Zheng Yongnian: The stock market, housing market and China atypical economy

/> Over the years, it is the stock market and housing market that has been distressed about the Chinese politics, academic circles, business circles and ordinary people.(China News Agency)

Over the years, it is the stock market and housing market that has been distressed by the Chinese politics, academic circles, business circles and ordinary people.All circles do not know how many people have used their property to deal with these two cities, but most of them are more than half the effort. Not only do the two cities not improve, they will feel worse and worse.To this day, people do not even know what the two cities are.To a large extent, the situation presented in the two cities not only reflects the atypicalness of the Chinese economy, but also largely reflects the dilemma and embarrassment of China's economic research community.

In many countries with effective governance, in general, decision -making and policy research in the policy sector are relatively separated.This separation guarantees the relative independence of policy research.Although policy researchers can not avoid starting from their own interests, because the research is open, the interests of all parties can be expressed first, and then after the formal discussion procedure, basically the results and rights of various policies can be known to the results and rights of various policies that will cause various policies to lead to the results and rights.The influence of all parties.Of course, policy researchers cannot determine which plan will be accepted, because which solution accepts is another political process.The final acceptance of decision -making (generally political figures) may be a comprehensive plan for various political forces and interests.

However, there are also some strong politicians who may accept more extreme solutions and are lonely. However, this decision -making behavior often leads to the split of the elite layer, but instead causes the policy to pass or implement the great resistance.Although this process is long (that is, low efficiency), it also reduces errors and actually improves the efficiency of decision -making and execution.

Unlike, one of the remarkable features of China's policy field is that decision makers are both policy researchers and decision makers.The advantage of this policy model is that the decision -making efficiency is high, but its disadvantage also exists, that is, there is no effective policy demonstration process. Policies are often lacking scientific, or negative policy effects, or they cannot be implemented.Obviously, when decision makers are also policy researchers, researchers must be to demonstrate their own decisions, and this demonstration process often chooses evidence that is favorable for decision -making, and intentionally or unintentionally ignores evidence of unfavorable decision -making.

China's housing market and stock market is the product of this decision model.Let's talk about the stock market first.Early stock market was a symbol of internal operations and corruption.But this can be regarded as an inevitable product of the development process. The early stage of the stock market in many countries is also standardized.Even today, anti -internal operations and anti -corruption in the stock market are still a difficult task.Corruption is caused by human nature. People always find ways to avoid regulations to obtain unrighteous wealth.The same is true of China.In this field, once new leaders are in place, they will inevitably work hard in the aspects of anti -internal operation and anti -corruption to seek the recovery of the stock market and normal operation.However, the problem is that anti -corruption in the stock market has lasted so many years, but the stock market is still not good.People cannot simply attribute the current situation of the stock market to internal operations and corruption.

In fact, the quality of the stock market reflects a society's prediction of economic prospects.If people predict positive economic prospects, they will invest in the stock market because people believe that investment in the stock market will have a good return; vice versa.In other words, the difficulty of the stock market indicates that society has a bad prediction of economic prospects.

Rebuilding real estate has no effect

Besides the housing market.In any country, the medical, education, and housing system is the pillar of the social system, and it is the key to the stability of a society.Because everyone needs to see doctors, accept education and residence, the progress of these three fields is also considered a sign of national and even human progress.But progress is not easy, many Western countries have pain lessons in these areas.In the early three areas, these three fields were also highly market -oriented. Only after the socialist movement, these three fields were no longer regarded as typical economic areas, but in the social field; even if they were economical, they were highly social economic fields.

Because of this, in these fields, the government is often investing hugely and has a lot of responsibilities.Western democracy transformed from a small number of people in the early days to one person and one vote of democracy, which had a huge impact on the progress of these three fields.Because of the need for votes, politicians have huge motivation to spend money in these fields.After the West, the East Asian economy (Japan and the later four dragons) accepted the lessons in the West in this regard. The government took the initiative to do social construction in these areas to avoid European -style large -scale socialist movements.Even if those economies that have fallen into Western colonies and are still backward in economic development so far, they dare not be too market -oriented in these areas.In these countries, it is difficult for the government to do because the economy does not develop, but the government's (theoretically) responsibility in these areas still exists.

In contrast, after the reform and opening up, China's realization in these social fields is basically the economic policy of new liberalism in the West.In many other areas, such as the state -owned enterprise departments and political fields in the economic field, the privilege departments (reflected in the special system of housing, medical and even education), neo -liberalism encountered huge resistance and could not enter.This has caused an incredible situation, that is, the marketization is not market -oriented, or the marketization is insufficient, and those who should not be market -oriented are market -oriented, or over -marketing.

To this day, China has experienced three waves of major social industrialization or marketization.The industrialization of medical care began in the late 1990s; the industrialization of education began after the Asian financial crisis from 1997 to 1998; after the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2009, the industrialization of housing began.In addition, once industrialization is industrial, it will immediately cause wealth in these fields.It is easy to understand rich because these are the areas that everyone needs.At the same time, it is easy to understand that what comes from getting rich is the complaint of society.Over the years of experience shows that the more money in these areas, the greater the complaints of society, because the more money in these areas, the greater the degree of destruction in these areas.

Specific housing, before the reform and opening up, was a planned economy in the city, and urban housing units (countries) allocation systems.This has caused a shortage of economic phenomena in this field, because under the planned economy, the state has no economic motivation investment field, and investment is only based on political needs.For a long time after the reform and opening up, there was no major action; although many places, especially the early coastal reform and opening up, began to explore new housing policies, but basically maintained the original system at the national level.However, after the global financial crisis in 2008, real estate began to be fully industrialized because decision makers hope to stimulate the development of the economy and resist the financial crisis through the development of real estate.

