主讲人简介:
Kai Zhao, a professor of economics at the University of Connecticut in the U.S., is a macroeconomist who specializes in examining the aggregate implications of saving behavior, the role of health in macroeconomics, and the Chinese economy. Professor Zhao has published in a number of leading peer-reviewed journals in economics, including the Journal of Monetary Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, and European Economic Review. Professor Zhao holds a PhD in economics, and he has taught at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
概要:
In this paper, we present a model economy that can account for the changes in the current account balance in China since the early 2000s. Our results suggest that the increase in the household saving rate and tighter financial constraints facing the firms played equally important roles in the increase in the current account surplus until 2008. We argue that inadequate insurance through government programs for the elderly and the decline in family insurance due to the one-child policy led to the increase in the household saving rate especially after 2000 as more and more families with only one child entered the economy. The increase in the saving rate coupled with the financial frictions preventing the increased household saving from being invested in domestic firms resulted in large current account surpluses until 2008. Our results also indicate that the decline in the current account surplus since 2008 was likely to be due to the relaxation of financial constraints facing domestic firms, which was a result of the large scale fiscal stimulus plan launched by the Chinese government after 2008. These findings imply that the planned increases in China’s public pension coverage are likely to reduce the future current account balances. On the other hand, if financial constraints are tightened back to the pre-stimulus levels; the current account surplus may rise again.