Institutional construction is the fundamental guarantee for the great achievements of reform and opening up. The system is the decisive factor, which is fundamental, overall, stable and long-term. From the perspective of the economic field, the market-oriented system reform with property rights and distribution as the core has liberated and developed productive forces and released huge energy that has promoted the rapid economic development for more than 30 years. The reason why the "long-lasting" structural adjustment and development mode transformation has become a "chronic disease" is that the root cause lies in institutional obstacles - the lag in government transformation, and new entanglements in the relationships between the government and the market, the government and enterprises, and the government and society. In other words, institutional change lags behind economic and social development, and institutional innovation needs to be carried out again.
With the development of market economy, people have shifted from dealing with the uncertainty of the natural environment to dealing with the increasingly complex social environment. The main method to improve economic performance is to improve the system. Between 1870 and 1970, the proportion of the U.S. trading sector in the economy increased from 25V0 to 45910 of GDP, and market trading was the fundamental guarantee for this major change. Improving economic performance means reducing production and transaction costs, and the main way to achieve this goal is to reform the system. This includes establishing a unified measurement system, creating an effective judicial system and enforcement mechanism, monitoring and measuring the execution of contracts and adjudicating disputes. Although these activities may cause an increase in transaction costs, the increase will always be offset by a significant decrease in production costs.
Systems are socially recognized game rules and incentive mechanisms, and are behavioral norms or codes of conduct that people must abide by. It consists of three parts: formal rules (constitution, law, property rights), informal constraints (rewards and punishments, taboos, customs, traditions and codes of conduct) and implementation mechanisms. Institutions play a huge role in economic and social development. A good system can prevent bad people from running amok, and a bad system can prevent good people from fully doing good deeds, and may even lead to the opposite.
Take a football match as an example. The rules of the game consist of formal rules and informal rules. The result of the game depends on how these game rules are implemented and whether players receive the punishment they deserve after committing a foul. To reach the international level, refereeing must be based on internationally recognized rules. If one-sided emphasis is placed on Chinese characteristics, caring for human dignity, succumbing to money, beauty, and power, staying away from universal values, blowing "black whistles" indiscriminately, and unclear rewards and punishments, my country's football level will only be "a mess."
The economic system is the relationship of production. Its function is to constrain people's choices, guide people's expectations, and provide incentives and constraints to reduce uncertainty caused by human behavior and environmental complexity and reduce economic development. cost. The rising value of human capital in the process of economic development is the main reason for institutional innovation. The relevant political and legal systems are designed to meet these needs. The purpose of continuously innovating the economic system is to create a good institutional environment to mobilize everyone's enthusiasm, enable entrepreneurship to be effectively brought into play, and promote the flow of resources to more efficient areas.
Although technological innovation has injected vitality into economic growth, if there is no impulse for institutional innovation and institutional change, and the achievements of technological innovation are consolidated through the construction of a series of institutions (including property rights systems, legal systems, etc.) If this happens, long-term economic growth and social development will be unthinkable. Science and technology itself is only a necessary and prerequisite for economic growth. To transform it into a sufficient condition and source of reality, so that the role of technological progress in promoting economic growth can be effectively brought into play, relevant institutional arrangements also need to be adjusted accordingly to adapt to productivity. development requirements. New institutional economist North said that only perfect institutions are the cause of economic growth, and other factors (such as technology, human capital investment, education, etc.) are just growth. For example, the protection of intellectual property rights promotes the prosperity of the intellectual property market. Enterprises owning patent rights can be used to obtain or maintain market position, which mobilizes the enthusiasm of enterprises for research and development, improves the internal and external innovation behavior of enterprises, and also encourages enterprises to invest in order to obtain external technologies. Obviously, with institutional guarantees, companies are more willing to invest in research and development to acquire new technologies and seek market competitive advantages.
Looking back on the more than 30 years of my country's reform and opening up, we can see that success has followed the most basic laws of the market economy and is a huge achievement of institutional innovation. From the perspective of human resources alone, more than 200 million low-employment farmers have turned to urban non-agricultural enterprises. Efficiency and benefits have been improved, and labor resources have been used more effectively.
Providing a strong foundation for economic development power. This has been fully reflected in China's rural household contract responsibility system and the reform of state-owned enterprises. This is due to the establishment of a series of market economic systems such as protecting relative property rights, recognizing and motivating people's material interest motives, and allowing market entities to decide what to produce and how much to produce based on price signals.
