【作者】 刘益；

【导师】 程民选；

【作者基本信息】 西南财经大学 ， 政治经济学， 2008， 博士

【摘要】 经济转型过程中的信用缺失问题引起了理论界的极大关注,不同的学科从不同的角度进行了探讨,并得出不同的结论。在契约经济学框架内展开研究,信用——即恪守诺言、践行成约,首先是一个实证概念,不包含道德或价值判断的规范涵义。信用的一个本质要素就是许诺,它以协议、协定、口头诺言、商业惯例等等形式表现出来。如果许诺没有实现,就是失信或不讲信用。许诺的基本涵义是延期支付。在现代市场经济中,无论是跨期交易还是现货交易都包含着延期支付因素,因此信用问题就存在于市场经济的所有交易行为中。在市场经济交易中,许诺并不是单方面的行为,而是表现为交易双方由于延期支付所产生的关于“债”权“债”务的权利义务关系。这种关系就是信用关系,它是一种产权流转关系。进一步看,这种产权流转关系就是交易双方的契约关系。因此,信用关系的实质就是市场经济的契约关系,是从履约角度理解的契约关系。这就把现代市场经济的信用与传统的道德式信用区别开来,现代市场经济的信用是现代的契约信用。因此,我们需要从契约的角度理解与研究市场经济的信用。契约首先是一个法律概念,它是附加了“债”的协议。一个契约是否成立,要符合契约自由原则和契约正义原则。经济学的契约概念来自于法律,但含义要宽泛得多,既包括显契约,也包括隐契约,而立足于经济学的契约概念,对信用的研究就是研究契约关系、契约履行及相关问题。通过以经济人假设为前提,以博弈论为工具,可以证明,在没有第三方介入时,市场经济中的一次性交易不成立,即存在失信问题。这也说明了法律、制度或其他第三方(比如担保或抵押)介入的必要性。不过,如果交易是多次的,重复博弈所产生的约束机制会使交易者在一定时间内守信。通过社会信用制度,可以把每个交易者转化为重复博弈中的单一的长期参与人,从而制约交易者的失信行为,但重复博弈约束机制对垄断交易者无效。在现实世界中,由于信息不对称,存在着委托代理关系的信用问题。如果是事前信息不对称,可能导致交易不成立。即便交易成立,由于存在逆向选择,也会从整体上降低经济效率。因此,第三方的介入是必要的。此外,信息甄别和信号传递也是解决事前信息不对称的方法。如果是事后信息不对称,就存在着道德风险,而解决的基本方法是激励。由于有限理性、交易费用和时间跨度等因素,大多数契约是不完全的。这就使契约的履行问题变得特别复杂,比如,对关系契约的研究就涉及到信誉、私人惩罚机制、人际关系、利他行为等等。基于对市场经济中的守信失信机制的分析,可以从产权制度、法治、社会信用制度、激励和非正式制度等五个方面来探讨信用与制度的关系及制度的发展。有效的产权制度当然对失信行为有制约作用。在各种产权关系中,初始产权对契约的成立与契约的履行有特殊意义。初始产权的明晰、产权主体的平等自由是现代信用关系的前提条件。由于现实的市场经济中的种种复杂性,信用与产权制度的关系非常复杂。比如,我们就不能简单地说“有恒产者有恒心”,而需要深入研究。从法治方面看,法治由于其自身特性及规模经济优势,是建立现代信用关系的基础。法治不仅体现于确立相关的法律制度,更重要的是法律的有效实施。在没有法治的软政权社会中,现代信用关系是无从谈起的。由于法律的介入会产生成本,因而也需要对法治进行成本收益分析,从而使发展自治的中介组织或行业协会成为一种选择。社会信用制度使现代社会不再匿名,从而使重复博弈对违约的约束机制生效,并有助于解决信息不对称问题。社会信用制度包括征信制度和资信制度,但如何建立中国的征信制度和资信制度,则是需要认真研究的问题。激励契约可以使代理人努力工作,并可以针对不同的情况制定不同的激励契约。此外,也可以通过重新安排产权来产生激励。非正式制度对于现代信用关系既有积极的作用,也有消极的作用,需要具体问题具体分析。现代信用关系与自由、诚信道德、信任等范畴有密切关系。现代经济学以功利主义为背景,只赋予个人自由以工具价值。但对于现代信用关系来说,个人自由具有内在价值,它是契约自由原则得以成立的前提。近代契约自由原则是在近代资本主义发展的一般基础上发展起来的,是近代社会、经济、政治、文化和一般意识形态等等因素相互作用、共同促成的结果。就诚信道德而言,从来就有功利主义与义务论之争。功利主义认为人在本质上不会讲诚信,因而诚信只具有工具价值,义务论则坚持道德本体论,认为诚信是人的内在品格。但无论从哪一个角度理解诚信道德,制度约束都是绝对必要的。就信任而言,信任包含着一种利他的信念,是理性与非理性的综合。信任有助于现代信用关系,但完全信任未必是好事。在现代市场经济中,制度信任是最为关键的。从现代经济学的角度看,道德和信任反映的是人的社会性的一个方面,要从经济学角度来研究还需要引进社会资本概念,并从人的社会性方面重新界定。社会资本是一种特殊的共同资源,因而必须以强有力的制度来保障。在现代市场经济中,由于政府承担着多种经济、政治、法律和社会管理职能,政府信用就成为现代信用的基础。根据社会契约论,现代政府是与社会分离的公共权力机构,而人民与政府的关系就是公共权力的政治委托代理关系。这是一种特殊的委托代理关系,具有更多的不确定性和更大的风险,从而产生了政府信用问题。结合公共选择理论来分析,政府失信就是政府失灵,包括政府行为失灵、政府机制失灵和政治法律失灵,而导致政府失信的主要原因是政府的目标与人民大众的目标不一致,政府的能力有限,民主政治制度存在着缺陷。因此,可以从减少政府职能和完善民主制度两方面着手解决政府失信问题。从完善民主政治制度方面看,形成公民社会——政治国家二元结构是解决政府失信问题的前提,而政府自身的权力制衡和社会中间性组织对政府的权力制约是基本对策。从文明的高度看,肇始于古希腊罗马,并在近代欧美资本主义中发展起来的契约文明是现代信用社会的一般文明基础。传统中国社会是一个以农业生产、宗法制度和儒家礼教为经济、政治和意识形态基础的典型的身份社会,在这种社会里不可能产生出契约文明。在转型时期,中国社会的信用缺失表现在各个方面,而原因是多种多样的。要建立现代信用社会,就要使中国社会从身份社会向契约社会转化,建立“社会—政府”二元结构,实现文明的转型,而这个过程是长期的、艰难的、复杂的。本文在理论和观点上的可能创新之处主要有:(一)把现代信用关系归结为产权关系,进而归结为契约关系,从而把现代信用与传统信用区别开来。(二)尝试性地在现代经济学中引入和确立社会资本概念,从而可以用现代经济学的方法来研究诚信道德、信任等非理性变量。(三)重新界定了政府信用概念,并对政治委托代理关系及中间性组织与政府信用的关系进行了较深入的剖析。(四)从文明的高度来理解信用问题,从而揭示解决中国社会信用缺失问题的艰巨性、复杂性、长期性。更多还原

【Abstract】 The problems of lack of Faith in Chinese market economy have already caused great attentions. Social scientists from different fields have been researching the problems and have gotten different conclusions. Based on the paradigm of contract economics, Faith, which means keeping a promise or carrying out a contract, is a positive concept, that is, it isn’t borne with moral or value meanings. A Faith contains an essential ingredient: a promise, which means postponed payment and is represented by an agreement, an oral promise or a business convention. If the promise hasn’t been kept, the Faith is broken. In modern market economy, the factor of postponed payment exists in every spot-transaction as well as delivery-transaction, so Faith exists in every market transaction.In a market transaction, the promise is not a unilateral behavior. It is a relation of right and obligation of“debt”for both sides, which is caused by postponed payment. This relation is just the Faith relation. It is a relation of property right transferring which is that of contract for both sides. So a Faith relation is a contract relation. It is quite different from the traditional ones.So we need to research the Faith in market economy from the angle of