Peng Wensheng: Common wealth is to move from pyramid society to an olive society

Zhongxin Jingwei June 23rd Question: Common wealth is to move from pyramid society to an olive society

Author Peng Wensheng, Chief Economist and Leader of Research Department

Common prosperity is the problem of development and distribution. The correct relationship and fair relationship between the proper treatment is the key. The goal is to build an olive society with "two small, big middle". The so -called common prosperity is to move from pyramid society to an olive society. As a goal of common wealth, no one should disagree, and in reality, what policy operations should be controversial.

From the perspective of analysis, income distribution can basically be divided into two levels, and market economic activities form a initial distribution. The fiscal and tax system arrangements are re -assigned or secondary allocation, that is, providing public products and transfer by tax levy to high -income groups to tax groups. Pay to low -income groups. In recent years, the three -time distribution of public welfare and charity activities has also received attention, but the scale is small.

A basic consensus is that the distribution of the market is priority to efficiency, and the second distribution focuses on fairness, but the focus of different countries is different. It is also a market economy. Although the taxes in the United States are more progressive and the second distribution is larger than Europe, the gap between the rich and the poor in Europe is less. The difference is that the market allocation links. For example, after the war, Germany established a joint management corporate governance mechanism. The board of directors of large companies has the representatives of workers, occupying half of the voting rights, and enhanced the work position of workers.

Accurately understand market power

Examples of the United States and Germany show that the market economy is not a single model, and its operation is constrained by some rules including the laws and policies of various countries. How to understand the mechanism of the market allocation link? The mainstream thinking of the past few decades is the perfect market assumption of neoclassical economics. Based on complete information, each person's rational decision -making and full competition bring the effective allocation of resources. Each production factors such as land, capital, and labor are based on their contribution to production to production. Distribution income.

However, the market in reality is not so perfect in textbook description. In some aspects of resource allocation, it is neither effective nor fair, and policy intervention is required. For example, to correct some market economic activities with externality or spilling effects and promote competition.

Another factor that leads to market failure is monopoly and unfair competition. The increase in market forces (Market Power), both damage efficiency is not conducive to fairness. In the past 20 years, the proportion of labor revenue in the United States has declined, and capital returns have increased. A possible explanation is that the proportion of companies with market forces has increased. What factors have caused market forces to increase? First of all, the economic structure has changed, the proportion of the service industry has increased, and the trade availability of the service industry is lower than that of the manufacturing industry. The competition of space dimensions is limited. The service cannot be stored (the goods can be stored), which weakens the cross -period competition. Secondly, the marginal costs of digital products are close to zero, which generates economic and scope economic effects, increasing the market forces of platform companies. Finally, the digital economy makes differences in differential pricing, and discrimination pricing damages the efficiency of market allocation resources.

In addition to the above -mentioned market forces with universal significance, a special phenomenon in China is state -owned enterprises. State -owned enterprises usually have advantages in government subsidies, financing benefits and convenience, land resources and mining assets, which helps public welfare state -owned enterprises to better play their national strategy, but for competitive state -owned enterprises (including public welfare state -owned enterprises, the owners of public welfare state -owned enterprises will be will For the competitive field), it means improper competitive advantage.

In response to these issues, the key is to implement the principles of competitive neutrality proposed by the policy department in recent years. Basically, the impact of government behavior on market competition between competitive state -owned enterprises and other enterprises should be neutral. Competitive neutrality does not target ownership, but opposes that any company relies on discriminatory policies to obtain improper competition advantages.

At the moment, the role of market allocation of resources also has a perspective of political economy. Financial and innovative economy is two areas that are particularly valued.

Improve the financial structure

Finance has effectively transformed savings into investment and supports economic growth. However, in the past 40 years, capital spending/GDP has been basically stable globally, while credit/GDP has continued to rise, or the output of credit units has declined. At the same time, the gap between income and wealth has expanded significantly. In China, the real estate and credit have complement each other in the past 20 years. During the uplink of the financial cycle, the sharp expansion of real estate prices and debt expansion has adversely affected efficiency and fairness.

Over -finance of real estate also threatens people's livelihood and fairness, exacerbating the gap between generations, urban and rural, and regions. The unreasonable supply structure of the housing and insufficient public housing supply directly affects the housing security of the younger generation and low -income people, and also exacerbate the gap between wealth.

The experience of developed countries shows that the differentiation of the rich and the poor also promotes the expansion of debt (credit). The gap between income distribution has led to the low -income class to increase liabilities in order to maintain its consumption level. Public policy is facing social pressure. One aspect of a difference is to improve the financing conditions and financial services of low -income groups.

Improve the financial structure and better serve the real economy, both improve efficiency and promote fairness. The first is to establish a new development model of real estate, improve the supply structure of housing, increase affordable housing, and curb real estate finance through real estate tax. The second is to promote the separation of production and finance and division of business. After the 2017 National Financial Work Conference, regulatory regulatory regulatory regulatory methods for industrial capital holding banks such as banks have been launched one after another. The regulatory framework of non -financial institutions' financial holding companies has gradually formed, and Internet financial supervision has been strengthened. The implementation of separation of production and finance between entities and finance and internal financial operations are conducive to blocking government credit guarantees from banks to the real economy and capital markets, and help the market to play the role of allocation of resources.

