罗奇: GDP增长降速对中国是好消息

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 2017. 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 Syndicate

2013年5月3日，《 中国日报》刊登斯蒂文•罗奇文章，在文中，罗奇积极看待中国经济增速减缓，认为这是中国经济结构调整的自然结果且有利于改变旧的不可持续经济模式，而其他国家也应该适应这一转型。

尽管市场数据预测中国经济将在2017年第三季度后走出持续下滑的困境并实现反弹，但2013年第一季度中国GDP同比增长实际仅为7.7%，未能实现市场预期的8.2%的增长。而基于此数据，一些中国怀疑论者也迅速认为中国经济存在二次探底的风险。

但罗奇认为，GDP增长降速对中国而言是好消息，因为它反映了这个世界上最有活力的经济体的经济结构转型。众所周知，这次转型意味着中国将从出口和投资带动的经济增长，转变为由国内个人消费需求提供经济支撑。但鲜为人知的是，经济增速的放缓正是中国经济开始转型的早期标志之一。这样的增长降速在转型中是可以接受的，因为经济结构调整带动了服务业消费需求的增长，中国经济增长的新模式将会实现更多的劳动密集型增长。

在文中，数据表明，中国服务业每单位GDP的所需工作岗位比制造业和建筑业增加了35%。这也说明，中国在保持年均7-8%的经济增长的同时也可以完成其增加就业和减少贫困的目标。而为了实现以上的目标，中国完全可以放弃二位数的经济增速，因为旧的经济增长模式的单位产量显然不能创造足够多的就业机会。特别是当中国的制造业向价值链的上游发展，更多的工人岗位将被机器和先进的技术所代替，引起制造业向节省劳动力且资本密集不断发展。

从某种层面说，这样的替代有一定的道理，资本和劳力的替代是现代制造业经济生产力发展策略的核心。但是，这样的替代也会给中国带来严重问题：随着单位产出创造的工作机会越来越少，将需要更多的产量增加来消化这些剩余的劳动力，所以最后本来用于解决问题的策略将制造出更多棘手的问题。

相比于20世纪90年代早期，基于旧的制造模式，中国国民人均收入实现了20倍的空前增长，但也造成了今天的资源过度消耗和环境恶化。而以服务业为主导的经济增长在很多方面会解决温家宝总理在2007年所批评的“不稳定、不平衡、不协调，以及最终不可持续的”经济增长模式。罗奇认为，服务业提供的不仅仅是一条劳动密集型的发展道路，相比于制造业，它占用更少的资源且实现更少的碳排放。一个服务业引领的经济模式将在中国建立一个环境友好的且更加可持续的经济结构。

中国向服务业转型的经济减速即将到来，且比预期更早发生。最新的数据显示，第三产业今年第一季度实现8.3%的增长，超过第二产业(制造业和建筑业)7.8%的增长。但是罗奇表示，还需要今后几个季度的数据来验证第三产业在中国经济结构中的重要转变。

对于最新的经济数据，中国怀疑论者依然有不同的诠释。他们认为最大的风险来自于影子银行引发的信贷泡沫，同时，他们也增加了长期以来对于中国将陷入“中等收入陷阱”的担忧。

罗奇表示，中国很难免于这样的潜在风险。但是如果中国可以在十二五规划期间，继续实践其向服务业和消费转变的经济结构调整，这些风险将有可能不会发生。中等收入陷阱总是发生在那些依靠一种早期经济发展模式不变的新兴经济体，对于中国，其最大的风险来自于继续坚持以制造和建筑业为导向的旧经济模式。

一旦中国经济结构调整失败，由于发达国家经济萧条而带来的外部需求的疲软将继续拖累中国的出口，使得中国经济必须增加对投资和信贷刺激的依赖，实际上也就是更加依靠于资源密集型和破坏环境的增长模式。但是罗奇表示，他对中国的新一届领导集体很有信心，新的经济模式将很快被实施。而且他认为，目前并没有其它选择。

金融市场和持续低增长的发达经济体都对由于经济结构调整增速减缓的中国经济不再兴奋。而一些能源行业，特别是资源型经济体，如澳大利亚、加拿大、巴西和俄罗斯都已经沉迷于中国的不可持续的高速增长。但是幸运的是，中国已经明白是时候该打破这些危险的习惯。

面对未来由消费带动经济增长的中国，美国有可能有一个不同于以上经济体的问题。毕竟，中国国内个人消费的增加将预示着中国储蓄盈余的减少，而资本的自由流动有可能会把这些盈余最终变成美元资产，如美国国债。今后的问题是，谁将资助美国的财政赤字，而条件又是什么？都值得我们思考。罗奇在文章最后表示，正如中国必须把减速的经济增长作为其结构调整的自然结果，世界其他国家也将需要想出应对的办法，接受这一转变。