Looking at the economic development of countries around the world, people have found a very similar feature: different economic systems will produce different economic operating mechanisms, which will then affect their economic efficiency and growth methods. What kind of economic system there is, there must be a corresponding economic growth method. Changes in economic systems (including innovations in economic organization forms, changes in market systems, innovations in business management methods, changes in property rights systems, etc.) are not only an important factor affecting long-term economic growth, but also have an important impact on resource allocation efficiency and economic efficiency. The improvement will have a significant impact and, therefore, will also have a significant impact on the transformation of economic growth patterns.
Therefore, institutions play a decisive role in promoting economic growth and social development. Institutional change is the real driving force behind my country's rapid economic growth and miracles. Of course, institutional innovation cannot be done once and for all. It must keep pace with the times and continue to reform and improve based on the actual economic and social development. Only by always maintaining the vitality and vitality of the system can we ensure that the system becomes a driving force for economic and social development rather than a resistance.
The more perfect the system, the more economic growth will be reflected in technological progress and the development of human capital. The less perfect the system, the more economic growth will be restricted by the development of the system. At present, my country's market economic framework still has many flaws. Institutional obstacles have become a prominent factor in changing methods, adjusting structures, and promoting scientific development. The so-called institutional obstacles mainly refer to the lagging reform part of the current system. From the perspective of the economic system, the main manifestations are: first, the government still interferes too much in microeconomic activities; second, the scale of the state-owned economy is still too large, and a considerable part of the state-owned economy Enterprises have powers conferred by the administration, which hinders the effective role of the market. Administrative monopoly hinders market competition and optimal resource allocation.
The government has the power to allocate important scarce resources such as land, credit, and energy. Key resources are allocated through power and play a considerable role in resource allocation, which limits the role of the market in resource allocation. Power directly intervenes in the market, especially the control of prices, causing the spread of rent-seeking corruption. Government intervention in the market is not only difficult to break through market forces, but also often constitutes a major obstacle to the further improvement of the market economic system.
Currently, the irrational economic structure, difficulty in transforming the development model, and difficulty in implementing scientific development are all related to imperfect systems and inadequate reforms. The system lags behind economic development, which over time has caused some deep-seated contradictions that are difficult to recover from, such as the separation of urban and rural systems, lagging reforms of the financial system and property rights system, lagging macro-field reforms and lagging transformation of government functions, etc. Compared with countries with mature market economic systems, the entire institutional structure of our society, including a set of basic political, economic and legal rules for production, exchange and distribution, needs to be further improved.
Institutional backwardness is prominently represented by the excess of inefficient institutions and the scarcity of efficient institutions. For example, in the face of social divisions caused by high housing prices (such as villas and ant tribes), there is an urgent need to control the imbalance of property ownership through means such as property taxes. However, property taxes have been called for for several years and are still being "researched" ; There is a huge social income gap, but efficient institutional arrangements for adjusting income have yet to be implemented. The ruthless fact that my country's urban-rural income ratio has continued to expand for several years shows that the inefficient system that widens the urban-rural gap is still deeply rooted.
If the initial establishment of the market economic system has promoted the rapid development of our country's economy for more than 30 years, then it is precisely because the market economic system is not yet complete that it has hindered the transformation of development methods
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The "Ninth Five-Year Plan" officially included the fundamental transformation of the economic growth model into the five-year plan, and progress has also been made in reform. At the beginning of the 21st century, with the acceleration of urbanization, there was a return to the old extensive growth method, using this method to support high-speed growth. After 2003, there was large-scale investment in capital-intensive industries, and the trend of industrial heavy-duty was everywhere. Therefore, although transformation was required, it was actually impossible to reverse it, and the situation even worsened. The “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” also proposes to transform the mode of economic growth as a red line. During the formulation process of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", this issue was once again raised to higher requirements. Several consecutive five-year plans have emphasized changing development methods, but the results have not been ideal. The reason is that an economic and institutional environment conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship has not been fully established.
The former Soviet Union has proposed changing the mode of economic growth since the 1960s, and emphasized the transformation of the mode of economic growth in every five-year plan. However, because its system has not undergone corresponding changes, the system has not fundamentally changed. As a result, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, its economic growth pattern did not change. Institutional construction lags behind economic growth, and there is often an out-of-control phenomenon in which things that should be done are not done and things that should not be done are done in advance. The traditional economic growth model is rooted in existing institutional arrangements. The reason why it is difficult to change the development model ultimately lies in the system. The difficulty lies in the inefficient institutional arrangements that "match" the traditional growth model. Under this institutional arrangement, local governments at all levels It is difficult for the government to have the internal motivation to promote changes in economic development methods.
