刊行物

内容紹介

This paper reviews the recent controversy regarding the reliability of China’s official growth statistics, following the discovery by Rawski (2001) of a suspicious nexus of high economic growth and declining energy consumption in China during 1997-2000. After summarizing alternative estimates of China’s economic growth during the reform period, two sources of exaggerated growth figures are examined in detail: (i) political pressure to report high economic growth at the local level, and (ii) the use of obsolete statistical methodology that persistently underestimates price inflation and exaggerates real economic growth. Then the paper estimates the likely effect of these two factors on China’s reported economic growth.