The main task of national macro-control is to maintain the balance of economic aggregate, curb inflation, promote the optimization of economic structure and achieve stable economic growth. Specifically, economic aggregate includes total social demand and total social supply, and total social demand is total social purchasing power; (that is, how much money ordinary people have and how many goods and services a * * can buy), the total supply of society is the total supply of social goods and services (that is, how many goods and services society can provide). They must keep a balance, otherwise, there will be oversupply or oversupply, resulting in economic fluctuations. Therefore, no matter what control measures the country takes, it is to make them reach a balance. At the same time, both inflation and deflation violate the law of currency issuance, and the amount of money needed in circulation is inconsistent with reality. Therefore, whether using monetary policy or fiscal policy, it is necessary to adjust the amount of money in the market circulation so that they are neither too much nor too little.
Specifically:
1, inflation in China since the reform and opening up. Inflation is a commodity economy phenomenon under the condition of socialized mass production. Since China's reform and opening up, with the development of commodity economy, there has also been obvious inflation in economic life; After a long period of governance, remarkable results were achieved at the beginning of this year. But judging from the track of inflation in China, the possibility of rebound still exists. During 1980- 1995, there were four inflation peaks in China, and their causes and characteristics were also different.
The first peak is at 1980, the retail price increase rate rises from 2.0% in the previous year to 6.0%, and the growth rate of the cost of living index rises from 1.9% in the previous year to 7.5%. This wave of peak is mainly caused by the government's sharp increase in the purchase price of agricultural and sideline products (average annual growth of 24.4%) and the wages of employees (average annual growth of 16.6%) during the period of 1979- 1980. In essence, the government's income distribution policy leads to income expansion, which in turn leads to consumption, investment and monetary expansion.
The second peak is at 1985- 1987. Inflation shows a moderate and sustained development, and the retail price increase rate remains between 6.0% and 8.8%. The growth rate of the cost of living index remained between 7.0%- 1 1.9%, and the growth rate of financial subsidy prices dropped sharply. This wave of peak is mainly caused by the expansion of material demand. In terms of consumption, the retail sales of social consumer goods increased by 2 1.4% annually, and the consumption level of residents increased by 15. 1% annually. From the investment demand, the investment in fixed assets increased by 26.6% annually, and the production loans of industrial enterprises increased by 2 1.4% annually. Investment inflation drives income and currency inflation, making the open inflation rate reach 7.0% on average, mainly demand-driven inflation.
The third peak is 1988- 1989, and the inflation rate broke through double digits for the first time and entered galloping inflation. The retail price rose as high as 18.5%, and the cost of living index rose by 20.3%. 1988 Although the national income increased by 1 1.4% over the previous year, serious inflation broke out during this period due to the structural imbalance accumulated in the process of economic development, the intensification of investment inflation and consumption inflation, and the formation of inflation expectations of enterprises and residents. It can be said that this inflation has both structural and demand-driven effects and cost-driven effects, which is a "syndrome" caused by many factors. Therefore, the government had to adopt a "double austerity" macroeconomic policy from 65438 to 0989 to curb inflation.
