中国的新旧通胀模式

懒扎衣

提要：最新经济数据引发了对中国经济过热及高通胀的忧虑。不过，中国当前通胀的成因与20年前完全不同。20年前是因为需求过剩、产能和外汇不足，今天则是因为国际收支顺差、产能和外汇过剩。而从更高的视角来看，20年前中国面临的资源约束如今将扩大到全球层面上，中国过剩需求驱动型的旧通胀模式将成为全球经济的新通胀模式。

　　（外脑精华·北京）最新经济数据或许会让人猜想中国经济是否已处于过热的边缘。以消费价格指数衡量，在过去的12个月中，中国的通胀率已经由0.8%升至3.3%。另一方面，中国的经济增长率已经连续5个季度保持在10%以上，今年1季度的增长率高达11.1%。中国经济上一次连续5个季度保持两位数增长率是在1994年2季度－1995年2季度，当时通胀率曾超过20%。那么，中国是否会再次进入上世纪80年代后期和90年代前期那样的高通胀时期呢？

　　通胀成因不同于过去，短期内无高通胀之虞

　　关于这个问题，简言之，在过去20年间，由于中国经济发生了剧烈的结构变化，因此出现高通胀的可能性很小。过去，中国高通胀的原因在于需求过剩、基础设施瓶颈和贸易逆差。而今，通胀的主要原因则在于，国际收支顺差导致货币供应出现高增长。因此，相比之下当今中国经济更加类似于上世纪80年代末的日本、韩国和中国台湾经济，而不是20年前的中国经济。

　　米尔顿·弗里德曼有句名言：“无论何时何地，通货膨胀都是货币现象。”话虽如此，通货膨胀的深层原因却各不相同。通胀的原因可能是进口价格上涨，上世纪70年代能源危机期间的美国就属于这种情况。出口价格上涨也可能引发通胀，同样在70年代的能源危机期间，印尼和尼日利亚等石油出口国也出现了通胀。而在很多情况下，通胀的原因则在于政府发行货币以弥补财政赤字，上世纪20年代的德国、40年代的中国、80年代的阿根廷和巴西的超级通胀都是此类通胀的著名例子。

　　上世纪80年代后期和90年代前期，中国高通胀的原因在于改革开放导致的消费和投资需求过剩。当时，需求的高增长引发了供不应求的局面。由于基础设施和许多原材料产能投资不足，中国无力靠国内的力量满足过剩需求，而出口收入有限导致也无法通过进口解决问题。这种情况下，投入品价格的上涨很快传递到产成品价格，最终导致了总体价格水平的攀升。

　　今天中国的情况已经完全不同。过度投资导致许多行业出现了产能过剩，同时出口和FDI导致了巨额外汇的流入。这样，中国就有充足的资金进口国内供给不足的资源。

　　中国现在的问题已经不是外汇太少，而是外汇太多。为了维持汇率稳定，无论市场上出售多少外汇，央行都必须按其目标汇率买进。这就意味着增发人民币，从而导致货币供应增加，产生通胀压力。

　　20年前，中国的通货膨胀来自贸易逆差，而今却来自贸易顺差。正如弗里德曼所言，二者的共同之处在于货币供应的过高增长。20年前，需求过剩导致国内信贷扩张，从而增加了货币供应；今天，过剩产品的出口导致海外货币流入中国，即海外发生信贷扩张，从而扩大了货币供应。

　　二者的不同之处表明，当前中国的通胀要缓和得多。20年前，供给不足、国内信用扩张的局面很容易失控，因为运用国有银行贷款争夺稀缺资源的中国企业承受的只是预算软约束；今天则不然，中国货币供应的增长在很大程度上受制于借款购买中国产品的外国消费者，而这些消费者承受的是预算硬约束。

　　庞大需求推升全球价格，中国将面临全球性资源约束

　　然而，中国这样庞大的国家难以长期保持上世纪80年代日本、韩国和中国台湾那样的高增长、低通胀状态。最终，中国经济将再一次面对资源约束，只是这次约束的范围不仅限于其自身，而是整个地球。从近年来的全球初级产品热潮来看，这个时刻正在迅速接近。

　　在中国的庞大需求推升全球价格之时，其国内价格水平自然会随之上涨。3月份通胀报告就表明了这一点——中国国内的食品价格涨势已经与全球涨势趋同。1季度，中国食品价格指数同比上涨6.2%，而美国的相应数字为7.3%。另一方面，与一年前相比，4月20日高盛多种农产品价格指数都出现了大幅上涨：玉米的涨幅为33%，活牛为22%，大豆为20%，可可粉为19%，瘦肉猪为16%。

　　许多人认为，中国人民银行将提高利率，以便使通胀率回落到3%以下。然而，在3月份3.3%的通胀率之中，食品价格上涨的贡献度达2.1个百分点，即占消费价格总体涨幅的64%。鉴于此，加息抑制通胀未必是正确的对策。如果中国通胀问题的根源在于全球性资源限制，那么在短期之内，加快人民币升值以降低进口食品的人民币价格或许能够更为有效地抑制通胀。

　　中国政府的长期策略是，提高资源、尤其是能源的使用效率，从而改变中国经济的增长方式。然而，由于中国经济的比较优势集中于低成本制造业之中，因此增长方式的转变还需要若干年时间。在中国增长方式的转变过程中，过剩需求驱动型的通货膨胀将由中国的旧通胀模式成为全球范围的新通胀模式。

