内生于市场定价体系的经济周期——收入分配、价格分层与超前消费

Economic Cycle Born in the Market Pricing System: Income Distribution,Price Stratification and Advanced Consumption

传统的经济周期理论将外在冲击和内生机制对立起来,要么忽视了市场的内生缺陷,要么缺乏对经济周期内生于市场这一过程的剖析。文章基于锦标赛制的市场定价体系这一维度来挖掘经济周期的内生机制,进一步揭示内生于市场的经济周期的传导机制和触发因素,更全面地考察信贷扩张在经济周期中所扮演的角色,进而分析内生于市场的经济危机所呈现出来的主要特性。文章得到的主要结论有:(1)经济周期根源于锦标赛制的市场定价体系,其基本逻辑是,市场马太效应导致收入差距扩大,而由收入决定的购买力则造成产品等级化和价格分层,进而导致消费层次与经济发展水平间出现脱节,乃至产业结构也会偏离实际的经济发展水平;(2)信贷(信用)扩张是经济周期重要的助长条件和加速机制;(3)外在因素冲击只是经济周期的触发条件,经由收入结构所决定的锦标赛制市场定价体系才能最终促成经济周期的发生和传导;(4)经济周期的典型特征或影响是大企业陷入困境或倒闭。上述结论说明,避免经济危机的根本举措不是放任市场自由运行,而是要对市场机制进行修正和完善,集中体现为对锦标赛制定价体系加以监管和制约以避免社会收入的两极化。

The neo-classic liberalism economics tends to owe the economic cycle to the exogenous shock from money or physical objects,so as to overcome the economic crisis through the prevention of external shocks.In particular,the Austria School attributes the economic cycle to credit expansion led by the government based on the transmission mechanism of interest rate,so as to put forward the proposition that currency issuance should not be nationalized,which has become the most popular concept nowadays.Here,the Austrian School takes interest rate as the transmission mechanism,which leads to the change of the production structure,and then out of touch with consumption.However,this paper holds that the basic mechanism of guiding consumption and production is price but not interest rate,and then the changes of production and consumption with credit are analyzed from the perspective of the market pricing system,which clearly reveals that the economic cycle or the economic crisis is born in the market economy from the market pricing system.The basic analysis logic of this paper is that:(1)The Matthew effect of the market will inevitably lead to the widening of income gap,and the purchasing power determined by income causes the hierarchical price of different grade products.(2)Correspondingly,not only the rich people prefer the consumption of advanced products,but also the social mass has a universal preconsumption under the guidance of producer sovereignty,and all of which will stimulate manufacturers to produce and invest the advanced products.(3)As a result,there is to occur asymmetric between the consumption structure and the income structure in the market economy,and which causes the disconnection between the consumption level and economy development as well as the industrial structure being out of the actual level of economy development.(4)Furthermore,with the help of the credit system and credit expansion,there is more significant price stratification in the boom period than that in the depression period,and which makes the social production especially the production of highgrade products significantly surpass the actual level of economy development and the level of consumption demand.(5)However,the oversupplied advanced products is very vulnerable to the demand impact from economic fluctuations,and which will lead the sinking of capital investment,the idling of capacity as well as the bankruptcy of the related enterprises,so as to lead to the economic crisis.By systematically analyzing the origin,transmission,intensification and triggering factors of the economic crisis,this paper draws the following conclusions:What the cyclical expansion and constriction of credit is mainly due to is not the government’s improper policies but the merchant’s impulse of pursuing profits.Moreover,the expansion and constriction of credit only plays a role in fuelling and intensifying the economic crisis.In other words,the economic crisis is more rooted in the market economy system than in exogenous shocks.Just because the economic crisis cannot be avoided in the pure market economy,this paper gives such a policy implication:to alleviate and avoid the economic crisis,we should not let the market run freely at all,but amend and perfect the market mechanism,and the most important thing is the supervision and restriction of the tournament pricing system to avoid the trend of social income stratification,so as to establish and improve the self-discipline market mechanism.