In the second half of 2009, China's macroeconomic situation was mixed: in the first half of the year, investment and consumption grew steadily, and due to the shrinking international market, exports still fell by 22% year-on-year, but the decline decreased month by month; It is estimated that the economic growth rate will reach 7.5% in the second quarter. Due to the slow growth rate in the third and fourth quarters of last year and the low base, the growth rate will exceed 8% in the third and fourth quarters of this year, and the eight-year guarantee should be realized, or not far away. On the other hand, prices are still in a state of deflation, reflecting that the total demand is still weak, but the new credit has expanded rapidly, reaching 7.3 trillion yuan in the first half of the year, and the growth rate of M2 is obviously high, and some funds have flowed into the stock market and the housing market, causing concerns about a new bubble.
Two points can be drawn from the comprehensive study: (1) The economy has stabilized, but the strength is still obviously insufficient; (2) The price situation is worthy of attention, at least people's expectations of inflation have generally appeared. This situation has caused some troubles on how to master macro-policies in the future, and there are inevitably differences and disputes between continued expansion and moderate cooling. A similar situation exists in the United States. In the past month, Obama changed his mind three times about whether to adopt the second round of economic stimulus plan.
How to observe and judge this complicated situation? The following two angles may be worth referring to.
(1) As external demand (export) is still frustrated, it is necessary to maintain a large-scale domestic demand-driven policy; In other words, we should continue to implement the fiscal policy of steady expansion and the moderately loose monetary policy;
(2) But there are some new situations and problems, such as: (1) inflation expectation psychology is forming; (2) There are signs of bubbles in the stock market and property market again; (3) SME loans are not easy, and the willingness of private investment is not strong; (4) The employment situation is grim; (5) Some state-owned enterprises have overcapacity; (6) The risk of bad debts of financial institutions has increased. ...
So what? How to face the response? Theoretically, most of these new situations and problems have emerged under the existing macro-control policies. If it is necessary to continue the existing macro-control policies, how can we deal with and improve these new situations and problems at the same time?
First, get to the point. The key point is one sentence: the problem is not the total amount, but the structure. If we take the policy objectives set at the beginning of the year as an example, the problem of "maintaining growth" is not big, and it is estimated that it is not far away; However, the progress of "reorganization" is relatively limited, and there is still a lot of room for efforts.
Then, how to understand that "maintaining growth" means no problem, while "adjusting structure" has limited effect? It turns out that in terms of "maintaining growth", it is enough to grasp the scale of "total demand" driven by macro policies, but the scale of "total demand", no matter how big or small, has nothing to do with structural changes. In other words, while pursuing the goal of "maintaining growth" with macro policies, we cannot expect "structural adjustment" to be realized automatically; "Structural adjustment" must have two sets of policy designs that can match macro-control policies, which are called "meso-control" and "micro-control" respectively. You can give an example.
How to face the new situation and problems mentioned above? As the first step, the basic policy idea should be to promote two "optimizations":
(1) Optimize the policy investment structure. That is, increase investment in people's livelihood, public goods, scientific research and education, environmental energy, job creation and other resources;
(2) Optimize the credit structure of banks. That is to increase credit support for private enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises and "agriculture, rural areas and farmers".
There is no problem with these two "optimizations", but how to implement them requires a series of "medium" and "micro" control policies.
As far as the "middle view" policy is concerned, national and regional countermeasures, including policy objectives and policy means, can and should be combined with fiscal policy and monetary policy in macro-control.
As for the "micro" policy, it is more detailed. For example, in order to strengthen the development of scientific research, enterprises and scientific and educational institutions can be given preferential policies or subsidies in scientific research activities, including talent recruitment, equipment purchase, project planning and training; In order to develop new environment and new energy industry, we can also design policies to reward and punish related external economic and external non-economic behaviors.
If we can do this and combine macro, meso and micro closely, we can achieve the goal of "restructuring" while "maintaining growth".