摘要 《中国金融发展报告（2016）》是中国社会科学院金融研究所组织编写的年度性研究报告，旨在对2014年第四季度到2015年第三季度中国金融发展和运行的主要情况进行概括和分析，对发生的一些主要金融事件进行研讨和评论。报告由三大部分构成，分别对2015年的中国宏观金融形势、金融业发展与金融市场运行进行了回顾和梳理，并对2016年金融业发展前景进行了展望。本报告可供相关研究领域的学者、金融业内人士和政策部门参考，也有助于国际学界了解中国金融改革与发展的最新动态。   Abstract Annual Report on China's Financial Development (2016), as the annual report of Institute of Finance and Banking, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, aims to summarize and analyze the various aspects of China's financial developments and practices from 2014 Q4 to 2015 Q3, while making discussion and review on major financial events. The report consists of three parts, which cover China's macro financial situation, development of financial industries and operation of financial markets in 2015, as well as the future development of finance in 2016.The report can provide useful reference for scholars, financial professionals and policy makers. It also contributes to foreign academic understanding of China's financial development.

Preface: Structural Slowdown to China's Economic Growth  Li Yang 1 International Economic Background of China's Economic Slowdown  Since the global financial crisis in 2008, the world economy has exhibited the following symptoms of long-term stagnation. First, after having been plagued by the crisis for over eight years, the world economy is still deeply trapped in the quagmire of weak recovery, low growth, high unemployment, low inflation, high debt and high risks. Major problems that led to the eruption of crisis-serious distortions in the development patterns and economic, fiscal and financial structures of major countries-still persist. Moreover, nonconventional measures introduced by countries in the aftermath of the crisis have displayed increasingly negative side effects-the most significant of which include flagging return on investment, high debt and leverage ratios, excessive money supply, panic over the central bank's plan to shrink balance sheet, fiscal cliff, loose market discipline and growing social turbulence. Second, major countries are not in sync with each other in their economic operations, as evidenced in uncertain price changes of bulk commodities, interest rate gaps, wild exchange rate volatility and rampant international hot money. Long-term and disorderly change in the macroeconomic variables of countries has created a hotbed for “carry trade”. Mass cross-border flow of international hot money that disrupted international financial markets has been a new normal of the world economy. Third, major countries face the dilemma between “deleveraging” and “balance sheet repair” in selecting macroeconomic policies. The recent round of financial crisis was induced by the high debt-to-GDP and leverage ratios of major economies. In this sense, recovery from crisis is apparently contingent upon the necessary condition of “deleveraging”. Yet deleveraging has to overcome at least two hurdles. First, savings rate and deposits must be substantially increased to accomplish deleveraging-both of which are hard to achieve for most countries. Second, as a precondition for economic recovery, deleveraging will trigger “balance sheet repair” shocks, forcing enterprises to shift their priority from “maximizing profits” to “minimizing debts”. This will give rise to the “fallacy of composition”, where society as a whole is preoccupied with debt repayment, putting production and investment on the sidelines. As a result, the economy as a whole will be struck by credit crunch. The fourth symptom is trade protectionism, geopolitical tension and frequent regional conflicts. Against the backdrop of a slowing economy, rising unemployment and lurking risks, governments naturally resorted to trade protectionism in the name of protecting national industries and employment, as evidenced by Brexit and the Trump administration's protectionist stance. With all these headwinds, the growth of world trade has stayed below world GDP growth for four years in a row, triggering the process of “de-globalization”. Fifth, vacuum in global governance has appeared. Since World War II, dedicated governance institutions have been created in almost all sectors of the international community supported by specialized governance rules, best practices and norms. These institutions and rules have formed complete governance mechanisms in all sectors, and have been functioning effectively until the eruption of the recent financial crisis. Since 2007, the current global governance mechanism has failed to cope with traditional challenges and increasingly complex nonconventional challenges. It is fair to say that the international governance system dominated by advanced economies since World War II has been shaken to its foundation. The above challenges will persist in the long run as major economies fall into long-term stagnation in the long cycle of global economic downturn. From supply side, the culprits of long-term stagnation include slow technology progress, worsening demographic structure, falling productivity and negative real interest rates. From demand side, “output gaps” continue to persist ,i.e. real growth rate is below its long-term potential for a protracted period of time. From the perspective of macroeconomic policy, monetary policy has failed under the negative equilibrium interest rate (liquidity trap). Moreover, increasingly uneven income distribution has further ruptured society and inhibited socio-economic dynamism and growth potentials. 