摘要
二十世纪中期以来,随着社会生产力的极大进步和经济的高速增长,人们对自然资源的消耗剧增,提供自然资源的生态环境也遭到严重破坏,自然资源耗竭与经济持续增长之间的矛盾日显突出,引起了社会各界的普遍关注和忧虑。而中国经济自改革开放以来也经历了近三十年的高速增长,这一增长过程不可避免地伴随着自然资源的巨大消耗,考虑到中国自然资源人均占有量相对较少及开发利用效率相对较低的国情,中国自然资源约束的问题更加显得严重和紧迫。
在这样的现实背景下,本文以现代经济增长理论与可持续发展理论为基础,讨论了在自然资源的约束条件下,经济能否以及如何实现可持续增长的问题。
我们将自然资源作为生产要素引入到最优经济增长的理论框架中,首先分析了自然资源约束下的新古典增长模型,用以揭示自然资源对经济可持续增长的约束效应,论证了在一个既无人力资本积累,也没有技术进步的经济中,随着自然资源的耗竭,经济将出现负增长,也就是说经济的可持续增长是不可能的;随后,通过构建一个引入了自然资源要素的内生增长模型,来考察人力资本积累及技术研发在克服自然资源约束中的作用机制,模型分析的结果表明,只要人力资本积累及技术研发有足够高的效率,则经济就可克服自然资源的相对稀缺和不断耗竭,实现可持续的增长。
在理论模型的基础上,我们以能源作为自然资源的代表变量,以中国1984-2006年的时间序列数据为样本,对中国自然资源与经济增长的关系进行了实证分析。通过对实证检验结果的分析发现,中国经济增长尚未受到自然资源的严重制约,这主要是因为物质资本和劳动力的投入仍然是中国经济增长的基本源泉。然而,中国经济的高速增长却是以能源的高消耗为代价的,这意味着若这一粗放型的增长方式得不到根本转变,则中国经济难以实现长期可持续的增长,对此,尽管中国经济已在市场经济体制改革、能源消费结构及产业结构优化调整和节能技术研发等方面做出反应,但反应力度仍然是不够的,特别是当因体制和结构调整而带来的资源利用效率的提高趋于平缓时,技术的进步在克服自然资源的稀缺中所起的作用就尤为重要了。
最后,基于以上理论模型的结论和实证结果的分析,我们给出了一些政策建议,并指出几个可能的进一步研究的方向。
Since the 1950s, because of the great technological progress and rapid economic growth, the consumption of natural resources has been increasing remarkably, and the ecology supplying the natural resources has been damaged severely. The conflict between the exhaustion of natural resources and sustained economic growth appears to be more and more noticeable, which arouses all social circles’attention and anxiety. Chinese economy has experienced high-speed growth for 30 years after the Reform and Open, and along with that numerous natural resources have inevitably been consumed. Considering that the per capita stock of natural resources is relatively small and the efficiency of exploitation is relatively poor, the problem of natural resources in China seems more serious and urgent.
Under the background of the reality, founded on modern economic growth theory and sustainable development theory, this paper discusses the problem that whether the economy is able to and how to achieve a sustainable growth with constraints of natural resources.
We bring the natural resources as an agent of production into the framework of optimal economic growth theory. Firstly we analyzes a neoclassical growth model with constraints of natural resources in order to show the effect that natural resources impose restrictions on sustainable economic growth. We prove that, in an economy without accumulation of human capital and technological progress, negative economic growth will appear as natural resources exhausted, in other words sustainable economic growth is impossible. Subsequently we examine the mechanism that accumulation of human capital and technological progress overcome the restrictions of natural resources in an endogenous growth model which a factor of natural resources imposed. The analytical result of the model indicates that, so long as accumulation of human capital and R&D of technology are efficient enough, the economy is able to conquer the relative scarcity and gradual exhaustion of natural resources, and so achieve sustainable growth.
On the basis of the theoretical model, we conduct an empirical analysis of the relationship between natural resources and economic growth in China by treating energy as representative variable of natural resources and time series data from 1984 to 2006 as sample. Through the analysis on the results of empirical tests, we find that Chinese economic growth hasn’t been hindered by natural resources yet, mainly because that the inputs of physical capital and labor force are still the main sources for Chinese economic growth. However, Chinese high-speed economic growth is obtained at the cost of excessive consumption of natural resources, which means that it would be hard to realize sustainable economic growth if the extensive economic growth mode couldn’t be changed fundamentally. Although Chinese economy reacts with respects to the reform of economic system, adjustments of the structure of energy consumption and industrial structure, and R&D of energy-efficient technology, it is insufficient to get a sustainable economic growth. Especially when improvement on the efficiency of resources exploitation owing to adjustments of economic system and structures was running down, the technological progress would play a more important part in overcoming the scarcity of natural resources.
Lastly, based on the above results of theoretical models and empirical analysis, we provide some proposals for policy, and point out several possible directions for further research.
引文
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