海外之声 | 供给侧结构性改革：新常态下中国经济可持续增长的动力（中英双语）

观点速递

本文作者是韩国对外经济政策研究院（KIEP）中国部研究员、博士白玄尚（音译），原文摘自2018年2月14日的KIEP Opinions。KIEP是韩国政府下属的研究机构，在国际宏观经济和金融、国际经济制度、对外经济关系、APEC发展对策、新兴市场环境以及包括中国在内的国外地区经济研究等领域进行了广泛深入的研究活动，在主要国际经济政策方面为韩国政府提出政策建议。

作者提出，供给侧结构性改革（SSSR）是当年中国经济的重要关键词，它是中国新常态经济持续发展的一大原因。供给侧改革与中国的社会经济现状是分不开的，它创新地从供给侧而不是需求侧进行改革，做到去产能、去库存、去杠杆、降成本、补短板，减少产能过剩对经济的消耗，它是新常态下中国经济可持续增长的动力。

中文译文如下：

     供给侧结构性改革：新常态下中国经济可持续增长的动力

作者：白玄尚（音译）

翻译：宋成稳

审校：陆可凡

“供给侧结构性改革”（SSSR）成为2018年中国经济关键词之一。2017年中国经济增长率达到6.9％，是自中国进入新常态以来首次回升，并高于各国际机构之前的预测。中国政府在发布会上称供给侧结构性改革是经济向好的主要原因之一，并在中央经济工作会议上提出将供给侧结构性改革作为2018年的一项重要任务。

供给侧结构性改革是一个陌生的术语，并不存在于经济学中。它其实是指习近平政府在2015年11月上台后的一项宏观经济政策。这项政策所处的背景和实施状况都与里根经济学大不相同，后者主要是基于上世纪八十年代美国采取的供给学派经济政策。

供给侧结构性改革的背景与中国的经济发展模式及宏观经济政策有关。改革开放后，中国经济通过利用国内低薪劳动力与国外资本和技术，成为全球制造工厂，生产和出口低附加值产品，实现了快速增长。另外，中国政府依据凯恩斯主义经济学理论，深信不疑地执行财政和货币政策，调整总需求。然而，虽然全球工厂模式和用宏观经济政策调整总需求有利于经济总量的增长，但诸如企业技术和竞争力提高、劳动力资本化以及经济增长新引擎的锻造等高质量增长所需的要素却未能取得重大成果。

为了应对2008年的全球金融危机，中国政府实施了大规模的扩张性货币和财政政策。当时，市场上释放出的资本集中到了房地产和基础设施行业内的国有企业手中，这并未对中国经济质的发展做出贡献，并且恶化了结构性问题。在此过程中，钢铁、煤炭和房地产等行业内的产能过剩，已经形成了一种传导机制，从严重的产能过剩、产量下降、债务飙升，最终到金融风险，似乎对国民经济构成了威胁。考虑到这些发展状况，西方经济体开始认为，中国经济很有可能落入中等收入陷阱，对中国经济危机的这一悲观看法开始弥漫开来。

在如此复杂和困难的情况下，中国政府需要为新常态时期重新确立经济政策，有必要提出解决方案来应对西方经济学家口中的中等收入陷阱。中国政府认识到，若经济刺激方案侧重于总需求，现有的结构性矛盾将继续深化，这些矛盾包括效率低下的国营部门的扩张、房地产库存的扩张，以及基础设施领域的重复投资。此外，中国政府承认中国经济已进入新常态时期---从2012年起以中速增长，并表示不会采取人为刺激措施，同时强调，需要包括国有企业、地方政府和国有商业银行在内的国营部门的参与来适应中速增长时期，在此过程中提出了供给侧结构性改革。

根据经济学理论和西方国家的经验，政府在供给侧能使用的宏观经济政策工具是比较少的。供给侧的参与者主要是家庭和企业，因此政府所起的作用是间接而长期的，例如制定减税、放松管制、教育和研发等方面的政策。然而在中国，政府可以控制在经济中起主导作用的公共部门。换句话说，土地资源、资本、技术和制度等生产要素的分配可以按照中国政府的指挥和策略进行分配。从这一意义上说，供给侧结构性改革是中国政府基于中国经济现状而创造的宏观经济政策框架，在任何现有的经济理论中都未提及。

供给侧结构性改革的目标是通过有效分配生产要素来提高生产率，进而减少无效和低端供应，扩大有效和中高端供应，以满足市场需求。这使中国能够从要素投入驱动模式转向创新驱动型增长模式，并防止实体部门的问题转化为金融风险。为实现这些目标，与提高供给生产率有关的所有措施都可以被包括在供给侧结构性改革中，如货币和财政政策、房地产、人口、教育、研发、金融体系改革、简政放权和削减企业成本。

