Tsinghua University Nobel Economic Forum and International Seminar on Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking in the Past 40 Years of Reform and Opening-up
前排左起：丹尼·罗德里克、爱德华·普雷斯科特、埃里克·马斯金、陈旭、托马斯·萨金特、埃里克·伯格洛夫、 许成钢
后排左起：埃德蒙·费尔普斯、扬·阿尔冈、王一江、巴里·埃森格林、李稻葵、潘庆中、厉克奥博
On the morning of December 9, 2018, the Tsinghua University Nobel Economic Forum and International Seminar on Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking in the Past 40 Years of Reform and Opening-up was held in the reception hall of the main building of Tsinghua University. The theme of the seminar was to actively explore the theories and practice of China’s reform and opening up with the international mainstream economic circles, and to refine the Chinese stories into economic theories that could be accepted by the mainstream economic circles. This seminar was held by the Tsinghua University Institute for China’s Economic Practice and Thinking (an Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking, ACCEPT).
Foreign guests at the seminar included: Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel Prize winner in economics; Edward Prescott, 2004 Nobel Prize winner in economics; Eric Maskin, 2007 Nobel Prize winner in economics; Thomas Sargent, 2011 Nobel Prize winner in economics; Barry Essengrin, professor of economics and politics, University of California, Berkeley; Dani Rodrik, professor of international political economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Eric Berglof, Director of Institute of Global Affairs, London School of Economics and Political Science; and Yann Algan, Dean of the School of Public Affairs, Sciences Po Paris, Paris. In addition, domestic guests included: Ma Jiantang, CPC Secretary and Deputy Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council; Xu Chenggang, Professor of Economics of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business; Wang Yijiang, Professor of Economics of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business；and other experts and scholars from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Renmin University of China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the National Bureau of Statistics and the Research Institute of China Securities Regulatory Commission.
Professor Chen Xu, CPC Secretary and Chairman of the School Affairs Committee of Tsinghua University, was invited to attend the meeting and deliver a welcoming speech. Chen Xu said that it is of great significance to hold this seminar on the occasion of the 40thanniversary of reform and opening up. Over the past four decades, China has continuously learned from and absorbed advanced technology, experience and ideas from developed countries, and continuously deepened its reform at home, making great historic achievements. The founding and development of Tsinghua University has always been closely linked with opening up: the Tsinghua University Institute for China’s Economic Practice and Thinking (an Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking, ACCEPT)was established in April this year to further draw lessons from international economic theories, summarize and refine relevant theories based on the experience and basic facts of China’s development, and promote the sustainable development of China and the world economy.
Subsequently, on behalf of ACCEPT, President Li Daokui, published the Report on the Economic Lessons Learned from China’s 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up. The report was completed by Li Daokui and his research team after several field investigations, in-depth interviews and literature review, which lasted for nine months. The report points out that since the reform and opening up launched 40 years ago, China’s economic share in the world has increased from less than 5% to 18.2%, making it the largest and most unique economic growth in human history. The report summarizes the lessons learned from China’s economic practice since the reform and opening-up from five aspects: the establishment and development of new enterprises, transformation of land use rights, deepening of the financial sector and financial stability, learning-oriented opening-up and prudent macro-control. The report points out that, first of all, there should be incentive mechanisms that encourage local governments to help enterprises access into the industry and develop rapidly. Second, local governments should be motivated to transform agricultural land into non-agricultural land quickly. Third, deepening of the financial sector is essential, namely, to guide households to hold an increasing amount of domestic currency-denominated financial assets and effectively convert savings into investment. Fourth, learning holds key to economic growth in the opening up efforts. The fundamental benefit of opening up is learning rather than comparative advantage, and a single comparative advantage tends to keep the economy at a low level of development. Fifthly, the central government must actively and prudently regulate and control the macro-economy. As enterprises compete with each other in the rivalry of industrial organizations, an excessive number of enterprises will enter into the same industry when the economy is overheated, and they will become reluctant to quit the crowded industry when the economy is sluggish. In order to address this problem, we must take active control measures, including market-oriented instruments, administrative orders and reform measures.
The report concludes that the successful experience of China’s practice in the reform and opening-up shows that the government’s actions and incentives must undergo reforms and adjustments in place. Acting as critical participants in the economy, central and local governments are of vital importance to economic development. Government and economics are important research fields where modern economics needs further improvement.
