Dusenberg's theory of relative income: consumption is a function of relative income. Compared with others-demonstration effect, keep pace with high consumption. Our country calls it "comparative effect". Compared with the past habit effect, consumption lags behind after the income level changes.
Modigliani's life cycle theory: consumption is related to life cycle and property income. The following formula:
C = awr+byl...............wr is property income; A is the consumption tendency of property income; YL is labor income, which is actually the income of different stages or ages in an individual's life cycle; B is the marginal consumption tendency of labor income. It shows that consumption depends on property income and labor income at different stages of individual life cycle.
Friedman's theory of sustained income: consumption is a function of sustained income. C = byp indicates that the current persistent income is equal to the weighted average of the current income and previous income.
Expanding domestic demand is a long-term consumption policy of China's economic development.
The so-called policy of expanding domestic demand is to adjust the economic structure (including production structure and consumption structure), broaden the international market and cultivate consumption hotspots to stimulate economic growth. In short, it is to stimulate economic growth by expanding investment demand and consumption demand. To expand domestic demand, we must implement proactive fiscal policy, prudent monetary policy and correct consumption policy.
Since the mid-1990s, a series of policies have been adopted to expand consumption, but the effect is not obvious.
1. The employment situation is still grim, and the income of urban residents is gradually increasing.
Expanding employment is a fundamental measure to increase the income of urban residents and an important prerequisite to stimulate consumption. In September 2002, at the National Re-employment Conference held in Beijing, General Secretary Jiang pointed out that it is necessary to do a good job in employment and re-employment at present and in the future. During the two sessions in 2003, in order to alleviate the employment problem, the new leaders of the country put forward the goal of adding 8 million jobs this year, and introduced preferential tax policies to support laid-off workers to choose their own jobs and encourage service-oriented enterprises to absorb laid-off workers. Local governments have also taken measures to solve this problem. however
As China has entered the era of heavy chemical industry, urbanization and tertiary industry have lagged behind, and the employment elasticity of economic growth has dropped significantly, which has led to a sharp increase in urban unemployment rate in China, reaching 4.2% in the first half of this year. According to the analysis of the supply and demand of the labor market in 59 large and medium-sized cities by relevant departments, there are currently 0.65 jobs for each job seeker, and the employment situation is still grim.
Other measures taken by the government to increase the income of urban residents are more effective than promoting employment. In addition to raising the salary of civil servants twice in a row, the relevant departments have also raised the income of low-and middle-income urban residents many times. The introduction of these measures has played an irreplaceable role in increasing the income of urban residents when the economic benefits of enterprises have not improved significantly for a long time and the central government's revenue has increased rapidly. Statistics show that the income of urban residents in China has maintained rapid growth, and the per capita disposable income has increased from 65438+4283 yuan in 1995 to 7703 yuan in 2002, an increase of nearly 80%. In the first half of 2003, the per capita disposable income of urban residents in China was 43,065,438 yuan, up 9.0% year-on-year, and 8.4% in real terms after deducting the price factor.
2. The growth of farmers' income is slow.
Increasing farmers' income is not only the starting point and destination of solving the "three rural issues", but also the basis of developing rural markets. In order to increase the income of farmers, successive governments have made unremitting efforts. The main measures include: implementing the grain protection price policy to stabilize farmers' income, increasing investment in rural infrastructure such as farmland water conservancy and rural power grid transformation, guiding farmers to carry out agricultural industrialization, effectively reducing farmers' burden, guiding the rational and orderly flow of rural labor force, effectively protecting farmers' legitimate rights and interests, and doing a good job in compensation and employment placement for landless farmers.
It should be said that these measures have achieved some practical results. Taking the pilot reform of taxes and fees as an example, according to the sampling survey of 68,000 farmers in 3 1 province (autonomous region and municipality) conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2002,
The annual per capita tax burden of farmers was 78.7 yuan, which decreased by 12.5 yuan and 13.7% respectively compared with the previous year, and the tax burden accounted for 3.2% of the per capita net income of farmers in that year.
. The decline in the tax burden directly boosted farmers' income by 0.5 percentage points.
