Dynamic efficiency is an essential issue in macroeconomics and finance, central to the analyses of economic growth, asset pricing, and fiscal policies for both academia and policymakers. We offer an integrated analysis of metrics from the perspective of interest rates and capital returns, examining the relationship between varying rates of return r and growthg in China. We compare the risk-free rate rf, the returns on assets re, and the returns on capital rk with the growth rate g. Our findings indicate that, in general, rf < g, g < re, and g < rk. As the economy slows, the gap between rf and g continues to shrink, while the signs suggest that returns to capital are falling slightly slower than the rate of economic growth. Furthermore, we use a state-space model to estimate China’s natural rate of interest r∗ and potential output growth rate g∗. We find that r∗ < g∗ and the gap between themhas gradually narrowed over the past two decades.

We build a unified framework to quantitatively examine population aging and credit market frictions in contributing to Chinese economic growth between 1977 and 2014. We find that demographic changes together with endogenous human capital accumulation account for a large part of the rise in per capita output growth, especially after 2007, as well as some of the rise in savings. Credit policy changes initially alleviate the capital misallocation between private and public firms and lead to significant increases in both savings and output growth. Later, they distort capital allocation. While contributing to further increase in savings, the distortion slows down economic growth. Among factors that we consider, increased life expectancy and financial development in the form of reduced intermediation cost are the most important in driving the dynamics of savings and growth.