羅奇: GDP增長降速對中國是好消息

Other countries will need to adapt as China embraces slower economic growth as a result of its rebalancing

At 7.7 percent, China's annual GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was slower than many expected. While the data were hardly devastating relative to a consensus forecast of 8.2 percent, many expected a second consecutive quarterly rebound from the slowdown that appeared to have ended in the third quarter of 2012. China doubters around the world were quick to pounce on the number, expressing fears of a stall, or even a dreaded double dip.

But slower GDP growth is actually good for China, provided that it reflects the long-awaited structural transformation of the world's most dynamic economy. The broad outlines of this transformation are well known - a shift from export- and investment-led growth to an economic structure that draws greater support from domestic private consumption. What is less well known is a rebalanced China should have a slower growth rate, the first hints of which may now be evident.

A rebalanced China can grow more slowly because by drawing increased support from services-led consumer demand, China's new model will embrace a more labor-intensive growth recipe. The numbers seem to bear that out. China's services sector requires about 35 percent more jobs per unit of GDP than do manufacturing and construction the primary drivers of the old model.

That number has potentially huge implications, because it means that China could grow at an annual rate of 7 to 8 percent and still achieve its objectives with respect to employment and poverty reduction. China has struggled to attain these goals with anything less than 10 percent growth, because the old model was not generating enough jobs per unit of output. Firms increasingly replaced workers with machines embodying the latest technologies, as Chinese manufacturing moved up the value chain.

On one level, that made sense. Capital-labor substitution is at the heart of modern productivity strategies for manufacturing-based economies. But it left China in a deepening hole, as increasingly deficient in jobs per unit of output, it needed more units of output to absorb its surplus labor. Ultimately, that became more of a problem than a solution. The old manufacturing model, which fueled an unprecedented 20-fold increase in per capita income relative to the early 1990s, also sowed the seeds of excessive resource consumption and environmental degradation.

Services-led growth is, in many ways, the antidote to the "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and ultimately unsustainable" growth model. Services offer more than just a labor-intensive growth path. Compared to manufacturing, they have much smaller resource and carbon footprints. A services-led model provides China with an environmentally friendlier and ultimately more sustainable economic structure.

It is premature, of course, to conclude that a services-led transformation to slower growth is now at hand. The latest data hint at such a possibility, with the service sector expanding at what would be an annual rate of an 8.3 percent in the first quarter of this year - the third consecutive quarter of acceleration and a half-percentage point faster than the 7.8 percent first-quarter gain recorded by manufacturing and construction.

Not surprisingly, China skeptics are putting a different spin on the latest growth numbers. Fears of a shadow-bank-induced credit bubble now top the list of concerns, reinforcing longstanding concerns that China may succumb to the dreaded "middle-income trap" - a sustained growth slowdown that has ensnared most high-growth emerging economies at the juncture that China has now reached.

China is hardly immune to such a possibility. But it is unlikely to occur if China can carry out the services and consumption rebalancing that remains the core strategic initiative of its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15). Invariably, the middle-income trap afflicts those emerging economies that cling to early-stage development models for too long. For China, the risk will be highest if it sticks with the timeworn recipe of unbalanced manufacturing- and construction-led growth, which has created such serious sustainability problems.

If China fails to rebalance, weak external demand from a crisis-battered developed world will continue to hobble its exports, forcing it to up the ante on a credit- and investment-led growth model - in effect, doubling down on resource-intensive and environmentally damaging growth.

Financial markets, as well as growth-starved developed economies, are not thrilled with the natural rhythm of slower growth that a rebalanced Chinese economy is likely to experience, and resource industries - indeed, resource-based economies like Australia, Canada, Brazil, and Russia - have become addicted to China's old strain of unsustainable hyper-growth. Yet China knows that it is time to break that dangerous habit.

The United States is likely to have a different problem with consumer-led growth in China. After all, higher private consumption implies an end to China's surplus saving - and thus to the seemingly open-ended recycling of that surplus into dollar-based assets such as US Treasury bills. Who will then fund America's budget deficit - and on what terms?

Just as China must embrace slower growth as a natural consequence of its rebalancing imperative, the rest of the world will need to figure out how to cope when it does.

