📚 Issues of Transition when Central Planning in an Economy is Reduced | 经济中中央计划减少时的转型问题
When an economy moves away from central planning towards market-based mechanisms, profound structural, institutional and social challenges arise. The dismantling of state control over prices, production and resource allocation is rarely smooth; instead, it triggers a complex set of transition problems that policy-makers must navigate. From rapid inflation and unemployment to the rise of informal sectors and institutional vacuum, the process of reducing central planning creates both short-term dislocation and long-term developmental hurdles. This article explores the key issues of transition, drawing on the experiences of post-communist economies in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and other regions that have undergone market-oriented reforms.
当一个经济体从中央计划向市场机制转轨时，深刻的结构、制度和社会挑战随之而来。取消国家对价格、生产和资源配置的控制很少一帆风顺；相反，它会引发一系列复杂的转型问题，需要政策制定者谨慎应对。从急剧的通货膨胀和失业，到非正规部门的扩张和制度真空，减少中央计划的过程既造成短期紊乱，也带来长期发展障碍。本文基于东欧、前苏联及其他经历市场化改革的地区的经验，探讨转型中的关键问题。
1. The Nature of Central Planning and the Need for Reform | 中央计划的本质与改革需求
Under central planning, the state owns the means of production and allocates resources through administrative commands rather than price signals. Enterprises face soft budget constraints, leading to chronic inefficiency, shortages and lack of innovation. The initial motivation for reducing planning is often to improve resource allocation and raise living standards, but the very depth of plan-based distortions makes the transition painful.
在中央计划体制下，国家拥有生产资料，通过行政指令而非价格信号分配资源。企业面临软预算约束，导致长期的低效率、短缺和创新匮乏。减少计划的初衷往往是为了改善资源配置和提高生活水平，但计划体制造成的扭曲程度之深，使转型过程充满痛苦。
Transition requires not only liberalising markets but also creating new institutions – property rights, contract enforcement, financial intermediaries – that did not exist or were redundant under planning. The simultaneous nature of these changes distinguishes the reduction of central planning from standard structural reforms in market economies.
转型不仅需要放开市场，还需要建立新的制度——产权、合同执行、金融中介——这些在计划体制下要么不存在，要么是多余的。这些变革的同时性，使中央计划的减少区别于市场经济中常见的结构性改革。
2. Price Liberalisation and Inflationary Pressure | 价格自由化与通货膨胀压力
One of the first steps in reducing central planning is the removal of price controls. Under planning, prices are set administratively and often kept artificially low, resulting in suppressed inflation and pervasive shortages. When prices are freed, the accumulated monetary overhang – excess money balances held by households and enterprises – rushes into the goods market, causing a one-off jump in the price level.
减少中央计划的首要步骤之一是取消价格管制。在计划体制下，价格由行政指定，且往往被人为压低，导致隐性通货膨胀和普遍短缺。当价格放开时，家庭和企业持有的超额货币余额——即货币积压——涌入商品市场，造成物价水平的一次性跃升。
This corrective inflation can spiral into persistent high inflation if monetary policy remains loose and indexation mechanisms take hold. In Poland’s shock therapy of 1990, prices rose by over 500% in the first months, eroding savings and destabilising household budgets. Russia experienced hyperinflation in the early 1990s as price liberalisation combined with continued money printing to finance deficits.
如果货币政策依然宽松且指数化机制形成，这种纠正性通胀可能演变为持续的高通胀。在波兰1990年的休克疗法中，最初几个月物价上涨超过500%，侵蚀储蓄并破坏家庭预算稳定。俄罗斯在1990年代初经历了恶性通货膨胀，价格自由化与持续印钞弥补赤字的做法叠加在一起。
3. Privatisation and Enterprise Restructuring | 私有化与企业重组
Moving from state ownership to private ownership raises fundamental questions of speed, method and fairness. Voucher-based mass privatisation, as in the Czech Republic and Russia, transferred ownership quickly but often without effective corporate governance. The result was that large enterprises continued to operate much as before, with weak restructuring and asset stripping by insiders.
