2012 年 11 月 14 日 星期三
The Wall Street Journal
2012年 11月 06日 07:25
∙ November 2, 2012, 12:27 PM HKT
Nick Lardy vs. Michael Pettis -- Debating China's Economic Future
For the last thirty years, China's economy averaged a growth rate of clo to 10% a year. Now, with China on the cusp of a crucial leadership transition - and of joining the club of advanced economies that has fallen away. The latest numbers shows growth in the third quarter at just 7.4%.
Is 7% 8% growth the new normal? Or is a further sharp slowdown in China's economy inevitable? China Real Time has asked two of the leading experts on the world's cond-largest economy to debate that question:
Nick Lardy, an expert on China's economy at the Peterson Institute, is arguing current growth rates can be sustained. Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University, is arguing a further sharp slowdown is inevitable. The opening exchange of views is posted below, with more to be posted next week.
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Dear Michael,
China's economic growth has now slowed for ven concutive quarters and the bears are arguing not only is real growth lower than the headline number but that a further sharp slowdown in China's economy is inevitable.
Certainly a quick recovery from the 7.7% pace of growth in the first three quarters of this
year to the double-digit growth rates of the recent past is not on the cards. Indeed it is more likely that we will e growth over the next two to three years in the 6.5% 8% range, with some possibility for slightly higher growth beyond that time horizon, if the new leaders can introduce the right reforms.
The main caus of the slowdown are the weak external ctor, with the shrinkage of net exports subtracting almost a half a percentage point of economic growth in the first three quarters this year, and softening investment, particularly for property. But with China's broad external surplus at a 10-year low in the first half of this year, abnt a complete European melt down (in which ca all bets are off), the drag on growth from the external ctor is not likely to worn significantly from here. The bigger worry is property investment, which is growing at barely half the pace of 2011 but still twice as fast as the underlying economy. If property investment moderates further for veral additional quarters, GDP growth could slide to under 7%.
On a more bullish note, consumption demand played a more positive role in generating economic growth last year as both private and government consumption as a share of GDP notched up their biggest increas in more than a decade. The growth of average disposable income of urban residents relative to GDP growth in the first three quarters is even more favorable this year than last, providing the foundation for relatively strong private consumption growth again this year, helping to cushion any further slowdown in property investment.
If the government strengthens its policies to rebalance the sources of economic growth by continuing to allow the value of the renminbi to be mostly market determined, further liberalizing deposit interest rates, and eliminating unwarranted subsidies for industrial energy consumption, the sources of China's economic growth could be gradually rebalanced away from investment in favor of private consumption expenditure, thus putting China's growth on a more sustainable path.
Adopting this policy package is a not an unlikely outcome of the upcoming leadership transition. It is one thing for the Hu Jintao Wen Jiabao leadership to go out of office on a weak economic note - after all they achieved the highest average 10 year economic growth in recorded Chine history.
It is quite another for the Xi Jinping-Li Keqiang leadership coming into office to contemplate a further deterioration of China's economic performance in their first years. The intellectual ca for an accelerated pace of economic reform has been well established in China. If Xi and Li can overcome the entrenched vested interests that have slowed reform to a crawl in recent years they will be laying the foundation for stronger economic growth over the medium term, say something in the 7.5% 8.5% range beginning in about three years.
Best regards,
Nick
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Dear Nick,
There are at least two reasons for predicting that China's economic growth will slow substantially in the next few years. The first has to do with historical precedents and the cond with the logic of China's rebalancing.
The historical precedents are clear. Many countries in the past one hundred years have gone through periods of extraordinary growth, powered by very high and rising levels of investment. In every ca the countries developed rious imbalances, either internally, if the investment was financed by consumption-constraining policies, or externally, if they were not.
In the early stages, it was always relatively easy to find economically viable investments, but as institutional constraints required the persistence of high levels of investment, and as it became increasingly difficult to ensure that investment was economically viable, in later stages investment was always misallocated and debt grew faster than debt rvicing capacity.
This combination of extreme imbalances and high levels of debt, driven by misallocated investment, resulted in a subquent period of rebalancing that turned out to be far more difficult than even the skeptics had predicted. China's development model has differed from its predecessors only in that the imbalances have exceeded any that we have en in prior history, and the amount of misallocated investment may have also exceeded all precedents.
For this reason it would be surprising, and an historical anomaly, if China's rebalancing w
ere not a very difficult one. Not only has China pushed the imbalances associated with the investment growth model to extremes that exceed any en before, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the obstruction to any meaningful adjustment by ctors that have benefitted most from domestic economic distortions will make the adjustment politically very difficult.