At that time, the country was intended to avoid the risks of the financial crisis, mostly, most of the real estate that flowed to the most richer.Previously, real estate was basically in the local government and private fields, but 4 trillion trillion led many state -owned enterprises (especially central enterprises) to enter the real estate field.Whether it is private enterprises, state -owned enterprises, or local governments, money -oriented in the real estate field has caused today's situation.Although the government has done its best to rectify real estate for many years, it has no effect.This is also easy to understand. In the field of real estate, private enterprises, local governments and state -owned enterprises are the three most powerful benefits of China. No government has the ability to deal with these three vested interests at the same time.

Back to the relationship between the two cities, in a word, they have entered a vicious cycle that is difficult to escape.The correlation between the two cities is extremely high and almost integrated.The housing market is good (high in price), the capital flows to the housing market, the stock market is definitely not good; the stock market is not good, the capital flows to the housing market, the housing market is definitely difficult to control and manage; the housing market is not goodThe greater the foam, the higher the economic risk; the greater the economic risk, the more motivated the decision maker is to manage, because no one wants to be destroyed by the housing market in his office, and what the decision maker does is to delay the delay of the bubble late.Although these are easy to observe from experience, how to escape this vicious circle?

This reflects the contradiction between individual (family and enterprises) and the overall interests of social countries in the development process.As far as individuals are concerned, the market entry and the stock market shows rationality.There are many reasons for entering the housing market, but the following three are extremely important, affecting people's decisions.First, huge profits.Over the years, real estate has been the area that makes money, the easiest to make money, and make fast money. It has even been hard for decades of hard work in the real economy field. It is better to sell one or two houses.Second, rigid demand under the tide of urbanization.A large number of people enter the city and require housing.In particular, there are no effective ways to prevent the people from entering because of employment, schooling, medical opportunities and other factors.Third, for future investment, the above two factors have also promoted people to put their future expectations in the housing market, not the stock market.

But for society and the country as a whole, the market -to -stock market is not conducive to the sustainable development of the national economy.The housing market bubble has been excessive, and there are only rigid demand in first -tier cities. Many third -tier and fourth -tier cities have begun to rot, and a large number of vacant housing has appeared.The formation of rigid demand in first -tier cities is also very complicated.The first is the economic law firm.The population of many countries is concentrated in large cities, such as Tokyo in Japan, because resources will naturally concentrate in large cities.China is even more so. Because of the administrative level of cities, the largest amount of high -quality resources often put the largest amount of high -quality resources in first -tier cities. The high -quality resources of third- and fourth -tier cities are far from enough to attract the population, let alone a talent.

However, there will always be a day of shattering in the bubble. On the day of shattering, it is not only the greatest harm to the economy, but also the beginning of social instability.The stock market reflects people's expectations for economy.To this day, China has less than 10,000 US dollars per capita. Whether it is evading the middle income trap or promotion to high income, the economy needs to develop the real economy.The stock market cannot go, indicating that people have a bad expectation of the real economy.

Why enter the housing market and avoid stock markets

Entering the market and avoiding stock markets, when wearing it, it is the problem of money, that is, the flow of money flows to the housing market without going to the real economy.Society has accumulated a lot of wealth, and wealth must be preserved and appreciated through reinvestment.So why does money flow to the housing market, not the stock market?One reason is the marketization of the social field mentioned above. Once the market -oriented social field needs everyone, it must be very profitable for a period of time.

The question is, why not enter the stock market?The reasons here are not difficult to find, at least from the following aspects.

First, insufficient investment space.The development level of the real economy in China is still low, the development space is still huge, and the market potential is also great.But why is there insufficient investment space?The first is that entrepreneurs are lacking in spirit and low innovation ability.The second is that state -owned enterprises occupy too much space. In some fields, they are inefficient. More fields are inaction. They occupy space in vain and waste space.Theoretically, people understand that state -owned enterprises will occupy the key parts of natural monopoly and the national economy, and they need to open a competitive area to the private economy.During the Huwen period, it was even proposed that even the military sector, which is considered a sensitive, can be opened to private enterprises.But the reality is not the case. State -owned enterprises have basically formed their unsteady but fighting for the people everywhere.

Second, the wealth growth mechanism is insufficient.The housing market is considered a field of wealth growth, but the financial system, including the fund system, is still in the exploration stage, and often hovers between the two extremes.Fund and other mechanisms naturally affect the stock market.In developed countries, the fund is a main force in the stock market.

Third, the wealth protection mechanism is insufficient, and it is mainly manifested in insufficient rule of law.The first is the wealth protection mechanism. Both private wealth and state -owned wealth should be protected.China has developed the property law, and now people look forward to the introduction of the Civil Code.Here, the key to development is the rule of law.However, in real life, the rule of law has not improved greatly, and ideology is in a state of return.With the low level of rule of law, once the left ideology returns, it will inevitably affect the confidence of the wealth owner.There is also an important point here that the rule of law must be applied to the personal safety of entrepreneurs or businessmen.Once an enterprise occurs, political and administrative resolution still occupies the subject, and illegal governance, and the personal safety of entrepreneurs is not guaranteed.

To rationalize the two cities, we must control the flow of money, that is, the funds are directed from the housing market to the stock market.Therefore, it is necessary to vigorously control the housing market and avoid the crushing of the housing market bubble, but also to solve the above problems and vigorously develop the stock market.If you can do this, you can expect multiple goals of economy, politics, and society at the same time, that is, the sustainable development of the economy, the long -term stability of the political long -term stability, and the stability of society.

(The author is the director of the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore)

The article only represents personal point of view