How much do you trust economic data released by the Chinese government? I had assumed that economic indicators were manipulated, but recent discussion suggests it is just entirely fabricated, at least as bad as anything the Soviet Union reported. For example, China has reported a ~4.1% unemployment rate for over a decade. Massive global recession? 4.1% unemployment. Huge economic boom? 4.1% unemployment.
One of the largest, most important economies in the world, and I don’t know that we can reliably say much about it at all.
One interesting point, not expanded up on, is this:
One writer chalks this concern up to a bunch of “conspiracy theor(ies)”.
Balding dismisses this by citing Premier Li Keqiang, but I think this objection illustrates a deeper problem with the way the phrase “conspiracy theory” is used. It’s frequently used to dismiss any suggestion that someone in authority is behaving badly regardless of whether an actual conspiracy would be required.
Let’s look at what it would take for Chinese economic data to be bad. The data is gathered by the central government by delegating gathering the data to appropriate individual branches, by province, industry, etc. So what happens if someone at that level decides to fudge with the data for whatever reason (possibly to make his province and/or industry look better). The aggregate data will be wrong. And that’s just one person on one level. In reality, of course, there are many levels in the hierarchy and many corrupt people in all of them.
“The government are very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But you must never forget that every one of these figures comes in the first instance from the chowky dar (village watchman in India), who just puts down what he damn pleases.”
this objection illustrates a deeper problem with the way the phrase “conspiracy theory” is used. It’s frequently used to dismiss any suggestion that someone in authority is behaving badly regardless of whether an actual conspiracy would be required.
You misunderstand Balding—he asserts loudly and explicitly that the Chinese authorities misbehave with respect to statistical data. The conspiracy theories he is talking about are the conspiracies of China-watchers and the point of them would be to sow FUD about the Chinese economic development, presumably after shorting China.
How much do you trust economic data released by the Chinese government? I had assumed that economic indicators were manipulated, but recent discussion suggests it is just entirely fabricated, at least as bad as anything the Soviet Union reported. For example, China has reported a ~4.1% unemployment rate for over a decade. Massive global recession? 4.1% unemployment. Huge economic boom? 4.1% unemployment.
One of the largest, most important economies in the world, and I don’t know that we can reliably say much about it at all.
Not much.
If you want to explore further, I recommend this, for example this post.
One interesting point, not expanded up on, is this:
Balding dismisses this by citing Premier Li Keqiang, but I think this objection illustrates a deeper problem with the way the phrase “conspiracy theory” is used. It’s frequently used to dismiss any suggestion that someone in authority is behaving badly regardless of whether an actual conspiracy would be required.
Let’s look at what it would take for Chinese economic data to be bad. The data is gathered by the central government by delegating gathering the data to appropriate individual branches, by province, industry, etc. So what happens if someone at that level decides to fudge with the data for whatever reason (possibly to make his province and/or industry look better). The aggregate data will be wrong. And that’s just one person on one level. In reality, of course, there are many levels in the hierarchy and many corrupt people in all of them.
Stamp’s Law.
Josiah Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp
You misunderstand Balding—he asserts loudly and explicitly that the Chinese authorities misbehave with respect to statistical data. The conspiracy theories he is talking about are the conspiracies of China-watchers and the point of them would be to sow FUD about the Chinese economic development, presumably after shorting China.
I believe VoiceOfRa was talking about the person Balding quoted.
Do you have a 90% confidence interval for what you consider China’s real GDP to be?
Why would I care?