从国有制转向私有制引发了速度、方法和公平等根本性问题。捷克和俄罗斯采用的凭证式大规模私有化快速转移了所有权，但往往缺乏有效的公司治理。结果是大企业基本照旧运营，重组不力，内部人侵吞资产。
Small-scale privatisation in retail and services, by contrast, tended to deliver faster efficiency gains because new entrepreneurs could respond to consumer demand. A major issue throughout the transition was the absence of functioning capital markets to reallocate assets efficiently. Many firms remained under the control of the same managers, perpetuating soft budget constraints through state-owned banks.
相比之下，零售和服务业的小型私有化往往能更快带来效率提升，因为新的企业家能够响应消费者需求。整个转型过程中的一个重大问题，是缺乏有效运行的资本市场对资产进行高效再配置。许多企业仍由相同的管理者控制，并通过国有银行继续维持软预算约束。
4. Unemployment and Social Dislocation | 失业与社会脱节
Under central planning, open unemployment was virtually unknown because enterprises were required to absorb labour regardless of productivity. Once market discipline is introduced, overstaffed firms begin to shed workers. The sudden emergence of large-scale unemployment creates severe social and psychological costs, particularly in societies where job security had been guaranteed for decades.
在中央计划体制下，公开失业几乎不存在，因为企业必须吸纳劳动力，无论生产率如何。一旦引入市场纪律，冗员企业开始裁员。大规模失业的突然出现造成了严重的社会和心理代价，尤其是在几十年来一直保障就业安全的社会中。
Regional unemployment disparities are often acute because entire towns depended on a single heavy-industry enterprise that could not survive market competition. The lack of labour mobility – due to housing shortages and an underdeveloped rental market – traps many workers in declining regions. Active labour market policies and retraining programmes face serious capacity constraints in the early transition years.
地区性失业差距往往十分严重，因为整个城镇依赖一家重工业企业，而后者无法在市场竞存中存活。劳动力流动性不足——由于住房短缺和租赁市场不发达——使许多工人被困在衰退地区。积极的劳动力市场政策和再培训计划在转型初期面临严重的能力制约。
5. Fiscal and Monetary Challenges | 财政与货币挑战
Reducing central planning erodes the traditional tax base. State enterprises, from which governments previously extracted revenues through turnover taxes and profit remittances, decline or become tax-avoiding private firms. The creation of a modern tax administration and a broad-based tax system takes time, leading to sharp falls in government revenue.
减少中央计划侵蚀了传统税基。政府过去通过流转税和利润上缴获取收入的国有企业，如今要么衰落，要么成为避税的私营企业。建立现代税收征管机构和广泛课税的税制需要时间，导致政府收入急剧下降。
Meanwhile, social spending pressures rise due to higher unemployment and the need for safety nets. The result is often unsustainable fiscal deficits that can be financed only through money creation, fuelling inflation and exchange rate instability. Monetary policy credibility is hard to establish in the absence of independent central banks and with thin financial markets.
与此同时，失业率上升和社会保障需求导致社会支出压力加大。结果常常是不可持续的财政赤字，只能通过货币创造来融资，进而加剧通货膨胀和汇率不稳。在缺乏独立央行且金融市场浅薄的情况下，货币政策的公信力难以建立。
6. Institutional Vacuum and the Rule of Law | 制度真空与法治
Central planning relies on bureaucratic coordination rather than legal contracts and independent courts. When planning is dismantled, the economy needs a functioning legal framework to enforce property rights, resolve commercial disputes and regulate competition. Building such institutions from scratch is a lengthy process, and in the meantime, the rule of law may be weak or inconsistent.
中央计划依赖官僚协调而非法律合同和独立法院。当计划被取消时，经济需要一个运行良好的法律框架来执行产权、解决商业纠纷和监管竞争。从零开始建设这样的制度是一个漫长的过程，在此期间，法治可能薄弱或前后不一。
The institutional gap leads to widespread contract violations, mafia-style enforcement and a perception that property rights are insecure. Investors, both domestic and foreign, hesitate to commit long-term capital. The transition literature emphasises that market-enhancing institutions are as critical as liberalisation itself for successful transformation.