However, compared with the income of urban residents, the problem of slow growth of farmers' income is increasingly prominent. According to a calculation by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2002, if all the benefits enjoyed by urban residents are taken into account, the actual income level of farmers is only about one-fifth of that of urban residents. On the surface, the reason for the slow growth of farmers' income is that the current agricultural production mode has become increasingly unsuitable for the requirements of modern economic development. However, the deep-seated reason lies in the lagging development of urbanization in China. From the international experience, the rapid development of textile industry is a period of absorbing rural population and rapid development of urbanization. However, at that time, when the textile industry in China was developing vigorously, the government, under the guidance of the wrong idea of "staying away from home", engaged in township enterprises and missed a good opportunity for urban development. Because the rural population has always maintained a huge scale, the mechanism of China's industry feeding back agriculture cannot be formed, which eventually leads to a gap between rural economic development and industrial economic development, and the income gap between rural residents and urban residents continues to widen.
3. The construction of social security system lags behind.
Perfecting the social security system and reducing the worries of low-income residents in expanding consumption are important means to promote residents' consumption. In recent years, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council attached great importance to the work of "two guarantees" and made great efforts to increase investment in social security. The subsidy from the central government to the social security fund rose from 9.6 billion yuan in 1998 to136.2 billion yuan in 2002, with an average annual increase of 94. 1%. The number of people enjoying the minimum living security in urban and rural areas of China increased from 65,438 in 1998 to 20.6 million in 2002, with an average annual increase of 4.69 million. However, due to the late establishment of China's social security system, there are many debts in history. By the end of last year, only Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Chongqing, Guizhou, Hainan and other 14 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had basically achieved full coverage, and most provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities still had a funding gap. At the same time, in recent years, the structural imbalance of economic development is obvious, the income gap between residents is widening, and the number of unemployed and poor people is increasing, which has also become a major obstacle in the process of establishing a social security system.
Judging from the current situation, the task of establishing and perfecting the rural social security system is very arduous. Statistics show that at the end of 2002, there were 28.2 million poor people in rural areas. To lift such a huge rural population out of poverty, we must establish relevant security systems in rural areas, such as rural minimum living security system, farmers' old-age insurance system, rural medical security system, rural poverty alleviation security fund and poverty alleviation discount fund.
4, rectify the market order and achieve phased results.
Historically, in some parts of China, the economic order was chaotic, fake and shoddy products were rampant, fraud was rampant, and commercial fraud was rampant, which seriously damaged the vital interests of the people and inhibited the people's willingness to consume and the willingness of enterprises to invest. From April of 20001year, the State Council has successively deployed eight special struggles, including joint anti-counterfeiting, rectifying the cultural market, cracking down on pyramid schemes, rectifying the construction market, strengthening tax collection and management, special rectification of bazaars, special rectification of gas stations, anti-counterfeiting in the tourism market and illegal publications. In 2002, the central government deployed and carried out three special projects, such as rectifying the business order of bazaars and gas stations, and cracking down on fake and shoddy and illegal publications in the tourism market, and achieved initial results. From April 14 to April 15, 2003, the national conference on rectifying and standardizing the market economic order was held in Beijing. In 2003, the meeting specifically deployed six work priorities of that year. Under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, through the joint efforts of various regions and departments, the market order has improved.
However, on the whole, the results achieved so far are only preliminary and phased. At present, the disorder of market economic order still exists in a large number, regional blockades and industrial monopolies are still outstanding, some deep-seated contradictions and problems have not been fundamentally solved, and the task of continuing to rectify and standardize the market economic order is still arduous. In order to rectify and standardize the market economic order in the future, we should always adhere to the guiding ideology of "treating both the symptoms and the root causes", carry out special rectification, and establish rules and regulations in time according to the problems found in the rectification work. By improving the system and mechanism and strengthening the construction of the legal system, we should focus on fundamentally solving problems and gradually eliminate the phenomenon of "grasping once and grasping again" in previous work.
5. Consumer credit policy has played an obvious role.
At present, the consumption of urban residents has begun to upgrade to more advanced consumption such as housing and cars. Compared with the upgrading of the old three events and the new three events in the 1980s, the level gap is much larger, so the accumulation period is much longer, so there is a market demand gap. From the international experience, the best way to solve this contradiction is to develop consumer credit.