The fourth peak is 1992 to 1995, in which the inflation rate reaches 13.2% at 1993 and rises to 18.0% at 1994. The main reasons for this increase in inflation rate are the rapid expansion of social fund-raising scale and the large-scale rapid growth of bank funds (1992 GNP growth 12.8%, 1993 growth 13.4%), which leads to high investment expansion, high industrial growth, high currency issuance and high price rise. In the meantime, the first half of 1992- 1993 was cost-driven inflation, and 1994- 1995 was structural inflation. In the words of Mr. Li Yining, an economist in China, the original industrial structure is unbalanced. If the economy is to develop, there will be a serious shortage of some key products, resulting in a "bottleneck" phenomenon and driving up prices. This is structural inflation. The inducing factors and specific transmission mechanism of structural inflation depend on the unique economic types and institutional factors of each country; Structural inflation is not universal for different countries. To analyze the structural inflation in China, we must look for the reasons from the characteristics of China's economy and system. In China, the industrial structure is mainly unbalanced, which is manifested in the following aspects: First, the development of productivity in the agricultural sector lags behind, and agricultural and sideline products cannot meet the needs of the people and industrial sectors for a long time (especially in the late 1980s). Secondly, the basic industry in the industrial field is seriously out of touch with the processing industry, and the processing industry is relatively surplus, while the energy and materials industries are in serious shortage, which has become the "bottleneck" of economic development. Third, although some departments are over-invested, some departments are obviously under-invested. First of all, the growth of agricultural investment is obviously lower than that of other industries, and the proportion of agricultural investment in the whole national economy is declining from time to time. The financial support for agriculture in China is out of proportion to its position in the national economy. Fourthly, the capital construction investment of intangible production industry also has internal structural imbalance. From 1985 to 1992, the fastest growth in infrastructure investment is financial insurance, with an average annual growth rate of 27.4%, and the slowest growth is education, culture, art and radio and television, with an average annual growth rate of 7.2%. Generally speaking, the fundamental reason for the imbalance between China's industrial structure and product structure lies in the low degree of market development and imperfect market operation mechanism, which is manifested in the fact that prices can not completely transmit accurate signals to enterprises and consumers, so price signals cannot play their due guiding role in resource allocation. At the same time, due to the lack of risk mechanism in the market, the result is still that the factors of production cannot be freely and effectively combined and the stock of assets cannot be adjusted. The imbalance between industrial structure and product structure leads to insufficient effective supply, which leads to structural inflation.
2. The experience of developed countries in controlling inflation and its enlightenment to China. Because inflation is a phenomenon of unbalanced operation of commodity economy, it is not unique to a certain social system. Since the reform and opening up, several times of inflation in China have been the result of serious imbalance in the operation of commodity economy. Therefore, starting from the reality and characteristics of inflation in China, it is helpful to learn from the successful experience of developed countries in controlling inflation in China. The author believes that at least the following aspects can be enlightened:
First, make clear the primary goal of controlling inflation and correctly handle the relationship between economic development, reform and price stability. At present and in the future, controlling inflation, promoting economic system reform and preventing economic ups and downs should be the main goals of China's macroeconomic policy. Therefore, in the case of increasing macroeconomic instability, we should actively and steadily carry out reforms that cause demand expansion and price increase (such as price and wage reform); However, reforms that are conducive to curbing demand and improving macro-control mechanisms (such as financial, fiscal, taxation and investment system reforms) should be accelerated. From 65438 to 0996, China achieved remarkable success in controlling inflation, and the inflation rate was controlled at 6.6%, initially achieving a "soft landing". However, several inflation lessons since the reform and opening up tell us that a growth model eager to change the backward economic situation and pursue speed may equate accelerated development with upward speed, blindly invest in order to accelerate growth, and form investment inflation, which will bring inflation. Therefore, how to maintain a moderate economic growth rate without causing excessive inflation rate is a problem that we must always pay attention to in macro-control.
Second, implement a tight fiscal policy to curb investment and consumer demand. The change of inflation in China since the reform and opening up shows that the double expansion of investment and consumption demand is the direct cause of inflation in China. Therefore, restraining the expansion of investment and consumption demand should be the basic policy to control inflation in China, and the specific countermeasures are to implement a tight fiscal policy: first, strictly control the extra-budgetary funds that cause the expansion of investment demand to ensure the moderate growth of the total investment scale; Second, adhere to the balance of fiscal revenue and expenditure and reduce the pressure of fiscal deficit on the growth of money supply; Third, adjust the structure of government expenditure, strictly reduce and control the proportion of consumer expenditure, reduce the purchasing power of social groups, and curb the expansion of consumer demand; Fourth, establish and improve income tax, personal income adjustment tax and other systems to reduce the expansion of consumer demand from the redistribution link.
