A Research Of Runing Situation And Trend Of The Current World Economy’s Long-wave

It has been accepted by most scholars that the world economy is running in the form of long waves. But there are still some controversies for the current stage of the world economy in long-wave. That is the world economy is still in the fourth long-wave’s falling period or has entered the fifth long-wave driven by information technology and in the prosperous period or recession period of the fifth long-wave. There are a lot of problems when the world economy is running, including how to understand the source of the economic crisis and the conditions and strategies to achieve catch-up targets for backward countries in long-waves and so on. It’s meaningful to research these problems from world economy’s long-wave perspective.We establish long-wave model driven by GPT based on the long-wave theory of Schumpeter’s technological innovation, Van Duijn’s life cycle long-wave theory and Vernon’s product life cycle theory. And then explaining the two economic phenomena, the economic crisis and the catch-up effect, which may exist when the GPT diffuse in the industries and countries. We can get the followed conclusions from long-wave model driven by GPT:the world economy driven by GPT is running in the form of long waves since it takes certain time for GPT diffusing among sectors; it may hide the nature of the technology as GPT when it is hindered and takes a long time to diffuse among the industries; the degrees of smoothness GPT diffuse among the industries will affect the length of the cycle. Based on theoretical analysis, we sum up and examine the fundamental bases which could be used to identify the general purpose technology and judge running stages and identify the current stage and the general purpose technology of the world economy in long-wave employing history data since1780; we analyze the economic crisis and the catch-up effect in long-waves and make multi-angle historical analysis for some achieved catch-up countries which provides the reference for China to grasp the important period of strategic opportunities of the first two decades of the21st century and take the right policy measures to achieve catch-up strategy.The main conclusions are as follows.Firstly, based on the analysis of GPT’s diffusion in industries and the adjustments of industrial structure, trade structure, invest structure, we can conclude that:technological revolution brought about the adjustment of economic structure which in turn dredges channels for the diffusion of GPT in the industries. When the diffusion of GPT in the industries is smooth, the economy is good. Otherwise, the economy will be in crisis. Information technology is the new general purpose technology which pushes the world economy into the fifth long wave and it’s still at the ascension stages through empirical analysis. We find that economic indicators haven’t shown the characteristics which should have in the prosperous phase since the economies entering into the fifth long wave, not even the characteristics of prosperity turning into recession; information technology’s pushing function is still on up-trend which means that information technology’s pushing function is not full-fledged and it could still further the prosperous phrase which means the prosperous phase have not yet ended until now. From the phenomenon that intermediate information technology inputs in tertiary industry are more than that of the secondary industry in developed countries, we can see that the process of information technology spreading is hindered which hide the nature of current world economy running in the form of long waves.Secondly, compared with the three economic crises in1929,1973and2008, we find that the outbreak of the economic crisis in1929and1973was mainly due to GPT entering the mature and decline stage which result the economic lack of promotion powers, but the essential reason of2008economic crisis is the process of information technology as GPT spreading in industries is hindered. So the essential reason of this economic crisis is that the return on investment of tertiary industry is higher than that of the secondary industry which cause industrial structure and the investment of information technology unbalanced which hinders the spreading process of information technology. The essential source of this economic crisis is different from the economic crises in the past which results the different degrees of impacting on the economy. Different measures should be taken to resolve the issue for different sources of these economic crises. For this economic crisis, the essential of policy measures is making appropriate measures to dredge channels for the spreading and deepening of GPT in the industries.Thirdly, it proves the existence of catch-up effect in international production fragmentation making full domestic value added and employment brought by GPT as a basis to judge, using the data of main countries from1970to2010in non-competitive input-output model. The result shows that, the latecomer countries have catch-up opportunities and the advanced countries may be lagging behind in the process of GPT changes; even a non-foundation country of GPT, the improved innovated ability based on GPT and the smooth expansion of new paradigm among industries can maintain a good development situation in a new cycle of growth; phase changes in the long wave often are the chance of the countries’position changing in international production fragmentation. The experience and lessons of Japan to catch-up and be catch-up can provide some inspiration for backward country implement catch-up strategy successfully. Whether or not to achieve the catch-up goal is related to technological paradigm of long wave, the operational phase, and the strategy of backward country. The time of backward countries to catch up is grab the diffusion stages of basic technology paradigm, include the basis of ability, secondary innovation capability, as well as scale of economies, institutional innovation and world economic environment and so on, and accumulated a sufficient basis in the new long wave to avoid being catch-up.Fourthly, when it comes to China, we should grasp the opportunity of information technology, which means to grasp the important period of strategic opportunities of the first two decades of the21st century. We must understand the status of information technology in promoting the development of the economic exactly and pay attention to the information technology industry and the innovative cross the information technology industry with other industries. Not only improve the investment of information technology industry, but also ensure smooth channels of IT industry’s expanding to other industries, accelerate the alteration of the tradition industries by IT and guide industrial upgrading.