中国最终消费率过低之谜

The Puzzle of Excessively Low Final Consumption Rate in China

本文通过对最终消费率的分解,发现导致最终消费率持续走低的表面原因在于居民消费项目的变化。但是,通过对城镇居民和农村居民消费特点的分析后发现,导致居民消费过低的根本原因,一是居民真实收入不高,居民的储蓄性动机仍然很强,政府对居民的"补贴不足";二是政府对消费性投资产品的供给严重不足。对于这两方面的原因,政府都可以采取有效的行动来改善目前的消费状况。实证分析表明,居民真实收入的增加依然是影响居民消费最重要的因素;政府在教育、医疗、社保等民生性支出的增加可以有效促进居民消费,而对消费性产品的投资也可以进一步促进居民消费的扩大。

By the decomposition of the final consumption rate, this paper shows that the apparent reason for the constantly low final consumption rate is the changes in items of household consumption. But through the analysis of the consumption characteristics of urban and rural households, it states that the basic reasons for the excessively low household con- sumption are as follows： firstly, the real income of residents is not high, and the motives for savings are still strong, but residents are lacking in government subsidies; secondly, there is a serious shortage of supply of government investment in consumer products. For these two reasons, the governments can take effective action to improve current consumption level. The empirical analysis shows that the increase in the real income of the residents is still the most important factor affecting household consumption; government expenditure in educa- tion, health care, social security, etc, could effectively promote household consumption while government investment in consumer products can also further increase household con- sumption.