轮转基金的经济学研究：微观机制、利率特征与效率意义

【作者】 孙阳；

【导师】 谢识予；

【作者基本信息】 复旦大学 ， 数量经济学， 2009， 博士

【摘要】 作为非正规的资金融通方式,民间金融一般被认为是金融抑制的产物,并会随着金融市场化程度的提高而逐渐收缩。然而实证研究表明,民间金融不仅普遍存在于亚非拉等发展中国家,同时也存在于欧美的高度市场化国家,并往往可以和正规金融机构共同存在于金融市场中。对此,本文的理解是:民间金融不仅可以弥补正规金融的缺失,同时还可以改善正规金融在某些方面的低效率。例如在中国,民间金融广泛存在于县域经济及农村地区中,为难以通过正规金融机构获得授信的中小企业和个体工商户等民营经济体提供了重要的融资渠道。特别在金融危机蔓延全球的当下,在反思正规金融体系所存在的弊端的同时,也正需要重新审视民间金融中所包含的合理性因素,这对于中国金融体制的改革以及市场经济的深化都具有积极意义。在这个思路下,本文借助广泛存在于世界不同国家和地区的民间金融组织——轮转基金,从其产生和发展的微观机制入手,揭示其所隐含的个体行为动机和福利改善机制,并从不同角度探讨其作为非正规金融机制所蕴含的合理性。这样可以避开对民间金融一般范畴的讨论,从而以微观的视角,更深入地研究民间金融的内在效率机制,并为中国新一轮的农村金融改革及民间金融正规化提供理论依据和政策启示。本文的研究共分为六章。第一章为研究导论,阐述了研究的背景和意义;第二章为文献综述,梳理了国内外相关文献的研究脉络;在此基础之上,第三章和第四章,分别从理论和实证的角度,探讨了轮转基金为其参与者实现福利改善的微观机制,并结合具体案例分析了其在投融资效率方面的特征;第五章结合新一轮农村金融改革的现实背景,通过分析轮转基金的效率机制,阐述了其所包含的现实意义;第六章作为研究结论,总结了主要的研究结果及政策启示,并指出了进一步研究的方向。作为对民间金融微观效率机制的研究,本文主要针对三方面的问题给出了如下的研究结论:第一,关于轮转基金存在的微观基础,或者说个体参与轮转基金的行为动机。本文通过理论分析说明:作为一种互助性和盈利性相结合的民间金融制度,轮转基金可以借助于其内含的资金分配机制,在收支水平相近且相互信任的个体之间,扮演资金配置过程中“看不见的手”的角色,以帮助这些个体在无法进入外部信贷市场的情况下,解决日常生活中可预期或不可预期的资金需求问题。第二,关于轮转基金的投融资效率,或者说轮转基金与外部信贷市场的利率比较。本文结合案例研究证明:从投资的角度,轮转基金通常可以提供高于外部信贷市场的存款利率,因而是有效的投资手段;从融资的角度,当正规金融不具备可获得性时,轮转基金可以提供低于外部高利贷市场的贷款利率,因而也可以成为有效的融资手段。当然,轮转基金通常要求其参与者具备某种程度的地缘或血缘关系,这在一定程度上限制了其作为投融资机制的适用范围。第三,关于轮转基金的现实意义。对此,本文主要着眼于新一轮的农村金融改革。实际上,轮转基金作为一种资金配置方式所反映出的互助性和盈利性的有机结合及其对于金融中介功能的内化,不仅体现出其作为民间金融制度所具备的合理性和竞争力,同时也为构建兼顾商业性和合作性的新型农村合作金融机构提供了可参考的制度框架,这对于中国农村金融改革中建立商业可持续的农村资金互助组织具有积极的参考价值。简言之,本文作为对民间金融微观机制的研究,借助于对轮转基金的分析,探讨了民间金融的合理性及其对全球经济衰退背景下的中国金融体制改革(特别是民间金融正规化过程中的金融机构创新)所蕴含的积极启示,这也是本文研究的意义所在。更多还原

【Abstract】 It is documented by recent empirical studies that informal finance, once considered as the byproduct of financial repression or insufficient financial marketization, persists and often flourishes not only in developing countries but also in many developed countries with well-established financial markets. As for this, there are at least two reasons which can be taken into consideration. First of all, informal finance can serve as the intermediate of resource mobilization and resource allocation in the lack of formal finance. For example, informal finance thrives in the county-level (or below) areas across China, providing important funding solutions to those private business owners such as small and medium enterprises and individual businesses, most of which can hardly obtain sufficient financial support from formal financial institutions due to their inferior credit profiles. More important, informal finance can in many cases solve problems poorly handled by formal financial systems. Actually, when talking about the current global economic downturn, tons of doubts and challenges have been raised in regards to the effectiveness of formal financial mechanisms, all of which lead to a reevaluation of the role of informal finance.The term ’informal finance’ covers a broad variety of institutions and mechanisms, and hence is difficult to define clearly. To avoid possible misunderstandings, this dissertation will focus on the ubiquitous informal financial institution called ’rosca (rotating saving and credit association)’, examining the rationales behind its fund allocation mechanism, providing empirical evidence to its efficiency, and accordingly delivering suggestive comments to the development of rural finance as well as the formalization of informal finance in China.The dissertation is organized as follows: Section 1 presents the background and the objectives of this academic research, coupled with an introduction to the two most impartant types of rosca. The previous theoretical analysis and empirical studies are reviewed in Section 2. The rosca mechanism of resource allocation and welfare improvement are modeled in Section 3, and an empirical analysis based on case study is conducted in Section 4 to evaluate the effectiveness of rosca through the comparison with outside credit markets (both formal and informal). In Section 5, a review is conducted on the key decisive factors which make rosca a success, with a policy analysis followed on the learning points from rosca to the establishment of cooperative financial institutions with sustainability and profitability in rural China. Conclusions and a further research agenda are provided in Section 6. The key results of the research are summarized as follows:1) The first key issue discussed is the micro-mechanism of rosca as a resource mobilization and allocation function, which starts from the modeling of the participants’ incentives for joining this organization. The theoretical analysis indicated that rosca, as an informal financial system with a combination of both mutual benefits and investment return, can provide effective solutions to those who are inaccessible to outside credit markets for their meeting both expectable and unexpectable expenditures, with the bidding function being well leveraged as the ’invisible hand’ for an efficient fund allocation.2) The second research focus is to evaluate empirically the effectiveness of rosca regarding its funding efficiency, especially when compared to the outside credit markets including formal commercial banks and informal lending shops. Through case study, the following conclusions are presented. As a means of investing, rosca can provide its participants with a higher interest rate than the commercial banks’ deposit rate, and hence is an efficient investing mechanism. As a means of financing, rosca can provide an interest rate which is higher than that of commercial banks but lower than that of lending shops, and hence is an efficient financing mechanism in case that the formal finance is unavailable or of high transaction cost. However, it should be noted that the prerequisite for a successful rosca is the geographical or consanguineous proximity of its participants, which usually plays an important role during the course of private information screening and default behavior control.3) The third topic is about the value or instructiveness of the research on rosca, which is based on the analysis of the current rural finance development in China. Actually, as an efficient and competitive financial arrangement, rosca can achieve a well balance between mutual benefits amongst the participants and the profitability of investment, and hence can be well leveraged to support the development of the ’rural fund cooperative’, a new type rural financial institution promoted by the banking regulator to build out the current rural finance supply in China.更多还原