Source: People's Daily (April 16, 2026, Page 9) | Author: Gao Peiyong 高培勇, Academician (学部委员) of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

https://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/pc/content/202604/16/content_30151389.html

Translated by Claude via Sinocism.com

General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to expectations management and has repeatedly offered important expositions on guiding social expectations and boosting confidence in development. At the 2014 Central Economic Work Conference, he called for "paying greater attention to guiding social expectations." At the 38th group study session of the 18th Politburo, he stated that "we must properly guide social expectations, control and reduce the pain as much as possible, handle corporate debt appropriately, do a good job of personnel resettlement and of providing a social safety net, and safeguard social harmony and stability." At the 2024 Spring Festival gathering, he emphasized "effectively strengthening economic vitality, forestalling and defusing risks, improving social expectations, consolidating and reinforcing the momentum of economic recovery, continuously enhancing people's livelihood and well-being, and maintaining overall harmony and stability in society." And there are many more such remarks. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan states: "Improve the mechanism for expectations management and bring expectations management into the entire process of macroeconomic governance." A deep reading of the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important remarks and the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee makes clear that moving beyond the narrow vantage point of demand or supply management and into the deeper realm of expectations management — and improving the mechanism for expectations management by integrating demand, supply, and expectations — in order to keep economic performance and expectations on an improving trajectory has become the "main act" in raising the effectiveness of macroeconomic governance and perfecting the macroeconomic governance system in the current period and the period ahead.

习近平总书记高度重视预期管理，多次就引导社会预期、提振发展信心作出重要论述。在2014年中央经济工作会议上要求"更加注重引导社会预期"；在十八届中央政治局第三十八次集体学习时指出"要合理引导社会预期，尽量控制和减少阵痛，妥善处置企业债务，做好人员安置工作，做好社会托底工作，维护社会和谐稳定"；在2024年春节团拜会上强调"切实增强经济活力、防范化解风险、改善社会预期，巩固和增强经济回升向好态势，持续增进民生福祉，保持社会大局和谐稳定"；等等。"十五五"规划纲要提出："健全预期管理机制，将预期管理纳入宏观经济治理全过程。"深刻领会习近平总书记重要讲话精神和党中央决策部署可以发现，跳出需求或供给管理的视野局限而深入到预期管理层面，从需求、供给、预期管理三者结合的意义上健全预期管理机制，推动经济运行和预期持续向好，已经成为当前和今后一个时期提升宏观经济治理效能、完善宏观经济治理体系的"重头戏"。

Expectations Management Is an Important Component of Macroeconomic Governance

预期管理是宏观经济治理的重要组成部分

Expectations management is an important category within macroeconomic governance. The operation of a market economy, and especially a modern market economy, has a marked "expectations-driven" character. What we often describe as the market determining the allocation of resources is manifested in everyday life as market prices — themselves determined by supply and demand — guiding the allocation of resources. Whether on the supply side or the demand side, economic decisions made around market prices cannot be separated from expectations. Phrases like "buy on the rise, not on the fall" or "go long on anticipated rises and short on anticipated falls" mostly describe trading or investment strategies grounded in expectations. In this sense, rather than saying that economic decisions are made on the basis of market price signals, it is more accurate to say that they are made on the basis of judgments about where prices are heading — that is, on the basis of expectations. As a major factor profoundly shaping economic activity, expectations bear directly not only on enterprises' investment and operating decisions and on the consumption behavior of households, but also on the effectiveness of the government's macroeconomic governance. In that sense, a market economy is also an expectations economy.

预期管理是宏观经济治理的重要范畴。市场经济特别是现代市场经济的运行，具有显著的"预期驱动"特征。我们常说的市场决定资源配置，在现实生活中集中体现为由市场供求决定的市场价格引导资源配置。无论供给端还是需求端，围绕市场价格作出的经济决策都离不开预期。所谓"买涨不买跌""看涨买跌"等，表达的大都是基于预期的交易或投资策略。就此而言，与其说经济决策是依据市场价格信号作出，不如说经济决策是依据市场价格走势判断即预期作出。作为深刻影响经济活动的重要因素，预期不仅直接关系企业投资经营决策和居民消费行为，而且直接关联政府宏观经济治理效能。从这个意义上说，市场经济也是预期经济。

The economic development paths of various countries show that as the aggregate size of the economy continues to expand, structures grow more diversified, external integration deepens, and governance becomes more complex, the influence of expectations on macroeconomic performance, along with the status and role of expectations management within macroeconomic governance, becomes ever more prominent and important. Both theoretical research on expectations management and practical exploration of it have been unfolding and developing in step with the deepening impact and rising importance of expectations management. For example, research in behavioral economics and other interdisciplinary fields has confirmed and elaborated on the significant influence of people's complex emotional experiences on economic behavior, laying a microfoundation for expectations management. Another example: faced with the shocks of sudden events such as the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, policy tools centered on managing expectations have shifted from vague communication of unclear purpose toward ever-greater emphasis on transparency and credibility. These are observable regularities, and they attest to the increasingly important role and status of expectations management in economic development.