因此，供给侧结构性改革的相关内容很多。鉴于此，中国政府已将重点放在较为紧迫的领域，这些领域对宏观经济可产生重大影响，或可能转化为金融风险。2016年至2017年，中国实施供给侧改革，重点关注五项主要任务（三去一降一补），即去产能、去库存、去杠杆、降成本、补短板。过去两年，供给侧改革成功减少了过剩产能和库存。因此，2018年的主要任务调整为三项（破立降），即破除无效供给（破）、培育新动能（立）、降低实体经济成本（降）。供给侧改革的细节将根据未来的进展和经济形势进行调整。

简言之，供给侧改革分为两个阶段推进。短期而言，可能会注重减少无效供给，如通过去产能和去杠杆来清除僵尸企业。这些问题也与金融风险的形成有关。长期而言，会更加注重高效供给，如通过减税降低企业成本，减少管制，创造新的增长引擎。这些都符合供给学派经济学，如里根经济学。

目前来看，中国政府对中国经济形势的判断似乎是准确的，对新常态下短期问题的解决也是得当的。随着习近平主席开启第二个五年任期，预计供给侧结构性改革会大力推进。然而，中国政府过去两年的供给侧结构性改革，主要解决国企的过剩产能、房地产问题和国企改革。供给侧结构性改革的成败，关键在于国企的国际竞争力是否增强，制造业工厂的效率是否提高，新的增长引擎是否形成。此外，清除僵尸企业产生的大量失业问题，以及吸引国企和地方政府合作的能力，似乎都会成为供给侧结构性改革的现实挑战。如果供给侧改革妥善推进，新常态时期的中国经济会实现新的飞跃，从而创造由追赶转为引领创新的机会。

英文原文如下：

China's Supply-side Structural Reforms for Sustainable Growth in the New Normal Era

     Hyun Sang Baek

Feb, 24th, 2018

One of the key words of the Chinese economy in 2018 is "supply-side structural reform" (SSSR). China's economic growth rate reached 6.9% in 2017, rebounding for the first time since entering the New Normal 1 era of China, and climbing higher than previous forecasts by international institutes. The Chinese government held a briefing on how SSSR is one of the main causes of good performance, and presented to implement SSSR as one of its key tasks in 2018 at the Central Economic

Work Conference, held in December 2017.

Supply-side structural reform is an unfamiliar term not found in economics.It refers to one of the macroeconomic policies of the Xi Jinpingadministrationthat have been employed since November 2015. China’s supply-side reform largely differs in their background and implementation from Reaganomics, which was based on the supply-side economic policies carried out by the United States in the 1980s.

The background of SSSR is related with the Chinese economic development model and its macroeconomic policy. After the reform and opening up, the Chinese economy was able to achieve rapid growth by playing the role of the global manufacturing factory, producing and exporting low added-value products by combining the low wage labor force of China and foreign capital and technology. Also, the Chinese government faithfully carried out fiscal and monetary policies to adjust aggregate demand, based on the theory of Keynesian economics. However, while the global factory model and macroeconomic policies to adjust aggregate demand may be beneficial to the quantitative growth of the economy, the elements of qualitative growth — such as the enhancement of corporate technology and competitiveness, human capitalization of labor force, and creation of new growth engines — have failed to achieve great development.

In response to the global financial crisis in 2008, the Chinese government implemented large-scale expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. At this time, the capital released on the market came to be concentrated on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in real estate and infrastructure, which do not contribute to the qualitative development of the Chinese economy, thus exacerbating structural problems. In this process, overcapacity in some sectors, such as the steel and coal industry and real estate, has created a transmission mechanism from serious overcapacity, drop in yield, surging debt and finally to financial risk that seems to threaten the national economy. These developments have led to Western economies raising the view that the Chinese economy is likely to fall into a middle-income trap, and this pessimistic view of a Chinese economic crisis has spread.

Under these complex and difficult circumstances, the Chinese government needed to reestablish its economic policies for the New Normal era, and it became necessary to propose a solution to the middle-income trap, as referred to by Western economists. The Chinese government recognizes that an economic stimulus package focused on aggregate demand will further deepen the existing structural contradictions, such as expansion of the inefficient state-owned sector, expansion of real estate stocks and overlapped investment in infrastructure. In addition, the Chinese government acknowledged that it has entered the era of New Normal, referring to the medium-speed growth it has seen from 2012, and declared that it would not use artificial stimulus measures, while emphasizing that state-owned sectors including SOEs, local governments, and state-owned commercial banks were needed to adapt to the medium-speed growth era, and in this process SSSR was proposed.

