China Must Get to Grips With Dodgy Data
Economic analysis is equal parts art and science as Beijing flatters the numbers.
Highway overpasses in Shanghai: It’s complicated.
Photographer: Kevin Lee/Bloomberg
China’s economic data, never easy to track in the best of times, have become almost indecipherable in 2018. While the headline numbers on GDP growth, retail sales and debt tell reassuring stories that (unsurprisingly) match government objectives, the underlying statistics paint a very different and conflicting picture. What does this tell us about the state of the economy?
Market watchers constantly pore over a range of numbers, looking for irregularities. From short sellers of Chinese companies listed overseas to academic economists developing creative methods to mirror GDP growth, there’s no dearth of analysts and no lack of data to peruse.