contract. Firstly, a contract is a legal concept, which is an agreement adhered with a“debt”. A valid contract should accord with principles of contract-freedom and contract- justice. The economic concept of contract is derived from that of law, but has more connotations, that is, it includes implicit contracts as well as explicit contracts.With the hypothesis of Economic Man and with the tool of game theory, it can be proved that because of the problem of Faith, a single transaction can’t be carried out when there is no the third party. The conclusion also illuminates the necessity of intervention of the third party, such as law and institutions. In spite of this, if the transaction will be carried out for many times, the restricting mechanism which is generated from the repeated game will make the player keep his Faith for a long time. Through social credit system, every player can be changed into a single long-run player of repeated game and their behaviors of Faith-broken will validly be restricted. In real world, the problem of Faith exists in the principal-agent relation because of asymmetric information. If asymmetric information is ex ante, it might lead to transaction failure. Even if the transaction is carried out, it may decrease the efficiency of the total economy because of adverse selection. So it is necessary for the third party to intervene. Besides that, screening of information and signaling are also alternatives for the problem. If asymmetric information is ex post, it will generate the problem of moral hazard, and incentive is the basic method of solving the problem. Because of limited rationality, exchange cost and time span, most contracts are incomplete and make the problem of implementation of contracts especially complicated.Based on the analyses on the mechanism of Faith in market economy, we can research the relation of Faith and institutions from the angles of property rights, law, social credit system, incentive and informal institutions. Efficacious institutions of property rights can certainly restrict the behaviors of Faith-broken. But the institution of initial property rights has special significance. Its definitude and the freedom and equity of the owner of property are the premises of modern Faith relations. Because of the complexity of modern market economy, the relations of Faith and the institutions of property rights become very complicated. As to the relation of Faith and law, law is the base of modern Faith relations. Law is incarnated not only by the establishment of legal institutions, but also by the valid legal practices. In a soft-regime society in which there is no law actually, there is no modern Faith relation. Because the intervention of law causes cost, it is necessary to do cost-revenue analyses of law, and so, the self-rule intermediary organizations or industry associations become alternatives. Social credit system makes modern society no longer anonymous, and makes the restricting mechanism of repeated game become effective. It is also help to solve the problem of asymmetric information. Social credit system includes credit checking and credit rating system, but how to establish Chinese credit checking and credit rating system is still a problem need to be researched. Incentive contracts can spur agents to work hard, and different incentive contracts can be used for different situations. Informal institutions have both positive and negative effects for modern Faith relation, so it is necessary to research every single case in order to get correct answers.Modern Faith relation is closely related with freedom, Good Faith and trust. Under the background of utilitarianism, modern economics only endows freedom with tool value. But for modern Faith relation, freedom has interior value. It is the most important premise for the principle of contract freedom. The classical principle of contract-freedom originated on the general base of development of classical capitalism. It is the result of interactions of factors of classical society, economy, politics and general ideology. As