发展战略与经济停滞

Development Strategy and Economic Stagnation

经济停滞是发展中经济体面临的巨大挑战,也是未来中国经济增长的主要威胁。主流经济增长理论难以解释很多发展中经济体出现的长期经济停滞现象,本文从政府发展战略视角研究了发展中经济体经济停滞的原因。政府主导的赶超战略不仅会因为产业结构不符合发展中经济体比较优势造成生产效率损失,还会扭曲制度结构进而导致经济停滞。在细致识别发展中经济体不同发展阶段(低收入、中低收入、中高收入)的基础上,本文以技术选择指数作为发展战略的度量指标,经验分析了政府发展战略与经济停滞的关系。我们发现,实施赶超战略的经济体,发生经济停滞的可能性更大,经济增长率也更低。这不仅为比较优势发展理论提供了经验支持,也为发展中经济体发展战略选择提供了学术基础。

＂Economic stagnation＂ is a huge challenge faced by developing countries and will become a major threat for China＇s economic growth in the future. Why are some developing economies more likely to be dragged into the economic stagnation than others？ We argue that the inappropriate development strategy is the key reason for economic stagnation in developing countries. A country that adopts a ＂catching-up strategy＂, which is the opposite of a ＂comparative advantage strategy＂, will require various government in- terventions and distortions in its economy, leading to a poor growth performance and the economic stagna- tion. In this paper, we reconstruct the technology choice index （TCI） as a proxy for the development strat- egy implemented in a country. Based on such measurement, we then conduct a robust empirical test, and show that there is a positive relationship between TCI and stagnation. Therefore, it is vital for government to choose the right development strategy in the path of economic development.