全球经济危机后中国的信贷配置与稳就业成效

The Credit Allocation and Achievement of Stabilizing Employment after the Global Economic Crises in China

追求更充分更高质量就业是高质量发展的重要内涵。本文探究在全球经济危机发生后,中国如何快速实现稳就业,具体分析各类企业在稳就业方面所做贡献与付出的代价。通过分析多套企业数据与逐笔贷款数据发现:在"四万亿"计划实施期间新增信贷的支持下,国有、大型与受计划支持行业内的企业在短期内做大规模逆周期投资并大幅扩张雇员,然而由于后期绩效变差及偿债压力加剧,难以持续大幅增加就业。而民营、小型与未受支持行业内的企业在短期内未增加投资或就业,所获信贷显著提高了其在危机中存活的概率,且由于后期绩效改善而创造就业的幅度更大。因此,着眼于以较小代价取得中长期内较大的稳就业成效,在应对危机时可将更多资源投入到保中小市场主体中。

Employment has a vital bearing on people’s livelihood,which has always been a major issue of great concern to the government of China.Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,China rapidly achieved general stability in employment within a short period of time.Likewise,China also attained multiple goals of maintaining employment and growth stability in a short period after the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008,considerably faster than other major countries.So,how did China manage to achieve employment stability rapidly out of the crisis?Firms are the mainstay to stabilize employment and create jobs.Which firms contribute to achieving the goal of employment stability in the crisis?Further,no macroeconomic policies can fully hedge the impact of the global economic crisis,which means the cost is inevitable.In response to the crisis,the temporary sacrifice of the employment quality may be necessary,presenting a further problem of how we can reconcile the relationship between short-term employment stability and long-term pursuit of full and higher quality of employment?That is,how can greater fruits be achieved at a smaller cost?Given the unavailability of many microdata for 2020 at the time of writing,this paper focuses on the contributions and costs of various types of firms in stabilizing employment in the five years following the 2008 crisis.At the end of 2008,the central government of China launched the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package to cope with the crisis,and at the same time,implemented an easy monetary policy to inject large amounts of liquidity into the market.By analyzing hand-collected loan data of listed firms,this paper finds that the implementation of the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package gave more credits to state-owned,large firms and those in supported industries,in particular long-term loans.This paper also examines the data of industrial firms above the designated scale and finds that the larger the firms are,the more credits they received during the stimulus period.Further,in firms that received more credits,we find significantly larger short-term increases in fixed-asset investments and in the number of employees.However,due to higher employee costs and investment pressures,state-owned,large firms and those in supported industries performed poorly in the later years,leading to a higher likelihood to refinance under mounting pressure to repay debts,and making it difficult to maintain significant employment growth.In contrast,private,small firms and those in unsupported industries are more inclined to use the funds to maintain their day-to-day operations,instead of significantly expanding investment or employees in the short run.The credits they received significantly enhance their probability of surviving the crisis and create more jobs in the medium-to-long term due to improved performance at the later stage.This paper may make the following two aspects of contributions.First,in a more comprehensive and dialectical way,the findings of this paper help to provide insights into the contributions and related costs of counter-cyclical macroeconomic policies introduced in China after the global economic crises,and also enrich the research on the post-crisis microeconomic transmission mechanisms of macroeconomic policies.The existing literature on the 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package has focused on its repercussions,with particular emphasis on credit mismatch,whereas little literature has explored how China rapidly achieved important macroeconomic objectives such as employment stability.This paper argues that responses to the crisis are inevitably costly,and thus that a reasonable and objective question is how to obtain higher achievements at lower costs.Second,this paper also helps to explore further how to reconcile the relationship between short-term employment stability and long-term pursuit of full and higher quality of employment when responding to the crisis.It finds that state-owned and large firms invested heavily during the crisis and suffered high employment pressure,but their performance deteriorated in the later stages,thus undermining their ability to further stabilize employment.In contrast,more capital employed by private and small firms to maintain operations during the crisis enabled them to survive and create more jobs in the medium to long run.In practice,this paper suggests that in response to the crisis,more resources should be allocated to support firms,especially micro,small and medium-sized firms,to create jobs in the medium and long term.