Vol.108 | 独家专访辜朝明：资产负债表衰退？中国和日本不一样
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十分钟 帮你 理清 一个 正在 发生 的 商业 逻辑。 日前， 第一财经 专访 了 野村 综合 研究所 首席 经济学家 辜 朝 明， 他 因为 发明 了 资产负债表 衰退 这一 概念 在 中国 走红。 这一 概念 被 认为是 日本 经济 失去的 30年 的 最好 解释， 一些 中国 决策者 和 思考者 希望 从 日本 当年 的 历史 中 有所 借鉴。 他 此行 是 为了 推广 他的 新书 对 追赶 的 经济体。 这 本书 中， 辜 朝 明 深入探讨 了 传统 经济 解决方案 在 应对 大 衰退 和 疫情 后 经济 与 社会问题 方面 的 失败。 接下来 就让 我们 听听 第一财经 主持人 尹 凡 和 辜 朝 明 的 精彩 对话。

So Richard, thank you very much for your time to take this. First of all, what's the purpose of .

this trip from my book?

The book is the pursued economy. yes. So what do you mean by pursued economy?

This whole idea came from my own upbringing. I was born in japan, and that was one thousand nine hundred and fifty four. Japan was your very poor country and recovering from the war.

The nineteen sixty seven I moved to seven. Cisco, and wow. Nineteen sixty seven amErica was beautiful. 3Francisco was absolutely beautiful。 But only ten years later, japanese companies start basically beating the american companies less than right then.

The japanese saw at the top of the world until tai is, south korean companies came in, and then the chinese companies are coming. And I see this pattern and says, wow, why is the things happened? There must be some theory behind that.

Even though that is happening, policymakers in most of the advances, countries who are now or pursue the economies, in my view, on japan, europe, united states, the policy thinking is still based on the assumption that the return on capital is highest in your own country. But the fact is that that is no longer the case. All of these things are not addressed because we haven't thought in that kind of terms. And that's why I decide to write this book.

Let's talk something about china. You coin to the phrase the baLance shit recession, which made you very famous in the past two to three years here in china, because people, so a lot of similarities between china today and japan at that time. So how do you say the similarities and maybe some differences?

yes. okay. I think people are seeing the similarity is because the real stay bubble burst. And once the U. S. A bubble burst and people realized that they were chasing what I call wrong, asset Prices on such asset Prices, which was exactly the same in japan thirty four years ago. If people don't no longer think the Price will continue to go up and actually go down, then you don't want to be borrowing too much money because your liabilities here as the Prices will be going down.

But when that happens in a very large scale, even though individually, people making the correct decisions, but collectively killed and could killed, but once a big nationwide as surprise bubble burst, so many people would be repairing baLance sheet by paying down debt, even at zero interest rates, and very few people will be borrowing money. So then you have a situation where, even at zero interest rates, so many people saving money, so few people borrowing money, and once you enter that world, the economy could start weakening very, very rapidly. Japanese took twenty years to really come out of this, this mess.

And that's exactly what happened to united states after the great depression, when the new york's stock market collapse, october ninety twenty nine. Everybody start repair polis. All at the same time.

No one was boring money. United states lost forty six percent of its GDP in just four years. When you are in that situation, you cannot tell the private sector, please borrow money, because they're all doing the right things, paying down debt. So if if you cannot tell the private sector to change their behavior, government has to come in and borrow and spend.

So what's the difference between china and the japan at that time?

Everyone in china knows about baLances recession, including you. That's a huge advantage china has over japan three, four years ago. So if government acts on IT, okay, this is baLance recession.

Government should be the borough of last resort, borough and spend of last resort to keep economy going. Then average people may never feel baLanced recession because economy will be maintain. That was not the case in japan's have a thirty .

four years ago. So you mean china now is in kind of baLanced recession?

You well, I do hear that people not borrowing money anymore, some people beginning to pay down that um that's probably a smaller portion of the population. Then what what happened in japan thirty years ago and one part that is not in china's favor of to japan thirty four years ago was that the japanese bubble was really just a bubble, but in the chinese case, construction and industry had a huge bo over the years and is not about twenty six percent of china's GDP, and now the construction is down very sharply, which means that industry is drinking very rapidly, I would imagine. But that would hit the GDP directly. So compared to japan, which was just a balancing problem, china has a balancing problem probably smaller than the japan, but you have a big construction problem, and the two together could be quite chAllenging for the .

chinese government. You said that the baLancer recession typically happens after the bruising of a bubble. And you know, this time china perko the property bubble consciously, yes.

Which mean they do IT on purpose, right? So do you think? Is that the right thing to do?

Well, the right thing to do now, we know after the fact was never let the bubble happen, because the japanese bubble was also pricked by the government. But once the bubble burst, we never thought that repair imbaLanced could take twenty years. And if they had known that in advance, i'm sure japan's government have taken very many different policies in addition to breaking the bubble.

And so I I would like to think that chinese government, realizing that there is a disease go baLances recession, we will pick public works projects very carefully. Because this is a, you know, not a one, one or two year issue. IT could be five, seven year issue. So if that's long, you want to pick good project so that five or seven years later you have a public work project that is really helpful for the chinese economy.

I think your prescription to address the problem of baLanced recession is quite straight forward. I think just someone else stepping to borrow the government. So from this regard, do you think our government, our authorities, what our government doing is enough? That all .

depends on how the private sector is reacting. If the private sector is really saving, that's a ten percent of GDP, and companies are not borrowing that much, then you the government has to borrow the remaining part to keep the economy going. And the fact that chinese government bond ye ld is down to two point four percent suggest to me that is too much savings relative to borrowing. And if that's the case, we should listen to the market, the bond market. And if the bond market tells you that everybody's buying government bonds because private sector is not borrowing money, then that means government .

has to borrow money. And that argument is if the government spends late, IT will probably .

have to spend more, right? right? So you know the Better if the government does nothing, you could end up in the one thousand, one hundred, one hundred and seven hundred thirty that scenario and you don't want to get into that one. So that's why you know the .

we are living in a very different word. So pure orthodox monetary policy may not work today. So from that regard, what are the right combination to cure chinese economic words today?

You know where we are going through the schools, we will taught how effective monitor polis is when I moved to japan and saw what happened after ninety ninety, I must say that what we were taught in schools, how effective monitor policy could be was incomplete at best. Because the professors never told us that for monetary policy to work, there has to be plenty of borrowers out there. If they are no borrowers.

Monitor policy is completely relevant. yes. And we found that in japan first, and we also found out after two thousand eight, in european, in united states as well, borrowers all disappeared because they all preparing baLance sheet after the a housing bubble collapse.

So you mean in china today, fiscal policy is the key. IT is the key. Here is, is here. Do you think today we will use more fiscal power to revive the economy?

I will recommend that are very strongly. And if the government comes in and says, okay, we're gonna do this fiscal policy and we're gona keep this fiscal policy until the private set baLance are repaid, then the private sector will feel very safe. Yes, then many people might actually get more or even invest more or borrow more.

IT could change the .

sentiment exactly. And that's basically what chinese government did in two thousand eight.

But the question is the package has a lot of hand .

over to exactly. That's the part that we have to be careful this time. yes. So my recommendation is that do what china did in november to ate that is to say a big package to comfort people. And then once people get excited and start move, thinking positively and economists that recovering, then you cut the package so that this access that we saw in two thousands, eleven, twelve, that would be contained, that would be my recommendation.

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