A Better Abacus for China

A Better Abacus for China

by Daniel H. Rosen and Beibei Bao | December 12, 2014|Beijing is entering a critical one month period of announcements about its gross domestic product (GDP) – the broadest measure of its economic size – and GDP growth that will partly re-frame our understanding of China’s economy. By the end of December the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is expected to unveil revised economic census headline numbers for 2013 – the latest in a line of economic reassessments that occur every five years. Past revisions have announced that China was 5, 10, or even 17% bigger (2004) than previously thought because “missing” activity was identified. A couple weeks after that, around January 20^th, 2015, officials will issue a first reading for 2014 GDP growth. This will finally tell us how far below the stated 7.5% 2014 target the nation came out. Despite the significance of these big releases, long-standing qualms about the reliability of Chinese data undermine their potential to illuminate the outlook. http://rhg.com/notes/a-better-abacus-for-china