魏尚进：如何在短期、中期和长期促进中国经济增长?

黄土地上望星空

窑洞文化撞击企业家精神

　　中国人均收入的增长和生活质量的提高，本质上比GDP增长更重要，而且对劳动力的绝对规模或自然资源的丰富程度要求更低。

魏尚进

复旦大学泛海国际金融学院访问教授

哥伦比亚大学终身讲席教授

亚洲开发银行前首席经济学家

　　随着中国放松了对新冠防控的限制，人们越来越希望中国的经济增长能恢复到潜在增长率（2023年约为5.2%）。但增长复苏不是自动发生的，也非仅依靠简单的信贷扩张就可以实现。中国目前面临多重挑战，包括短期内企业和家庭信心的受损，中期内生产力增长的不足，长期内人口转型的不利。

　　要在短期内提振增长，信心的恢复或许比信贷的扩张更重要。经过前一段时间的反复封控，许多家庭不愿消费。许多传统服务业的小老板和劳务工发现他们的工作和收入不堪一击。许多公司也不愿投资，这不仅是因为新冠防疫期间其经营收入受损，还因为在教育、数字和其他领域的监管收紧。中欧国际工商学院最近对在华经营的中外企业进行的一项调查显示，中国的商业信心已跌至谷底。对于增长复苏来说，令人担忧的是信心的下降有自我实现的风险——如果有足够多的企业和家庭持悲观看法，不愿花钱，那么他们对供应商生产的产品和服务的需求就会降低，这反过来又会减少对更上游供应商的需求。一轮悲观周期在事后看来可能是合理的，即使它并非是事先注定的。

　　经济决策者在短期内的一项重要的任务是通过提振足够多的企业和家庭的信心来打破这种悲观的循环。政策制定者工具箱内可用的工具是有制约的。虽然信贷扩张能提高经济中的总需求，但它可能会有提高通货膨胀率的不良影响。与此同时，反复的新冠检测和隔离产生巨额支出，使得政府的财政能力也有限制。

　　我建议决策者考虑采用临时性降低销售税和企业所得税。临时性减税（比如6—9个月）对政府债务问题的影响较小，但对家庭消费的刺激作用比永久削减相同比例税的影响更强。同样，暂时削减企业所得税比相同的永久性减税更能激发企业投资。

　　除了企业所得税与零售消费税实行全面临时降税之外，我建议在高端制造业与现代服务业领域实行新的“两免三减”政策。

　　在改革开放初期中国有一项著名的吸引外资的政策叫“两免三减”，也就是外资企业在中国投资产生赢利的前两年，企业所得税获得豁免；而之后赢利的三年，企业所得税获得减半。这个政策创新实际上给予了外资企业“超国民待遇”，也就是给外资企业的税收待遇要比给内资企业更优惠。由于在二十世纪八十年代国际投资者对中国投资环境感到较大的不确定性因而影响其投资欲望，“两免三减”政策对提振当时外资企业的信心功不可没。到了九十年代后期与新的世纪，中国已经成为世界上最大的吸引外资的东道国之一，“两免三减”于2008年正式退出历史舞台。

　　在2023年我们又来到需要大幅提振企业信心的时刻，我建议决策者考虑启动新的“两免三减”政策，但做两个重要修改。第一，新“两免三减”适用于高精尖制造业与现代服务业里所有企业的新增利润。比如，一个符合条件的企业的2021年利润是100元，如果它2023与2024年的利润分别达到130与140元的话，企业所得税仍然按照100元收取。第二，新“两免三减”不会区别对待不同所有制的企业。换言之，国有企业、非国企和外资企业享有同样的税收优惠。新“两免三减”政策可以大大鼓励企业投资与创收的积极性，避免企业过早地把生产与供应链转移到国外，并且让各类企业无论所有制都可以在国内的大市场上公平竞争。

