中国能跨越中等收入陷阱吗？--基于工业化路径的跨国比较

Escaping Income Traps:A Cross-Country Analysis on the Patterns of Industrial Upgrading

改革开放以来,快速的工业化使中国在35年内由一个低收入的农业国,发展为中等偏上收入的工业国和全球第一的制造业大国。本文基于工业化路径的跨国比较,解密改革开放后中国经济快速增长的奇迹,并试图回答中国能否以及如何跨越中等收入陷阱这个重要问题。我们发现:中国改革开放后的工业化依次经历了作坊式乡镇企业异军突起(1978-1988年)、规模化轻工业繁荣发展(1988-1998年)和规模化重化工业重新崛起(1998年起)三个阶段;虽然目前还没有完成第三个阶段,但却与日本和"亚洲四小龙"等成功跨越中等收入陷阱的国家(或地区)遵循着相同的"胚胎发育"式的市场和产业升级路径。相反,陷入中、低收入陷阱的国家则违背了以上工业化的发展顺序。其中,被困在中等收入陷阱中的东欧、拉美国家未能充分发展劳动密集型的轻工业,过早进入资本密集型的重化工业化阶段和金融业现代化;而被困在贫困陷阱中的非洲国家则严重缺乏启动规模化劳动密集型产业革命所必须的原始(乡村)工业化过程,盲目上马违背自身比较优势的现代企业和公共基础设施。因此,本文认为一个由国家主导的自下而上的、从农村到城市的、由轻工业到重工业的、立足于制造品(包括原始手工品)出口而不是农产品和原材料出口的工业化发展路径和产业升级政策,是成功跨越各种收入陷阱的关键。

With rapid industrial upgrading along the global value chain of manufactured goods, China has transformed ,within one generation, from an impoverished agrarian society to a middle- income nation and the largest manufacturing powerhouse in the world. This article identifies the pattern of China＇ s industrial upgrading and compares it with those of other successfully industrialized economies as well as the failed ones.We find that （i） China （since 1978） followed essentially the same path of industrial upgrading as Japan and the ＂Asian Tigers＂, who succeeded in catching up with the developed world by going through three developmental stages sequentially; namely, a proto- industrialization in the rural areas, a first industrial revolution featuring mass production of labor- intensive light consumer goods, and then a second industrial revolution featuring mass production of the means of mass production （i.e. ,capital-intensive heavy industrial goods such as chemicals, steel, machine tools, communication and transport infrastructures and related consumer durables）. （ii） In contrast, economies stuck in the low-income trap or middle- income trap did not follow these sequential stages of industrialization. For example, many Eastern European and Latin American countries jumped to the stage of heavy industrialization without fully developing their tabor-intensive light industries, thus stagnated in the middle-income trap.Also, there is a clear lack of proto-industrialization in the rural areas for many African economies that have remained in the low-income trap. We believe that laissez-faire and free market alone is unable to trigger industrial upgrading.Instead,a government-led and market-size guided sequential development and bottom-up industrial upgrading is the key to avoiding the low- and middle- income traps.