This historical argument is buttresd by the arithmetic of rebalancing. It is widely recognized that investment growth must be curtailed sharply, but it isn't at all clear what will replace it as China's growth engine. Given the deep problems in the global economy it is hard to imagine a sharp increa in exports. This leaves us only with consumption, but here the prospects have been very disappointing.
Beijing has managed to boost government consumption recently, but since government expenditures are financed mainly by hidden transfers from the houhold ctor - especially in the form of represd borrowing costs - any increa in government expendi
tures today will only mean downward pressure on houhold income, and with it houhold consumption, in the future. It is houhold consumption growth, in other words, that creates the only sustainable source of future growth.
The growth in Chine houhold consumption has been quite strong in the past decade. Houhold consumption has grown by roughly 7% annually, which is faster than in any other large economy in the world. But this rapid growth was attained only becau global conditions were optimal and Chine investment growth was so extraordinarily high that it was able to turbo-charge GDP growth at rates of 10% 11% for much of the past decade.
Global and Chine conditions are not nearly as good anymore. This means that it will be hard to maintain 7% houhold consumption growth even in the best-ca scenario. But rebalancing in China means by definition that houhold consumption growth has to outpace GDP growth by at least 3 or 4 percentage points every year for the next decade just to bring Chine consumptions levels to rates equivalent to the lowest consuming co
untries in the world.
This is just another way of saying that the growth contribution of investment has to drop so sharply that GDP growth cannot exceed 3% 4% if China is to rebalance. Any higher GDP growth cannot be consistent with even a minimal rebalancing of the Chine economy unless there is some way to force much greater growth in houhold much greater growth in houhold income in spite of much wor global and Chine economic conditions.
The arithmetic simply doesn't work. China must rebalance its economy becau its over-reliance on investment has become toxic. For China even to maintain GDP growth rates of even 7% to 8% implicitly requires that houhold consumption grow by 10% 12%, something never before achieved even under much better economic conditions. Without a deus ex machine that turbocharges consumption growth, high GDP growth rates are incompatible with rebalancing.
Best regards,
Michael
2012年 11月 06日 07:25
中国能否保持7%的经济增速？
过
去30年，中国经济的平均年增速接近10%。如今，随着中国即将进行领导人换届以及中国跻身发达经济体行列，这样高的增速一去不复返。最新数据显示中国第三季度经济增速只有7.4%。
