Zheng Bingwen is an economist who takes the narrow road .

**: China News Weekly.

Economist of the Year 2023Zheng Bingwen

Reasons for the award.

He has been deeply engaged in the field of social security research for nearly 30 years, and has made outstanding achievements in academic achievements and policy suggestions, and is one of the leading figures in the field of social security research at home and abroad. In the face of the impact of population aging, he actively advocated the adjustment of population policy, called for the realization of national overall planning of pension insurance, and advocated the construction of a multi-level and multi-pillar pension system. As a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), he twice suggested in his proposal to let go of the three-child population to solve the dilemma of "low birthrate and aging population", which reflects a scholar's unremitting concern for major livelihood issues.

After two days of heavy snowfall, Beijing ushered in a cold wave. In the severe cold with a temperature close to -10, Zheng Bingwen took the subway to the event site, the cold outside did not hide his hearty laughter, reflecting the golden light under the high vault in the corridor hall of the Beijing Hotel, in a harmonious atmosphere, I quickly looked at the nearly 69-year-old academic celebrity, only to see him wearing a black suit and red tie, full of silver hair, in a gentle and elegant, humble and plain demeanor revealed a little kindness and wisdom.

The low-key and introverted scholar in front of him is a well-known social security expert at home and abroad, and one of the leading figures in the field of social security research in China. 30 years ago, when he was teaching Asia-Pacific economy at the University of Paris-est Marne-la-Vallée in France, he saw that the social security system of developed countries was very mature, and began to study the social security system of various countries in the world. At present, he is most concerned about the construction of a multi-level and multi-pillar pension insurance system, which is something that the country must focus on promoting in the medium and long term in response to the aging of the population. How to achieve the preservation and appreciation of pension insurance and the stability of long-term income and expenditure without increasing the burden of enterprise payment is the top priority of his research in recent years.

Zheng Bingwen has been studying and working at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for exactly 40 years, and has served as the fifth director of the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the fourth director and party secretary of the Institute of Latin American Studies, the deputy director of the Institute of European Studies, and the vice president of the Graduate School. As a well-known economist, while he is deeply engaged in the basic research of social security, he also pays attention to countermeasure research, "As an applied discipline, social security research must be combined with reality to serve the country and the whole people." He said.

Because he has focused on the field of social security for decades, some people have vividly called him an economist who "takes the narrow road", which is not a joke but a kind of respect. More than a month ago, when China News Weekly invited Zheng Bingwen to attend the "Influential Person of the Year" event as the 2023 Economist of the Year, he was quite skeptical and asked me if my research field was relatively narrow, limited to a small area such as social security, was it "a bit unqualified"?This question is not a pretense of pretense after being sophisticated, but a sincerity and humility that impresses me.

In the past 30 years, he has focused on social security research

Zheng Bingwen has been researching social security for nearly 30 years since 1994, when he was a professor of Asia-Pacific economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Marne La Vallée in France.

In the first decade of the last century, there were very few economists in the domestic economic circles who immersed themselves in a research field to do long-term research, often emphasizing "short, flat, fast" and "changing places with one shot". When talking about why he was able to adhere to this research field for a long time, Zheng Bingwen said that when he returned to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from France in 1995, he independently chose the field of social security, which was still a "sunrise discipline" in China at that time, and he believed that with the establishment of the national social security system, the demand for this research will increase.

At that time, China had just implemented the pilot of basic old-age insurance for urban workers in 1986, and in 1991 decided to establish a unified national old-age insurance system, while the medical insurance system had not yet started, there were very few people who studied social security, and even fewer people understood social security. This is a promising time for Zheng Bingwen, who has experienced the European social security system first-hand and has just returned from France.

In the following years, Zheng Bingwen organized scholars who studied social security to edit the "Contemporary Social Security System Research Series" (a total of 18 books, also known as the "SSSS" series), including "Introduction to Social Security Analysis" and "International Comparison of Social Security Systems".

In this series, there are also three translations by Zheng Bingwen alone, including the world-famous book "The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism" by Danish scholar Espin Anderson, which introduces the three types of social security system model classification. Espin-Anderson's book led to the creation of a discipline called welfare model typology in many developed countries, which coincided with the reagan of the United States and Thatcher, the then prime minister of the United Kingdom, advocating the welfare state. In addition, Zheng Bingwen also translated from French the book "The Economics of Social Security" by the French scholar Catherine and the book "The Welfare State in Capitalist Society" by the Canadian scholar Mishra.

The translation of these three books at that time greatly contributed to my personal academic growth, and I learned a lot of knowledge from translation, and soon I became one of the most familiar people in China with related issues in the field of social security research. Zheng Bingwen recalled.

In 1992, Zheng Bingwen spent a year and a half as a postdoc at the Centre for Labour Social Sciences Research (CRESST) at the Jean Monnet Institute of Labor Social Sciences (CRESST) at the University of Paris-Sud Xi, and then moved to Pierre, Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Paris-Val-Le Valley Professor Duharcourt taught there for a year, and in 1995 he firmly chose to return to China to pursue his career, and soon established himself in the field of social security research in China. For scholars who returned to China at the age of 40 to re-establish their research fields, it is difficult to imagine such a thing in a short period of time without a bit of perseverance and hard work.

