中国的消费率被低估了多少?

By How Much Is China's Consumption Underestimated?

消费占GDP的比重过低以及所谓的需求结构失衡一直以来被很多人认为是中国经济增长能否持续的一个严重约束。本文指出这个广为流行的判断是基于错误的理论和被官方统计严重低估的消费数据。文章分析研究了造成中国官方统计低估居民消费支出的三个原因,并重新估算了中国的消费率。文章釆用使用者成本法修正了国家统计局对住房消费的估计值,对在中国广为流行的由公司账户付费的私人消费进行了初步估算,并结合资金流量表中的住户部门可支配收入重新推算出居民的消费支出,再据此推出消费占GDP的比重的新的估计值。结果表明,官方数据大大低估了中国的消费水平,真实的消费率比官方公布的水平高出10个百分点以上,超过GDP的60%,与东亚高收入经济体在其快速增长时期的消费率非常相似。

It is widely believed that low consumption and unbalanced aggregate demand make Chinese economic growth unsustainable. In this paper, we argue that this belief is based on a misapplied theory and a grossly underestimated consumption ratio by official statistics. We investigate three sources of underestimation of household consumption expenditures by the official Chinese statistics and re-estimate China's consumption ratio. Our results suggest that the rate of consumption in China is higher than 60% of GDP, not the 48%一50% based on the official statistics figures, and is quite comparable to the level experienced by the high income East Asian economies during their own rapid growing period.