2 China's Economy in the New Normal While the world economy struggles with long-term stagnation, China's economy has entered into the new normal characterized by structural deceleration. Nevertheless, the slowdown of economic growth from rapid to medium-rapid growth is accompanied by an upgrade in the overall quality, efficiency, environmental performance and sustainability of China's economy. In other words, China's new normal is blessed with the positive elements of economic upgrade, refinement and restructuring in an advanced stage of development. These changes are both the extrinsic features and intrinsic causes of the new normal. First, China's economy is experiencing structural deceleration. Save for the anomaly in 2010 caused by the fiscal stimulus policy in 2009, the slow deceleration of China's economic growth started from 2008 and the downward pressures remain unabated today. Our forecast of potential growth rates lends credence to the tendency of China's structural deceleration. As revealed by the forecast of the Macroeconomic Operation and Policy Simulation Laboratory of CASS, the range of China's potential growth rates for the three periods of 2011-2015,2016-2020and 2021-2030 is 7.8%-8.7%, 5.7%-6.6%and 5.4% and 6.3% respectively, indicating a rather significant tendency of deceleration. The reasons for China's economic structural deceleration derive from change in factor supply efficiency. Population, capital and technology are the key drivers of economic growth. Over the past three decades, China's rapid growth has been supported by the tremendous flow of tens of millions of unemployed or semi-employed people into the manufacturing sector. However, due to falling labor participation rate and population growth since 2012, China's demographic dividend is diminishing and being replaced by demographic debt with the arrival of the Lewis turning point. In 2015, the growth rate of China's labor input fell to -0.9% for the first time in 30 years, which revealed a bleak prospect. Over the past three decades, China's capital formation rate has maintained a fairly high level under the support of high savings rate. However, diminishing demographic dividend, flagging momentum of industrialization, slowing growth of savings rate, falling return on capital and decreasing capital output ratio have caused capital input to lose steam in the absence of inflation, with the growth rate of fixed asset investment down from an average of 26% in the past three decades to 8.1% in 2016.Technology progress remains disappointing, posing long-term challenges of low return on capital and a dearth of breakthrough. According to statistics, China's labor productivity fell to 8.16%during 2008-2015 with TFP contribution to GDP down from the previous two-digit to 8.56%. Meanwhile, the output elasticity of capital is falling as well. In a nutshell, the overlapping effect of diminishing labor and capital input growth rates and slow technology progress have caused China's falling economic growth rate at the factor side of economic growth.ost o Second, changing resource allocation efficiency. China's economic growth over the past three decades has been primarily fueled by the transfer of tremendous resources from agricultural sector to industrial sector and from inefficient primary industries to the more efficient manufacturing sector. Over the years, resource reallocation on a massive scale has brought about tremendous improvement in labor productivity. However, as China's manufacturing sector as a share in GDP became saturated and plagued by overcapacity, resources including population began to shift to tertiary industry dominated by the service sector. In 2016, the service sector already accounted for 51.6% in China's GDP, which exceeded the share of manufacturing by 11.8 percentage points. However, as is commonly the case with other countries, labor productivity of the service sector is significantly below that of the manufacturing sector. Such productivity gaps are particularly striking in China, where the service sector is normally at the bottom of the productivity scale. According to analysis by the Institute of Economics, CASS, labor productivity of China's tertiary industry was only 70% that of secondary industry during 2006-2015.Given such gaps, China's overall labor productivity will inevitably fall as more and more of the population and other economic resources move from manufacturing to the less productive service sector, thus taking a toll on growth. Third, innovation is lacking. Over the past three decades, China's innovation agenda has been dominated by learning from other countries as productivity could be easily and continuously increased by transferring surplus labor from agriculture to the export-oriented manufacturing sector that relies on imported technology. However, when China is towards the end of completing its curriculum to catch up with other countries, there is not much to learn from overseas, or put another way, advanced countries have put up technology barriers against a rising China. In any case, the “learning by doing” model proves to be unsustainable and China must shift from dependence on technology import to indigenous innovation-a transition by no means easy to accomplish. For instance, although China ranked first in the world in 2014 in terms of the number of patent applications and was among the leading nations in terms of the publication of academic papers, China's conversion rate of patents remains in the middle globally. As recently pointed out by President Xi Jinping, “innovation cannot be accomplished as soon as papers are published and patents are obtained；innovation must be embedded in the creation of new growth drivers and be turned into practical industrial activities”. President Xi's remarks have clearly identified the crux of China's lack of innovation. Fourth, natural resources and environmental capacity are increasingly constrained. Wasteful use of resources characterized China's extensive pattern of economic growth. Since the dawn of the century, the surging prices of energy and other bulk commodities followed by wild price volatility put a brake on China's resource-intensive growth pattern. While the environment did not receive high priority in the past, persistent smoggy weathers, serious heavy-metal exceedance in food and extensive pollution of drinking water have unfolded rampant environmental problems in China-problems that took over a century to appear in developed countries but became evident in China, a country still in its development stage. While we start to address the scourge of environmental pollution, the negative factor of natural resources and environmental constraints will be endogenously added to China's economic growth function.) In the new normal, the basic characteristics of China's economic development are that much of its real economy has yet to find a new direction of development and that return on investment keeps falling. As a result, the financing function of the financial system is losing support and purpose. In this context, the accumulation and revelation of financial risks become inevitable.