　　为了在中期内提高生产率增长，鼓励企业层面的创新只是一个小部分。更重要的是提高跨企业、跨部门之间的资源配置效率。一个可做之处是改革户籍制度，让更多人才享受集聚效应。另一可行的措施是在国有企业和非国有企业获得银行信贷和政府牌照方面营造公平竞争的环境。

　　根据中国过去的成功经验，降低准入和创业壁垒是改善中期增长的另一个途径。一个经济体的增长可以分解为集约型增长（现有企业平均规模的增加）和外延型增长（企业数量的增加）的总和。张晓波和我对中国制造业增长的研究表明，在中国的增长奇迹时代，外延型增长约占整体增长的70%。换言之，中国在其经济改革全盛时期的经验教训在今天还是很有价值，改革的一个具体内容就是减少和消除准入和创业的障碍。

　　近十年来，中国的劳动年龄群体一直在下降（与其世界市场竞争对手越南和印度的劳动力增长形成鲜明对比）。在保持生产率增长不变的情况下，人口力量削弱本身就会转化为中国GDP增长不断下降。这或许是中国经济增长长期面临的最严峻的挑战。许多提高劳动力数量的政策选项看起来都不怎么有效（比如，试图大幅提高出生率、推迟退休年龄或提高女性劳动力参与率）。有些原则上可以在纯经济基础上起作用（例如，大量引进外国劳动力），但可能涉及经济学之外的复杂情况。

　　相比之下，着力提高劳动力素质更加靠谱。中国劳动力的平均教育水平有进一步提高的空间，包括提高中国农村高中或职业学校的入学率和完成率。利用无处不在的智能手机和平板电脑，和此前专注于学龄阶段的在线教育企业家，也有望提高劳动力技能水平。但目前中国可能需要一个更宽松的政策环境来鼓励这一领域的创业。

　　最后，与其年复一年紧盯着GDP的高增长，中国应该更重视人均收入的增长和生活质量的提高。它们本质上比GDP增长更重要，而且对劳动力的绝对规模或自然资源的丰富程度要求更低。

Shang-Jin Wei

How to Boost the Chinese Growth in the Short, Medium, and Long Run?

Editor-in-chief of Fudan Financial Review

Professor of Finance and Economics of Columbia University

Former Chief Economist of Asian Development Bank

As China has eased Covid restrictions, hope has been raised that its growth will go back to its potential rate (about 5.2% in 2023). But growth recovery is not automatic and requires more than simple credit expansion. The country is currently facing multiple challenges, including damaged confidence by firms and households in the short run, insufficient productivity growth in the medium run, and an unfavorable demographic transition in the long run.

To boost the growth in the short run, confidence restoration is perhaps more important than credit expansion. After a sustained period of repeated lockdowns, many households are reluctant to consume. Many small entrepreneurs and workers in the traditional service sectors saw vulnerability of their jobs and incomes. Many firms are also reluctant to invest due to not only revenue disruption during the Covid control period but also tightening regulatory controls in education, digital, and other areas. A recent survey of both Chinese firms and foreign firms operating in China conducted by the Shanghai-based China Europe International Business School indicated that the business confidence is at a nadir. Worrisome for growth recovery is that a decline in confidence is self-fulfilling: if enough business and households hold a pessimistic view and are reluctant to spend money, there would be a lower demand for products and services produced by their suppliers, which in turn would reduce demand for their upstream suppliers. A cycle of pessimism may look well-justified ex post even if it is not pre-ordained.

An important short-term policy imperative is to break this cycle of pessimism by raising the confidence of enough firms and households. The policy maker’s toolbox is somewhat constrained. While credit expansion would raise the aggregate demand in the economy, it can have the undesirable effect of raising the inflation rate. Meanwhile, the fiscal capacity is also somewhat strained by massive expenditures on repeated Covid testing and quarantines.

