City chickens and country eggs
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: August 06, 2013
Aug 4th 2013, 13:42 by T.P. | BEIJING
AS IT adjusts to the end of its run of sustained, double-digit rates of annual economic growth, China is staking a great deal on the idea that growth and urbanisation are linked. It has made continued urbanisation a pillar of the government's long-term strategy for rebalancing. But policymakers who put so many of their hopeful eggs in the this basket must also consider a vexing chicken-and-egg question: is it urbanisation that causes growth, or is it the other way round? In a paper released in July, two scholars argue that "the direction of causality likely runs from growth to urbanisaton, rather than vice versa."
There are caveats galore about their findings, especially as they relate to China. The scholars, Anett Hofmann of the London School of Economics and Guanghua Wan of the Asian Development Bank, seek not only to determine the impact of urbanisation on economic growth, but also that of industrialisation and education. And, while they seek and find indications that growth causes urbanisation, it is not clear that they themselves investigated this reverse sort of causality, which they ultimately deem the more likely. They leave off noting instead that "the fact that attempts to identify a causal effect of urbanisation on growth have so far been unsuccessful" [emphasis theirs].
More relevant still is the fact that China is not betting the farm, as it were, on urbanisation. True, some influential figures have hinted at the belief that it might be sufficient as a spur to future growth. For instance Zhang Liqun, of the State Council's Development Research Centre, recently saidthat "the growth momentum gained from the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation alone will support the country's steady growth."
But the senior leader most closely identified with the idea is the current prime minister, Li Keqiang, and he has outlined a more nuanced position. Elaborating his positionin an article published in May in a theoretical journal of the Communist Party, Qiu Shi (here in Chinese), Mr Li wrote that "China is experiencing exponential urban growth which will spur investment and consumption and play a significant role in expanding domestic demand."
His formulation involves more than a simple "urbanisation-causes-growth" assumption. Under China's current circumstances, there is plenty of reason to believe he is onto something. Rather than counting on urbanisation to boost growth directly, through increased production or higher efficiency say, the hope is that it will raise the economy's consumption share—a key goal of China's overall restructuring effort.
In doing the sums for his article, Mr Li started with data showing that in 2010 China's urban residents spent 3.6 times more per capita than did their country cousins. He concluded that every rural resident who moves to a city will increase consumption by an average of 10,000 yuan ($1,631). Multiplying by the 10m rural residents he expects might be absorbed into cities in a single year, he predicted that "this will, in turn, translate into consumption totalling more than 100 billion yuan and correspondingly create more investment opportunities."
With or without the government's encouragement, the process of urbanisation has been moving at great speed. At the end of 2011, China crossed an important thresholdwhen, for the first time in history, its city-dwellers became the majority. In 1980 they accounted for only one fifth of the population.
And while policy will have an effect on the pace, robust urbanisation will almost certainly continue no matter what the government does. Even scholars who have been supportive of China's drive for urbanisation are wary of its pace. In a paper from 2005 titled "Are Chinese cities too small?"Chun-Chung Au and J. Vernon Henderson, of Brown University in America, conclude that many of China's cities were "significantly undersized" and that cost the economy in terms of both productivity and worker income. However they were careful to qualify that view: "the recommendation here is not to suddenly increase the sizes of all cities by enormous magnitudes overnight." Whether it is truly the chicken or the egg that comes first, eggs must always be placed in the basket with care.
中國都市化能否帶動經濟成長？
2013-08-06 Web only 作者：經濟學人
在兩位數高速經濟成長告一段落之後，中國調整策略，將都市化列經濟再平衡的長期策略之一，但就在決策者將這麼多雞蛋放在同一個籃子之時，也該思考那個難解的雞生蛋、蛋生雞問題：究竟是都市化創造了成長，還是成長帶來了都市化？
倫敦政經學院的霍夫曼（Anett Hofmann）和亞洲發展銀行的萬廣華，在7月發表的論文中指出，成長與都市化之間的因果關係，應該是成長帶動了都市化發展的可能性較高。不過，雖然兩位學者找出了成長造成都市化的證據，但無法確定兩人是否也同時研究了都市化帶動成長這一部分。
不過，更重要的是，中國並沒有將所有賭注在都市化。確實，部分具影響力的人物曾表示，都市化或許足以擔起未來成長的前鋒，但最認同都市化的高層人物，也就是現任總理李克強，他的立場則有些許的不同；李克強在五月時曾在共產黨理論雜誌《求是》發表文章表示，中國正經歷驚人的都市成長，而都市成長將進一步刺激投資和消費，擴大內需。
簡單而言，李克強的立場並非僅僅是「都市化帶來成長」這種單純的假設，而以中國的現況來看，也十分有理由相信他其實別有目標。他並不想靠都市化直接刺激成長，而是希望都市化可以提升消費在經濟中所佔的比重，而那正是中國再平衡計劃的關鍵目標之一。
不管政府鼓勵與否，中國都市化的腳步一向十分快速，更在2011年低跨越了重要門檻，城市居民首度佔多數。政策方向雖然會影響都市化腳步，但無論政府怎麼做，都市化勢必會加速進行。美國布朗大學的歐振中和韓德森（J. Vernon Henderson）曾在2005年的論文中指出，許多中國城市規模過小，限制了經濟成長和工人的收入，但這並不表示中國應該在短時間內擴大所有城市的規模。不論是雞生蛋還是蛋生雞，雞蛋都應該放在有人仔細照顧的籃子裡。（黃維德譯）
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