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Is the advantage of China's economic future development still there?

* 来源: * 作者: admin * 发表时间: 2015-08-19 20:29:59 * 浏览: 103
  The pace of China's economic growth has fallen sharply in recent years, from the highest level of 14% in 2007 to 7% in the second quarter of this year. Such a decline may be normal or cyclical to a considerable extent, but it is always worrying about the prospects for long-term growth of the Chinese economy. Is the advantage of the future development of China's economy still there? If so, where is it?

To answer this question, it is necessary to understand what it is, China’s development miracle of an average annual growth of 10% in the 30 years before the global financial crisis.

Is the Chinese economy really an institutional advantage?

Many people believe that this miracle is due to the strong government of China actively intervening in the development model of the market economy. However, in the past 70 years since the end of World War II, the countries that have implemented similar models are actually not few, but few have achieved sustained high-speed growth, with the exception of East Asia. Compared with other developing countries, I think that East Asian countries (regions) may not have special advantages in terms of system and policy. After all, Japan, East Asia, the four dragons and mainland China have not implemented the political and economic system during their rapid development. Do the same.

Even if there is any institutional advantage, it should be easy to imitate and learn. Otherwise, it cannot be called a model. It is hard to imagine that in the past 70 years, only a few East Asian countries (regions) in the world have found the most favorable systems and policies for economic development. Other countries have not only discovered, but even imitated. How likely is it?

The miracle of post-war economic development only appears in East Asian countries (regions). It should not be a coincidence. If it is not for institutional reasons, it is unlikely to be the cause of geography or climate. It can only be a human reason. As everyone knows, East Asian people have always advocated diligence, education and learning – perhaps this common culture that originated in China, the speed of accumulation of physical capital, especially human capital, and the ability to learn advanced Western science and technology in East Asian countries and regions. Above, surpassing other developing countries.

The idea that culture influences the economy goes back to the ancestor Max Weber of sociology. Although his famous ethics led to the famous assertion that capitalism rose in Western Europe may not be completely correct, the cultural value he emphasized was hard-working and thrifty. This should be less controversial for economic development, and this is precisely an important feature of China (East Asia) culture.

Sociologists and other cultural scholars suggested in the 1980s that Confucian culture was an important reason for the economic miracle of East Asia, but the economists' professional habits made them reluctant to recognize the key role of culture in economic development. After all, if Chinese culture is so conducive to economic development, why has China’s economic growth only occurred in the past 30 years?

Indeed, even the best culture is only a favorable condition for economic development. Without good institutions and policies, it will not help. The reform and opening up that began in 1978 is clearly a crucial reason for China's rapid rise, but we cannot ignore that many developing countries that have also implemented reform and opening up have not achieved economic growth!

In fact, most developing countries have implemented privatization and market-oriented economic reforms since the 1980s. However, in Latin America and Africa, the growth rate in the past two or three decades has not been faster than the market reform in the 1980s. It was faster before, and actually it was slower.

Whether it is system or culture, it ultimately affects economic growth by affecting the accumulation of physical capital and human capital in a country and the speed of technological progress. There are only two value orientations directly related to economic growth in Chinese culture. One is diligence, the other is education, the former involves the accumulation of physical capital, the latter involves the accumulation of human capital, and the speed of technological progress.

How diligent is the Chinese?

It is often said that China’s economic development is good because the Chinese are particularly hardworking. But hard work itself actually only affects the level of output rather than the growth rate of output. A hard-working peasant can do more food a year than a hard-working peasant, but if there is no savings, there will be no growth. Hard work can only lead to economic growth when combined with thrift. In the language of economics, the role of diligence is to increase the savings rate, while savings is the premise of capital accumulation, and the rate of capital accumulation in countries with low savings rates is also slow. (Those who advocate that China should shift to a consumption-driven growth model need to review basic economic growth theories.)

There should be no controversy about diligence and familykeeping as a traditional Chinese culture (such as "Zuo Zhuan": "Hey, the common denominator; the extravagance, the evil is also big"), but the culture of other countries is really not as strong as China. ?

According to the results of the World Value Survey, the East Asian people's inheritance of the value of thrift seems to be more important. One of the questions in the survey was: “Do you think it is more important to train your child to learn the following qualities at home?” Ask for five of the eleven qualities. Among the 60 countries (regions) with data from previous surveys, respondents in Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China believe that the more important proportions of the quality of children's thrift are among the best (the average annual rate is 61%). , 58% and 57%), the ratio of the median country is only 35%, and the lowest country is only 12%.

The East Asian people are not only paying attention to frugality verbally, but the savings rate in real life is indeed high. With the exception of a few countries with oil as the main output, the total domestic savings rate of East Asian countries, especially China and Singapore, has been among the best in the world for the past three decades. According to the World Bank, in all developing countries, East Asia and the Pacific have the highest average domestic savings rate of 42% in the past two decades (1993-2013), 27% in the Middle East and North Africa, and 24% in South Asia. And 19.5% in the Caribbean, while only 17% in sub-Saharan Africa.

High savings can speed up the accumulation of physical capital, but many economists believe that this is not the most important driving force for long-term economic growth, and the role of human capital may be more important. In a broad sense, human capital includes the knowledge, skills, health, and values of workers, but economists often use education levels as indicators when measuring human capital. Human capital has the role of directly increasing output and promoting technological progress. Technological progress in developing countries depends mainly on the ability to learn from existing technologies, which has certain requirements for human capital levels. Education is the most important way to improve human capital, and it is almost universally recognized that East Asian countries pay special attention to education.

How much do Chinese people value education?