One policy that the authorities may consider is a time-limited reduction in sales tax and corporate income tax. A temporary cut has a smaller effect on the government debt problem but a stronger stimulative effect on household consumption than a permanent cut by the same percentage. Similarly, a temporary cut in corporate income tax can inspire more corporate investment than an equivalent permanent cut.

In addition to the temporary tax cut applied to all firms and retail sales, I suggest that the authorities introduce a special tax relief for new investment and incremental profit in advanced manufacturing sectors and modern service sectors.

In the early days of China’s “reform-and-opening-up” period, it has a well-publicized policy, known as “two years of exemption and three years of half rate” that gives a “supernational treatment” to foreign firms operating in China. For foreign firms investing in China, the corporate income tax on their first two years of profit is zero, and that on their next three years of profit is half of what domestic Chinese firms would pay. As foreign investors did not have sufficient confidence to invest in China, this policy has played an important role in enticing foreign firms to invest in China. An evidence of a resounding success of the policy is that China has changed from having virtually zero FDI in the early 1980s to becoming one of the biggest destination of FDI by late 1990s. As a testimony of its success, the policy was phased out in 2008.

As we face the challenge of boosting business confidence in 2023, I recommend rolling a new version of the policy, with two important revisions. First, the new policy is applied only to incremental firm profit beyond what it has in 2022 for all firms in advanced manufacturing sectors and modern service sectors. Suppose a firm’s profit in 2022 is 100 RMBs, and its profits in 2023 and 2024 are 130 and 140, respectively, the corporate income tax will be applied only to the first 100 RMBs. Second, the new policy is applicable to firms of all ownership types. This policy should greatly enhance the firms’ incentive to increase their investment and profit over the next few years, reduce the incentive for some of the firms to move their operation or supply chains abroad, and ensure fair competition among the firms of all ownership types.

To raise the productivity growth over the medium run, having more patents and innovation at the firm level is only a part of the story. More important is to improve the efficiency of resource allocation across firms and sectors. Reforming the Hukou system so that more talents can take advantage of an agglomeration effect is one such reform. Leveling the playing field between state-owned and non-state-owned firms in obtaining bank credit and government licenses is another area.

Reducing barriers to entry and entrepreneurship is another channel for improving medium term growth, according to China’s own experience in the past. An economy’s growth can be decomposed into the sum of intensive-margin growth – an increase in the average size of the existing firms – and the extensive-margin growth – an increase in the number of firms. Research on manufacturing sector growth in China by Xiaobo Zhang and I suggest that during China’s era of growth miracle, the extensive-margin growth accounts for about 70% of the overall growth. Therefore, the country needs to remember the lessons from its own heyday of the economic reforms by aggressively focusing on reducing and removing barriers to entry and entrepreneurship.

The Chinese working age cohort has been declining for close to a decade (in contrast to the labor force growth in its world market competitors Vietnam and India). Holding productivity growth constant, this demographic force by itself translates into an ever-declining GDP growth in China. This is perhaps the most serious challenge for the Chinese growth in the long run. Many of the policy options to boost the quantity of labor force do not look very promising (such as an attempt to substantially raise the birth rate, to postpone the retirement age, or to raise the female labor force participation rate). Some could work (e.g., importing foreign labor en masse) on pure economic ground but may involve complications outside economics.

Focusing on raising the quality of the labor force is more promising. The average education level of the work force can be raised further, including by enhancing the attendance and completion rates of high-school or vocational schools in rural China. There also be scope for raising the skill level of the working force by tapping into the ubiquitously available smart phones and tablets, and a surplus of online education entrepreneurs that previously focused on extracting money from families with school-age children. But this may require a more permissive policy environment that encourages entrepreneurship in this area.

Finally, rather than being obsessed with a high GDP growth, China may switch to put more weights on the growth of per capita income and the rise in the quality of life. They are intrinsically more important than GDP growth anyway, and less demanding on the absolute size of the labor force or the abundance of natural resources.

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