to Good Faith, there has been a controversy between utilitarianism and deontology. According to utilitarianism, a person wouldn’t keep faith from his innermost, so Good Faith has only tool value. But according to deontology, Good Faith is one of a person’s inner characteristics. Whatever it is, institution restrictions are absolutely necessary. As to trust, it contains a belief of altruism, so it is a synthesis of rationality and irrationality. Trust can help to establishment of modern Faith relation, but complete trust may not be a good thing. In modern market economy, it is most important to establish institution-trust. Based on the paradigm of modern economics, whether moral or trust, which is one of a person’s social characteristics, is irrational. So we need to introduce the concept of social capital to represent such things. Social capital represents the sum of every person’s“good”characteristics in a society. It is a special type of common resources and need to be ensured by powerful institutions.In modern market economy, because the government is borne with a lot of functions of administration, Government Faith becomes the base of modern Faith. According to the theory of social contract, modern government is an organization which is separated from the society and executes common-rights. The relation between the people and the government is the political principal-agent relation for the common rights. It is a special principal-agent relation and has more uncertainty and great risk, so the problems of Government Faith need to be researched. By introducing the theory of public selection, we can say that Government Faith- broken is not other than government failure, include the failure of government behavior and government mechanism and the failure of politics and law. The main causes which lead to Government Faith-broken includes: (1) the government’s goals are different from that of the people; (2) the government has limited power and ability; (3) the democracy has some fault. So, the problems of Government Faith-broken can be solved thorough reducing government functions and perfecting democracy. As to perfecting democracy, the dual structure of society- political state is the premise of solving the problems of Government Faith-broken, and restricting government rights from the government itself and from social intermediary organizations is the basic method.From the angle of civilization, the contract civilization, which rooted in that of ancient Greece and Rome and developed in times of classical capitalism, is the general base for modern Faith society. The traditional Chinese society, which based on agriculture, patriarchal clan system and Confucianism, was a typical status society. It is impossible to develop contract civilization in such a society.During the time of transformation of Chinese society, the lack of Faith appears in a lot of different fields, and the causes are complicated. In order to construct modern Faith society, it is necessary for Chinese society to change into contract society and to construct the dual structure of society- political state. It is actually a transformation of civilization, and the course would be long, difficult and complicated.The possible important achievements in the dissertation include:(1) Basing on the paradigm of contract economics and using cross-subject method, the dissertation researches the basic theory of Faith and then provides a framework for further research.(2) Modern Faith relation is the relation of property rights, and so, it results in the contract relation. Based on the conclusion, we can differentiate modern Faith from traditional Faith.(3) The dissertation tries introducing the concept of social capital into modern economics in order that we can research irrationality, such as moral and trust, in the field of modern economics.(4) The dissertation researches the problem of Faith on the level of civilization, so we can understand that it is a long-run, difficult and complicated task for Chinese society to solve its problem of lack of Faith.更多还原