| As is known to all, China’s savings rate is high and growing fast in recent years. According to the updated data from National Bureau of Statistics, the national savings rate in China has risen from40.29%to52%in1992-2012,which in1992-2000,it remained at40%, but leaped after2000.At the same period, savings rate in the United States, Australia, Japan, Denmark and other countries did not exceed6%,some even or negative.High savings rate is also an important reason for the "high investment, high exports and low consumption" structural economy problems in China. Therefore, to explain high savings rate and solve its series of problems are significant and imminent. A large number of domestic and foreign scholars have been trying to study and interpret this problem from all aspects such as economic growth, population structure, precautionary savings motivation, human capital, national savings department structure. From a new perspective, this paper tries to focus on the Chinese provincial government economy. By contacting local government economy and saving behavior, this paper chooses relationship between local government economy and state-owned enterprises as the key point. Based on a more detailed empirical analysis to explain the rising savings rate and the differences between provincial savings, two main conclusions are as follows:(1) This paper revises Xu Zhong et al (2010) research framework by excluding the state-owned enterprises profit from the public sector disposable income. It focuses on how government behaves when the state-owned enterprises are more profitable. Empirical analysis through provincial panel data verifies and corrects the hypothesis on high savings rate and public finance proposed by Xu Zhong et al (2010):after the enhancement of state-owned enterprises profit, the local government increases investment and reduces public expenditures for profit motivation, and this government economy promotes savings rates in both public sector and private sector, then national savings rate rises. Particularly, this linkage mechanism well explains the national savings rate rising after2000.(2) Furthermore, this paper divides30provinces into three regions by GDP per capital and has found that the more undeveloped provincial regions are, the faster savings rate will be. The difference between provincial savings is also proved by empirical analysis and linkage mechanism above:these undeveloped provincial region governments are more willing to favor economic development while weakening public service. Consequently, saving rates in both public sector and private sector in these regions become higher. |
