China's economy has always been in a dilemma of ups and downs, an important reason is the ups and downs of macroeconomic policies, and the root cause lies in the excessive intervention of administrative power in the market economy. Excessive government intervention will not create an effective market and effective government, but will only make the market inefficient and breed room for rent-seeking and corruption. The core of keeping the policy relatively stable is to reduce the frequent short-term macro-control by the government and instead strengthen the long-term market system construction, which is also the proper meaning of establishing and perfecting the socialist market economic system in China.
For example, the stock market and the property market are the epitome of China's economy, which is largely regulated by policies and always ups and downs. The reason why the stock market is relatively stable is that if the stock market is unstable and falls sharply, household assets will shrink sharply. In addition, the current income of residents will not go up, and the consumption expectations of health (people's livelihood), old age (pension), disease (treatment), housing (residence) and education (children's education) will continue to increase, and the current consumption will be squeezed, and the situation of insufficient domestic demand will continue to deteriorate. Looking at the real estate market again, since the State Council issued the document 18 in 2003, the government has issued a number of macro-control policies on real estate every year, but it always gives people a feeling of treating the symptoms as a stopgap. Undeniably, there are many major problems in the real estate industry that need to be solved urgently, such as the serious gap between the rich and the poor, the inefficient allocation of real estate resources, and the recent rapid rise in housing prices. However, the solution to the problem is not frequent price management and policy means, but to strengthen the long-term system construction of the real estate market.
We should promote urban and rural land circulation, levy real estate tax, strengthen bank risk management, build housing security system, promote housing rental market construction, improve land auction system and other aspects, adopt a multi-pronged approach, implement comprehensive management of total balance, establish an effective market, give full play to the role of the market, give consideration to economic efficiency and social equity, guide effective supply and demand, and promote the stable and healthy development of the real estate market.
Although some good measures overlap with our suggestions, we are worried that they are aimed at high housing prices rather than serious structural imbalances in the real estate market and a series of administrative measures without legal provisions. It may not solve the deep-seated structural contradictions and problems, but it will destroy the self-regulation function of the market and aggravate the contradiction between supply and demand imbalance. If house prices are artificially suppressed and sufficient investment and production incentives cannot be provided, effective supply cannot be guaranteed. The current macro-control policy of real estate has brought the following negative effects.
First, there is incentive distortion, which makes the policy objectives deviate from the actual results. For example, providing tax payment certificate or social insurance payment certificate is intended to curb speculative house purchase, but it can't prevent rich people from other places (without loans) from buying houses in different places, but it keeps the non-registered population who rely on credit support to buy houses in cities out of the door. This also deviates from the law of urbanization.
The second is to trigger moral hazard and make the market addicted to policy expectations and games. Because the information is difficult to be symmetrical, the supervision cost of many policies is huge, which will cause all kinds of social chaos and moral anomie, such as false certificates, buying houses under the name, fake mortgages, bribery, etc., and even staged fake divorce tricks.
Third, the policy is relatively stable, which makes the policy fluctuate with the house price. Once the new policy of suppressing housing prices affects the stable growth of China's economy (not impossible), how to deal with these restrictive policies? After the temporary policy is revoked, the rigid demand temporarily suppressed by consumers will rebound again for revenge. How should the government deal with the resurgence of rising house prices? Because in the long run, the rise in housing prices in China is an irreversible trend.
The fourth is to obstruct the market reform, which makes the planned means disturb the spontaneous order of the market. For example, attributing the responsibility of stabilizing housing prices to local governments actually gives local governments the power to intervene in the market beyond legal authority, which may lead to price distortion and increase the opportunities for government power to rent. The government should be in charge of legal housing security, not housing prices in the market.
Second, adjust the distribution.
The essence of reform is the adjustment of interest relations. Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, China's sustained and rapid economic growth has brought about a rapid expansion of social wealth "cake", but the irrational distribution pattern of national wealth has deepened day by day, mainly in three aspects: First, the income gap between countries has widened, and the proportion of China residents' income has dropped from the highest point 1988 to 59. 1% in 2007. From 1993 to 2008, the average growth rate of national fiscal revenue exceeded 19%, which greatly exceeded the speed of the whole economic development. The government's income from economic development far exceeds residents' income, and most of the fiscal expenditure is used to promote GDP growth and self-consumption, rather than education, medical care, social security, environmental protection and other undertakings involving public interests, which makes people reluctant to spend money. Second, the income gap between the rich and the poor has widened. The Gini coefficient of China has expanded from 0.249 in 1982 to 0.47 in 2008, and the gap between different social classes has widened. Various contradictions arising from institutional conflicts of interest and inequality are more acute and become the main direct source of many group social conflicts. If we don't pay attention to it, it will affect the overall situation of social stability. Third, the income gap between urban and rural areas has widened, and the income ratio of Chinese residents has increased from 2.57 times of 1978 to 3.33 times in 2009. The problem of urban-rural dual structure has not been alleviated, but has intensified. If these problems are not solved, it will seriously hinder the process of economic transformation and economic restructuring in China.
