户籍之门为何难开?--一个中国变革的观察视角

Why Is It Difficult to Change the Household Registration System:An Observation Perspective of China's Reform

户籍制度改革贯穿经济转型的始终,为什么直至今日仍未完成?现有研究多忽视了户籍制度变革的背景和决定因素。本研究试图实现两个目标:一是解释为什么户籍制度改革进展缓慢;二是以户籍制度改革为视角理解中国改革。本研究认为,改革前期户籍制度受计划经济体制制约,几乎没有实质性变化,而2000年以来地方政府在区域竞争中为降低本地经济发展的工资和福利成本,延续了户籍制度的人口迁移控制和社会隔离功能,进而延缓了户籍制度的改革步伐,使户籍改革未能取得根本性突破。从户籍变革反观改革,可以发现传统的管制思维仍未完全消失,对经济增长起关键作用的地方竞争在解决社会问题上存在激励失灵。本研究认为,中国社会变革离实现市场化转型还有较大距离,政府对经济社会的干预仍有很多。

The household registration system reform(HRSR)has been running through the process of economic restructuring from the very beginning.Why is it still on the way?The majority of existing researches fail to pay full attention to the context and determinant factors of the HRSR.This study aims to accomplish two objectives:1)to explain why the progress of HRSR has been slow and 2)to explain China's overall reform from the perspective of HRSR.Our study suggests that,in the early stage of the reform,HRSR was restricted by planned economic system and did not achieve any substantial transformation;yet in the later stage,household registration system has become the instrument of local governments to compete with each other for their regional development,therefore HRSR has not accomplished any fundamental breakthrough.To contemplate China's reform through the process of HRSR,we suggest that the traditional controlling mode of the classic socialism still persists while the regional competition,which has been vital for economic growth,malfunctions in solving other social problems.Thus,our overall observation is that there is still quite a distance for the reform of Chinese society from fully realizing market transformation,as the government still has its tight control over economy and society.