制度变迁与中国农业生产率的提高

Institution Change and Increasing of the China Agricultural Productivity

以诺斯为代表的制度经济学家认为,一个国家的制度是决定其经济增长的关键性因素.一个国家的长期经济增长取决于生产能力的不断增长,农业发展也是如此.农业增长可以分解为两部分,一是生产要素投入水平的提高,二是生产要素生产率的提高.长期来看,不论是整体经济的增长,还是工业或农业某个单独部门的增长,都不可能仅仅依赖要素投入的不断增加,而要以生产率的提高为增长的核心驱动力量.那么究竟是哪些因素推动了生产率的增长呢?正如Acemoglu在一系列文章中指出的,技术进步固然是推动经济增长的关键因素,但这只是经济增长的间接原因(approximate causes),而制度才是经济增长的根本原因(fundamental causes).自新中国成立以来,农业经济领域取得了显著的成就,也经历过生产率和产量增长的倒退,相比其他发达经济体,中国农业经济仍有巨大的潜力等待挖掘,这一切变化都伴随着制度的巨大变化.中国农业发展中出现的教训、取得的成就以及面临的挑战,为我们理解制度变迁与生产率变化之间的关系提供了—个鲜活的案例,对这个案例的深入分析不仅可以为提高农业生产率注入一定的“无形资本”,同时也可以丰富新制度经济学的内容.

Institutional economists,represented by North,argue that a country's institutions are key in determining its economic growth.The long-term economic growth of a country depends on the growth of production capacity.Agriculture is no exception.The growth of agricultural output consists of two parts,partly from the growth of agricultural production factors and the other from the improvement of its agricultural production factor productivity.In the long run,both the growth of the economy as a whole and the growth of a separate sector of industry or agriculture can not rely solely on the increase in factor inputs,but at the core of growth for productivity gains.So what are the factors that drive productivity growth? As Acemoglu points out in a series of essays,technological progress is certainly a key factor in driving economic growth,but this is only the approximate causes of economic growth,while institutions are the fundamental causes of economic growth.Since the founding of new China,the agricultural economy has made remarkable achievements,but also experienced the decline in productivity and production growth,compared to other developed economies,China's agricultural economy still has a great potential yet to be tapped,all this change is accompanied by great changes of the institutions.Lessons achievements and challenges in the process of Chinese agricultural development can be vivid cases for us to understand the relationship between changes of institutions and productivity,and the in-depth analysis of these cases can not only inject certain “Intangible capital” for improving the agricultural productivity,and can enrich the content of the new institutional economics at the same time.