In 2012, the three research teams led respectively by Dr. Cao Yuanzheng, chief economist at the Bank of China, Dr. Ma Jun, Deutsche Bank's chief economist for Greater China, and I carried out research on China's sovereign balance sheet almost simultaneously and have published the lengthy analysis reports successively. In the Chinese research community, it is rare for several research teams to invariably study a boring topic that is purely “monarchy trickery”. That is because, since the end of 2011，due to the debt problems of the Chinese local government financing platform and the slight downturn of the Chinese economy, pessimistic views about the prospects of China from many foreign research institutions and investment banks have resurfaced；some international statistical rating organizations even down-graded China's sovereign rating. Chinese economists can't just sit back and do nothing about this. We are duty-bound to prepare China's sovereign balance sheet (especially the government balance sheet), carry out in-depth analysis of the origins, current status, characteristics and development prospects of the government debts at all levels in China and assess the sovereign debt risks. Balance sheet was originally an indispensable basic tool for enterprises to per-form scientific management. Based on accrual accounting, a balance sheet or statement of financial position is a summary of a series of carefully designed financial balances. From the perspective of liabilities, a balance sheet reflects a company's total liabilities and their structure at a specific point in time and reveals the amount, urgency and solvency pressure of its current and future debts; from the perspective of assets, a balance sheet reflects a company's total assets and their structure at a specific point in time and reveals its economic resources, resource distribution and profitability. Based on its liabilities and assets, we can assess the performance of a company, analyze its financial flexibility and safety and measure its solvency and operational stability. In the mid-twentieth century, the U.S. economist Goldsmith tried to introduce the unique analysis function of balance sheet into state governance (see Goldsmith and Lipsey 1963；Goldsmith 1982) and prepared the sectoral and aggregate national balance sheets on a trial basis. Later, the developed economies followed suit one after another. So far, most of the OECD member countries have published their financial balance sheets excluding physical assets. It was after the Latin American debt crisis in the 1990s that the world had a different face for the national balance sheet due to its important role in state governance and even economic analysis. Unlike the past crises, the Latin American crisis was mainly caused by excessive borrowing, thus showing the typical characteristics of a debt crisis. Therefore, balance sheet as an analysis framework that can accurately portray a country's a debt risks and assess its solvency has naturally won the favor of the international community. After balance sheet, as a mainstream analysis tool, was introduced, a series of new achievements were quickly made. Among them, what was particularly fresh and new was the reinterpretation of the past crises, especially the interpretation of some special phenomena during the spread and recovery of a crisis. In this regard, the research findings of Richard C.Koo, chief economist of Nomura Research Institute in Japan, were most famous(Richard C.Koo 2008).In his view, main-stream economics missed the point in explanation of the causes for the Great Depression and Japan's "two lost decades" since the 1990s.He believes that the currency demanders rather than the suppliers should be blamed for the crisis. Japan's “Great Recession” that began in 1990 was a “balance sheet recession". It was triggered by a collapse in land and stock prices, which caused Japanese firms that had excessively expanded their businesses to have negative equity, meaning their assets were worth less than their liabilities. Therefore, even though companies were still operating, they had been caught in a situation of technical insolvency. The point was, in such case, most companies shifted their business objective from profit maximization” to “debt minimization”. That is, while reducing or even stopping lending, companies opted to pay down their debts from their own cash flows, or you may say, did their upmost to "repair their balance sheets". If many companies were pursuing this "debt minimization” measure, the whole society would form a "fallacy of composition" in which companies did not attend to business or investment, but specialized in paying debts, so even though banks were willing to provide loans, no company would borrow money from them. The credit crunch of the whole society would thus form. The crisis recovery process would therefore slow down. The “once-in-a-blue-moon” global economic crisis demonstrates once again the charm of asset and liability analysis. The crisis was also triggered by operation or consumption on borrowings of residents, businesses and governments in developed countries and high leverage operation of financial institutions. Therefore, to recover from the crisis, “deleveraging" is apparently a necessary condition. However, deleveraging involves at least two issues. First, deleveraging needs plenty of savings and huge capital investment; while the savings rate can not be raised arbitrarily. and it is more difficult to find funds. Second, deleveraging as a major path economic recovery will lead to a comprehensive “balance sheet repair” process. In his process, after economies obtained additional funds, they will opt to enrich the capital, reduce debts and “repair” their balance sheets rather than engaged in normal economic activities the monetary authorities want to produce, such as consumption, production and investment. Thus, injecting liquidity into the economy will on the contrary produce stagnant consumption, sluggish investment and credit market contraction in a long period of time. An incredible case occurred in the U.S. Although in the past and the Treasury have created dollars to such an extent that the U.S. and even the world were awash with liquidity, the U.S. credit markets were still in decline, so the Fed continued to expand its quantitative easing program, and its assets and liabilities have increased unprecedentedly by three times. It is