各国经济发展轨迹表明，随着经济总量不断扩大、结构持续多元，与外部融合加深和治理复杂程度加大，预期对于宏观经济运行的影响以及预期管理在宏观经济治理中的地位和作用日趋显著而重要。不论是围绕预期管理的理论研究，还是围绕预期管理的实践探索，都是伴随着预期管理影响的加深和预期管理重要性的上升而展开并发展起来的。比如，行为经济学等交叉学科的研究证实并细化了人的复杂情感体验对经济行为有重要影响，为实施预期管理奠定了微观基础。又如，面对全球金融危机、新冠疫情国际大流行等突发事件冲击，以管理预期为主的政策工具从含糊、目的不甚明确的沟通转向越来越强调透明度和可信度。这些都是可以观察到的规律性现象，表明了预期管理在经济发展中越来越重要的作用和地位。

China's macroeconomic pattern is undergoing just such a shift. In the past, the problems and challenges confronting China's macroeconomic performance could mostly be attributed to economic fluctuations caused by imbalances between aggregate supply and aggregate demand. Against the backdrop of growing downward pressure, those problems became concentrated in the form of insufficient effective demand. The problems and challenges in current macroeconomic performance likewise manifest as insufficient effective demand, but if we trace the chain back, we can see that behind the phenomena of insufficient effective demand and imbalance between aggregate supply and demand — and behind the "prominent contradiction of strong domestic supply and weak domestic demand" — lie factors of weak expectations and insufficient social confidence. The intertwined overlay of sluggish domestic demand and weak expectations is at once a pressing challenge confronting China's current economic and social development and a wholly new kind of challenge.

我国的宏观经济运行格局正在经历这样一种变化。以往我国宏观经济运行中面临的问题和挑战，多可归因于社会总供求失衡导致的经济波动。在经济下行压力加大的背景下，又集中体现为有效需求不足。当前宏观经济运行中面临的问题和挑战虽然同样表现为有效需求不足，但顺藤摸瓜，透过有效需求不足和社会总供求失衡现象可以发现，"国内供强需弱矛盾突出"的背后有预期偏弱、社会信心不足的因素。内需不振和预期偏弱等问题交织叠加，既是当前我国经济社会发展面临的突出挑战，也是全新挑战。

In today's highly information-rich environment, changes in expectations travel fast, spread widely, and carry large impact. Negative expectations in particular often amplify rapidly and can even trigger psychological panic. For that reason, guiding shifts in expectations — which are foundational in character — has become an important dimension of macroeconomic governance, and has driven a migration of the center of gravity of China's macroeconomic governance toward expectations management. This in turn is increasingly giving the system the distinctive feature of demand management, supply management, and expectations management working together in coordinated resonance. Expectations management is now interdependent and mutually conditioning with demand management, supply management, and the other important components of macroeconomic governance, forming an inseparable whole.

在信息化高度发达的今天，预期变化具有传播速度快、范围广、影响大等特征。特别是负面预期，往往会加速放大，甚至会引发心理恐慌。因此，引导具有基础性的预期变化，已成为宏观经济治理的重要方面，并决定了我国宏观经济治理的重心向预期管理迁移，进而越来越呈现出需求管理、供给管理和预期管理协同发力、同频共振的显著特征。预期管理已与需求管理、供给管理等宏观经济治理的其他重要组成部分彼此依存、互为条件，构成一个不可分割的统一体。

Coordinate the Balancing of Supply-Demand Contradictions with Expectations Management

统筹供需矛盾平衡和预期管理

A problem-oriented approach is a basic principle of advancing macroeconomic governance. Only by grasping, on the basis of scientific analysis and sober judgment, the prominent contradictions in macroeconomic performance, and by correctly identifying the key problems that macroeconomic regulation must solve, can the effectiveness of macroeconomic governance genuinely be raised.

坚持问题导向是推进宏观经济治理的一个基本原则。只有在科学分析、冷静研判的基础上抓住宏观经济运行中的突出矛盾，找准宏观调控要解决的关键问题，才能切实提升宏观经济治理效能。