However, China (and other East Asian countries) are not prominent in terms of the ratio of public education expenditure to GDP and the number of years of education per capita. However, although most developing countries have spent more on public education in the past few decades and their per capita years of education have improved significantly, the rate of economic growth has not accelerated. Therefore, some scholars pointed out that the quality of education is the key to economic development.

Hanushek of Stanford University in the United States and Woessmann of Munich University in Germany used the data of international (primary and secondary) mathematics and science test scores to construct a comparable The so-called "cognitive skill" index of more than 70 countries measures the quality of education in each country by comparing the knowledge and skills acquired by students of the same age in the same years of education (see table). 1).
Table 1 Table 1

They found that a country's economic growth rate is highly positively correlated with its cognitive skill index. According to their data, this index of all East Asian countries is among the best, and it is far ahead of all developing countries.

This explains why Japan was the only non-Western country that achieved industrialization before World War II. Why did the East Asian Tigers join the ranks of developed economies, and why, except for a few Europe (including Israel) and the oil-rich Middle East countries after World War II? Over the past three decades, China has become the fastest growing economy in the world. Table 1. Cognitive skills index for some countries

In fact, it is not only the students of China (East Asia) who have achieved outstanding results in the international examinations, but also the Asian students who are represented in the Western countries and whose academic performance is also outstanding. Why is this? Are Asian students born to be smarter, or are they learning to be more diligent?

Professor Xie Yu and his collaborators at the University of Michigan in the United States found in an important study published in 2014 that the main reason why Asian American students surpassed white students was not to have higher IQ, but to work harder. Asian cultures are related to Asian parents who believe in the efforts of the day after tomorrow rather than the influence of innate intelligence on academic performance.

From the perspective of Chinese culture, we do emphasize more diligence than talent. The idioms of heavenly rewards, diligence, and idioms are all about this. Allusions such as cantilevered thorns, smuggled light, and sacred snow are also praised for their hard work. This kind of culture that emphasizes diligent learning will ultimately be reflected in the child's learning pressure.

According to the results of a multi-country (21 countries) poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2011 (see Table 2), 68% of respondents in China believe that parents give their children learning. The pressure is too high – this ratio is the highest among all the countries surveyed; only 11% believe that parents are not putting enough pressure on their children.

In the United States, the opposite is true. Only 11% of respondents believe that parents have too much pressure on their children, while 64% believe that parents have insufficient pressure to learn from their children.

This is not because China is still a developing country, the population is highly competitive, and the pressure on life is high. Parents of other densely populated developing countries are much less likely to learn from their children than China, such as Pakistan, Mexico, and Indonesia. Only 32%, 20% and 13% respectively.

Although Japan has long been a developed country, the pressure for students to learn is still very large. According to a similar survey conducted by the Pew Center in 2006, respondents in Japan believe that the proportion of parents who have too much learning pressure for their students is as high as 59%.
Table 2 Table 2

It seems that there really is no free lunch! Professor Xie Yu and his collaborators' research also found that the expectations and pressures from parents have made American Asian students more hardworking and better, but not happier. In fact, Asian students are relatively less mentally healthy than white students, and their relationship with their parents is relatively more distant. Similarly, many students in China have also sacrificed the happy time that young people should have enjoyed in their hard work.

In addition to Confucian culture, Jewish culture is also known for its emphasis on education. Two thousand years ago, Judaism required all fathers to send them to school when their son was six or seven years old, so that the children learned to read the Hebrew Bible, and the Jews became the nation with the highest literacy rate in modern times.

The Protestant culture also attaches importance to education because Martin Luther asked each Christian to read the Bible himself when he initiated the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago.

Confucian culture, Judaism, and Protestant culture make education and diligent learning a powerful social norm, not just a free choice of family and individual. Most developing countries have no written language before colonial rule, let alone school education and examination systems. Of course, there is no traditional culture that values education.

Confucian culture's emphasis on education did not make China the birthplace of modern science. On the contrary, the imperial examination system and the education focused on Confucian classics may be an important reason for China's modern science and technology backwardness. However, once the cultural spirit of attaching importance to education is used to learn modern science and technology, its power has already made China make great progress in just a few decades.

This is quite similar to the Jewish situation. The Jewish people did not contribute much to the modern scientific revolution, but once they transferred their enthusiasm for learning from religious classics to secular science and technology, they began to emerge in various fields after one or two generations. It can be expected that after decades, there will be many Chinese names on the list of world-class scientists.

Advocating or criticizing the Chinese model overestimates the role of the system

Since China’s comparative advantage in economic development does not lie in China’s implementation of institutions and policies that are different from those of other developing countries, but in China’s traditional diligence and education and a high degree of emphasis on education, then whether it is to promote or criticize the Chinese model. The views overestimate the role of the system.

Without the basic market economic system formed after the reform and opening up, there is no stable political situation. The miracle of China's economic growth is certainly impossible. However, compared with most countries, China's advantage is not entirely institutional. Changes in economic policies and institutions may of course affect economic growth, but in a generally normal (non-extreme) institutional environment, cultural comparative advantages may play a more fundamental role in China's economic growth.

That is to say, given the same system, policy and development stage, the Chinese economy will grow faster than most developing countries because of its cultural advantages. After all, even a 7% growth rate is still the world's leading rate of growth – the world's total economic growth rate is only 1%, and the growth rate of all developing countries' economic aggregates is only 3.5%.

Since cultural advantages will not disappear in one or two generations, we have reason to be optimistic about the future prospects of China's economy, and there are reasons to believe that China will join the ranks of developed countries like other East Asian economies in the foreseeable future. .