7%或8%的增速是否成为新常态？抑或中国经济增长进一步大幅放缓是否不可避免？“中国实时报”栏目请两位研究世界第二大经济体的主要专家就这个问题展开辩论：
彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)中国经济专家尼克•拉迪(Nick Lardy)认为，目前的经济增速是能够持续的。北京大学金融学教授迈克尔•佩蒂斯(Michael Pettis)则认为，经济增速进一步大幅放缓是不可避免的。以下为两人辩论的第一部分，更多内容将在下周发表。
…
亲爱的迈克尔，
中国经济增长目前已连续七个季度放缓，看空中国经济的人认为，实际经济增速低于官方公布的数据，不仅如此，中国经济增长进一步大幅放缓是不可避免的。
当然，从今年前三个季度7.7%的增速迅速恢复到近年来两位数的增速显然是不可能的。实际上，未来两三年我们更有可能看到经济增速在6.5%至8%徘徊，如果新领导班子能够推
出正确的改革，两三年后增速可能会略有上升。
经济增长放缓的主要原因是疲弱的出口和不断走软的投资，特别是房地产投资。今年前三个季度，净出口的收缩使经济增速损失了近0.5个百分点。不过，随着今年上半年中国总体贸易顺差处于10年来的低点，欧洲暂无彻底崩溃之虞（欧洲若崩溃，说什么都白搭），出口对经济增长的拖累不太可能进一步加重很多。相比之下，更值得担忧的是房地产投资，目前房地产投资增速只勉强为2011年时的一半，但仍比整体经济增速快了一倍。如果未来几个季度房地产投资进一步放缓，国内生产总值(GDP)增速可能下滑到7%以下。
Getty Images
家庭消费的稳步增长是中国经济的一个乐观迹象。
从更为乐观的一个方面看，去年消费需求在创造经济增长方面发挥了更积极的作用，私人和政府消费在GDP中所占比重均创下10多年来的最大升幅。今年前三个季度城镇居民的平均可支配收入增幅与GDP增速之比较去年更为有利，为今年私人消费再次实现相对强劲的增长打下了基础，帮助为房地产投资的进步一步放缓提供了缓冲。
如果政府加强相关政策，让经济增长来源恢复平衡，继续推进人民币汇率的市场化进程，进一步放开存款利率，消除对工业能源消费的无端补贴，那么中国经济增长的来源可能逐渐恢复平衡，从投资转向私人消费支出，这样就能使中国经济增长走上一条更可持续的道路。
即将进行的领导人换届完成后，政府采取这样一套政策并非没有可能。胡锦涛和温家宝这一代领导人虽然是在经济低迷之际卸任，但毕竟他们实现了中国历史上有纪录以来10年最高平均经济增速。
但对习近平和李克强这一代领导人来说，上任之后的任期最初几年如果中国经济表现进一步恶化那可不是什么好事情。中国经济改革加速的思想基础已经打下。如果习近平和李克强能够克服令近年来改革止步不前的、根深蒂固的既得利益的阻碍，他们将为中期经济更强劲的增长打下基础，比如三年后中国经济将开始以7.5%至8.5%的速度增长。
祝好，
尼克
…
亲爱的尼克，
未来几年中国经济增长将大幅放缓，理由至少有二。第一个理由与历史先例有关，第二个则与中国恢复经济平衡的思维方法有关。
历史先例显而易见。过去100年来，很多国家都经历过极高且不断上升的投资水平推动下的高速增长期。每一次，这些国家都出现了严重失衡问题，不是内部失衡就是外部失衡。如果投资是由抑制消费的政策推动的，会出现内部失衡；反之，则会出现外部失衡。
在最初阶段，总是可以相对容易地找到经济上可行的投资，但随着制度性的制约要求保持持续的高投资水平，随着越来越难以确保投资在经济上可行，在较晚的阶段，投资总是会错误配置，债务比偿债能力增长的要快。
Bloomberg News
日益增长的消费能否取代投资，成为中国经济增长的新引擎？
极度失衡加上投资配置错误导致的高债务水平，催生了随后的再调整时期，这个时期甚至比怀疑论者预测的还要困难得多。中国的发展模式与此前其他国家的不同之处只在于，中国的失衡水平已经超过了此前历史上的所有的情形，配置错误的投资数量可能也是前所未有的。
正是由于这个原因，如果中国经济的再平衡不是进行得非常艰难，那将相当令人惊讶，而且也会成为一个历史上的反常现象。不仅是中国将与投资增长模式相关联的该国经济失衡推到了超出以往任何先例的极致程度，而且越来越明显的一点是，那些从中国经济的扭曲中获益最大的群体给对中国经济进行重大调整所设置的障碍，将使得这些调整因政治因素的作用非常难以进行。
除历史方面的原因外，缺乏必要的手段也加重了中国经济实现再平衡的难度。人们普遍认为，中国必须大幅压低投资增长的速度，但哪一领域能取代投资成为中国经济增长的引擎却一点也不清晰。鉴于世界经济目前所面临的严重问题，人们难以想象中国出口会大幅增
长。这样能够促使中国经济再平衡的只剩下消费了，但中国在这方面的情况一直非常令人失望。
北京近来一直在努力增加政府消费，但由于政府开支的资金主要来自家庭部门财富的隐性转移，特别是来自因压低借贷成本而使储户家庭损失的那部分利息收入，目前政府开支的任何增加都只能意味着对家庭收入的下行压力，以及家庭未来消费的减少。而只有家庭消费的增长才是未来的经济增长可持续的源头活水。
过去10年，中国家庭部门消费的增长一直十分强劲，年均增长率达到7%左右，高于世界任何其他大型经济体的家庭消费增长水平。但这种迅速增长只是因为全球经济状况非常良好以及中国的投资增长非常高才实现的。投资的高增长推动中国的GDP增幅在过去10年的大多数年份达到10%至11%。
而目前全球经济状况和中国经济状况已经远没有那么好了。这意味着即使是在最好的情况下，中国的家庭消费增长率也难以维持在7%的水平。但从理论上说，要实现中国经济的再
平衡，只有未来10年内中国每年的家庭消费增长率都比GDP增长率高出至少三或四个百分点，中国的消费对经济增长的贡献率才能达到世界上这一比率最低国家的普遍水平。
换句话说，如果中国经济要实现再平衡，投资对经济增长的贡献率就必须大幅下降，而这样将导致中国GDP的增幅无法超过3%至4%。除非中国有办法在全球和中国经济状况明显恶化的情况下大大提高家庭消费的增长速度(也即大大提高家庭收入的增长速度)，否则任何较高速度的GDP增长都是无法与哪怕是对中国经济最低限度的再平衡相并存的。
但通过提高家庭消费增长率来维持较高GDP增速的做法根本行不通。由于中国对投资的过分依赖已经对中国经济产生了明显的不良影响，中国必须对经济进行再平衡。对中国来说，即使是将GDP增速保持在7%至8%的水平，显然家庭消费增长率也要达到10%至12%的水平，这种增长率即使是在经济状况远远好于现在的年份中国也未实现过。除非能有神明从天而降大大提升中国的消费增速，否则在对经济进行再平衡的情况下中国是不可能实现GDP的高增长的。
祝好，
迈克尔
