Why a licence plate costs more than a car in Shanghai【第70期】

Apr 19th 2018

LIU LEI has been waiting to buy a car for more than seven years. Sadly, Mr Liu, an engineer from Beijing, has had no luck in the capital’s licence-plate lottery. Introduced in 2011, this system for allocating number plates aims to tackle the city’s problems of rage-inducing congestion and asphyxiating pollution. Under the scheme, the city imposes annual quotas on the issuing of new licence plates. Buying a car requires proof that one is in hand. Obtaining a plate involves entering a bimonthly draw. The odds of winning fell from 6% in February 2011 to an all-time low of 0.2% this February. In the latest one 2.8m people contended for 6,460 plates.

刘磊为了买车已经等了7年多了。遗憾的是，刘先生，一位北京的工程师，在首都的车牌摇号中运气不佳。该系统于2011年推出，旨在解决城市的交通拥堵和让人窒息的污染问题。根据该计划，北京每年都要对新牌照的发放实行配额。买一辆汽车需要牌照在手的证明。要获得牌照需要参加两个月一次的抽签。获得牌照的几率从2011年2月的6%下降到今年2月的历史最低点0.2%。在最新的一轮中，有280万人竞争6460个车牌。

In Shanghai, the financial capital, there are also strict quotas. Unlike their counterparts in Beijing, however, city officials put the plates up for auction online. At the most recent monthly sale, around 217,000 bidders battled for 9,855 licence plates. The average winning bid was 88,176 yuan ($14,022), more than it costs to buy many domestically made cars. Last year Shanghai raised 12bn yuan in licence-plate sales, about 2% of its total revenue.

在金融中心上海，也有严格的配额。然而，与北京不同的是，市官员将这些牌照放在网上拍卖。在最近的月度销售中，约有21.7万名竞拍者竞拍9855个车牌。平均中标价格为88,176元(14022美元)，这比购买许多国产汽车的成本还要高。去年，上海的车牌销售额达到了120亿元，约占其总收入的2%。

Yet it is a hybrid model used in the southern city of Guangzhou that has become the favoured approach among policymakers in China’s biggest cities. Under this system, some plates are distributed by lottery and the rest sold at auction. Since Guangzhou adopted this approach in 2012, three other large cities—Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Tianjin—have adopted it.

然而南方城市广州采取了一种混合模式，这种模式已成为中国最大城市政策制定者青睐的方法。在这个系统中，一些牌照通过摇号分配，其余的则通过拍卖出售。自2012年广州采用这种方式以来，深圳、杭州和天津这三个大城市都采用了这种方式。

None of the three methods is ideal. Start with Beijing’s. Some people place a much higher value on owning a car than others. The lottery system takes no account of that. This fuels a black market. Websites abound with illegal offers by lottery winners to rent out their plates. The average yearly fee for one is about 12,000 yuan.

这三种方法都不理想。先从北京的开始讲起。有些人比另一些人对拥有一辆车更看重，但摇号系统没有考虑这一点，这催生了一个黑市。网站上充斥着摇号中奖者非法出租车牌的行为。一个牌照的平均年费大约是12000元。

Beijing’s system also breeds corruption. Song Jianguo, then head of the city’s traffic-management bureau, was jailed for life in 2015 for demanding backhanders in exchange for rigging the lottery. A bribe of at least 200,000 yuan was reportedly needed to guarantee victory. Mr Song pocketed a tidy 24m yuan before getting caught. Even today, 70% of Beijingers believe the lottery involves dodgy goings-on.

北京的体制也滋生腐败。2015年，时任北京市交通管理局局长的宋建国因操纵摇号拿回扣判终身监禁。据报道，为了保证能拿到牌照，至少需要20万元的贿赂。宋先生在被抓到之前，中饱私囊了两千四百万。即使在今天，70%的北京人相信摇号中有猫腻发生。

Shanghai’s auctions help avoid the creation of a black market. Yet they are unfair on the less well-off. Average winning bids have risen by a third in less than three years. Residents moan that owning a car has become the preserve of the super-rich. The city says it reinvests proceeds from its auctions in public transport. But in class-conscious Shanghai, owning a car is as much a status symbol as a means of transport. Obtaining a plate from elsewhere does not help much. Shanghai, like some other big cities, bans cars with non-local plates from using inner-city roads for much of the business day.

上海的拍卖有助于避免产生黑市。然而，对于那些不那么富裕的人来说，是不公平的。在不到三年的时间里，平均中标价格上涨了三分之一。该城市表示，它将从拍卖中获得的收益再次投资到公共交通中。但在具有阶级意识的上海，拥有一辆车既是一种身份象征，也是一种交通工具。获得其他地方的牌照没有什么帮助。上海和其他一些大城市一样，在工作日的大部分时间，禁止非本地牌照的汽车进入市内道路。

Guangzhou thinks it has hit upon the right compromise. By combining the lottery and auction systems it aims to make everyone happy. Those with deeper pockets can bid at auction, and poorer folk still have a shot at winning the lottery. But a recent study by Jinhua Zhao and Shenhao Wang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that the benefit of such a system is less than meets the eye.

广州认为它已经找到了正确的解决办法。通过将摇号和拍卖系统结合起来，它想让让每个人都高兴。那些有钱的人可以在拍卖会上竞拍，而较穷的人仍有机会摇中。但是，来自麻省理工学院的赵金华和申浩王(Shenhao Wang)最近的一项研究表明，这种系统的好处并没有达到人们的预期。

The coexistence of an auction reduces the number of lottery participants, but only slightly. Lottery entrants in Guangzhou still have a tiny chance of success; the winning odds were just 0.8% in the most recent lottery draw in March. Meanwhile, auction prices are not necessarily lower in cities with mixed systems. In December the average winning bid for a licence plate in Shenzhen, for example, set a national record of 95,100 yuan.

共存的拍卖减少了摇号参与者的数量，但只是很少的。广州的摇号参与者仍然有很小的成功机会；在今年3月的最近一次摇号中，获胜几率仅为0.8%。与此同时，在实施混合系统的城市，拍卖价格不一定低。例如，去年12月，深圳的车牌平均竞标价创下了95100元的全国纪录。

There is still hope for people like Mr Liu, however. To fight pollution, officials in nearly all big cities are allocating separate quotas of licence plates for buyers of electric or hybrid cars. Such vehicles are also heavily subsidised. In fact, Mr Liu’s wife has just applied for an electric-vehicle plate. These are offered on a first-come first-served basis. The odds are much better. Only four people are vying for each one.

然而，像刘先生这样的人还是有希望的。为了治理污染，几乎所有大城市的官员都在为电动或混合动力汽车的购买者分配单独的牌照。这些车辆也有大量补贴。事实上，刘先生的妻子刚刚申请了一个电动汽车牌照。这些牌照是先到先得。胜算要大得多，只有四个人在争夺一个牌照。

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "One country, three systems"