According to economics theory and experience from the Western countries, on the supplyside there are few macroeconomic policy tools implemented by the government. Since the main players in supply are the households and firms, the government plays an indirect and long-term role, such as tax reduction, deregulation, education and R&D policies. In contrast, the Chinese government can control the public sector, which plays a leading role in the Chinese economy. In other words, the distribution of production factors such as land, resources, capital, technology and institution can be distributed according to the directions and strategies of the Chinese government. In this sense, SSSR is a macroeconomic policy frame created by the Chinese government based on the Chinese economic reality, which was not foreseen in any existing economic theory.

The objective of SSSR is to reduce ineffective and low-end supply, and expand effective and middle-high end supply to meet the market demand through improvements in productivity realized by the efficient allocation of production factors. This allows China to shift from a factor input-driven model to an innovation-driven growth model and preventing the transfer of real sector problems to financial risks. To achieve these goals, all measures related to the improvement of supply productivity can be included in the contents of SSSR such as monetary and fiscal policy, real estate, population, education, R&D, financial system reform, administrative simplification and corporate cost reduction.

As such, there is a wide range of content related to SSSR, regarding which the Chinese government has placed priority on the urgent fields that have a big impact on the macroeconomic economy or are likely to transfer to financial risks. From 2016 to 2017, China implemented supply-side reform, focusing on its five main tasks, which are cutting overcapacity, destocking property inventory, corporate deleveraging, lowering corporate costs, and improving weak links. As the supply-side reforms have been successful in reducing overcapacity and destocking property over the past two years, the main tasks in 2018 are adjusted into three tasks, which are eliminating ineffective supply, creating new growth engines and lowering real-sector costs. Specific details of supply-side reform will be adjusted in accordance with the progress and economic situation in the future.

To simplify, the supply-side reform will proceed in two stages. In the short term, it is likely to focus on reducing inefficient supply such as eliminating zombie companies through cutting overcapacity and corporate deleveraging. These problems are also related with transfer into financial risks. In the long term, the focus will be more on expanding efficient supply such as tax reduction for lowering corporate cost, deregulation and creation of new growth engines, which are in line with supply-side economics like Reaganomics.

So far, the Chinese government's diagnosis of the Chinese economy and prescriptions for short-term issues in the new normal era seem appropriate. And as the second five-year term of Pr. Xi Jinping has started, it is expected that SSSR will be carried out more intensively. However, the reforms of SSSR over the past two years have been used by the Chinese government in the past to solve overcapacity of SOEs, real estate problems, and SOE reform. The key to success or failure of SSSR is whether the global competitiveness of SOEs is enhanced, whether the efficiency of production factors is enhanced and whether new growth engines are created. Furthermore, the mass unemployment problem in the process of eliminating zombie companies, and the ability to attract the cooperation of SOEs and local governments, seems to be a real challenge for SSSR. If supply-side reforms proceed appropriately, China's economy in the new normal era will take another leap forward, which will provide an opportunity to shift from a catch-up strategy to an innovative leading country.

内容整理 叶祎然

图文编辑 叶祎然

审校  田雯

监制  朱霜霜

点击查看近期热文

欢迎加入群聊

为了增进与粉丝们的互动，IMI财经观察建立了微信交流群，欢迎大家参与。

入群方法：加群主为微信好友（微信号：imi605）,添加时备注个人姓名（实名认证）、单位、职务等信息，经群主审核后，即可被拉进群。

欢迎读者朋友多多留言与我们交流互动，留言可换奖品：每月累积留言点赞数最多的读者将得到我们寄送的最新研究成果一份。

关于我们

中国人民大学国际货币研究所（IMI）成立于2009年12月20日，是专注于货币金融理论、政策与战略研究的非营利性学术研究机构和新型专业智库。研究所聘请了来自国内外科研院所、政府部门或金融机构的90余位著名专家学者担任顾问委员、学术委员和国际委员，80余位中青年专家担任研究员。

研究所长期聚焦国际金融、宏观经济理论与政策、金融科技、财富管理、金融监管、地方金融等领域，定期举办高层次系列论坛或讲座，形成了《人民币国际化报告》《金融机构国际化报告》《中国财富管理报告》《金融科技二十讲》等一大批具有重要学术和政策影响力的产品。

2016年，研究所入围《中国智库大数据报告》影响力榜单列高校智库第4位，并在“中国经济类研究机构市场价值排行榜（2016）”中名列第32位。

国际货币网：www.imi.org.cn

微信号：IMI财经观察

（点击识别下方二维码关注我们）

理事单位申请、

学术研究和会议合作

联系方式:  

010-62516755 

[e-mail]

只分享最有价值的财经视点

We only share the most valuable financial insights.