制度真空导致违约行为普遍、以黑帮式手段执行合同以及产权不安全的普遍认知。国内外投资者都不敢承诺长期资本。转型文献强调，增进市场的制度与自由化本身同样关键，是实现成功转轨的必要条件。
7. External Sector Adjustment and Trade Reorientation | 对外部门调整与贸易重新定位
Centrally planned economies typically traded within a bloc – for example, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) – at administered prices and with limited currency convertibility. The dissolution of such trading arrangements means that newly independent states must reorient exports towards world markets, often without the quality, marketing or logistics needed to compete.
中央计划经济体通常在一个集团内部贸易（如经济互助委员会），以行政定价进行，且货币可兑换性有限。此类贸易安排的解体意味着新独立的国家必须将出口转向世界市场，却往往缺乏竞争所需的质量、营销或物流能力。
Simultaneously, domestic firms face import competition as trade barriers fall, leading to de-industrialisation in many sectors. Setting an appropriate exchange rate regime is extremely difficult when foreign reserves are scarce and the balance of payments is under strain. Many transition economies adopted temporary undervaluation or floating rates to gain export competitiveness, but at the cost of imported inflation.
与此同时，随着贸易壁垒降低，国内企业面临进口竞争，导致许多产业部门去工业化。在外汇储备匮乏、国际收支紧张的情况下，设定适当的汇率制度极其困难。许多转型经济体采取了暂时性低估或浮动汇率以换取出口竞争力，却以输入性通胀为代价。
8. Transition Recession and Output Collapse | 转型衰退与产出崩溃
A near-universal feature of reducing central planning is a sharp fall in measured GDP in the initial years. This transition recession reflects the collapse of output in uncompetitive heavy industries, the disruption of supply chains and the reorientation of production towards consumer goods. Official statistics often exaggerated the decline because the state sector was better measured than the emerging private sector.
减少中央计划的一个近乎普遍的特征，是最初几年中录得的GDP急剧下降。这种转型衰退反映了无竞争力的重工业产出崩溃、供应链中断以及生产向消费品的重新调整。官方统计常常夸大了下滑幅度，因为国有部门的统计要比新兴私营部门完整。
Countries that adopted rapid liberalisation, such as Poland and the Baltic states, experienced deep but shorter recessions, while those with more gradual approaches sometimes suffered prolonged stagnation. The depth of the output loss had lasting effects on human capital and poverty, with recovery taking a decade or more in many cases.
采取快速自由化的国家，如波兰和波罗的海三国，经历了深而短的衰退；而采取较渐进方式的国家有时则陷入长期停滞。产出损失的深度对人力资本和贫困产生了持久影响，许多情形下复苏花了十年甚至更长时间。
9. Reallocation of Resources and Structural Change | 资源再配置与结构性变化
Under central planning, the services sector was chronically underdeveloped while heavy industry was favoured. The transition to market signals shifts labour and capital from manufacturing and mining to services, construction and consumer goods. This structural change, while necessary, creates large adjustment costs and stranded assets in the old industrial regions.
在中央计划体制下，服务业长期发展不足，而重工业受到偏爱。向市场信号转轨使劳动和资本从制造业和采矿业转向服务业、建筑业和消费品部门。这种结构性变化虽然必要，但在旧工业地区造成了巨大的调整成本和大量闲置资产。
Without functioning financial markets, the reallocation of capital is slow and often takes the form of new small businesses rather than the restructuring of large state firms. The churning of enterprises – high rates of both entry and exit – is a hallmark of early transition, leading to significant volatility in employment and income.
