适应性效率与中国金融的发展:合同及其实施的作用

Adaptive Efficiency and Financial Development in China:The Role of Contracts and Contractual Enforcement

已有的文献对于中国经济发展的研究更多地侧重于经济改革、分权以及对于财产权利的界定和保护。从总体上分析经济活动主体的适应性效率,特别是关注它们对于正规和非正规合同安排的反复试验,尚未引起学术界足够的重视。本文描述和分析了产生于温州的一系列非正规合同和三个在中国越来越被广泛运用的正规合同安排,认为正规和非正规合同机制在中国经济发展中都扮演了举足轻重的角色。就正规合同与非正规合同彼此的关系而言,普遍的模式是一个从非正规走向正规的过程。在经济发展初期,经济活动主体依靠非正规的、自我执行的合同保证交易的进行;随着正规合同供给的增加,会逐渐转向应用这些正规的合同机制。

The existing literature on China's economic development focuses more on economic reform,decentralization,and the clarification and protection of property rights.There is inadequate attention being paid to the adaptive efficiency of economic actors in general and in experimenting with informal and formal contractual arrangements in particular.In this article,I documents and analyze the informal contracts developed in Wenzhou and three formal contractual arrangements increasingly in wide use in China.I argue that both informal and formal contractual mechanisms play important roles in China's economic development.The general pattern appears to be that economic actors rely on self-enforcing informal contractual arrangements during the early state of economic development and adopt more formal arrangements when these are feasible.