Facing the knowledge economy

The changes in the new digital economy model and the related economic structure are particularly worthy of attention. An important feature of the digital economy is non -competitive. The cost of copying and transmission of data is almost zero, making the digital economy easier to improve efficiency by increasing scale and expansion range than the traditional economy. The prominent carrier is the platform economy. Platform enterprise services in both sides and even multilateral markets form an ecosystem that connects to producers, consumers, R & D people, etc., which improves efficiency.

However, the property rights of data are exclusive, and the combination of the two leads to market forces and even monopoly. Anti -monopoly should focus on eliminating and controlling the forces that may curing market forces. The role of finance is a key factor. Finance is a license operation, with policy design thresholds, and enjoying a certain degree of government credit guarantee. Digital platform companies have large economic effects. Digital platforms and financial combinations will solidify market forces and hinder competition. The key to the anti -monopoly of platform companies is to implement separation of production and finance, strict risk isolation, and prevent regulatory arbitrage.

Technological progress includes the development of the digital economy brings changes in economic structure. In the past, rural China needed a large amount of labor to solve the problem of food and clothing. After the improvement of agricultural production efficiency, the remaining labor force was transferred to the manufacturing industry. After the production efficiency of the refrigerator is improved, the remaining labor force is transferred to the service industry, and the proportion of the service industry in the economy has increased.

These economic structure changes are reasonable, but pay attention to some possible distortions. As a large population country, the potential for the improvement of the digital economy is particularly high, and the land is not renewable. The investment in resources will only lead to rising prices and not improve the overall social welfare. If the revenue of the digital economy development is used to purchase limited land, pushing real estate prices in large cities will not only damage innovation and it is not conducive to fairness.

Therefore, public policies need to guide technological progress to invest in education, medical care, and improve medical care.

Clarify government boundaries

The role of public policy in the market economy can be classified as two categories. One is the behavior of market players in competition through legal, rules, and policies; the other is the government directly provided products and services, such as national defense, research and development, and public services. Wait. The first category is the role of the aforementioned policy in the market distribution link; the second category is finance. The source of funds has taxation and debt financing, which is a secondary distribution. The functional promotion of fiscal promotion requires the following two dimensions of comprehensive balance.

The first is to improve the revenue and expenditure structure.

There are three characteristics of China's fiscal and taxation system: the proportion of indirect tax in taxation, the proportion of public services such as transfer payment and social security in expenditures, and the incomplete regulatory mechanism of local government finances. The fiscal tax system reform plan established by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Party proposed to reduce indirect taxes and increase direct taxes. From the perspective of increasing the proportion of direct taxes, the space for income tax adjustment is limited, and the main way to increase direct taxes in the future will fall into property taxes, including real estate tax and inheritance tax, capital benefit tax.

Increase public services and guarantee expenditures such as transfer payment, education and medical care, and reducing the expenditure of fixed asset investment. This is an important aspect of helping low -income groups, reducing the risk of class solidification, and promoting fairness, especially the equalization of public services to help reduce the gap between urban and rural and regional gaps.

At the same time, today, with the increasingly important knowledge economy, increasing investment expenditures such as research and development such as research and development have a positive spilling effect on private enterprises to improve overall production efficiency; parenting and early education investment will help improve the skills, competitiveness and productivity of future labor force Essence

The second is to attach importance to the role of public debt.

When the economic cycle is downward or the economy encounters a significant impact, finance can reduce tax reduction and increase transfer payment by borrowing to promote overall demand growth. In response to the impact of a century -old epidemic, the government increased debt to support affected enterprises and individuals, which is not only a manifestation of social insurance functions, but also helps prevent the economy from falling into "shock" and the potential for damage growth.

A macro perspective of analyzing debt sustainability is comparative national debt interest rate (i) and economic growth rate (G). Convergence in the future, or debt is dynamic and effective. Historical experience shows that for most countries, financing costs are less than economic growth, and China is no exception.

It is worth noting that some studies have shown that the return on capital's return (R), that is, the sum of I and risk premium, which is greater than the economic growth rate, which leads to a decline in labor income. It is an important reason for the expansion of income gap.

If government debt promotes long -term economic growth (G), and at the same time reduce the risk premium of the entire society, it is both efficient and favorable. A more obvious examples include public products that government departments have increasing the market, such as education, medical care, basic research, etc. Faced with the problem of population aging, the public sector increased debt to encourage fertility and reduce the burden of parenting. As a result, the increase in children became labor 20 years later, and the economic growth brought by it could repay debt. Another example is to regulate the fiscal mechanism to reduce the risk premium and reduce abnormal high capital return. The issuance interest rate of China Treasury and local bonds is about 3%, while the issuance interest rate of urban investment corporate bonds is as high as 8%to 10%. The large spread highlights the inefficient efficiency of the existing loan mechanism. The "hidden" guarantee of the central government's "hidden" guarantee for the local government has given investors excess returns, that is, the income that exceeds the risks that it acts actual. Converting hidden government debt can effectively reduce financing costs and promote efficiency and fairness. (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)

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Editor in charge: Wang Lei

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