Zheng Bingwen was born in Liaoning in 1955, and his father was a grassroots cadre in a small factory of Anshan Steel Institute. * After the start, the school was closed, and he had nothing to do in the upper grades of elementary school, so he studied at home. Because his parents attached great importance to the education of his children, and he himself was very good at school, he was hardly affected in his studies. At that time, the family lived in the university dormitory of Anshan Iron and Steel Institute, and he could borrow some books from the library, and he still remembers that because he was fascinated by reading, he pressed one leg against the other leg in bed for a long time, which made him unable to walk, and finally asked his father's colleague to give acupuncture.

In addition to his studies, he was the eldest of the three brothers, because he liked to play with musical instruments from a very young age, and he also taught himself some related knowledge, and was later hired as a violinist in a theater troupe, so he did not go to the mountains and countryside like many educated youth, including his younger brother. In the winter of 1977, when the college entrance examination was resumed, he was successfully admitted to Liaoning University, and later admitted to the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to study for master's and doctoral degrees.

Today, more than 30 years later, China has already established the four pillars of the social security system, endowment insurance, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance, maternity insurance and long-term care insurance is being piloted in the social changes are also constantly reforming and improving. However, there is no doubt that China's social security system has basically played the role of "protecting the basics" and benefiting the people.

Zheng Bingwen said that he is most concerned about the construction of a multi-level and multi-pillar pension insurance system. There are three pillars of China's pension, and the basic pension insurance for urban workers and urban and rural residents constitutes the first pillarEnterprise annuity and occupational annuity are the second pillar;The personal pension system, which has been in place for one year, is the third pillar. Due to the rapid ageing of the population, the first pillar is under great pressure for financial sustainability;The second pillar currently only covers more than 70 million people among the 200 million employees, among them, the main challenge of enterprise annuity is first of all the increasing pressure on the business conditions of enterprises, and only 31 million people currently participate in enterprise annuities, and the coverage is difficult to expandThe third pillar of the personal pension system has been implemented for nearly a year, and more than 40 million people have opened personal pension accounts, but only about a quarter have saved money, and only more than half of them have invested and bought financial products.

The pension system needs to achieve "two transformations".

The pay-as-you-go pension insurance system is very effective when there is a demographic dividend, and in 2022, the Chinese population has begun to grow negatively, the proportion of retired population has increased rapidly, the problem of population aging will become increasingly serious, and relying on the original demographic dividend-type old-age insurance system has begun to feel the pressure. It is estimated that in the case of the first pillar dominant, the cumulative balance of China's basic pension insurance will reach its peak in 2027, and the current income will not cover the expenditure from 2028, and the growth of the current balance will turn from positive to negative, and will remain negative since then, unable to reserve a lot of social wealth. ”

Therefore, Zheng Bingwen believes that the pension system should be vigorously developed in the future.

Second, the third pillar, therefore, China's pension system should achieve "two changes": one is from the liability type to the asset-based pension system, and the other is from the demographic dividend type to the capital dividend system. In his view, the "National Medium and Long-term Plan for Actively Responding to Population Aging" issued in November 2019 proposed for the first time to "consolidate the social wealth reserve in response to population aging", and the relevant references in many subsequent meetings and documents mean that we must vigorously develop the first in the future.

Second, the third pillar, at the same time, to expand and strengthen the pension wealth reserves, that is, the role of the National Social Security Council will be more and more great.

In other words, from the experience and practices of developed countries, the core asset of wealth reserves in response to the aging population is the first.

Second, the third pillar of pension assets, including the national social security**, which is an advantage of China. The first pillar is the pay-as-you-go system.

Second, the third pillar is the accumulation system, the demographic dividend type system into a capital dividend type system, that is, the debt-based system into an asset-based system, so that money can make money, so as to improve the ability to pay pensions and fill the gap between income and expenditure.

The phrase 'two transformations' is what I have summed up, but in fact, this is the latest development trend in the developed countries in the past two or three decades. Among them, the development direction of the first pillar is the transition from the pure pay-as-you-go system (DB Paygo) to the partial accumulation of pay-as-you-go system (DB FF), which is a foreign institutional innovation, the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea are in the lead, as early as twenty or thirty years ago, they began to move, at present, the effect is very good, so, this model is getting more and more attention. The second and third pillars abroad are very developed. He said that the asset-based system can not only issue pensions like liabilities, but also accumulate pension assets larger than GDP, which enable the country to form long-term equity capital, which is very scarce in China's social financing system.

In Zheng Bingwen's view, China's pension system to achieve the "two transformations" of the external conditions are gradually available, from the liability to the asset system, from the demographic dividend to the capital dividend system, which is the "national active response to the aging of the population in the long-term plan" pointed out to consolidate the positive response to the aging of the population of the meaning of social wealth reserves, this document is to guide China's pension insurance reform of an action guide, China is working in this direction.

In the reform process of "two transformations", for the first pillar of the pension insurance system, the attractiveness of the system should be improved, and the incentive of the system should be improved. At present, the personal pension in 36 cities is actually a special long-term savings, tax incentives are one aspect, and more importantly, a good capital market can bring good returns, which is more important. "The key lies in the improvement of the capital market and the improvement of the pension system, which is the decisive factor in realizing the 'two transformations' of the pension system. He stressed.

Topic |Dong Liangyu.

Edit |Dong Liangyu.

Editor-in-charge |Wang Zihan.