Scientific development should be based on corresponding systems. There are many aspects in my country's current economic system arrangements that restrict scientific development. For example, the performance standard based on GDP growth rate has a negative incentive effect; the fiscal and taxation system with mismatched responsibilities and powers has a revenue structure based on production-based value-added tax from the perspective of revenue. You see, important expenditure responsibilities have been excessively shifted downwards, such as education responsibilities to counties and below. Local governments at all levels have to work hard to increase revenue to meet payment responsibilities, forcing officials at all levels to pursue rapid growth in the material production sector: The distortion of factor prices, including the main means of production, as well as wages and foreign exchange, distorts prices in a low direction, which promotes waste of resources. High economic growth resulting from high investment, high pollution, and high demographic dividends consumes resources. Too large and the output efficiency is too low. Taking the development of circular economy as an example, due to the low cost of natural resources, the value-added part of the cost accounts for a high proportion, and the value-added tax is paid in proportion to the value-added. Therefore, based on the output value, recycling resources requires a higher proportion. of value-added tax. Therefore, institutional factors have become the main factors and important variables in whether the economic growth mode can be transformed. Changing the development mode must have corresponding institutional innovation. Only through institutional innovation to eliminate the constraints of traditional systems on the transformation of economic growth patterns can we truly realize the fundamental transformation of the extensive economic growth pattern. Institutional innovation is the process of abandoning the old system. Only by relying on institutional innovation and breaking the old fetters in traditional consciousness and institutional arrangements can variables such as technology, knowledge, and institutions be raised to the same status as variables such as capital, labor, and income, forming a The benign interaction between technical knowledge and various economic and social structural characteristics overcomes the diminishing returns caused by a single factor and forms an increasing return on factors to achieve the goals of transforming methods, adjusting structures, and promoting scientific development.
Institutional construction and institutional innovation are important components of improving the market economic system and are also important signs of the comprehensive transition to a market economic system. Transforming the mode of economic development is essentially a competition to improve institutional efficiency. The foundation lies in innovating institutional mechanisms to better play the fundamental role of the market in resource allocation, remove institutional and institutional obstacles that restrict economic and social development, and enhance the intrinsic motivation for development. At present, economic development has reached a critical stage of transforming the mode of economic development, and reform has entered a deep-water zone. No matter from which level we look at it, institutional construction is an area that needs to be vigorously strengthened.
There should be new breakthroughs in at least six aspects:
1. Improve a standardized, efficient and orderly market competition mechanism
Accelerate the reform of the economic and political system with the transformation of development mode as the main line, and achieve The government-led economic operating mechanism has transformed into a market-led economic operating mechanism. Further develop and improve the commodity market; actively cultivate and standardize the financial market; actively cultivate and standardize the human resources market; further improve and standardize the property rights trading market; break administrative monopoly and administrative-led regional blockade, and actively develop and standardize other factor markets, Accelerate the reform in the circulation field, standardize market behavior, and reduce the cost of the circulation link. Establish a unified, open, competitive and orderly market system to enable the market mechanism to operate effectively, give full play to the fundamental role of the market in allocating resources, and allocate resources effectively. Improve micro entities with convenient and clear property rights, improve the economic laws and regulations that regulate the behavior of market entities, maintain the order of fair market competition, improve macro-control, and improve and strengthen government management and social supervision of the behavior of market entities. Formulate and implement reasonable industrial policies, guide enterprise investment and operating behaviors in an organic and unified direction that is conducive to economic, ecological and social benefits, guide and promote the industrial structure along the lines of correlation effect, elasticity effect, growth effect and openness The rationalization trajectory of the effect will be forwarded to achieve sustainable economic development.
2. Improve the administrative management system that adapts to the market economy
Accurately grasping the positioning of government functions based on the market economy is the foundation for improving the administrative management system. Transform the government's functions in managing the economy, strengthen the government's social management and public service functions, standardize the government's intervention in the market and economic activities, establish and improve a macro-control system that focuses on indirect means, and integrate the government's management of the economy into The rule of law track is a key link in improving the market economic system. To this end, it is necessary to accelerate the reform of the administrative management system with administrative transformation as the main line, and promote the transformation of the government from an all-powerful government and a regulatory government to a limited government, a service government, and a legal government. Further standardize government responsibilities, optimize government organizations, and innovate administrative management methods; further straighten out the relationship between powers at all levels of government, establish and improve the public financial system; form a strict market legal system, rely on system construction to strictly constrain administrative power, and implement Administer according to law. Effective allocation of resources is mainly carried out through market mechanisms, and the government only intervenes in situations or areas where the market fails. Necessary government intervention should also comply with the requirements of the laws of the market economy, and should be carried out through market methods and economic means as much as possible, and by comprehensively using predictable, transparent and highly transparent economic and legal means such as finance, finance, and income distribution.
