本文目的是要對過去二十年來有關中國大陸金融改革的現有研究成果作一歷史回顧。本文將以自一九九○年代下半以來漸受關注的中國金融體系資金配置效率低落問題為焦點,對這個現象的現有幾種解釋作一分類比較,並嘗試讓這些解釋與比較政治經濟學的一般化理論產生對話,希望能釐清下個階段的研究方向。說本文整理分類的結果發現,目前對於中國大陸金融體系資金配置效率低落的解釋可概括地分為兩類:一是「政府失敗」說,認為金融體系的效率低落是政府干預過多所致;一是「市場失敗」說,認為中國當前金融問題是市場化速度過快,政府監管不夠所致。在回顧了比較政治經濟學有關金融研究的一般化理論之後,本文發現,論者不應當將國家與市場看做是二元對立的零合關係,但國家也不會自動地提供市場發展所需的最適制度規範,國家的行為仍受國家統治菁英本身面對的政治競爭與官僚體系的組織效率兩個因素制約。所以,未來我們在研究中國金融體系的制度變遷的時候,應該更細膩地去區分中國大陸的國家在市場制度建立的過程中,在哪些方面的能力特別弛,而在哪些方面又特別弱,找出她的行為模式,並進一步追問是什麼樣的政治或歷史制度因素制約了她的發展路徑,讓她出現這樣的行為模式。不再簡單地全面否定國家,或全面接受國家。
The purpose of this article is to review the development of research over the past twenty years on China's financial reforms. By focusing on the research regarding the declinng in efficiency of China's financial system in allocating resources, the article addresses several approaches for explaining the problem and attempts to develop a dialogue with researches in the field of comparative political economy. In general, there are two perspectives explain the deficiency of China's financial system: ”the perspective of government failure” argues that the deficiency was caused by government intervention and the ”the perspective of market failure” contends that the deficiency was a result of the absence of government supervision after rapid marketization. In conclusion, this article finds that it is inappropriate to view the state and market in a zero-sum relationship. Nonetheless, we cannot take for granted that the state will automatically provide the optimal regulation for market operation. The state is constrained by two institutional factors: the political competition between state elites and the agency problem, within the state organization future research on the institutional change of China's financial system should attempt to patternize the state beheviors and find out those historical and political factors that caused the patterns.