particularly worth mentioning that China has actually felt the impact of assets and liabilities this time. On the one hand, corporate and governmental debts continued to rise and have reached the level of severity that might be cashed in on by persons with ulterior motives; on the other hand, money and credit supply expanded significantly, but the real economy still thought it “difficult and costly to get loans”. These complex problems need to be addressed quickly. To prepare China's national balance sheet, we must first of all have a “clear idea in mind”, which is apparently the basis and prerequisite for addressing all the problems. The research group of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)for “Research on China's National Balance Sheet" published its first findings in 2012. At that time, we had completed the preparation of China's Sovereign Balance Sheet (2000-2010）,and the major findings were published on Issue 6-7 of Economic Research Journal in 2012.Li Yang, Zhang Xiaojing, Chang Yan, Tang Duo Duo, Li Cheng: China's Sovereign Balance Sheet and Risk Assessment(Vol.1 and 1), Issue 6-7 of Economic Research Journal in 2012.The research findings of the research group have been repeatedly cited by the IMF(IMF 2013),the Research Bureau of the People's Bank of China and some well-known domestic and foreign investment banks. In addition, the research paper in English on China's sovereign balance sheet has been included in the monograph published by the IMF. In September 2012, the research group held the International Seminar on Chin's National Balance Sheet Analysis, and more than 60 well-known experts and scholars from, the People's Bank of China, the National Bureau of Statistics, the World Bank, the IMF and related fields attended the seminar. Experts naturally showered praise, but they also raised poignant suggestions on further improvement and promotion. The book was written with reference to these suggestions. The book fully updated the data on the basis of the research findings in 2012 and added the contents and analysis of China's national balance sheet. The book's key findings can be summarized as follows: 1.In 2011, China's net national assets (non-financial assets plus net external assets) was over 300 trillion yuan. China's national balance sheet expanded rapidly in 2007-2011: China's total assets increased from 284.7 to 546.5 trillion yuan; its total liabilities increased from 118.9 to 242 trillion yuan；and its net assets increased from 165.8 to 304.5 trillion yuan. These three indicators nearly doubled in the five years, with a growth rate higher than the growth rate of the nominal GDP over the same period. China's overall liability-asset ratio, i.e. ratio of total liabilities to total assets, shows an upward trend as a whole, especially in the two years of 2009-2010 with more serious impact of the financial crisis. It fell slightly later in 2011, but was still much higher than the level in 2007.This structural change shows an increased reliance on debt financing in the formation of national assets and consequently higher debt risks. 2.The increase of China's net national assets was continuously less than the year's GDP, indicating that not all the GDP has been transformed into real cumulative wealth. In other words, a fairly large part in our GDP output is invalid. This is because the GDP indicator has some congenital defects: some invalid investment (corresponding to the excess capacity) or even activities that destroy resources and environment are included in the GDP, so these parts should be excluded in wealth formation. Taking 2010 for example, the gap between the increase of net assets and GDP was up to 7.5 trillion yuan, accounting for 18.7% of GDP. Although we cannot assert that this 7.5 trillion yuan has been wasted or lost, but it at least shows that there is some serious problem with the quality of this year's GDP. 3.The inventory to total assets(ITA)ratio has surged in recent years, showing that the overcapacity problem is very serious. There are always two explanations for inventory and its changes: this may reflect the expectation of an enterprise for the economic recovery (which is mostly reflected as positive inventory replenishment or can be understood as a positive inventory increase),or may be related to the current widespread overcapacity in China (which is mostly reflected as passive inventory accumulation or can be interpreted as negative inventory increase). We tend to believe that the later cause, namely overcapacity, may be a major factor for the surge in the ITA ratio. We should remain highly vigilant about this. 4. If the assets of sovereign sector (or government sector in a broad sense, including the central government, local governments, state-owned non-financial enterprises, administrative institutions, the central bank, and state-owned financial enterprises) are worth more than their liabilities, their net assets will be positive. This suggests that in a long period of time, China is unlikely to suffer a sovereign debt crisis. China's sovereign debts and assets showed an upward trend during 2000-2011.On the part of sovereign assets, the state-owned assets and reserve assets of non-financial enterprises saw fastest growth. On the part of sovereign debts, the debts of the governments (both central and local) and state-owned enterprises and the contingent debts from disposal of non-performing assets grew rapidly. Since in the past 12 years, China's sovereign assets have increased sharper than its sovereign debts, the net worth of China's sovereign assets has been growing. In 2011, based on the wide-scope rough estimate, the net worth of Chin's sovereign assets was 87 trillion yuan. But given that the state-owned assets of administrative institutions are highly illiquid (because they have to perform the government functions)and the right to use land and resource assets is also highly illiquid and can not be transferred in whole (in fact, the land transfer fees are recently only 2～3 trillion yuan a year),therefore the net worth of narrow-scope sovereign assets is 21.6 trillion yuan. 5. In 2012, the total debt of the central government and local governments was nearly 28 trillion yuan, accounting for 53% of GDP. China's total debt, including government debt, as well as the debt of financial institutions, non-financial businesses and households, amounted to 111.6 trillion yuan, accounting for 