Undoubtedly, the reform of income distribution must be long-term, but prolonged indecision is definitely not the solution to the problem. In the short term, we should come up with some concrete measures that can achieve practical results. It is suggested that the government should make great determination to start with the reform of income distribution and fiscal and taxation policies of state-owned enterprises, and promote the government to change from a development-oriented government that competes with the people to a service-oriented government with public interests, from an all-round government with too much administrative intervention to a limited government that allows the market to give full play. The first is to reform the existing income distribution system of state-owned assets and transfer most of the state-owned income to the field of public expenditure, such as enriching it into social security, so that the whole people, as nominal owners of state-owned assets, can really enjoy tangible benefits. Secondly, we should raise the threshold, reduce the tax rate, establish the necessary tax rebate relief mechanism, effectively reduce the tax burden of the middle class and the working class, and at the same time levy (or increase) taxes that international experience shows can effectively narrow the income gap, so that taxes can really play a role in regulating income distribution.
Third, pull at both ends.
First of all, we think it is necessary to increase investment in agriculture and rural education, speed up the construction of modern agriculture, maintain the steady growth of grain supply, establish a long-term mechanism to increase agricultural production and farmers' income, enhance the consumption power of 800 million farmers, and effectively activate the rural consumer market. Of course, we should consider the issue of agriculture, countryside and farmers in the context of urbanization in China, and actively promote the process of rural urbanization and farmers' citizenization, which is the fundamental way to eliminate the dual structure of urban and rural areas and solve the issue of agriculture, countryside and farmers.
Second, we believe that we should vigorously promote the development of the service industry. At present, China's service industry accounts for about 45% of the total economic output, far below that of mature developed countries and even other major developing countries. The service industry in developed countries such as the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan usually accounts for more than 65% of GDP, while the current level in developing countries such as Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea and the Philippines is also above 55%.
Relatively speaking, the service industry consumes less energy, resources and other factors, and it will not be like an industry that needs a lot of basic raw materials. Because of the current high raw material prices, the cost-driven and imported inflation will rise significantly. On the contrary, on the one hand, the development of labor-intensive traditional service industry will help alleviate the problem of labor surplus and reduce the negative externalities such as resource depletion and environmental degradation caused by excessive expansion of resource-intensive manufacturing industries. On the other hand, the development of intelligence-intensive modern service industry will help to enhance China's position in the world industrial value chain and realize the upgrading and transformation from China manufacturing to China intelligent manufacturing.
Fourth, excellent middle school.
One function of the economic and financial crisis is to make full use of the market mechanism to carry out deep-seated structural optimization and adjustment. As the main body of China's economy, the secondary industry should be guided and supported to increase investment in scientific research and development, promote the high-tech transformation of traditional industries, develop high-end advantageous industrial clusters, and realize the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure. In this regard, we should pay attention to giving full play to the role of private enterprises. Because the innovation system with the country as the main body often ignores the cost and may ignore the economic benefits in the incentive. It may succeed in some specific fields or specific goals, but it will not lead to a sustainable and innovative economy. On the contrary, the innovation system with private enterprises as the main body is more likely to lead to the continuous improvement of the overall economic benefits, because it pays close attention to profits and benefits and needs less information for decentralized decision-making.
Second, change the development mode, improve the level of energy utilization, vigorously develop clean energy, and promote China's economy to achieve a "high carbon" economy based on high energy consumption, high pollution and high emissions, and transform into a "low carbon" economy with low energy consumption, low pollution and low emissions as the core, eliminate backward production capacity and implement industrial structure transformation and upgrading.
Third, change the closed and single ownership structure of state-owned monopoly industries, continue to expand the market access of private capital, constantly improve the policy support system for small and medium-sized enterprises, provide a fair competition investment environment for private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, let them enter the industries originally monopolized by the state, promote market competition, and concentrate production factors in the most efficient places, thus enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the whole economy. The competition and innovation culture formed by the existence of a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises has prompted the emergence of innovative large enterprises, which is also a major reason why developed countries are still strong.
