中国经济增长(1978—2015):灵感还是汗水?

China’s Economic Growth(1978—2015): Inspiration or Perspiration?

本文采用中国31个省区市1978—2015年面板数据,基于空间计量模型和增长核算法,测算了市场潜能、资本、劳动力和全要素生产率对经济增长的贡献率。结果表明:1978—2015年间,资本对经济增长的贡献率最高(34.86%),市场潜能次之(34.55%),再次是TFP(22.03%),最低是劳动力(8.56%)。根据“克鲁格曼质疑”的界定,对中国“增长奇迹”贡献率最大的是“灵感”因素,贡献率为61.93%,“汗水”因素的贡献率为38.07%。改革开放之初的1978—1989年,中国经济增长确实主要依赖于“汗水”,其贡献率达62.03%。但“汗水”的贡献率随着时间推移不断下降,1990—2000年为52.41%,2001—2015年快速下降到21.93%,而“灵感”的贡献率开始占主导地位,达78.07%。就区域差异看,经济发达地区的经济增长更依赖于“灵感”,欠发达地区更依赖于“汗水”。本文的核心结论是:1978年以来中国创造“增长奇迹”是高投入增长和高效率增长共同作用的结果,依赖于“汗水”与“灵感”的双轮驱动,且越来越依赖于“灵感”。该结论并不支持“克鲁格曼质疑”,且认为由于技术进步、人力资本提升、制度改革和市场化推进导致的资源和商品在区域间的优化配置等“灵感”因素的增强,中国经济增长是可持续的。

As early as 1994, Paul Krugman questioned the economic boom of China and other East Asian countries. He argued that the economic growth of East Asian countries mainly depends on large-scale capital accumulation and intensive labor input (“perspiration”) rather than on technological progress and improved efficiency (“inspiration”). In the long run, the economic growth of East Asian economies will have difficulty sustaining itself and eventually collapse. How this might be averted is known as the Krugman Question. There are two main ways for scholars to answer the Krugman Question. One is to measure total factor productivity (TFP).The other is to measure the contribution rate of various factors to China's economic growth. The literature based on traditional economic growth theory regards the research object as homogeneous and independent under the assumptions of complete competition and constant returns of scale, ignoring the influence of spatial factors on economic growth. In contrast, this paper considers the conditions of unbalanced development in a regional economy;thus, it considers the spatial correlation among regions for an empirical analysis of the driving force of China's economic growth. The results show that in the period 1978-2015, the contribution rate of capital to economic growth was the highest (34.86%), market potential was second (34.55%), followed by TFP (22.03%), and the lowest was labor (8.56%). According to the Krugman Question, the largest contribution to China's growth miracle was “inspiration,” at 61.93%, while the contribution of “perspiration” was 38.07%. At the beginning of the reform and opening up (1978 to 1989), China's economic growth mainly depended on perspiration (with a share of 62.03%). However, the contribution of perspiration has declined over time: from 1990 to 2000,it dropped to 52.41%, and from 2001 to 2015,it dropped to 21.93%. Inspiration thus began to dominate, eventually reaching 78.07%. In terms of regional differences, the economic growth of developed areas depends more on inspiration, while less developed areas rely more on perspiration. The core conclusion of this paper is that the “growth miracle” of China is the result of high input growth and high efficiency growth. It has relied on both perspiration and inspiration, and increasingly on the latter. This conclusion does not support the Krugman Question, and indicates that China's economic growth is sustainable due to increasing “inspiration” factors such as technological progress, human capital upgrading, institutional reform, and market-oriented advancement. The main contributions and innovations of this study are as follows. First, by analyzing the source of China's economic growth since reform and opening up, we can answer the Krugman Question. Doing so not only helps us to further understand the basis of China's economic growth but also helps us understand whether China's economy can continue to grow rapidly, and whether its future is optimistic or pessimistic. Second, based on the new economic geography, we take full account of the impact of spatial correlation on economic growth, and introduce market potential into the spatial econometric model to account for the spillover effect of inter-regional economic growth. We can thus estimate the size of the spatial spillover effect in China's regional economic growth, and its contribution to China's overall economic growth. This approach is more suitable for analyzing the unbalanced growth of China's economy and regional development, and for giving a more comprehensive analysis of China's different regional economic growth characteristics. Third, the essence of spatial correlation is the optimal allocation and flow of resources and commodities in different regions, based on the invisible hand. Therefore, spatial correlation demonstrates the importance of institutional reform and marketization since the reform and opening up, as they promote the elimination of interregional barriers and the establishment of a unified market. Altogether, our findings provide important empirical evidence for understanding the role of market-oriented reform in China's economic growth.