215% of GDP. This means that the leverage ratio of the whole society is very high. To create a long-term stable environment for economic development, deleveraging is inevitable. Sectorally, as of the end of 2012, the leverage rate of the corporate sector (ratio of corporate debt to GDP) was up to 113%, more than the threshold of 90% of the OECD countries, which needs to arouse our sharp vigilance. These indicators topped the list of all statistical countries. This is a distinctive feature of the Chinese debt structure. This is closely related to China's economic and the characteristics of the financial sector focusing on development pattern indirect financing. The balance of loans of the household sector was 16.1 trillion yuan (including consumer loans of 10.4 trillion yuan and business loans of 5.7 trillion yuan), accounting for 31% of GDP. The debt balance of the non-financial corporate sector was 72.12 trillion yuan, accounting for 139% of GDP. Given that the debt of the non-financial corporate sector includes to a considerable extent the debt of the government-backed entities of the local government financing platform, it is necessary to exclude the debt of the local government financing platform to prevent overlapping, and the debt balance of the non-financial corporate sector thus obtained was 58.67 trillion yuan, accounting for 113% of GDP. The total debt of central government and local governments, i.e. total government debt, was 27.7 trillion yuan by the end of 1012, accounting for 53% of GDP. If only the balance of the bonds issued by the financial sector was regarded as financial sector debt, then the total bond balance off the financial institutions was 9.13 trillion yuan by the end of 2012, accounting for 18% of GDP. By adding up the debts of the above four sectors, we can obtain the overall debt scale of the Chinese economy, which is 111.6 trillion yuan, and the leverage rate of the whole society is 215%. Aggregately, China's total debt remains at a relatively mild and controllable moderate level, lower than most developed economies, but higher than all the other BRIC countries (excluding South Africa). However, given that China's debt level has increased rapidly in recent years, we should be highly vigilant about this. If the debt of local governments or the sovereign debt in a wide scope is taken into account, China's government(sovereign)debt will be much greater and the overall debt level will also be much higher. In this regard, we must not sit by idly and remain indifferent. 6.After entering the new century, China's national and sovereign balance sheets have been showing a rapid expansion momentum. Among them, on the part of assets, external assets, infrastructures, and residential real estate assets accumulated rapidly and constitute the dominant factor for expansion of assets. This records the historical process of China's accelerated industrialization and urbanization under the export-oriented development strategies. On the part of liabilities, the debt level of the governments, state-owned enterprises and other sovereign sectors are expanding at a rate higher than that of the private sector. This highlights the institutional feature that the government plays the leading role in economic activities. 7.The near-term risks of the national balance sheet are mainly reflected in real estate credit, local debt, and non-performing loans and other aspects, while the long-term risks are more concentrated in foreign assets, corporate debt, social security bad debt and other aspects. Regardless of what kind of risks they are, these risks are closely related to the economic current development pattern and structure. Therefore the best way to cope with and fend off the risks is to change the development pattern and adjust the economic structure to achieve healthy, high-efficient, high-quality and sustainable growth. 8.If the current old-age insurance system continues to operate ,the old-age insurance system for employees of enterprises will face fund shortage by 2023; the cumulative balance will be fully exhausted by 2029；the cumulative shortage of pension for workers will account for 91% of GDP that year by 2050.In addition, China's total expenditure on pensions (including the old-age insurance for workers and residents) will account for 11.85% of GDP by 2050, which is roughly consistent with the current level of some European countries with high social welfare. We have also analyzed the impact of some policy measures and pension systems on the sustainability of the old-age insurance under various scenarios. We found that raising the retirement age and the age to receive basic pension can significantly reduce the extent of pension shortage. In addition, improving the return rate of investment from old-age insurance premiums can also help reduce pension short-age, though with limited effects. Maintaining a high pension substitution rate will significantly improve the potential pension debt level. We prefer the action to raise retirement age and the age to receive basic pension and suggest increasing the return rate of investment and maintaining a high pension substitution rate. Undoubtedly, we can provide financial subsidies to the old-age insurance by using the dividends of state-owned assets or returns from sale of state-own assets, raising taxes or issuing bonds, which is a viable option to solve or alleviate the pension shortage problem. The Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform adopted at the third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee clearly stated that we should establish a unified national accounting system and formulate the national and local balance sheets. It is rare in today's world to promote research and preparation of the national balance sheet at the highest national level. This fully demonstrates the Chinese government's determination and wisdom “to promote the modernization of the state governance system and governance capacity”. As scholars of the highest social science research institute established by the State, we will respond to the call of the third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee and continue to carry out research and preparation of the national balance sheet so as to make our due contribution to improving and developing the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and promoting the modernization of China's national governance system and capacity.

