资本充裕度与国际投资体制的演变

Capital Abundance and the Evolution of International Investment Regime

一国的资本充裕度对该国在国际投资体制中的立场起到决定性作用。当前中国对外投资和吸引外资的规模较大,但国际投资体制建设相对滞后。为完善国际投资体制建设,需要估计中国的资本充裕度、理解资本充裕度影响对外政策的逻辑。根据不同国家在国际投资体制中的定位,可以将其大致划分为四种类型:资本匮乏国、资本增加国、资本充裕国和资本减损国。通常来说,资本匮乏国常处于非自愿开放的状态,资本增加国倾向于扩大本国的开放,资本充裕国的主要诉求是对等开放,资本减损国则再次降低本国开放度。作者通过国别案例验证了这一观点:拉美国家资本匮乏,同时难以维护本国利益,开放的自愿程度不高;19世纪中后期的美国和20世纪后期的中国则处于资本增加阶段,尽可能地开放本国市场;20世纪的美国是资本充裕国推动对等开放的最典型例子;19世纪中后期的英国出现资本减损,呈现保护主义倾向。这一新的分类方法能够更好地解释当前中国在国际投资体制中的定位,推导出中国优先的政策选项。

A country’s capital abundance is decisive in its position in the international investment regime( IIR). At the time being,the amount of China’s outward and inward direct investment is large, but there are spaces for China to build its own IIR. The problem is how capital abundance can be brought in to understand the evolution of IIR.Our method is to divide countries into four types: capital scarce countries,capital accumulating countries,capital abundant countries and capital degrading countries. Generally speaking,capital scarce countries usually open up involuntarily. Countries which accumulate capital tend to open up ardently. The core demand of capital abundant countries is reciprocal openness. Capital degrading countries will retreat and reduce their openness. Empirical results support this point of view. Latin American countries are good example of capital scare countries. America in the mid-to-late 19th century and China in the late 20th century tried to liberalize their domestic markets as much as possible. The United States advocated reciprocal openness in the 20th century. In the middle and late19th century,Britain saw capital degrade and protectionism prevailed both in domestic and foreign policies. The implication of the study is that the new classification criterion can help position China in the current IIR,and thus deduce the policy priorities.