　　英文原文：China's new-old inflation paradigm

The latest Chinese economic statistics might make one wonder if the economy is on the verge of overheating. In the past 12 months, Consumer Price Index （CPI） inflation has risen from 0.8% to 3.3%, while first-quarter GDP （gross domestic product） growth came in at 11.1%, the fifth consecutive quarter above 10%. The last time the economy grew at a double-digit rate for five quarters in a row, from the second quarter of 1994 to the second quarter of 1995, inflation was running at more than 20%. Could the country be about to enter another high-inflation period similar to those experienced in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

In fact, the dramatic structural changes that have occurred in the Chinese economy over the past two decades make such a scenario very unlikely. While past high inflation rates were the result of excess demand, infrastructure bottlenecks and trade deficits, today's inflation has more to do with money-supply growth generated by balance-of-payments surpluses. China today is more like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in the late 1980s, which had inflation in the 5-10% range as a result of large foreign-exchange inflows, than the China of 20 years ago.

Too much of a good thing

While it might be argued that, as Milton Friedman famously said, \"inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon\", the underlying cause is not always the same. Inflation may originate with an import-price shock, as appears to have been the case in the United States during the energy crises of the 1970s. But it can also result from rising export prices, as occurred in oil exporters such as Indonesia and Nigeria during that same period. And there have been many cases where the culprit was the creation of money to cover government deficits - the hyperinflations of Weimar Germany in 1920s, Republican China in the 1940s, and Argentina and Brazil in the 1980s being well-known examples.

The driver for the high Chinese inflation of the late 1980s and early '90s was excess demand for both consumption and investment goods resulting from the economic liberalization of the post-1978 \"opening and reform\" period. As there had been little investment in basic infrastructure and production capacity for many raw materials, demand growth led to shortages that could neither be alleviated locally nor, given insufficient export earnings, with imports. The resulting increases in producer prices were quickly passed on to finished products, and the general price level rose.

Fast-forwarding to today's China, we find a very different situation. Overinvestment has led to excess capacity in a number of sectors, while massive foreign-exchange inflows, both from exports and investment, are now available to finance the import of resources that are in short supply domestically.

Nowadays, the problem is not one of too little foreign currency but of too much. To maintain exchange-rate stability, the monetary authorities must buy as much foreign exchange as anyone wants to sell at their target exchange rate. Since these purchases result in the issuance of additional local currency, the result is an inflationary money-supply increase.

It is interesting that inflation could result both from the trade deficits of 20 years ago and today's trade surpluses. What these two cases have in common, as Friedman's dictum would suggest, is excess money-supply growth. Formerly, the new money resulted from local credit creation in response to excess demand. Today, the new money is flowing in from abroad as excess supply is exported, while the credit creation is occurring overseas.

There is an important difference between these two cases that suggests why today's inflation is so much more benign. Under the former conditions of insufficient aggregate supply, local credit creation tended to spiral out of control as enterprises with soft budget constraints used loans from the state-owned banks to compete for scarce resources. Today's money-supply growth is, to a large extent, limited by what foreign consumers with hard budget constraints can borrow to purchase Chinese exports.

Global resource constraints

Over the long term, however, it is hard to see how a country as large as China can replicate the high- growth/low-inflation stories of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s. Eventually China's economy must once again face resource constraints, this time those of the planet as a whole. And judging from the global commodities boom of the past few years, this point may be fast approaching. Chinese demand growth is now an important driver of price increases for everything from metals to agricultural products.

When excess demand from China pushes up world prices, its own domestic price level will naturally go up as well. This is evident in the March inflation report, which showed local food inflation in line with international levels. The food index rose 6.2% in the first quarter, mirroring a 7.3% rise in the corresponding US statistic for the same period and big year-on-year moves （as of April 20） in the Goldman Sachs commodity indices for corn （up 33%）, live cattle （ up 22%）, soybeans （up 20%）, cocoa （up 19%）, and lean hogs （up 16%）.

Many are now expecting the People's Bank of China to raise interest rates in an attempt to bring inflation back below 3%. But given that food-price increases accounted for 64%, or 2.1 percentage points, of last month's 3.3% inflation rate, this may not be the right policy. If the problem is a global one, a more useful remedy in the short run would be to allow faster currency appreciation to lower yuan prices for imported food.

The government's long-term strategy is to engineer a change in the character of Chinese economic growth by promoting greater efficiency in the use of resources, particularly energy. But as the country's main area of comparative advantage continues to be low-cost manufacturing, it will take years if not decades for significant progress to be made. In the meantime, China's old excess demand-driven inflation paradigm will increasingly become the new paradigm for the world economy.

Mark A DeWeaver, PhD, worked as a research analyst in Shenzhen from 1991-95, first for W I Carr and later for Peregrine Brokerage. He manages Quantrarian Asia Hedge, a fund that invests primarily in Hong Kong-listed Chinese equities （on the Web at www.quantrarian.com）, and can be reached at deweaver@quantrarian.com.


来源：亚洲时报，2007.04.26，作者：Mark A DeWeaver

作者：Mark A DeWeaver