Markets are having a hard time interpreting China’s economic slowdown and evaluating policy options. At one extreme, some observers are talking about a potential dynastic collapse. But most have turned to the notion that economic growth needs to be more consumption driven since the almost universal view is that China’s growth is unbalanced, with consumption as a share of gross domestic product having declined steadily to below 35 per cent – the lowest level of any major economy – while its investment share rose to above 45 per cent, correspondingly the highest.
The reason for this imbalance is often attributed to low interest rates or an undervalued exchange rate. This has been the easy explanatory option since financial markets are comfortable with prices driving outcomes. But in his article in The New York Times last week, Paul Krugman is unique among prominent commentators in getting it right. He notes that China’s unbalanced growth is explained by the Nobel Prize-winning model by Arthur Lewis that shows how the transfer of surplus workers from the rural sector to the modern economy, complemented by rising investment, leads to rapid but unbalanced growth. The model also lays out the conditions when labour supplies tighten, growth slows and China’s economy eventually becomes more balanced – referred to as the “Lewis turning point” – and this as argued by Mr Krugman is causing China to “hit its Great Wall”.
But then he gets it wrong by saying that this urbanisation cum industrialisation process in China “keeps wages low even as the economy gets richer” and that its economy needs to rebalance soon to avoid a nasty slump. Like many others Mr Krugman sees rebalancing as the solution if China wants to avoid a premature economic slowdown that has prevented the majority of aspiring developing countries from reaching high-income levels, most notably in Latin America, a phenomenon which has become known as the “middle-income trap”.