China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
1–10 of 74 posts
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#2There's an economist from Tsinghua University named Patrick Chovanec who used to do an amazing job of documenting China's explosive growth and the many ways in which it might have been artificially inflated (easy credit, shadow banking, fudged numbers, empty skyscrapers, etc.).
His blog is still up, but unfortunately he switched from blogging to Tweeting in 2013 and it's been impossible to follow his train of thought since then. It's a pretty fascinating read (assuming you find dry economic posts fascinating) if you start sometime around the 2009 entries and go from there: https://chovanec.wordpress.com/
Some of the ones I found most interesting:
Beijing’s Bad Debt Bailout: Problem Solved? https://chovanec.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/beijings-bad-debt-...
Big Losses Hidden on China’s Bank Balance Sheets: https://chovanec.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/big-losses-hidden-...
Even though they're almost a decade old they still give you an interesting look into how things work in China.
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#3Another somewhat popular or not so popular opinion is that China reports gdp numbers lower than what they actually have. I don't know what to believe but putting it out there for discussion.
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#4Another somewhat popular or not so popular opinion is that China reports gdp numbers lower than what they actually have. I don't know what to believe but putting it out there for discussion.
Do you have a source for this?
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#5There's an economist from Tsinghua University named Patrick Chovanec who used to do an amazing job of documenting China's explosive growth and the many ways in which it might have been artificially inflated (easy credit, shadow banking, fudged numbers, empty skyscrapers, etc.). His blog is still up, but unfortunately he switched from blogging to Tweeting in 2013 and it's been impossible to follow his train of thought…
My guess is that China is inflating its numbers, but even so, the growth they've had is impressive and a lot of it is real. And even with further inflation of their numbers, I don't think they will be a paper tiger with nukes, like the USSR was.
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#6There's an economist from Tsinghua University named Patrick Chovanec who used to do an amazing job of documenting China's explosive growth and the many ways in which it might have been artificially inflated (easy credit, shadow banking, fudged numbers, empty skyscrapers, etc.). His blog is still up, but unfortunately he switched from blogging to Tweeting in 2013 and it's been impossible to follow his train of thought…
Ning Zhu has an interesting book on it:
https://www.mhprofessional.com/9781259644580-usa-chinas-guar...
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#7By some measures China has already passed the United States:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-18/who-has-t...
China, and eventually India, matching the United States will hopefully help increase R&D.
For example:
- Solar energy prices have dropped significantly because of China's investment.
- Nuclear energy is dead in the US but lives in China.
- AI - China will match the US, accelerating development
- Mass Transportation - High-speed rail, maglevs
- Electric vehicles - China has large EV quotas and they're the largest car market.
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#8Another somewhat popular or not so popular opinion is that China reports gdp numbers lower than what they actually have. I don't know what to believe but putting it out there for discussion.
Do you have a source for this?
I think the OP might have been misunderstanding a thing that actually happens. Because officials are graded on whether they hit targets or not but they don't get extra points for exceeding them they have an incentive to under-report growth in good years so that a return to accurate reporting in bad years lets them still report growth. So there will be a combination of over and under-reporting of growth at different times, as was show in the graphs in the article. How China Escaped the Poverty Trap goes into more detail for those interested.
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#9Documentary on this subject forthcoming -
Re: China’s Economic Growth Looks Strong, Maybe Too Strong
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a source for this?
I think the OP might have been misunderstanding a thing that actually happens. Because officials are graded on whether they hit targets or not but they don't get extra points for exceeding them they have an incentive to under-report growth in good years so that a return to accurate reporting in bad years lets them still report growth. So there will be a combination of over and under-reporting of growth at different t…
... except top-level officials are constantly shuffled between posts in different cities/provinces they have no family ties to specifically to prevent such corruption.