在没有运行良好的金融市场的情况下，资本再配置缓慢，且往往以新创小企业的形式出现，而非大型国企的重组。企业生灭——高进入率和高退出率——是转型初期的标志，导致就业和收入的大幅波动。
10. Corruption, Rent-Seeking and the Informal Economy | 腐败、寻租与非正规经济
The twilight zone between plan and market creates abundant opportunities for rent-seeking. As state assets are privatised, insiders often acquire them at below-market prices, and the absence of clear legal frameworks allows corrupt officials to extract bribes. Corruption becomes a major tax on business and a source of public disillusionment.
计划与市场之间的模糊地带为寻租创造了大量机会。国有资产私有化时，内部人往往以低于市场的价格获得资产，而明晰法律框架的缺失使得腐败官员得以索贿。腐败成为企业经营的一项重大税负，也是公众幻灭的根源。
The informal economy grows rapidly as individuals and firms seek to avoid costly registration, taxation and regulation. While informal activity provides a survival strategy and some entrepreneurial dynamism, it also undermines state revenues and the legitimacy of formal institutions. Over time, bringing economic activity back into the formal sector becomes a major policy challenge.
非正规经济迅速增长，因为个人和企业力图规避昂贵的注册、税收和监管。虽然非正规活动提供了生存策略和一定的创业活力，但也侵蚀国家收入以及正规制度的合法性。随着时间的推移，将经济活动重新纳入正规部门成为一大政策挑战。
11. Social Safety Nets and Rising Inequality | 社会保障网与不平等加剧
Under central planning, income inequality was compressed because wages were set administratively and private ownership of capital was forbidden. The transition to markets allows returns to education, entrepreneurship and capital, causing inequality to rise sharply. The Gini coefficient increased dramatically in almost all transition economies within a few years.
在中央计划体制下，行政制定工资并禁止资本私有，收入不平等受到压制。向市场转轨使教育回报、创业回报和资本回报得以实现，导致不平等急剧上升。几乎在所有转型经济体中，基尼系数在几年内都大幅提高。
The dismantling of the comprehensive welfare state – universal healthcare, childcare, pensions – sparks public discontent. Governments struggle to design targeted safety nets with limited administrative capacity, leading to inadequate protection for the newly poor and the elderly. Political resistance to reform often intensifies as social pain deepens.
全面的福利国家——全民医疗、托儿、养老金——的解体激起公众不满。政府在有限的行政能力下努力设计有针对性的安全网，导致新穷人和老年人得不到充分保障。随着社会痛苦加深，对改革的政治抵制往往加剧。
12. Sequencing, Speed and the Role of the State | 改革次序、速度与国家角色
A long-standing debate in transition economics concerns the optimal speed of reform. ‘Big bang’ proponents argue that rapid, simultaneous liberalisation prevents opposition from building and minimises the period of distortion. Gradualists counter that sequencing matters – for example, building institutions before liberalising capital flows – and that too-rapid change can overwhelm social tolerance.
转型经济学中一个长期争论涉及改革的最优速度。“大爆炸”支持者认为，快速、同时进行的自由化能防止反对力量积聚并缩短扭曲期。渐进主义者则反驳说，次序很重要——例如，在放开资本流动之前先建设制度——而且过快的变革可能超出社会承受力。
China’s dual-track approach, where a planned track coexisted with a market track, produced sustained growth while avoiding a transition recession, but it also relied on strong state capacity and one-party control. The European transition experience shows that the role of the state does not disappear; rather, it must be transformed from planner to regulator enforcer of market rules.
中国的双轨制，即计划轨与市场轨并存，实现了持续增长，同时避免了转型衰退，但它也依赖于强大的国家能力和一党控制。欧洲转型经验表明，国家的作用并非消失，而是必须从计划者转变为市场规则的监管和执行者。
Ultimately, reducing central planning is not an event but a prolonged and multidimensional process. The interplay of political economy, institutional development and external shocks determines whether a country emerges with a dynamic market economy or remains stuck in a low-growth, high-corruption equilibrium.
归根结底，减少中央计划不是一个事件，而是一个漫长且多维的过程。政治经济学、制度发展和外部冲击的相互作用，决定了一个国家是成功迈向充满活力的市场经济，还是陷入低增长、高腐败的均衡。
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