Preface I Since the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, more and more people have tended to use the phrase ‘new normal’ to describe domestic and international economic development patterns; other terms have also been used, such as ‘new phase’, ‘new era’ and ‘new order’. However, despite its growing popularity, the term ‘new normal’ does not have exactly the same origin or meaning in different countries. Internationally, the term ‘new normal’ was initially linked with economic recession. In the economic context, it first appeared in Western media in 2002, when it was mainly used to refer to economic recovery without employment growth. In the wake of the global financial crisis, the term quickly applied to new global economic characteristics in the post-crisis era. In 2009, some media and renowned scholars started using the concept of ‘new normal’ in the sense of a long and in-depth adjustment after the crisis. For example, in 2010, Mohammed EL-Erian, CEO of Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), the California-based investment management firm, officially proposed the concept of new normal in the sense of in-depth adjustment in the post-crisis era in a report entitled Navigating the New Normal in Industrial Countries (EL-Erian,2010). Since then, the concept has quickly spread in popularity to interpret characteristics of the world economy in the post-crisis ear. For example, Richard Clarida, a professor of economics and international affairs at Columbia University and a global strategic advisor to PIMCO (Clarida,2010) stated that, in the new normal, the economic characteristics of developed economies (high-income countries or industrialised countries) can be summarized as “low growth, high unemployment and low return on investment”. In Chia, the term ‘new normal’ is closely linked with a new stage of the country’s economic transformation and upgrading. In may 2014, president Xi Jinping visited Henan province. When addressing the economic situation, he said: “China’s development is still in a period with important and strategic opportunities, and we need to boost confidence, adapt to the new normal from the current features of China’s economic development and keep a common strategic mindset.” On 29 July, in a forum for non-party members held in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai, Xi Jinping again referred to the ‘new normal’ in the context of the prevailing economic situation, pointing out that: “It is necessary to correctly understand the characteristics of China’s economic development stage, further boost confidence, adapt to the new normal, and jointly promote sustained and healthy economic development.” Later that year, on 10 November, at the APEC CEO summit held in Beijing, Xi delivered a keynote speech that focused on the speed of change, structural optimization and dynamic transformation under the new normal of China’s economic development. He then expounded on the four new development opportunities in China brought about by the new normal: first, although the speed of China’s economic growth is slowing down, the actual increment is still considerable; second, China’s economic growth is becoming more stable, with more diversified growth momentum; third, China’s economic structure is being optimized and upgraded, with more stable development prospects; fourth, the Chinese government is vigorously decentralizing, giving rise to accelerated market dynamics. At a central economic work conference on 9 December 2014, the new normal was again identified as a logical starting point of China’s economic development strategy for current and future periods. In this important conference, President Xi gave a detailed analysis of China’s economy under the new normal from the perspective of consumer demand, exports and international balance of payments, production capacity and industrial organization, comparative advantages of production factors, characteristics of market competition, resource and environmental constraints, accumulation and resolution of financial risks, resource allocation model and macro-control mode. He concluded: “The entry of China’s economic development into the new normal is an inevitable reflection of its economic development characteristics at the current stage, which is not subject to change by human will. Understanding the new normal, adapting to the new normal and leading the new normal, are the great logic underpinning China’s economic development for the current and future periods.” Obviously, the new-normal concept has been formed relatively independently at home and abroad. China’s new normal should be seen as President Xi Jinping’s expression of creative transformation: if the global new normal is regarded as a pessimistic assessment of future world economic trends, then China’s new normal contains positive elements of economic evolution towards a more advanced future, involving a more complex division of labour and a more rational structure. II The ‘new normal’ is a strategic concept that runs through history. The word ‘new' divides global development since the late 1980s into two periods, each with systemic differences. In terms of external characteristics, the two periods are differentiated by high and low economic growth, and naturally also by intrinsic differences in macroeconomic variables, such as employment, prices, interest rates, exchange rates, balance of payments, fiscal revenue and expenditure, and money supply and demand. With regard to internal root causes, there are also different traits in the physical infrastructure needed to support long-term economic development, such as technological innovation and its level of industrialisation, population structure, the efficiency in the supply of key elements, the relationship between savings and investment, and the real interest rate level in the state of equilibrium between savings and investment. Therefore, the concept of new normal shows us that, in recognition of the current situation and in planning for the future, we must first settle down to review the road we have travelled, carefully analyse the ‘old normal’, and clarify where we started from a few decades ago, what is the trend of development why we cannot continue on the old track, the direction of future development and what kind of real economic base and institutional mechanisms need to be created to achieve this transition. Determining the ‘new normal’ indicates the fundamentals needed for domestic and international economic development in current and future periods. It reminds us that the glory of the old normal may have its attractions, but that in practice it may be difficult to turn back the clock. Therefore, looking ahead, we must fully adjust our ideas, attitude, strategy and policy, to adapt positively to the new normal, learn the way of production and life under the new normal, and actively lead the new normal towards a higher development goal. There is no doubt that the new normal contains new dynamics for development. In order to discover, exploit and make good use of the dynamics, we need to make a revolutionary adjustment to our old and trusted development way. push ahead with painful reform of the economic structure skewed by the old normal, and lead the new normal with a high degree of wisdom. This means that reform will constitute a regular task under the conditions of the new normal. Given the fact that the new normal is a global phenomenon, it is logical to assume that the world has entered a ‘period of reform and competition' since the 2008 financial crisis. This means that those countries with the most profound understanding, the most comprehensive strategy, the most determination and the greatest commitment towards urgent, arduous and diverse reform, will seize the initiative in the future global competition. Undoubtedly, in this regard, China is once again at the forefront of the world: the determination to comprehensively deepen reform and the rule of law approved by the third and fourth plenary sessions of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China(CPC), and the central economic work conference held in 2014,have outlined for us a complete programme for carrying out a new round of reform and achieving the China dream.

