On November 12^th, the 1^st of the “Financial Development as a Promoter of Chinese Path to Modernization” serial salons, also the Macro Finance Salon (No.193), jointly organized by the Monetary and Financial Department of the School of Finance and the International Monetary Institute (IMI), Renmin University of China (RUC), was held as an online seminar. Multiple experts in finance were invited to the meeting for the discussion over "Finance and Common Prosperity". During the meeting, a keynote speech was delivered by Liu Shangxi, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, and the follow-up discussion was initiated by Zhao Xijun, Co-Dean, Academy of China Capital Market, RUC. The seminar was chaired by Ben Shenglin, Co-director of IMI; Dean, Zhejiang University International Business School and Academy of Internet Finance.

Liu Shangxi first delivered a keynote speech on "Finance and Common Prosperity" with the title of “Theoretical and Practical Challenges on the Way to Common Prosperity”. He pointed out three theoretical challenges: first, how can prosperity be commonly enjoyed? Behind this challenge is the issue of efficiency and fairness. Second, from which perspective do we define common prosperity, materials or people? This question involves the relationship between the development of materials and the development of people. Third, opportunity fairness or structural fairness? This question marks a challenge for allocation expectation. To achieve fairness, China has ensured people’s access to childcare, education, employment, medical services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance. Then, Liu Shangxi moved to the practical challenges: first, the duality of the market economy system and the rigid resource allocation in rural areas; second, the duality of the social identity system—problems have arisen as a result of the identity differences between urban and rural residents; third, the duality of public ownership system, where the state ownership system and collective ownership system co-exist. In summary of the solution, Liu Shangxi proposed four countermeasures: first, theoretically and institutionally eliminate the three dualities; second, enable a smoother flow of farmers and their property rights; third, further reduce the size of agriculture and number of farmers; fourth, achieve the urban-rural integration where people-oriented urbanization plays a leading role—only by fulfilling these tasks will it be possible to reshape the social, economic, regional, and allocation structures, truly realize the shift from material-based logic to human-based logic, and thus contribute to and achieve common prosperity.

Zhao Xijun then initiated the discussion about "fully understanding the role of finance in promoting common prosperity". He noted that common prosperity is an important part of Chinese modernization. In terms of the core institutional arrangements, there are four things to do: first, improve the allocation system, which is the basic system promoting common prosperity; second, increase the proportion of residents' income in the national income allocation and make it an important part of the institutional design and arrangements to increase the income of low-income people and expand the middle-income group; third, change the single factor allocation method by diversifying the factors and increasing the property income of urban and rural residents through multiple channels; fourth, intensify the adjustment of taxation, social security, transfer payments, etc. With regard to finance, it can also play roles with its micro and macro functions. At the micro level, the most important function of the financial market is to meet the investment and financing needs of different market players and incorporate various production factors into the production process to create material prosperity. At the macro level, the financial market encourages and promotes the transformation of savings into investment to form capital, thus contributing to the accumulation and growth of wealth. Zhao Xijun also pointed out that in prosperity creation, state-owned enterprises are important carriers of value creation, and state-owned capital is the ballast of social public prosperity.