How to reduce the savings rate? Should the savings rate be reduced?

For example, slower economic growth helps to reduce savings. Because the slowdown in income growth means that the government, households and enterprises may use savings to maintain the current level of expenditure. But this is not a good thing for the family. At the same time, the slowdown in economic growth means that investment will slow down, so it is uncertain how the "excess" savings will change. The expansion of trade surplus in the first quarter of 2009 shows that with the economic recession, the decline of investment exceeds the decline of savings, which makes the economic imbalance in China more serious than that in other parts of the world. This trend is expected to continue for most of 2009. We will discuss this problem in detail in chapter 12.

In addition, the change of population structure (with the acceleration of social aging, the dependency ratio will rise from 20 15) will also slow down the growth rate of China's savings rate. Young people in their twenties with low savings rate will account for an increasing proportion of the total population, and more elderly people will decide to use more savings for consumption. But it will take some time.

Here, we need to review a period of history. During the period from1998 to1999, the government's policy of stimulating consumption achieved remarkable results and changed the rules of the game for residents' consumption. At that time, the urban welfare housing distribution was cancelled and the originally allocated house was sold to renters at a low price. It is estimated that the price of a house purchased by a family at that time was about 20% of the market price. Through this move, many renters have acquired property rights and become homeowners, which has increased family income (they no longer need to pay rent) and reduced family savings. Facts have proved that this policy provided great support for private consumption in the following 10 year.

10 years later, consumers may need to benefit from another change in the rules of the game. At present, the scale of household appliances going to the countryside to stimulate rural consumption is still limited. In addition, there are many alternatives, but each one has some implementation difficulties, including:

1. Large-scale investment to improve the urban and rural medical insurance system. Of course, we can see in the sixth chapter that the current medical insurance investment has increased a lot compared with the past, but it is still not enough. The new medical reform plan has determined some framework principles, but the technical details and financing plan have not yet been finalized. There are still some thorny problems in the reform of medical insurance system, such as controlling the cost of medical institutions and rational pricing of drugs.

2. Reduce the personal income tax of various income groups and simplify the tax rate grades. At present, many scholars call for drastic reform of the whole tax system. This is not only beneficial to high-income people. At present, many families have to pay higher personal income tax and consider reducing the tax rate. In addition, the tax system needs to be improved to ensure that high-income groups pay taxes. In this regard, China has made some progress. Perfecting the tax system, including levying property tax and stamp duty on the stock market, has been very common in Europe, but it has not been effectively promoted in China.

3. Another option is to reduce the social security contributions of enterprises and individuals, and the state will bear more social security costs. At present, the social security contributions paid by enterprises and employees are equivalent to 42% of the wage cost, which is really too heavy. This heavy burden has led many enterprises and employees to try to evade payment. Reducing the social security payment or personal income tax rate can improve the actual wage level of employees, thus enhancing people's confidence. Only in this way can we see the sustainable growth of household consumption.

4. Reforming the interest rate mechanism is also a good choice. At present, the interest earned by household savings is very low, while banks lend to enterprises at high interest rates to earn profits. If the deposit and loan interest rates are determined by the market, the two will be closer. This is bad news for banks, because narrowing the spread will reduce the profit margin of banks, which is good news for families and enterprises. Due to the strong tendency to save, the increase of deposit interest rate will significantly increase family income.

In view of the high level of corporate savings, it is necessary to adopt some policies that will help reduce corporate savings.

1. On the basis of openness and transparency, most of the dividends of state-owned enterprises will be transferred to the field of public expenditure. As mentioned above, we believe that the dividend system reform of state-owned enterprises is only a small-scale trial at present and should be promoted in a wider scope. If the plan can be promoted and an incentive mechanism can be introduced to ensure that corporate profits directly enter the public funds managed by the Ministry of Finance, it will quickly stimulate residents' consumption and curb the impulse of some enterprises to invest excessively.

2. Improving the capital market and banking system can also reduce the savings rate. If well-run enterprises can obtain financing from the capital market, they will be more willing to spend their income and then raise funds from the market when they need funds. A more mature capital market will also attract families to move their deposits out of the banking system, thus increasing their return on investment in the capital market and increasing their income.

Of course, these policies and measures will take time to be effective. Meanwhile, China's savings rate seems to remain high. Assuming that the investment level does not exceed the savings level, China's "surplus" savings level is still very high. This will bring a series of challenges. For China, this means that the consumption growth rate is still slow; For the rest of the world, this means that China will continue to "export" its "surplus" savings.