China's consumer credit started late, but it developed rapidly. 1997, the total scale of consumer credit in China was less than 20 billion, and by the end of 200 1, it had reached 699 billion yuan, an increase of about 40 times. By the end of the first quarter of 2003, the balance of consumer credit in China had exceeded 65,438+0 trillion. Among them, the balance of individual housing loans was 890.9 billion yuan, the balance of individual automobile loans was 654.38+03.5 billion yuan, and the balance of student loans was 5.59 billion yuan. With the improvement of residents' income level and consumption demand level, commercial banks have continuously introduced new varieties of personal consumption loans, including personal pledge loans, automobile loans, personal comprehensive consumption loans, personal small short-term credit loans, and student loans, which have met the increasingly diversified consumption needs of customers.
Undoubtedly, consumer credit has greatly promoted the activity of the automobile and real estate markets and made great contributions to the rapid economic development of China in recent years. Nevertheless, compared with developed countries such as the United States and Western Europe, China's consumer credit still has great room for development. At present, the proportion of consumer credit in the total credit line in western countries is generally between 20% and 40%, and even as high as 60% in some cases, while the proportion in China is only about 10%.
However, influenced by some factors, there are some risks in the development of consumer credit in China. For example, the development of real estate relies too much on the support of bank funds. In the future, while we continue to vigorously promote the development of consumer credit, we also need to take appropriate preventive measures.
Judging from the evaluation results of the above major consumption policies,
Policy mistakes and shortcomings in history are important reasons for the low consumption. Judging from the current situation, under the continuous action of policies and measures, the consumer demand of Chinese residents has begun to show signs of starting, and related consumption hotspots such as housing, automobiles, tourism and communications are taking shape, but it will take some time for consumption to reach a national climax. It will be a long process to see the upgrading of residents' consumption structure. Urban families will mainly enter the purchase stage of 10000 to 10000 yuan, and rural families will enter the purchase stage of 10000 to10000 yuan. The former is mainly from ordinary durable consumer goods to large and high-grade durable consumer goods such as housing, automobiles and information products, as well as personal development and enjoyment consumption such as education, tourism, culture and entertainment, while the latter is from daily necessities to middle and low-grade durable consumer goods. Judging from the current situation, urban residents have entered a new stage of consumption upgrading preparation since the early 1990s, and it is still difficult to form an overall expansion. Especially with the upgrading of consumption level, the grade of bulk durable consumer goods is getting higher and higher, and the process of purchasing power accumulation and consumption waiting is longer. Such as housing consumption and private car consumption, all need a certain period of income accumulation. Comparatively speaking, upgrading the consumption structure of rural residents requires a relatively low income threshold. This highlights the important practical significance of increasing the contribution rate of farmers' consumption demand to GDP growth in order to promote the sustained growth of the national economy.
Second, the current problems and institutional obstacles in expanding consumption
1, three problems in expanding consumption
(1) The consumption rate is low, and the pulling effect of consumption demand on the economy needs to be strengthened.
According to relevant data, compared with foreign countries, the proportion of China's final consumption rate in GDP has been low. The average consumption rates during the Eighth Five-Year Plan and the Ninth Five-Year Plan were 58.7% and 59.4% respectively, but in the recent 10, the average consumption rate just exceeded 59%, while the world average consumption rate exceeded 78%. Although there are some statistical differences in different countries, on the whole, China's consumption rate is still low, and the pulling effect of consumer demand on economic growth has not been fully exerted.
(2) The growth of consumer demand is slow, which deviates from the growth of investment.
Looking back, 1998 and 1999, the growth rates of investment and consumption were basically the same. Until 2000, the difference between the growth rate of investment and consumption at that time was only 0.5 percentage points. Since then, the gap between the two has gradually widened, reaching 7.3 percentage points in 2002. In the first half of this year, investment growth was at the highest point in 12 years, while consumption growth was the lowest point in three years. Judging from the expenditure method, the current economic growth in China is almost entirely driven by investment.
(3) While the total consumption is insufficient, the consumption structure is also unbalanced.
At present, the gap between urban and rural areas, between regions and between people with different incomes is still widening. On the one hand, fewer and fewer people have more and more assets, but they don't have much desire to consume; On the other hand, the situation of low-income people in rural areas, western areas and urban and rural areas has never improved, which greatly restricts the growth of the whole consumer demand. According to statistics, the proportion of rural residents' consumption in the total social consumption has declined for a long time, and it was 64%, 58.7%, 50.6% and 47.8% during the Sixth Five-Year Plan, the Seventh Five-Year Plan, the Eighth Five-Year Plan and the Ninth Five-Year Plan respectively. In recent years, the gap between urban and rural consumption is still large. In 2000 and 20001year, the rural population was 1.76 times and 1.65 times of the urban population respectively, but the per capita consumption of rural residents was only 47.5% and 32.8% of that of urban residents respectively. Compared with the eastern region, the consumption level of residents in the western region is not only relatively low, but also shows a relatively downward trend. Even if they are both urban residents, the consumption gap of different income levels is widening.
