为什么中国GDP增长率下降了？ [美国媒体]

Why is China’s GDP growth rate slowing down?

为什么中国GDP增长率下降了？


 
Glenn Luk, B.S. Economics & Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania
Answered Sat
In a nutshell, it comes down to some basic arithmetic.

总而言之，这可以归结为某种基本的算法。

Let’s consider three archetypes of workers:
A subsistence farmer
Blue-collar laborer
Highly educated white-collar worker

让我们来考虑三种类型的工人：
农民
蓝领劳动力
受教育程度高的白领工人。

“Low-income” economies are dominated by the first archetype — poor farmers that aren’t equipped with modern equipment whose productivity levels are largely based on muscle power. These would be countries like Madagascar, Ethiopia and Haiti that have per capita GDPs[1] in the $1,000 to $3,000 range.

“低收入”经济体由第一种人主导，没有现代设备的贫穷农民其生产力基于肌肉力量。这些国家有马达加斯加，埃塞俄比亚，人均GDP为1000到3000美元。



The first jump from $2,000 to $10,000 (the mid-points of those ranges) results in annualized growth in per capita GDP of 6.6%. Add in some elevated population growth (due to rapidly declining mortality rates and still-large-sized farming families) and you get to 7.5 to 8.0% GDP growth.

从2000美元到1万美元（取这些范围的中间值）的第一次跳跃使得年度的人均GDP增长达到了6.6%。加上人口增长的提高（因为死亡率快速下降和大型的务农家庭），那么GDP增长就会达到7.5%到8.0%。

The second jump from $10,000 to $30,000 results in annualized growth in per capita GDP of 4.5%. Population growth typically slows down drastically during this stage, so aggregate GDP grows only slightly faster than per capita metrics at this point.

从1万美元到3万美元的第二次跳跃使得人均GDP的年度增长率达到了4.5%。在这个阶段人口增长会急剧下降，所以总的GDP增长只比人均GDP增长多一点点。

Directionally, this simple mathematical model actually describes the last four decades of China’s development quite well.

这个简单的数学模型很好的形容了中国过去40年来的经济发展。

In 1980, per capita GDP was around $300 and the vast majority of the Chinese population were subsistence farmers performing tiring, back-breaking work. The first economic reforms were focused on the agricultural sector — removing price controls on many categories of agricultural products and allowing farmers more freedom to make their own economic decisions. This resulted in a burst of productivity gains, which led subsequently to a gradually increasing pool of excess labor.

1980年，中国人均GDP为300美元左右，绝大部分中国人都是农民，做着累人的工作。第一批的经济改革关注的是农业部门，不再对多种的类型的农业产品进行价格控制，允许农民更多自由作出自己的经济决策。这导致生产力的大爆发，渐渐的也就导致了劳动力的过剩。



Up until this point, China’s economic development very much mirrored that of other East Asian export bloc countries/economies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan[4]. But ten years ago, its path hit a major bump and the Chinese economy had to veer off in a different direction.

直到这时，中国的经济发展很像其他东亚的出口导向性经济体，比如日本，韩国和台湾。但是十年前，中国的路线遇到了重大的障碍，导致中国经济不得不转进一个完全不同的方向。

That bump, of course, was the Global Financial Crisis — which absolutely crushed China’s export sector. In response, Chinese policymakers rapidly shifted economic priorities to credit-fueled capital-intensive activities like infrastructure and real-estate development. This helped soak up the millions of suddenly unemployed export-sector workers and smooth out the drop in economic activity. Nevertheless, growth rates still declined sharply compared with the prior period: over the past decade, growth rates averaged around 7–8% per annum.

这个障碍就是全球金融危机，这完全摧毁了中国的出口部门。作为回应，中国政策制定者开始迅速的转变经济优先事项，支持信用支撑的资本密集型活动，比如基建和房地产开发。这帮忙吸收了数百万突然失业的出口部门劳动力，同时平缓了经济活动的下降。然而，增长率和之前相比还是下降得厉害：过去十年，增长率平均维持在7-8%之间。

Then five years ago, with worries about increasing levels of indebtedness in the system (largely stemming from the above-mentioned credit binge), Chinese policymakers began shifting the growth focus to consumption and the services sector. Growth rates have slowed even further and will continue to slow — I expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% average growth rate for the next decade.

5年前，由于担心体系内不断增加的债务水平（主要是由上面所提及的信贷狂欢所导致的），中国政策制定者开始将增长焦点转向消费和服务部门。增长率进一步下降，而且还会继续下降，我认为未来10年中国经济增长率平均维持在5%左右。

But if they can achieve this, the simple arithmetic says that China will officially be an “advanced” or “high income” economy sometime between 2025 and 2030[5][6].

但是如果中国可以实现这一点，那么根据这个简单的算法，中国在2025年和2030年之间将成为一个“先进”或者“高收入”经济体。



Sitting on the couch with three generations of this one Chinese family, you could catch a glimpse of each phase of the development of China’s modern economy and get some idea of its trajectory in the coming decade.

而这个中国家庭的三代人坐在一起，你就可以窥探到中国现代经济发展的每一个阶段，也能预见到中国未来十年的发展。