The author, a faculty member at Yale University and former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of The Next Asia. Project Syndicate2013年5月3日，《 中國日報》刊登斯蒂文•羅奇文章，在文中，羅奇積極看待中國經濟增速減緩，認爲這是中國經濟結構調整的自然結果且有利於改變舊的不可持續經濟模式，而其他國家也應該適應這一轉型。

儘管市場數據預測中國經濟將在2012年第三季度後走出持續下滑的困境並實現反彈，但2013年第一季度中國GDP同比增長實際僅爲7.7%，未能實現市場預期的8.2%的增長。而基於此數據，一些中國懷疑論者也迅速認爲中國經濟存在二次探底的風險。

但羅奇認爲，GDP增長降速對中國而言是好消息，因爲它反映了這個世界上最有活力的經濟體的經濟結構轉型。衆所周知，這次轉型意味着中國將從出口和投資帶動的經濟增長，轉變爲由國內個人消費需求提供經濟支撐。但鮮爲人知的是，經濟增速的放緩正是中國經濟開始轉型的早期標誌之一。這樣的增長降速在轉型中是可以接受的，因爲經濟結構調整帶動了服務業消費需求的增長，中國經濟增長的新模式將會實現更多的勞動密集型增長。

在文中，數據表明，中國服務業每單位GDP的所需工作崗位比製造業和建築業增加了35%。這也說明，中國在保持年均7-8%的經濟增長的同時也可以完成其增加就業和減少貧困的目標。而爲了實現以上的目標，中國完全可以放棄二位數的經濟增速，因爲舊的經濟增長模式的單位產量顯然不能創造足夠多的就業機會。特別是當中國的製造業向價值鏈的上游發展，更多的工人崗位將被機器和先進的技術所代替，引起製造業向節省勞動力且資本密集不斷髮展。

從某種層面說，這樣的替代有一定的道理，資本和勞力的替代是現代製造業經濟生產力發展策略的核心。但是，這樣的替代也會給中國帶來嚴重問題：隨着單位產出創造的工作機會越來越少，將需要更多的產量增加來消化這些剩餘的勞動力，所以最後本來用於解決問題的策略將製造出更多棘手的問題。

相比於20世紀90年代早期，基於舊的製造模式，中國國民人均收入實現了20倍的空前增長，但也造成了今天的資源過度消耗和環境惡化。而以服務業爲主導的經濟增長在很多方面會解決溫家寶總理在2007年所批評的“不穩定、不平衡、不協調，以及最終不可持續的”經濟增長模式。羅奇認爲，服務業提供的不僅僅是一條勞動密集型的發展道路，相比於製造業，它佔用更少的資源且實現更少的碳排放。一個服務業引領的經濟模式將在中國建立一個環境友好的且更加可持續的經濟結構。

中國向服務業轉型的經濟減速即將到來，且比預期更早發生。最新的數據顯示，第三產業今年第一季度實現8.3%的增長，超過第二產業(製造業和建築業)7.8%的增長。但是羅奇表示，還需要今後幾個季度的數據來驗證第三產業在中國經濟結構中的重要轉變。

對於最新的經濟數據，中國懷疑論者依然有不同的詮釋。他們認爲最大的風險來自於影子銀行引發的信貸泡沫，同時，他們也增加了長期以來對於中國將陷入“中等收入陷阱”的擔憂。

羅奇表示，中國很難免於這樣的潛在風險。但是如果中國可以在十二五規劃期間，繼續實踐其向服務業和消費轉變的經濟結構調整，這些風險將有可能不會發生。中等收入陷阱總是發生在那些依靠一種早期經濟發展模式不變的新興經濟體，對於中國，其最大的風險來自於繼續堅持以製造和建築業爲導向的舊經濟模式。

一旦中國經濟結構調整失敗，由於發達國家經濟蕭條而帶來的外部需求的疲軟將繼續拖累中國的出口，使得中國經濟必須增加對投資和信貸刺激的依賴，實際上也就是更加依靠於資源密集型和破壞環境的增長模式。但是羅奇表示，他對中國的新一屆領導集體很有信心，新的經濟模式將很快被實施。而且他認爲，目前並沒有其它選擇。

金融市場和持續低增長的發達經濟體都對由於經濟結構調整增速減緩的中國經濟不再興奮。而一些能源行業，特別是資源型經濟體，如澳大利亞、加拿大、巴西和俄羅斯都已經沉迷於中國的不可持續的高速增長。但是幸運的是，中國已經明白是時候該打破這些危險的習慣。

面對未來由消費帶動經濟增長的中國，美國有可能有一個不同於以上經濟體的問題。畢竟，中國國內個人消費的增加將預示着中國儲蓄盈餘的減少，而資本的自由流動有可能會把這些盈餘最終變成美元資產，如美國國債。今後的問題是，誰將資助美國的財政赤字，而條件又是什麼？都值得我們思考。羅奇在文章最後表示，正如中國必須把減速的經濟增長作爲其結構調整的自然結果，世界其他國家也將需要想出應對的辦法，接受這一轉變。