2. There are three institutional obstacles to expanding consumption.
In addition to the economic structure and policy constraints mentioned above, there are also some institutional obstacles that affect the current consumption growth in China.
(1) The income distribution system is unreasonable, and consumption shows a development pattern of "from point to area".
Over the years, despite the growth rate, the consumption growth in China has not fluctuated greatly. But in terms of structure, great changes have taken place. Compared with the whole social consumption boom brought by the old three items and the new three items in 1980s, the consumption boom in China since the new century has only been driven by a few people. Under this pattern, the low-and middle-income classes in cities and towns rarely participate, while farmers are almost isolated from them.
The reason for the above consumption pattern is that the income distribution system is unreasonable, which leads to the increasingly serious polarization between the rich and the poor: some private entrepreneurs make huge profits on the one hand, but on the other hand, they do not assume normal tax obligations, let alone pay various social insurances for their employees; Some CEOs of listed companies pay themselves high salaries in the case of long-term losses and become "rich abbots in poor temples"; Some government officials combine power with capital and obtain huge income through various means; Some monopoly enterprises use their dominant position in the seller's market to adjust prices at will and make huge profits. At the same time, the interests of farmers and urban vulnerable groups have never been substantially improved. On the contrary, their interests have been unreasonably violated from time to time. Some people joked that the current consumption is "the consumption of the elite". For most people, despite the huge consumer demand, due to income restrictions, they cannot play their due role.
(2) During the period of shortage economy, some policies and measures to curb consumption introduced by the state to prevent the expansion of demand have not been cleaned up so far.
In the past, during the planned economy period, because the total social supply was less than the total demand for a long time, the government introduced a series of policies to limit consumer demand, especially the purchasing power of social groups. Now, although the consumption situation has been reversed, the supply of commodities exceeds demand, and the consumers have shifted from groups to individuals, these outdated policies are still lingering under the influence of various factors, especially the interests of relevant departments. Take the car as an example. In times of shortage, cars have to be imported in foreign exchange. Therefore, in order to control group buying, a vehicle purchase surcharge accounting for 10% and a consumption tax of 3%-8% were introduced. Nowadays, automobile production has soared, and individual car purchases account for half of automobile sales. These old policies undoubtedly set a high threshold in front of individual consumers. Looking at housing, the average house price in Beijing is as high as 6375 yuan per square meter, which is as high as that in new york and Tokyo. The reason is that 40% of the housing price is the government's land price tax, and it is a one-time entry of 70 years of land price. Other old policies that directly restrict personal consumption demand (such as increasing charges for electricity consumption beyond the plan, increasing charges for air conditioning capacity, etc.). ) has also been maintained. All these have had a quite adverse impact on the consumption of related commodities (especially commercial housing) and the healthy development of its industry.
(3) Because the economic system reform is not in place, there are still some administrative monopolies in China, which have restrained consumption to some extent.
From the cause of formation, there are two kinds of market monopoly: one is competitive monopoly and the other is administrative monopoly. The former mainly relies on competitive strength to occupy a large share in the market before forming a monopoly, and monopoly often plays a great role in promoting the development of consumption in its formation. The latter does not rely on market competition, but relies on administrative means to eliminate the monopoly position gained by entrants from other industries, which has a negative impact on consumption development both during and after its formation. At present, China's monopoly is mainly administrative monopoly, such as telecommunications, water supply companies, heating companies, gas companies, power companies, civil aviation, railway transportation, public transportation and so on. The monopoly position obtained by these industries does not depend on technological innovation or capital investment. They are often both producers and managers of the industry, which provide poor services, high prices and low efficiency to the market and bring great harm to consumers. For example, the telecommunications department has always used 3 minutes as the unit of charging by meter for local calls, which is not a small number for users all over the country every year, compared with charging by second. However, in the face of criticism from all walks of life on this unreasonable charge, the telecommunications sector in a monopoly position can always stay put.