China & World Economy / 5–21, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2023
Regaining China’s Resource Reallocative Efficiency to Boost Growth
Fang Cai
Abstract
The structural changes that the Chinese economy has been experiencing since its working-age population began to decline pose challenges for its further growth. First, as it loses its comparative advantage in labor-intensive activities, the share of manufacturing in its GDP has shrunk. Second, unproductive enterprises that are reluctant to exit the market tend to seek policy protection, which leads to the immobility of resource allocation. Third, the reallocation of the labor force from the highly productive manufacturing sector to the low-productivity service sector leads to the degradation of resource allocation. The inadequate exploitation of the potential of resource reallocation implies that the decline in manufacturing is premature. It is therefore important to combine market competition policy, industrial policy, and social protection policy to stabilize the development of manufacturing.