张军教授在Project Syndicate发表文章：中国在努力扩大消费需求

文章发表

4月21日，复旦大学文科资深教授、经济学院院长、复旦发展研究院副院长、中国经济研究中心主任张军教授在Project Syndicate发表深度分析文章“China is Fighting for Bigger Consumer Demand”，阐释中国提振消费驱动的政策逻辑与经济前景。

文章指出，近年来房地产市场调整叠加地方财政紧缩，对居民可支配收入和消费信心形成制约。面对这一现实，政策重心正逐步从短期刺激转向更加注重收入分配和公共服务保障的结构性安排。文章梳理了近期围绕提振消费的多项政策路径，包括地方债务再融资、保障性住房供给、养老金标准调整、生育与育儿补贴、农民工市民化等，并指出财政资源向家庭部门适度倾斜，将有助于扩大服务类消费，改善居民预期，从而夯实内需基础。

全文发表于 Project Syndicate，特此转发英文原文，以飨读者。

Abstract

There are signs that the Chinese economy has been improving, owing to the government’s September 2024 stimulus package. Year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of this year reached 5.4% – continuing the marked acceleration from the third quarter of last year.

In fact, the change in policy direction has been evident since late 2022, when Chinese policymakers acknowledged that falling demand was becoming a major problem. The most important cause was the real-estate market, where a collapsing price bubble hit local government revenues hard, cutting into residents’ property and business income (an important part of disposable income) and pushing consumer spending below trend.

To alleviate the pressure on local governments, the central government allowed them to expand their debt financing by issuing $1.4 trillion worth of long-term bonds (over five years) to replace their short-term debt. Proceeds from long-term bond issuances were also used to shore up state-owned commercial banks’ balance sheets and enhance their capacity to generate credit. Meanwhile, the central bank has maintained faster credit growth, but is being cautious about lowering policy rates. With China’s real interest rates above 4%, a significant rate cut is unavoidable given concerns about exchange-rate volatility and commercial banks’ financial condition.

Chinese authorities understood that stabilizing the property and stock markets could mitigate the slowdown in consumer spending. Thus, the stabilization strategy requires local governments to use a portion of the special debt financing they receive to purchase unsold residential buildings on the market, and to use those units as guaranteed housing for local residents. It also requires state-owned non-bank financial institutions to buy back and hold more shares. In another country, such measures would sound implausible. But China’s state-owned financial system makes them feasible.

Moreover, there is broad-based social support for expanding government income assistance for households. During the National People’s Congress in early March, raising incomes and expanding protections for the elderly and infants were hotly debated topics. Though the government raised the minimum urban and rural basic pension disbursement by another 10% this year, most economists suggested that the standard should be much higher. After all, current disbursements are a mere 200 yuan ($27) per month in most small and medium-size cities and rural areas.

Calls for increased pension payments reflect large differences between regions. The basic pension in Beijing and Shanghai is almost 5-7 times higher than the national average mainly owing to big differences in local subsidizing capacity and the cost of living. Thus, to expand the overall level of consumer spending, it is crucial to reduce regional differences in the level of health care and pension protection.

China’s household consumption expenditure is largely positively correlated with family size and the number of children. But in addition to rapid aging, China is also struggling to deal with a low fertility rate. Although the government has lifted fertility restrictions – permitting families to have three children – the fertility rate remains at only around one. In surveys, younger Chinese point to the high cost of raising children as the top reason why they do not intend to have more.

Thus, the central government has promised to formulate a national policy to subsidize childbirth and child-rearing within the year, and many cities are already implementing local policies to subsidize or reward childbirth. For example, one city in Inner Mongolia recently offered a 50,000-yuan subsidy for a second child, and 100,000 yuan for a third.

It has been nearly 70 years since China implemented its hukou household registration system, which limits rural residents’ options for internal migration. Yet with hundreds of millions of migrant workers entering big cities, facilitating their integration has become imperative. China needs to ensure that every resident enjoys equal access to jobs and public benefits, including childcare and schooling, employment, health care, and pensions.

Such urbanization will greatly increase the scale of consumer demand. If more families receive higher transfers from the government – whether in the form of pensions or fertility incentives and subsidies – that would boost household consumption of services such as childcare, education and training, health care, and elderly care. These are precisely the parts of China’s consumer demand that remain significantly untapped.

DeepSeek’s recent breakthroughs opened the world’s eyes to China’s progress in AI and high tech. The country clearly has the potential to advance cutting-edge technologies, owing to its huge and diverse domestic economy, deep talent pool, and well-developed supply chains. Continuous technological breakthroughs will allow it to produce higher-value-added goods, with all the gains that implies for incomes, productivity, and domestic demand for services.

But government programs will have to adapt to this new phase of development. With large-scale construction spending having peaked, policies now need to help ensure that labor receives a higher share of national income. That means directing more fiscal firepower toward income support for households, and toward providing better, more equitable social protections. Higher household incomes and lower savings rates are key to unleashing the purchasing power of China’s 1.4 billion people.

Link for Full Article

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-policies-to-unleash-consumer-demand-by-zhang-jun-2025-04?sessionid=1702580147

Authors

Zhang Jun

Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University, vice dean of Fudan Development Institute, is Director of the China Center for Economic Studies, a Shanghai-based think tank.

来源｜Project Syndicate

作者｜张军

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