缘起 获取知识的途径大抵有三：读书、听讲和实践。读书可品书香、摒铜臭，且有反复揣摩之便、自我体悟之乐。听讲则隐隐有书院之传，优势在现场感和互动——于讲者，现场可能灵光乍现；于听者，常能浮想联翩，触类旁通；讲者与听者互动，则可相互激励、讲评相长，搞得好，发掘出新课题、铺陈出锦绣文章，并非难事。实践则是获取知识的根本途径，它不仅是一切知识的源泉，而且是主观见诸客观的社会活动，更是体现了人们获取知识的最终目的。 简言之，读书、听讲和实践，对于获取知识而言，各有其独到之处，其功效相互不可替代。然而，如果从实行的角度考察，则三者的差别立现：读书和实践可由人们自我实现，而听讲则须有所组织，于是就有了兴办学术机构的必要性—这也就意味着，组织各类学术讨论与讲座，属学术机构之本分。 国家金融与发展实验室自2015年整合重组并获中央正式命名为首批国家高端智库以来，一直致力于举办各种类型的讲坛、论坛、讨会、读书会、研习会等，一年凡二十余次。此类会议选题广泛，讨论集中，参会者名家云集，且来自各个领域，大家的发言直抒胸臆，不落襄臼，因而很受欢迎。遗憾此类会议中的多数在当时都不能面向社会，产生的影响有限，因而就有将会议详细记录整理出来，结集出版的动议。这就是实验室“立言”书系的由来。既然以“立言”自命，当然以展示讲者的“精气神”为第一要务。这就是我们不做四平八稳、无懈可击的论文集，而选择实录形式的缘由。 我们的长期合作伙伴社会科学文献出版社得知丛书的出版计划，立即给予了专业化的回应，精心设计的版式、装帧乃至纸型的选择，都与丛书的气质契合，为从书增色颇多，在此一并致谢！

缘起 获取知识的途径大抵有三：读书、听讲和实践。读书可品书香、摒铜臭，且有反复揣摩之便、自我体悟之乐。听讲则隐隐有书院之传，优势在现场感和互动——于讲者，现场可能灵光乍现；于听者，常能浮想联翩，触类旁通；讲者与听者互动，则可相互激励、讲评相长，搞得好，发掘出新课题、铺陈出锦绣文章，并非难事。实践则是获取知识的根本途径，它不仅是一切知识的源泉，而且是主观见诸客观的社会活动，更是体现了人们获取知识的最终目的。 简言之，读书、听讲和实践，对于获取知识而言，各有其独到之处，其功效相互不可替代。然而，如果从实行的角度考察，则三者的差别立现：读书和实践可由人们自我实现，而听讲则须有所组织，于是就有了兴办学术机构的必要性—这也就意味着，组织各类学术讨论与讲座，属学术机构之本分。 国家金融与发展实验室自2015年整合重组并获中央正式命名为首批国家高端智库以来，一直致力于举办各种类型的讲坛、论坛、讨会、读书会、研习会等，一年凡二十余次。此类会议选题广泛，讨论集中，参会者名家云集，且来自各个领域，大家的发言直抒胸臆，不落襄臼，因而很受欢迎。遗憾此类会议中的多数在当时都不能面向社会，产生的影响有限，因而就有将会议详细记录整理出来，结集出版的动议。这就是实验室“立言”书系的由来。既然以“立言”自命，当然以展示讲者的“精气神”为第一要务。这就是我们不做四平八稳、无懈可击的论文集，而选择实录形式的缘由。 我们的长期合作伙伴社会科学文献出版社得知丛书的出版计划，立即给予了专业化的回应，精心设计的版式、装帧乃至纸型的选择，都与丛书的气质契合，为从书增色颇多，在此一并致谢！