Third, implement a moderately expanding monetary policy to create a good foundation for increasing the effective total supply of society. On the supply side, the reason of inflation in China is that the growth rate of total supply lags far behind the expansion rate of total demand. Therefore, while restraining the expansion of total demand, we should vigorously enhance the production capacity of total supply and increase the effective supply of society to ensure the long-term stability of prices. To this end, first, enhance the output effect of money supply, improve the efficiency of the use of money funds, and make money supply play an active role in increasing total supply and restraining total demand; The second is to strengthen the authority and independence of the central bank; The third is to implement preferential or key investment policies. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon in the final analysis, and the normal circulation of money is directly related to monetary policy. During the period of 1996, China has made great progress in macro-control, which shows that the monetary policy in the past two years has been successful. As long as China can maintain the current monetary policy, do not relax credit, and adhere to the monetary increment plan formulated by the head office of the People's Bank of China at the beginning of 1996, China's economy will grow steadily and continuously for a long time.
Fourth, implement an income distribution policy that controls wages and prices. Reasonable income distribution is an important policy tool to control inflation and a condition to promote sustained economic development. To improve the income distribution policy, we must first reverse the current pattern of national income distribution that is too inclined to individuals, make the income of employees open, monetized and standardized, gradually reduce various welfare subsidies from the state to urban residents, and establish a standardized social security system; Second, clearly stipulate and implement the principle that the actual wage growth must be lower than the labor productivity growth, correctly determine the reasonable proportion of wages and profits in income distribution, and avoid the erosion of assets by wages and profits; Third, improve and perfect the use of enterprise wage bonuses, strengthen the overall supervision of enterprise finance and wage funds, and block various channels for converting production funds into consumption funds; Fourth, we should accept the lesson that the widespread price liberalization in the 1990s has more than 80% impact on the price increase, earnestly implement the principle of reasonable pricing and reasonable price comparison, require the adoption of the pricing method of production cost plus average profit rate, and stipulate the maximum price limit; At the same time, reasonable price comparison principles should be formulated to avoid price increases and unreasonable income concentration, especially for basic consumer goods that are most prone to price increases and have low supply elasticity under demand pressure, strict price control should be adopted to ensure price stability and supply of such products; Fifth, establish and improve the progressive tax system for personal income and property, limit the tendency of high consumption, and increase the government's fiscal revenue accordingly.
Fifth, strengthen the management of circulation order, appropriately expand imports, and use the international market to stabilize domestic prices. At present, the chaos of circulation in China reflects that China still lacks an effective mechanism to regulate prices in a market economy. Therefore, on the one hand, we must truly establish commercial civilization and social morality that are compatible with the market economy, and encourage legitimate labor to get rich and proper market behavior; On the other hand, it is necessary to speed up the construction of economic laws and regulations, strictly enforce the anti-monopoly law, patent law and other laws and regulations, and legally guarantee the benign operation and orderly circulation of the economy. In addition, according to the supply and demand situation of domestic commodities, we can alleviate the contradiction between domestic supply and demand by expanding the import of some seriously short commodities, and use the international market to stabilize domestic prices.
Sixth, combine demand management policy with industrial structure policy to control structural inflation. Slow technological progress and imbalanced industrial structure are also important reasons for aggravating inflation, which has been a feature of China's inflation since 1992. According to some data, many provinces and cities have listed automobile, electronics, machinery, chemical industry and metallurgy as pillar industries when formulating the Ninth Five-Year Plan and the long-term goal of 20 10, paving new stalls and launching new projects. If this continues, there will be a new round of repeated construction with larger investment scale, and the contradiction of China's industrial structure will become more and more prominent. If this problem is not taken seriously and solved, it will have a negative impact on preventing inflation rebound. To sum up, drawing on the experience of major developed countries in controlling inflation, the policy of controlling inflation is not simply to reduce the inflation rate as the only goal, but to achieve a certain economic growth rate as the premise. Therefore, controlling inflation is a complex and long-term task. Only by constantly studying the new situation and new problems in China's economic development can we formulate effective anti-inflation policies and measures, thus maintaining the healthy economic development.