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
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