with false information, while the central government often makes situation judgments and formulates corresponding policies based on these distorted data reported at various levels. The inefficiency of this policy supply can be imagined. Secondly, it is a "negative supply" of information driven by departmental interests. The most dangerous suggestions have been put forward by a few people as feasible solutions: for example, some people in the securities industry think that issuing more money to maintain the growth of the stock market bubble will bring wealth effect. There is also debt relief for loss-making enterprises to benefit enterprises; For financial reasons, it is suggested to expand the currency circulation to alleviate financial difficulties and so on. If these suggestions are really adopted and implemented, it is tantamount to playing with fire: reducing the debts of loss-making enterprises is equivalent to completely destroying the moral credit dam of society. Because the money owed to the bank can be reduced, all borrowers can avoid bank debts in this way in the future, and the bank's credit chain will be broken; It is suggested that the central financial difficulties can be alleviated by issuing a large amount of money, which is either a lack of common sense of economic history or a lack of due sense of responsibility to society. The purpose of this policy is nothing more than opening the two wallets of the central finance and the central bank, but it cannot fundamentally solve the difficulties of the central finance. Central finance in most countries has always been difficult. For example, the richest American government can only maintain its expenditure through deficit finance, relying on economic development and reasonable expansion of the tax base, rather than relying on its "central bank". What's more, the central government in China now shoulders the responsibility of a large number of investors, and its demand for funds is almost unlimited. In this case, it is very dangerous to suggest opening the pocket of the central bank and allowing it to supply money to the central government without restriction. Improper policies of some government departments have also contributed to the false supply of information.
Secondly, the government's actual supervision and post-event supervision of the economic process are insufficient. Since the reform and opening up, a major feature of government behavior can be summarized as the marketization of power and the commercialization of government behavior. Government officials at all levels now regard public power in their hands as a scarce resource, treat citizens who come to work as "customers" and use various means to force customers to trade power and money. However, the expansion of overlapping anti-corruption institutions can't keep up with the expansion of corruption, and the marginal benefit of sports anti-corruption has already declined: the louder the slogan of anti-corruption, the greater the amount of corruption, and the more senior officials involved in corruption scandals. The so-called "sunshine law" is almost ineffective, and the soaring economic crime cases have proved this. In this case, the government cannot be expected to effectively supervise the economic process and its results.
The anti-market characteristics of China's economy are thus formed. The government's supply to society has always been in such a state: "active supply"-such as issuing government decrees, implementing reform measures, and restricting society by law. -being in an inefficient state, resulting in a "soft regime" situation, while at the same time, various "negative supplies" are increasing and strengthening. For individual officials, under this pattern, personal quality is no longer the decisive factor to determine their behavior.
According to world experience, in all developing countries, policy makers basically rely on historical accumulation and personal political experience (political inclination) to deal with related issues. They are more willing to listen to suggestions on economic reform, but they are not very interested in any suggestions on political system reform. The guiding ideology of China's reform is "crossing the river by feeling the stones", but after the 1990s, the reform has actually reached the Yangtze River, and decision makers cannot rely on the historical accumulation of the system and personal political experience to solve the problem. The premise of solving social problems is a correct understanding of society, and the seriously distorted negative supply of information between government departments leads to people's inability to correctly understand society and grasp the environment, so there is a double failure phenomenon of market failure and government failure.
Why is government reform imperative?
In the short term, some measures can be taken to improve economic operation, such as gradually strengthening competition to improve the supply of public goods and form consumer sovereignty; Reduce the real estate price, let people buy a well-off house with an annual family income of 6-8 years, eliminate the policy trap at the expense of the bankruptcy of some real estate developers, and resolve the banking crisis at the expense of solving special national conditions and special surplus. But in the long run, the most important problem is that the government as the main body of investment should end as soon as possible, which can no longer be solved by writing articles in the economic field. It is directly related to government reform.
