BEIJING – Until
the Industrial Revolution, the world was quite flat in terms of per capita
income. But then fortunes rapidly diverged, with a few Western industrialized
countries quickly achieving political and economic dominance worldwide. In recent
years – even before the financial crisis erupted in 2008 – it was clear that
the global economic landscape had shifted again. Until 2000, the G-7 accounted
for about two-thirds of global GDP. Today, China
and a few large developing countries have become the world’s growth leaders.In the post-colonial period following World War II, the prevailing development paradigm was a form of structuralism: the aim was to change poor countries’ industrial structure to resemble that of high-income countries. Structuralists typically advised governments to adopt import-substitution strategies, using public-sector intervention to overcome “market failures.” Call this “Development Economics 1.0.” Countries that adhered to it experienced initial investment-led success, followed by repeated crises and stagnation.
Development thinking then shifted to the neoliberal Washington Consensus: privatization, liberalization, and stabilization would introduce to developing countries the idealized market institutions that had been established in advanced countries. Call this “Development Economics 2.0.” The results of the Washington Consensus reforms were at best controversial, and some economists have even described the 1980’s and 1990’s as “lost decades” in many developing countries.
Given persistent poverty in developing countries, bilateral donors and the global development community increasingly focused on education and health programs, both for humanitarian reasons and to generate growth. But service delivery remained disappointing, so the focus shifted to improving project performance, which researchers like Esther Duflo at MIT’s Poverty Action Lab have pioneered with randomized controlled experiments.
I call this “Development Economics 2.5.” But, judging from experience in North Africa, where education improved greatly under the old regimes, but failed to boost growth performance and create job opportunities for educated youth, the validity of such an approach as a fundamental model for development policy is dubious.
The East Asian and other economies that achieved dynamic growth and became industrialized did not follow import-substitution strategies; instead, they pursued export-oriented growth. Likewise, countries like Mauritius, China, and Vietnam did not implement rapid liberalization (so-called “shock therapy”), which the Washington Consensus advocated; instead, they followed a dual-track gradual approach (and often continued to perform poorly on various governance indicators).
Both groups of countries achieved great advances in education, health, poverty reduction, and other human development indicators. None of them used randomized control experiments to design their social or economic programs.
Today, a “Development Economics 3.0” is needed. In my view, the shift from understanding the determinants of a country’s economic structure and facilitating its change is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bath water. Remember that Adam Smith called his great work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In a similar spirit, development economics should be built on inquiries into the nature and causes of modern economic growth – that is, on structural change in the process of economic development.
Development thinking so far has focused on what developing countries do not have (developed countries’ capital-intensive industries); on areas in which developed countries perform better (Washington Consensus policies and governance); or on areas that are important from a humanitarian point of view but do not directly contribute to structural change (health and education).
In my book New Structural Economics, I propose shifting the focus to areas where developing countries can do well (their comparative advantages) based on what they have (their endowments). With dynamic structural change starting from there, success will breed success.
In our globalized world, a country’s optimal industrial structure – in which all industries are consistent with the country’s comparative advantages and are competitive in domestic and international markets – is determined by its endowment structure. A well-functioning market is required to provide incentives to domestic firms to align their investment choices with the country’s comparative advantages.
If a country’s firms can do that, the economy will be competitive, capital will accumulate quickly, the endowment structure will change, areas of comparative advantages will shift, and the economy will need to upgrade its industrial structure to a relatively higher level of capital intensity. So successful industrial upgrading and economic diversification requires first-movers, and improvements in skills, logistics, transportation, access to finance, and various other changes, many of which are beyond the first-movers’ capacity. Governments need to provide adequate incentives to encourage first-movers, and should play an active role in providing the required improvements or coordinating private firms’ investments in those areas.
Structural change is, by definition, innovative. Developing countries may benefit from the advantage of backwardness by replicating the structural change that has already occurred in higher-income countries. Based on the experiences of successful countries, every developing country has the potential to sustain 8% annual growth (or higher) for several decades, and to become a middle- or even a high-income country in one or two generations. The key is to have the right policy framework in place to facilitate private-sector alignment with the country’s comparative advantages, and to benefit from latecomer advantages in the process of structural change.
Justin Yifu Lin is Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for
Development Economics at the World Bank. He is the founder and first director
of the China Center for
Economic Research, and was previously a professor of economics at Peking University and
at the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology.
