China's 2004 economic census and 2006 benchmark revision of GDP statistics: More questions than answers?

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 193, 2008, Pages 150-163

  Holz, Carsten A ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BENCHMARKING; ECONOMIC CONDITIONS; GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT; GROWTH RATE; INCOME; STATISTICAL ANALYSIS;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 40949103555     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S030574100800009X     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. The benchmark revision was announced by the NBS on 9 January 2006 with revised nominal values and real growth rates in the production approach to the calculation of GDP for 1993 2004; a follow-up notice on 8 March 2006 elaborated further (http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjdt/zygg/ t20060109_402300176. htm and http://www.stats.gov.en/zgjjpc/cgfb/, both accessed on 27 April 2006).
2. A four-volume compendium solely on the 2004 economic census became available from the NBS in June 2006: Zhongguo jingii pucha nianjian - 2004 (China Economic Census Yearbook - 2004) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2006).
3. The Statistical Abstract 2006 of May 2006 and then the Statistical Yearbook 2006 of September 2006, both by the NBS, incorporated and extended the earlier announced revisions; Zhongguo tongji zhaiyao 2006 (China Statistical Abstract 2006) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2006),
4. and Zhongguo tongji nianjian 2006 (China Statistical Yearbook 2006 (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2006 and other years for other issues of the yearbook cited below).
5. The issue of data falsification in the late 1990s is presented, among others, by Thomas G. Rawski, "What is happening to China's GDP statistics," China Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (2001), pp. 347-54,
6. and for national level data contested by Carsten A. Holz, "'Fast, clear and accurate': How reliable are Chinese output and economic growth statistics," The China Quarterly, No. 173 (2003), pp. 122-63.
7. Li Deshui, "Guanyu GDP de ji dian sikao" ("Some considerations on GDP"), Jingji yanjiu, No. 4 (2004), pp. 26-28
8. Xinbao (a Hong Kong daily newspaper), 22 May 2006.
9. For a summary of the major changes see 2003 issues 1-7 of the NBS magazine Zhongguo tongji. The official GB classifications are not available and have to be gleaned from other sources, such as the population censuses with their data on labourers (as done in Carsten A. Holz, "Measuring Chinese productivity growth, 1952-2005," mimeo, 22 July 2006, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, available at http://ihome.ust.hkl~socholz).
10. State Council and NBS, 5 September 2004, "Quanguo jingji pucha tiaoli" ("National economic census stipulation"), in the rules and regulation database of China Infobank (http://www.chinainfobank.com).
11. In 2003, the most recent year for which the data are available (pre-economic census values), value added in agricultural services was equivalent to 1.85% of primary sector value added. Statistical Yearbook 2005, pp. 51, 55.
12. See Xu Xianchun, "Guanyu jingji pucha mandu GDP hesuan de bianhua" ("Changes in the calculation of annual GDP in the economic census"), Jingji yanjiu, No. 2 (2006), pp. 16-20 at p. 17.
13. Ibid. p. 19.
14. The years 1978-93 were subject to the previous benchmark revision following the 1993 tertiary sector census; that census largely retained the earlier published implicit deflators.
15. See Xu Xianchun "Dui woguo jidu guonei shengchan zongzhi hesuan de sikao" ("Thoughts on the calculation of quarterly GDP in China"), Zhongguo tongji, No. 6 (2006), pp. 8f., where he reports that "the economic census led to the discovery that the previous data sources were missing a lot so that many economic activities were left out."
16. This is a measure potentially unrelated to the 2004 economic census. It was not mentioned in any of the announcements on the 2004 economic census.
17. Another possible explanation of the revisions to 1978-92 tertiary sector value added which, due to its length, is not provided here is based on the fact that the previous benchmark revision following the 1993 tertiary sector census failed to incorporate revised data for Guangdong province.
18. Statistical Yearbook 2005, p. 54,
19. and Statistical Yearbook 2006, p. 60.
20. Harry X. Wu, in a paper that I came across after submission of this article, examines in greater detail the official retrospective adjustment method to nominal value added (and GDP); he is particularly interested in the fact that the 1998 real GDP growth rate is the only one that has not been adjusted (Table 2). "The Chinese GDP growth rate puzzle: How fast has the Chinese economy grown," undated paper downloaded 1 September 2006 from a conference website that is no longer available; a seemingly identical version, dated July 2006, is available at http://hi-stat.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/research/discussion/2006/pdf/ D06-176.pdf, accessed 20 February 2007.
21. The calculation assumes that the sectoral reallocations do not change the appropriateness of the earlier implicit sectoral deflators.
22. The upward revision contrasts sharply with Angus Maddison's downward revisions to China's reform period real growth rates in Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run (Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1998).
23. Carsten A. Holz, "China's reform period economic growth: How reliable are Angus Maddison's estimates?" Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 52, No. 1 (2006), pp. 85-119, argues that Maddison's revisions are not justified.
24. Carsten A. Holz, "Deconstructing China's GDP statistics," China Economic Review, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2004), pp. 164-202.
25. The newly adopted rural-urban population data implicit in the aggregate and per capita household consumption data closely match the rural-urban population data published in the Statistical Yearbook series. Holz, "Deconstructing," discusses the two sets of population data - those used by the NBS in deriving the (earlier) household consumption data and those in the Statistical Yearbook - and points out the rise in consumption values that would follow from adopting the latter (as now done by the NBS, in the 2006 benchmark revision).
26. On the use of the income approach in the calculation of value added in several tertiary sector sub-sectors see Table 3 in Carsten A. Holz, "China's statistical system in transition: Challenges, data problems, and institutional innovations," Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 50, No. 3 (2004), pp. 381-409.
27. Xu Xianchun, "Changes," p. 17, perhaps hints at the reason for avoiding revisions. He explains that the new treatment of financial sector value added has been on the agenda for a long time, but the resulting large change in the value of financial sector value added would have created a statistical break which would have been "not easy for the relevant departments and society to accept," while retrospective revisions of earlier data require a suitable opportunity, "otherwise everybody disapproves."
28. See, among others, Me Haiqiu and Zhang Lihua, "Dui shouci jingji pucha ruogan wenti de sikao yu jianyi" ("Thoughts and suggestions regarding some problems in the first economic census"), Tongji jiaoyu, No. 2 (2006), pp. 11-13, who suggest that in their locality, Hunan province Zhuzhou municipality, GDP may well be 8% higher than the economic census suggests.