Re: PRC Statistics

[Jonathan Lassen <jjlassen@chinastudygroup.org>]

Brian,

on GDP:

Tom Rawski has written a lot on this. He seems to think that the 
official stats are pretty good from 1978-1998, although even then they 
may be overstating growth by 1-2 percentage points over the long-term. 
The real problem for him happens in 1998 at which point the visible hand 
of the 'baoba' spirit (maintain the eight!) takes over and guides the 
numbers higher. But he no longer thinks that's the case.

Everyone seems to agree that the lower you go down the bureaucratic 
chain, the less trustworthy the data becomes, but the statistics bureau 
of the *Central* Government is widely trusted.

I'm also not sure how factoring in gray income would change GDP rates, 
unless the ratios were changing significantly. And this is a problem for 
all countries. Think of what the US GDP would be including the sale and 
production of drugs.

Rawski's homepage with some old articles:
http://www.pitt.edu/~tgrawski/

This (baaad url) brings up some more recent news articles that quote 
from him:
http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?search1=rawski&area1=text&action=news&type=search

--------

On inequality:

0.454 seems to be the official stat now:

China Daily 2004-06-25:
"China's Gini Co-efficient, a standard international measurement of 
income inequality, reached 0.454 in 2002, far above 0.4, which is the 
threshold generally considered to be a cause for concern."
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/chinagate/doc/2004-06/25/content_342517.htm

Caijing 2004-02-23:
"The Gini index in rural China was 0.366 in 2002, compared with 0.381 in 
1995. The Gini index for urban China was 0.32, an increase of 4 
percentage points from 1995. The national Gini index average was 0.454, 
up 1.7 percentage points from its 1995 level." [based on CASS survey]
http://caijing.com.cn/english/2004/040220/040220coverstory.htm

Since the gini coefficient is a measure of income, not wealth, it's 
unclear to me how factoring in bank accounts, etc., of the wealthy would 
do to the coefficient.

--------

Unemployment:

14% among urban permanent residents, and this is based on serious survey 
data collected by CASS:
http://www.msu.edu/~gilesj/gpz2.pdf

Unemployment in rural China: no one calls it that. You just hear these 
fantastic numbers bandied about a 'surplus population' of 100-300 million.

---

Health:

Dunno, but this is a bit of a shocker:

"According to the [CAS], programmers and managers working in Beijing's 
hi-tech district of Zhongguancun, known as China's Silicon Valley, had 
an average lifespan of 53 years and four months, five years less than a 
decade ago.

Journalists fared even worse. A study by 10 news organisations in 
Shanghai revealed that the average lifespan of a reporter was 45 years. 
Less than one in five of the city's journalists were said to live beyond 
retirement age."

perhaps perusing articles here will help:
http://www.chinastudygroup.org/index.php?action=news&type=search&area1=extra&search1=health

Cheers,

Jonathan

brian turner wrote:

> What is the general perception about the reliability of GDP growth 
> figures?  Some commentators seem to think they are undervalued, at least 
> one overvalued, and most seem to accept the official stats at face 
> value.  There are two questions related to this:  (1) is there any 
> conscious fraud in the figures  (2) is the informal market so big they 
> really can't count it accurately.
> 
> In Vietnam, the petty capitalist informal off-the-books part of Hanoi's 
> economy is so huge, frankly I don't see how any aggregate statistics 
> could be anything but guesses.
> 
> What about the Gini coefficient?  (Measurement of inequality from 0 
> -1).  The official figures are 0.4, but I read a Chinese critic who said 
> that he thinks it might reach sky high Brazil levels (over 0.6) if 
> hidden illicit wealth stashed away in secret bank accounts is included.
> 
> What about rural poverty stats?  Carl Riskin and others discredited some 
> earlier stats, but what are the official stats showing regarding that 
> now, and any comments  by others on those?
> 
> What about unemployment?
> 
> Life expectancy and other health indicator trends in the last 4 years?
> 
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