The foreign guests present at the seminar expressed their admiration for the success of China’s reform and opening up in the past 40 years, and put forward constructive suggestions on China’s reform and development in the future.
According to Edmund Phelps, the report is full of new ideas. The summary of the five aspects of the report is quite pertinent. China’s central and local governments play a very critical role in economic growth. In addition, he suggested that innovative analysis could be strengthened and the characteristics of China’s large population base and diversity could be added to future research.
Edward Prescott expressed his agreement with the report. He held that China’s development provided abundant materials for research. The world has witnessed the extraordinary development of China in the past four decades. In some very important high-tech fields, China is becoming or has become a leader. He hoped that China would continue to create the miracles of economic growth that the country has created in the past.
Eric Maskin said that he was deeply impressed by the contents of the report. China’s reform and opening up over the past 40 years showed great miracles of reform, which should be said to be the most successful period of growth compared with any other country. However, globalization has had a vital impact on China’s income inequality, yet in general it is quite in line with China’s interests.
Thomas Sargent agreed with the importance of the transformation of land use rights specified in the report to the success of economic development. From his opinion, land plays an important role in macroeconomic policy, and the intervention of the central government is required for the allocation and valuation of land factors to achieve economic development.
Barry Essengrin agreed with the report. From his perspective, the report covers six parts: technology import, digestion, absorption and re-innovation, common development of public and private economy, entry and thriving of new enterprises, balance of centralization and decentralization, material and human investment and successful avoidance of economic crisis. These six aspects are of great significance for China’s economic success.
According to Dani Rodrik, the entire report is prepared in an in-depth manner, emphasizing the role of learning rather than sticking to the theory of comparative advantage. The role of the government and the mechanism of the market are so intricate that we cannot adopt a one-size-fits-all approach. The lessons learned from China’s economic success show that only the market plus the government can achieve genuine success.
From the perspective of Eric Berglof, China’s success lies in its deep belief in its own development model. One of the most critical characteristics of China’s development experience is that it is a learning-oriented country.
Yann Algan said that good institutional design made a great contribution to China’s GDP growth. The balance between government, industrial policies and market led to the improvement of resource allocation efficiency and the rapid development of the country. However, China is now facing challenges in respects such as high savings rate and social trust.
After listening to the opinions of foreign scholars, Chinese guests also shared their respective insights regarding interpretations of the report. Ma Jiantang held that since the reform and opening up, China has pressed ahead with the reform with great theoretical courage and constantly innovated the theory on ownership. Over the past 40 years, the recognition of the status and role of non-public economy has promoted the transformation of China’s economic landscape and the formation of the major patter of five, six, seven, eight and nineof non-public economy (non-public economy created 50% of tax revenue, 60% of GDP, 70% of technological innovation, 80% of employment and 90% of corporate legal persons). One of the important reasons for China’s economic success in the past 40 years is the emergence and growth of nearly 30 million private enterprises. Moreover, China is still deepening its understanding of the non-public economy and the reform.
Xu Chenggang advocated that China’s miracle took place thanks to the vigorous development of the private sector without sufficient legal protection. Local governments in China had great autonomy to formulate economic policies to attract investment and promote economic development. Local governments made a lot of attempts, which were characterized by the incentive system.
Wang Yijiang agreed with the report’s conclusions in five aspects. From his perspective, the relationship between economic growth and political institutional arrangements is also worth studying. In addition, the theory of negative correlation between wealth and political institutional arrangements is applicable in China. China has achieved the transition from a relatively decentralized institutional arrangement to a more centralized one. Reform and opening up over the past 40 years have created a lot of wealth, but also uneven distribution of such wealth.
After the completion of seminar, Huang Kunming, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Publicity, met with foreign guests present at the Tsinghua University Nobel Economic Forum and International Seminar on Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking in the Past 40 Years of Reform and Opening-up in the Great Hall of the People. Minister Huang said that reform and opening up not only contributed to China’s development, but also benefited the world as a whole. China will continue to unswervingly promote reform and opening up. No matter what level of development China has reached, it will modestly learn from the people of all countries. He expressed his hopes that overseas scholars would continue to pay attention to and support reform and opening up while contributing insights to China’s development. Foreign delegates remarked that China’s achievements in reform and opening up were admirable and would further strengthen research to help overseas communities gain a better understanding of and insight on China.
