China Fudging Its GDP Figures? Part Two – ANZ Weighs In

Back in September the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published a working paper titled, Is China Fudging its Figures? Evidence from Trading Partner Data.

Written by John Fernald, Eric Hsu, and Mark M. Spiegel the paper used trading partner data as a proxy for GDP growth, comparing the proxy figures to the government’s official GDP numbers and concluded that Chinese GDP figures have been an inadequate measure of economic activity. I covered the paper’s findings here.

Following the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s findings, analysts at investment bank ANZ have conducted their own investigation into the reliability of China’s GDP figures. And the bank’s analysis suggests that even though the country has recently started to compile its GDP figures in accordance with the...