缘起 获取知识的途径大抵有三：读书、听讲和实践。读书可品书香、摒铜臭，且有反复揣摩之便、自我体悟之乐。听讲则隐隐有书院之传，优势在现场感和互动——于讲者，现场可能灵光乍现；于听者，常能浮想联翩，触类旁通；讲者与听者互动，则可相互激励、讲评相长，搞得好，发掘出新课题、铺陈出锦绣文章，并非难事。实践则是获取知识的根本途径，它不仅是一切知识的源泉，而且是主观见诸客观的社会活动，更是体现了人们获取知识的最终目的。 简言之，读书、听讲和实践，对于获取知识而言，各有其独到之处，其功效相互不可替代。然而，如果从实行的角度考察，则三者的差别立现：读书和实践可由人们自我实现，而听讲则须有所组织，于是就有了兴办学术机构的必要性—这也就意味着，组织各类学术讨论与讲座，属学术机构之本分。 国家金融与发展实验室自2015年整合重组并获中央正式命名为首批国家高端智库以来，一直致力于举办各种类型的讲坛、论坛、讨会、读书会、研习会等，一年凡二十余次。此类会议选题广泛，讨论集中，参会者名家云集，且来自各个领域，大家的发言直抒胸臆，不落襄臼，因而很受欢迎。遗憾此类会议中的多数在当时都不能面向社会，产生的影响有限，因而就有将会议详细记录整理出来，结集出版的动议。这就是实验室“立言”书系的由来。既然以“立言”自命，当然以展示讲者的“精气神”为第一要务。这就是我们不做四平八稳、无懈可击的论文集，而选择实录形式的缘由。 我们的长期合作伙伴社会科学文献出版社得知丛书的出版计划，立即给予了专业化的回应，精心设计的版式、装帧乃至纸型的选择，都与丛书的气质契合，为从书增色颇多，在此一并致谢！

宏观杠杆率高和经济出现结构性扭曲是当前一些国家面临的重要问题，如果不能妥善处理，二者容易引发系统性金融风险。本文使用国际清算银行(BIS)、华尔街日报社与美国传统基金会等统计的全球35个国家1995~2016年的面板数据，运用系统GMM、面板logit等模型对宏观杠杆率、结构性扭曲和系统性金融风险之间的关系进行了实证检验。研究结果发现：宏观杠杆率偏低时对经济自由度较为有利，但伴随着宏观杠杆率数值的增加，就会对经济自由度形成显著的抑制作用，而且前者数值越大，起到的抑制作用就越大，即引致的结构性扭曲也越大；在“宏观杠杆率拐点后阶段”，一国经济的结构性扭曲会导致金融体系的不稳定性上升，甚至会增加金融危机爆发的概率。最后，本文通过对中国的情况`进一步分析，给出了相关的政策建议。

本文借鉴后凯恩斯主义要素收入分配理论，将资本报酬划分为食利者利润和非食利者利润，在理论上拓展了对要素收入分配格局和总需求关联机制的认识。在实证方面，本文利用国家统计局公布的历年资金流量表数据，通过协整分析和误差修正模型，考察了要素报酬与总需求的长期均衡关系，得到如下结论: 第一，由于边际收益递减规律的存在，中国的内需体系是工资领导型，即总收入中工资份额的上升有助于扩大内需。第二，考虑国外部门以后，劳动力成本上升显著抑制了净出口，由此中国的总需求体系为利润领导型。第三，对总利润进行细分后发现，总利润中企业部门利润过高是抑制内需的主要因素。随着美国对华贸易政策的调整，外部需求可能面临进一步减少的趋势，因此，逐步增加国民收入中住户部门收入和劳动报酬、降低企业部门留存利润份额是扩大内需的有效路径。

如果没有新的技术突破，随着移动支付进入平稳规范化发展，移动支付对货币政策传导的影响将逐渐趋于平稳。2013年以来，我国的移动支付交易规模迎来了爆发式的增长。 部分研究认为电子货币游离于银行体系之外，会削弱利率传导的效果，但这不符合我国移动支付发展的实情。尽管我国的移动支付多数是第三方支付，但与移动支付相关的电子货币依然在银行体系内，只是改变了流通中货币存在的形态，减少了货币从存款到现金再转化为存款的过程，降低了货币的贮藏成本和交易成本，但没有改变其信用货币的本质。 但是移动支付具有流动性强、交易成本低和交易便捷等优点，对传统货币产生替代效应及加速转化效应，不能忽视其对货币政策传导机制以及货币政策传导效果的影响。