Showing 1 - 5 of 5
Bad jobs data could end up biting China
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 21/02/2019
» China has long been criticised both for its obsession with GDP statistics and their quality: Pressuring cadres to meet growth targets has encouraged a risky buildup of debt and, at times, outright fabrication of numbers. If anything, though, the quality of China's official employment data is even worse -- and the inaccuracies could have equally dangerous repercussions.
China to choose between debt growth or development
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 18/12/2018
» China's top leaders meet this week in Beijing to set economic policy objectives for the coming year. The central question is whether they will do what they want or what the country needs.
China needs to resolve its underlying data discrepancy
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 24/09/2018
» China's economic data, never easy to track in the best of times, has 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 picture. What does this tell us about the state of the economy?
Chinese savers won't save China
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 09/07/2018
» Chinese are, in the popular imagination as well as some economic statistics, inveterate savers. According to the International Monetary Fund, the Chinese savings rate stood at an astonishing 46% in 2016, compared to a global average around 25%. Chinese planners have long sought to bring that ratio down in order to promote consumption and ease the economy's overreliance on investment. If only Chinese would shop more, the thinking goes, China wouldn't need to rely on smokestack factories and boondoggle infrastructure projects to drive growth.
Tax cuts feed China's consumption
News, Christopher Balding, Published on 22/06/2018
» It's tempting to view China's changes to the personal and corporate tax code in the context of US trade tensions. The reforms are really aimed more at Beijing's concerns about competitiveness and economic rebalancing, and ultimately the creation of a "moderately prosperous society".