3. Promote innovation in resource property rights and resource management systems
The ownership of various natural resources in my country belongs to the state or collectives. The space for innovation in resource property rights and resource management systems is: Implementation The system that separates resource ownership, use rights and management rights clarifies the respective responsibilities, rights and interests of resource owners, users and operators. This must be complemented by a system of paid use and transfer of resources to change state-owned enterprises. The pattern of monopolizing certain resources and over-occupying resources should be allocated according to the principle of efficiency priority, standardize resource utilization behavior, institutionally ensure that enterprises of different natures have equal rights to use resources, and promote open, fair, equitable and efficient resource allocation. Provide market incentive mechanisms and regulatory system arrangements related to resource utilization, such as resource use rights and management rights transfer and transaction systems; environmental resource tax systems such as emissions tax, fuel tax, and polluting product tax; formulate and implement industries that are conducive to the development of environmental industries policy; resource recycling incentive system, etc. In this way, what enterprises pursue is no longer the expansion of product output value and the maximization of revenue, but the pursuit of maximizing profits including deducting the environmental costs of resource use. The economic growth pursued by the government is no longer an extensive GDP without accounting for ecological capital, but a green growth that comprehensively considers resource costs and environmental costs.
4. Improve the modern enterprise system that adapts to the market economy
A modern enterprise that adapts to the requirements of the concept of sustainable development is not only an "economic man", but also a "social man" and “Ecological people” not only have the right to pursue profit maximization, but also have the obligation to protect consumer rights and protect the ecological environment. To this end, the system should be improved to adapt to the modern enterprise system: through the adjustment of ownership structure and the corporate restructuring of state-owned enterprises with clear property rights relationships, divisible, tradable, transferable, and quantitatively defined enterprise property rights entities should be created , and make extensive use of modern trading methods and trading tools to promote the flow of monetization and securitization of corporate assets, including state-owned assets, to achieve high efficiency of corporate resource allocation; build an effective corporate corporate governance structure, form a power structure, and operate The mechanism of mutual checks and balances between agencies and supervisory agencies solves the common problems of high cost, zero responsibility, and low efficiency in the principal-agent process, as well as the four major problems of unequal interests, unequal responsibilities, asymmetric information, and incomplete contracts. The establishment of a modern enterprise system will help enhance the vitality of the enterprise, improve the overall quality of the enterprise, actively participate in market competition, and regard the pursuit of profit maximization as the main goal of management.
From extensive management to intensive management, and Through the survival of the fittest mechanism, we optimize resource allocation and create a dynamic and vital micro-foundation for the transformation of economic growth mode. To form a standardized modern enterprise system, what needs to be solved most at present is to cut off or block the administrative relationship and asset ties between the government and enterprises, and effectively solve the problems of no separation between government and enterprises, no separation of government assets, and no separation of political affairs.
5. Improve the price formation mechanism that reflects ecological costs
Accelerate the improvement of the price formation mechanism for production factors and resource products that reflect market supply and demand and resource scarcity. Under the market system, prices reflect the scarcity of resources and demand conditions. The market mechanism will cause resources to flow to more efficient places. This process will improve the overall efficiency of the social economy and the industrial structure will continue to evolve. The transformation of development methods has its own consequences. Intrinsic motivation. The market allocates resources through price, and the formation of reasonable prices requires sufficient competition, which requires corresponding systems to ensure open, fair and just competition. To this end, we must strive to break monopoly barriers, standardize government intervention, improve relevant systems, improve the price formation mechanism that reflects the scarcity of resource factors, and form energy-saving, land-saving, water-saving, and material-saving production methods and consumption patterns, so that production factors and Resource product prices reflect the scarcity of resources and environmental costs.
6. Improve the social integrity system and economic credit relationship
Integrity, as a basic principle of the market economy, is an important factor in ensuring market effectiveness. Whether the credit legal system is complete, clear, and effectively operating plays a vital role in establishing integrity in the entire society. Improve the credit system in accordance with the law, standardize credit and contracts in the form of law, and form a complete system. Comprehensive use of economic and legal means can make the individual's breach of contract costs much higher than the benefits of breach of contract, so that untrustworthy behavior will be punished and sanctioned as it should be. Improve the credit system and the integrity incentive and restraint mechanism, internalize the external problems caused by untrustworthy behavior, create a good atmosphere that emphasizes integrity in the whole society, and make integrity a social norm that people consciously abide by.
In short, institutional innovation is the fundamental guarantee for changing methods, adjusting structures, and achieving scientific development. It is necessary to seize the weak links that affect the role of the market mechanism, accelerate the reform of the administrative management system, improve property rights, natural resources, and modern enterprise systems, improve the social integrity system, create internal driving forces for scientific economic development, and promote sustained and healthy economic development.