中國政府政策對產業發展之影響－以鋼鐵業為例

Abstract

中國在1978年改革開放之後，經濟高速發展，並於2010年成為全球第二大經濟體。中國經濟能如此高速地成長，其中的關鍵因素在於，不只其中央政府會制定產業發展政策積極推動發展，財政分權及官員升遷等體制，給予地方政府極大的誘因去推動地方經濟的發展。因此，瞭解中國的中央和地方政府政策對產業發展的影響，為理解已在世界經濟中扮演重要角色的中國經濟重要的一環。而鋼鐵業位於經濟中許多重要產業的上游，可謂為一國經濟的支柱產業，因此不論中央和地方政府皆高度重視。中國中央對鋼鐵業的發展出台了多項政策進行調節和扶持，地方政府則因為鋼鐵業投入和產出規模大，有助於維持地方經濟增長和就業與稅收的穩定，而有誘因去扶持鋼鐵企業的發展。鋼鐵業作為中國政府重點扶持的重要基礎產業，即成為本論文選擇以研究中國政府政策影響效果之對象。 本文第一章的緒論介紹本論文中三篇研究主題的研究動機、實證方法和研究結果，第二至四章則分別探討中國鋼鐵業在進入21世紀之後高速發展的成因、中國的地方保護主義對市場競爭機制造成的影響，以及分析大中型鋼鐵企業表現差異及造成差異之因素。在第二章的研究中，本文首先發現中國鋼鐵業在進入本世紀之後，鋼鐵產量以兩倍於90年代的增長速度成長，產量至今已接近世界一半，而中國鋼鐵業的人均鋼材表面消費量也已遠超過其他國家在相同發展階段的水準。究其成因，本文發現在1990年代，各種鋼鐵需求因素共同影響鋼鐵業的發展，近年來鋼鐵業的超速成長，則主要源於房地產投資和基礎建設於本世紀始的爆發性發展，而非技術的提昇或成本的下降。而此現象應源於中央政府在90年代末期實行的住房分配貨幣化及擴張房地產市場之政策，與在本世紀初提出的西部大開發、東北再造等的政策，以及與其配合的地方政府招商引資的行為所致。 第三章的研究動機導因於本文發現中國鋼鐵業在高速發展的同時，長期受產能過剩的問題所擾。然而，本研究對企業進出的比例進行跨國的比較分析，結果發現中國上游鋼鐵業的企業進出比例明顯高於他國，顯示市場的高度競爭，但卻長期存在產能過剩的問題難以緩解。因此本文探討造成此矛盾現象的來源，研究的結果顯示，其緣由在於中國地方政府扶植產業的方式，造成一般企業在中國鋼鐵市場的「易進」和受扶持企業的「難出」所導致；亦即，近年來中國地方政府不是採一般保護主義方式的設立貿易壁壘，而是對一般企業低價出讓土地、提供優惠貸款等扶持行為，降低了鋼鐵業的市場進入門檻，使得私企和小型企業較容易進入市場；而中國地方政府對受扶持廠商提供優惠貸款、減稅或補貼虧損廠商的行為，降低了它們退出市場的機率，而不論國私企，規模愈大的企業愈容易受到扶持，因而使得中國鋼鐵市場雖競爭程度甚高，卻長期存在產能過剩的問題。 而中國在經過90年代對國企的大幅改革之後，在一些包括鋼鐵業的重工業國企仍然佔有主導性的地位。然而，由於國企被認為容易存在軟預算問題導致其經營效率不佳，可能會進而影響產業的發展，因此本文的第四章即探討主導中國鋼鐵業發展的大中型企業在不同規模和所有權企業之間的表現差異，以及導致差異的來源和因素。本文以全要素生產力和資產報酬率分別衡量企業的生產力和獲利能力，並分析各企業特性影響大中型鋼鐵企業表現的效果，結果發現，雖然中國國企普遍背負較多的社會責任，使其容易有較高的財務負擔，但在鋼鐵業，一些大型國企因為有較高的規模經濟生產優勢，並且容易受到中央政府的支持，使得大型國企擁有較中型國企和其他大中型私企高的生產效率，而規模較小的中型國企，由於較無大型國企的規模優勢，又有沈重的財務負擔，因此企業表現排名居末；此外，經過私有化改制的企業，由於其企業特性、經營目標和環境能接近於私企，因此與私企的表現無太大的差異。

The Chinese economy has grown at a high speed since it began its reform in 1978, and has become the second largest economy of the world in 2010. The key reason for China’s fast growth is that not only the central government would implement industrial policies to promote the development of their industries, but fiscal decentralization and the local officials’ merit-based promotion system give the local governments incentives to promote their local economies. Therefore, understanding how the central and local government policies influence the development of China’s industries is important for comprehending the Chinese economy. We choose the iron and steel industry as the object of the study because it is a pillar industry of a country’s economy, especially for developing countries, and the Chinese central and local governments have adopted policies to support its development. In Chapter 1, we explain our research motives, analytical approaches, and the research results of the three essays in the dissertation. We investigate the sources of the recent rapid growth of the Chinese steel industry, the impacts of China’s local protectionism on market competitive mechanism, and the determining factors of the differences between the large and medium Chinese steel enterprises, which are presented in Chapter 2 to 4 respectively. In Chapter 2, we find that during the first decade of the 21th century, China’s steel industry grew more than twice as fast as before, and came to account for nearly half of the global steel output. The level of apparent steel consumption per capita in China also rose much above that of other developing countries at similar income levels. We find that the main sources of growth of the Chinese steel industry in recent years lie in the policies of China’s central and local governments. That is, the policies of the central government to marketize residential housing and expand the housing market in the late 1990s, and those of local governments to attract investment, are mainly responsible for driving the extraordinary growth of the steel industry in the last decade. In Chapter 3, we find that the entry and exit rate of the enterprises in the Chinese iron and steel industry from 1998 to 2007 are much higher than those of other countries. It shows that China’s steel industry is highly competitive. However, we also find that there is an overcapacity problem in China’s steel industry for a long time. Hence, we try to account for the contradiction between the two phenomena. Our research results show that the above situation comes from the way that the Chinese local governments promote the steel industry. That is, the local governments would offer enterprises preferential loans, lands with low price, etc., so the enterprises can enter the steel market easily, especially for smaller and private firms. They would also provide tax favors or subsidized loans to certain targeted firms, usually large-scale firms, so that these firms would be less likely to exit the industry even if they continue to incur losses. This policy tends to raise the exit threshold for the favored firms. Consequently, the way that China’s local officials promote the steel firms leads to higher competitiveness and long-term overcapacity in the Chinese steel market. In the last chapter, we investigate the difference in the performance of the large and medium steel enterprises in terms of ownership and scale, and analyze the causes of the difference in performance from 1998 to 2007. The Chinese central government pushed through a massive reform of the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the late 1990s, however, some SOEs still dominate heavy industries, including the iron and steel industry. The SOEs are often considered to suffer from soft-budget problem that may affect the development of industries. Thus, we would like to know whether the SOEs maintain their leading position in the steel industry by their own productive advantage or by receiving support of government policies. Our empirical results reveal that although some leading state-owned steel enterprises in China have higher financial burdens, probably due to their greater social responsibilities. But they still have higher productivity than medium-sized SOEs and large private firms because these leading SOEs have greater advantage of economies of scale and they are more likely to be supported by the central government. And the medium-sized SOEs perform worse than other large and medium steel enterprises because not only don’t they have the advantage of economies of scale, but they have higher financial burdens. In addition, the privatized steel enterprises perform like the private ones because of their similar enterprise characteristics, operating goals and environment.