Without vibrant and booming small and medium-sized enterprises, a country's economy is likely to be hopeless. The data also shows that in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), SMEs account for 95% of the total number of enterprises. To this end, it is necessary to further clean up and abolish policies and regulations that restrict the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, there are problems in the timing and legislative basis of the new Labor Contract Law, which makes a large number of export-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises increase their operating costs, the employment system becomes rigid, the living space deteriorates, and they are typical of doing bad things with good intentions. The reason is that economic laws have been replaced by enthusiasm and desire, and the government has been too dead and too detailed in where it should not be. As a result, a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises have closed down in accordance with the law, and their dignity cannot be damaged in accordance with the law. It is suggested that large, medium and small enterprises should be treated differently, so as to avoid "one size fits all" practices such as labor contract law squeezing the survival and development space of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially tiny enterprises, so that they can not absorb a large number of surplus agricultural population and promote urbanization transformation.
Fifth, expand domestic demand.
It can be predicted that the external demand, which has been supporting China's growth model, will be weak in the next few years, because developed countries, especially American households, which dominate the global economic consumption demand, are currently facing important tasks such as deleveraging and rebuilding savings. Therefore, it is imperative to change the export-oriented development model supported by external demand to the consumption-oriented development model supported by domestic demand.
If the above-mentioned distribution can increase the purchasing power of residents, then it is necessary to increase the consumer confidence and willingness of residents in order to truly and effectively activate consumer demand. Since the second half of 2008, the central government has intensively introduced a series of policies to stimulate consumption, and expanded residents' "semi-compulsory consumption" through one-time transfer payments or financial subsidies, and achieved remarkable results. However, once this kind of subsidized consumption behavior is long-term, it will bring huge financial burden to the government and build barriers for further deepening market-oriented reform.
It is suggested that policies covering employment, pension, medical care, housing and education in the next five years to 10 should be actively planned while further extending the incentive policies such as home appliances going to the countryside, cars going to the countryside, replacing old ones with new ones, increasing subsidies for special people and reducing consumption tax on some products, involving residents' "health (livelihood), pension (pension), disease (treatment) and residence (residence).
Sixth, promote exports.
Under the situation that social security and medical reform are still in the process of reform, it is impossible to change the economy from export-oriented to domestic demand-driven overnight. At present, the government should do something to promote exports while expanding domestic demand, so as to maintain steady and rapid economic development and alleviate the huge employment pressure.
The first is to keep the RMB exchange rate relatively stable in the near future to maintain the competitiveness of export products. The data shows that if the RMB appreciates by 3% in the short term, the profits of manufacturers such as home appliances, automobiles and mobile phones will drop by 30% to 50%; If the costs and prices of other factors of production remain unchanged, such as RMB appreciation 1 percentage point, the profits of textile enterprises will also decrease by 1 percentage point, while their own profits are only 3% to 5%. Therefore, although there is still room for RMB appreciation in the long run, it is of great practical significance to resist the international pressure of RMB appreciation and stabilize the RMB exchange rate as much as possible under the current unstable international and domestic economic situation, so as to alleviate the rising export costs of Chinese enterprises and help export-dependent enterprises stabilize certain external markets.
In particular, it needs to be pointed out that the trade deficit of the United States involves more than 90 countries and is a multilateral issue, which cannot be solved simply by bilateral exchange rate adjustment. Encouraged by some famous American economists, the US government hopes to solve its structural problems through the appreciation of China's RMB, which is a practice of taking medicine when others are sick. In fact, due to the reform and opening up, there are quite a number of foreign enterprises, multinational companies and joint ventures in Chinese mainland, forming a pattern that you have me and I have you, making RMB appreciation a double-edged sword for other countries, which will greatly reduce the pressure of RMB appreciation.
Secondly, we should continue to use financial, credit, foreign trade funds and other means to reduce the export cost for enterprises, improve the technical content of products, overcome hidden trade barriers, support the export of products with competitive advantages, accelerate the transformation of foreign trade development mode, and at the same time implement the strategy of diversification of export markets to help enterprises continuously explore emerging market trade, intra-East Asian trade and regional free trade zones (such as China-ASEAN, China-Peru, China-Chile, China, etc.). ).