Rethinking the role of government in the world began in the middle and late 1980s. There are several reasons that arouse people's thinking: the collapse of the command-and-control economy in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries; Financial crisis in developed countries (that is, welfare countries); The rise of economic miracle in Southeast Asian countries (now need to add the "miracle" burst).
Behind these contrasting phenomena is actually the effectiveness of the government in modern society. It can be said that everyone has basically realized the fact that without an effective government, it is impossible to achieve sustainable economic and social development. But the world is changing, and the requirements for government functions are also changing. The greatest achievement of Keynesianism is to make people realize that the central position of the state in economic and social development is not as a direct provider of economic growth, but as a collaborator, catalyst and promoter. As for what an effective government should include, there are great differences because of the different origins of population, resources, history, culture and political inheritance in each country. For example, the democratic politics in the United States may fail if it is applied to Asian countries intact; And authoritarian regimes in Asia cannot be used to rule European and American countries. However, no matter which modern country's government is facing the same problem, that is, when economic development becomes the mainstream of the world, it must come up with a sustainable development strategy to eliminate poverty and achieve long-term social stability. In developed countries, the government's leading intervention measures for economic and social development are mainly aimed at market failure; In developing countries, the role of the government is much greater, because even basic public goods, such as property rights protection, road construction, basic medical care and basic education, cannot be provided (or the quality of public goods provided is declining), thus forming a vicious circle: due to the corruption of government officials, the quality of public services has deteriorated, and people and enterprises have taken various measures to avoid taxes, resulting in
After careful study, experts from the World Bank put forward a two-stage process of how to improve government efficiency. There are two steps in the first stage: first, the government must concentrate its ability on the tasks it can and should accomplish, that is, on the basic work, which includes establishing a legal foundation, maintaining an undistorted policy environment (including macroeconomic stability) and investing in basic social services and infrastructure. Improve the limited ability of the government by reaching cooperative relations with the business community and civil society-A survey of entrepreneurs in 69 countries shows that many governments are quite incompetent in performing their core functions: they cannot protect law and order, they cannot protect property rights, and they are unpredictable in the application of laws and policies. Investors believe that this type of government cannot be trusted, and as a result, investment and growth are damaged. Some countries are now making use of the power of public opinion to make laws and regulations more flexible, applying government self-management mechanisms, and choosing effective market-oriented tools to improve the soft investment environment-secondly, allowing competitive private enterprises to participate in public sector activities. It is increasingly recognized that in many countries, social services and other goods and services are provided by public institutions as monopoly providers, which cannot produce good results. Some governments have begun to separate the financing of infrastructure and services from their operation and provision, and the competition department and monopoly department in public enterprises.
The second stage is to revitalize government institutions. Three basic incentive mechanisms can be used in this regard: first, effective laws and restrictive measures. In many developing countries, the supervision of the legislature and the judiciary over the administrative organs is rather weak, and the relationship between the formulation of goals and the policies needed to achieve these goals is confusing. The common problem in developing countries is that it is easy to make laws, but it is quite difficult to implement them. But if a country wants to build a country ruled by law, it must implement its own laws and regulations. Any effective strategy to improve the vitality of the public sector is mainly to reduce the chances of corruption by reducing arbitrary power. Second, put the government under more intense competition, for example, by reforming the employment system and establishing an internal promotion system based on individual talents, so as to promote competition among civil servants; Strengthen competition in providing public goods and services. Third, let the government maintain closer ties with the people, such as giving the people the right to speak, giving the people the normal channels to participate more widely in political and economic life, and carefully delegating power.
Developed countries can provide an example of effective government to promote the healthy development of social economy. To sum up in the language of economics, the governments of these countries have provided "positive supply" for society. Countries and regions caught in a series of vicious cycles such as poverty and underdevelopment provide concrete examples of inefficient government affecting economic development. In other words, the governments of these countries and regions have provided a lot of "negative supply" to the society. In this regard, all countries in the world, especially the former socialist countries, are indeed facing the great challenge of rebuilding the role of the government. But the answer is obvious: reform is risky, and the social cost of not reforming may be greater.