發展3.0
北京——在工業革命以前，世界各國人均收入相當。但是從那以後，隨著一些西方工業化國家在政治和經濟方面迅速統治世界，各國財富急速分化。近些年，即使是在爆發2008年金融危機之前，全球經濟形勢已發生了顯著變化。直到2000年,七大工業國約佔全球GDP的三分之二。今天,中國和一些大型發展中國家已經成為世界發展的領頭人。
然而, 儘管是在談論亞洲的崛起,但是在過去幾十年中隻有少數的東亞經濟體實現了從低收入到高收入的轉變。此外，從1950年到2008年，世界上隻有28個經濟體能夠以十個百分點或者更快的速度縮小與美國的人均收入差距，其中隻有12個非西方經濟體。與此同時,150多個國家被困在低收入或中等收入的狀態中。縮小與高收入工業化國家的差距仍是世界發展面臨的主要挑戰。
二戰後的後殖民時期，結構主義模式是主流的發展模式，目標是為了改變貧困國家的產業結構，使其與高收入國家的產業結構相似。通常，結構主義者會建議政府採取進口替代策略，通過公共部門的干預來克服“市場失靈”。稱此為“發展經濟學1.0”。採用這種方式的國家，獲得了初始投資導向型的成功，緊隨其後的是不斷的危機和蕭條。
從“發展思想”轉變成新自由主義華盛頓共識，即私有化，自由化，穩定化，這些將會給發展中國家帶去理想化的市場體系，這些體系在發達國家已經建立起來了。稱此為“發展經濟學2.0”。華盛頓共識改革的結果充其量也就隻引起了一點爭議，但在許多發展中國家，一些經濟學家甚至將20世紀八九十年代描述為“迷失的年代”。
鑒於發展中國家持續貧困,雙邊捐助者和全球發展社區越來越關注該地區的教育和衛生項目,既是出於人道主義的原因又是為了帶來經濟增長。但是服務提供系統卻不盡人意，所以焦點轉移到促進該項目的績效，埃斯特·迪弗洛等麻省理工學院貧窮行動實驗室的研究人員率先對此進行了隨機對照試驗。
我稱其為“發展經濟學2.5”. 在北非的舊體制下，人們的教育程度大幅提高，但是卻沒能促進經濟發展，也沒能給受過教育的青年創造就業機會。從北非的經歷來看，這種發展政策的有效性值得懷疑。
實現了動態增長和工業化的東亞及其他經濟體,沒有採取進口替代策略。相反，他們追求出口導向型增長。同樣地，毛裡求斯、中國和越南沒有施行華盛頓共識所提倡的快速自由化（所謂的“休克療法”），他們遵循一種雙軌漸進的方法（但是各種管理指標卻一直表現很差）。
在教育，衛生，緩解貧困和其他人類發展指標方面，兩組國家都取得了巨大進展。他們都沒有使用隨機控制實驗來設計他們的社會或經濟項目。
如今，需要一個“發展經濟學3.0”。我認為，從認識一個國家的經濟結構到促使其改變，這種轉化如同將嬰兒和洗澡水一起倒掉。記住，亞當·斯密將其巨著稱為《對國民財富產生的原因和性質的研究》（簡稱《國富論》）。同樣，發展經濟學應該建立在現代經濟增長的產生原因和性質的研究之上，也就是，在經濟發展過程中的結構變化的研究。
迄今為止，“發展思想”主要關注發展中國家所沒有的（發達國家的資本密集型產業），以及發達國家表現較好的方面（華盛頓共識的政策和管理方式），或者是在人道主義立場看來很重要但並未直接導致結構變化的方面（衛生和教育）。
在《新結構經濟學》一書中，我提出，以發展中國家所擁有的（他們的稟賦）為基礎，將焦點轉向他們好的方面（他們的相對優勢）。動態結構變化從那裡開始,成功將孕育成功。
在我們這個全球化的世界,一個國家的最佳產業結構，即所有的產業都符合國家的相對優勢，在國內國際市場具有競爭優勢，這種產業結構是由該國的稟賦結構所決定的。一個運轉良好的市場需要激勵國內企業的投資選擇與該國的競爭優勢相一致。
如果整個國家的企業能這樣做，那麼該國的經濟將會具有競爭力，資本將會迅速積累，稟賦結構將會改變，有競爭優勢的領域將會轉化，經濟也會需要升級其產業結構到一個相對較高的資本密集度。所以，成功的產業升級和經濟多元化需要首位行動者,而且需要技能、物流、交通、融資渠道的提升,以及其他各種變化,許多都超出了首位行動者的能力。政府需要提供足夠的鼓勵措施,來激勵首位行動者,而且應該發揮積極作用,提供必要的改進措施或協調私人公司在那些領域的投資。
很明顯，結構改變具有創新性。發展中國家，通過復制高收入國家的結構變化，可能會因此受益於自己的後發優勢。基於成功國家的經驗，每一個發展中國家在幾十年裡有可能繼續保持8%的年增長率(或更高)，在一代或兩代裡成為中等收入甚至是高收入國家。關鍵是要有正確的政策框架，促進私營企業與國家的比較優勢相一致，在結構變化的過程中受益於後發優勢。
林毅夫（英文名：Lin, Justin yifu，1952年10月15日－），生於台灣宜蘭縣，原名林正義，後改林正誼，到中國大陸後再改現名。2008年出任世界銀行首席經濟師兼負責發展經濟學的資深副行長，與妻子陳雲英育有兩名子女，定居於北京，現為中華人民共和國公民。中華民國政府（總統府與國防部等）方面則迄今堅持認定他仍是通緝中的叛逃軍官，其刑事責任並不因其取得大陸地區人民身分而得免除。
林毅夫於1978年取得國立政治大學企業管理研究所碩士，1979年擔任金門馬山連連長駐守福建金門時泅水逃奔至廈門，1982年取得北京大學政治經濟學碩士，1986年取得芝加哥大學經濟學博士，1993年升任北京大學教授，1994年共同創辦北京大學中國經濟研究中心並擔任主任，後任北京大學國家發展研究院名譽院長。
林毅夫亦擔任中華人民共和國第七至第十屆政協全國委員會委員、全國政協經濟委員會副主任、中華全國工商業聯合會副主席、第十一屆全國人大代表，並於2005年獲選第三世界科學院（現名發展中世界科學院）院士。