IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpdc/0504012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

China's Reform Period Economic Growth: Why Angus Maddison Got It Wrong and What That Means

Author

Listed:
  • Carsten A. Holz

    (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology)

Abstract

China's economic growth statistics of the late 1990s have repeatedly been questioned. Angus Maddison in a 1998 OECD study goes further in that he revised China's official average annual real growth rate for the first seventeen years of economic reform, 1978 through 1995, downward by 2.39 percentage points per year. His study is the most thorough criticism of Chinese official statistics to date, and the one with the largest impact on the data. By 1995, the revisions imply 150% less output, in 1978 terms, than the official data do. Angus Maddison's revisions were subsequently incorporated into the Penn World Tables; the findings of countless cross-country studies are therefore affected by Angus Maddison's growth estimates for China. This paper examines Angus Maddison's revisions to official data and finds them invalid. Angus Maddison's growth estimates for China in the reform period constitute no alternative to the official data.

Suggested Citation

  • Carsten A. Holz, 2005. "China's Reform Period Economic Growth: Why Angus Maddison Got It Wrong and What That Means," Development and Comp Systems 0504012, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0504012
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 48
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/dev/papers/0504/0504012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jànos Kornai, 2000. "What the Change of System from Socialism to Capitalism Does and Does Not Mean," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 27-42, Winter.
    2. Keidel, Albert, 2001. "China's GDP expenditure accounts," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 355-367.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Headey, Derek & Bezemer, Dirk & Hazell, Peter B., 2008. "Agricultural exit problems: Causes and consequences," IFPRI discussion papers 802, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Shiu, Alice & Heshmati, Almas, 2006. "Technical Change and Total Factor Productivity Growth for Chinese Provinces: A Panel Data Analysis," Ratio Working Papers 98, The Ratio Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter Chobanov & Amine Lahiani & Nikolay Nenovsky, 2010. "Money Market Integration and Sovereign CDS Spreads Dynamics in the New EU States," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1002, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    2. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2021. "Introduction: a special issue in honoring Janos Kornai," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 1-13, April.
    3. Mico APOSTOLOV, 2016. "Ownership And Control Structures A Case Study," Management Research and Practice, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 8(2), pages 23-37, June.
    4. Sinclair, Tara M., 2019. "Characteristics and implications of Chinese macroeconomic data revisions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1108-1117.
    5. Angus Deaton, 2005. "Measuring Poverty in a Growing World (or Measuring Growth in a Poor World)," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(1), pages 1-19, February.
    6. Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Mr. Alejandro Simone & Mr. Alex Segura-Ubiergo, 2006. "New Evidence on Fiscal Adjustment and Growth in Transition Economies," IMF Working Papers 2006/244, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Mueller, Dennis C. & Peev, Evgeni, 2007. "Corporate governance and investment in Central and Eastern Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 414-437, June.
    8. M. Berlemann & K. Hristov & Nikolay Nenovsky, 2002. "Lending of last resort, moral hazard and twin crises. Lessons from the Bulgarian financial crises 1996/1997," Post-Print halshs-00260052, HAL.
    9. Dimiter IALNAZOV & Nikolay NENOVSKY, 2010. "The Evolution of Post-Communist Countries: An Interpretation from the Perspective of Cooperation," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 1600, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    10. Emmanuelle Auriol & Pierre M. Picard, 2008. "Infrastructure and Public Utilities Privatization in Developing Countries," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 23(1), pages 77-100, November.
    11. Wang, Xin, 2011. "On China's energy intensity statistics: Toward a comprehensive and transparent indicator," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 7284-7289.
    12. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Blanc, Aymeric, 2009. "Capture and corruption in public utilities: The cases of water and electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 203-216, June.
    13. Leszczyński Dariusz, 2015. "Emerging Varieties of Capitalism in Transition Countries: Literature Review," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 48(1), pages 101-124, December.
    14. Ravi Sarathy & Elitsa R. Banalieva, 2014. "Economic Development And Marketing Strategies: A Comparative Lens," Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies, Faculty of Economics, Vilnius University, vol. 5(1).
    15. Alexander Monge-Naranjo & Juan M. Sánchez & Raül Santaeulàlia-Llopis, 2019. "Natural Resources and Global Misallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 79-126, April.
    16. Chiapello, Eve & Ding, Yuan, 2005. "Searching for the accounting features of capitalism: an illustration with the economic transition process in China," HEC Research Papers Series 817, HEC Paris.
    17. Laurila, Juhani & Singh, Rupinder, 2000. "Sequential reform strategy: The case of Azerbaijan," BOFIT Discussion Papers 8/2000, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    18. repec:zbw:bofitp:2011_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Barbara Dluhosch, 2011. "European Economics at a Crossroads, by J. Barkley Rosser, Jr., Richard P. F. Holt, and David Colander," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 629-631, August.
    20. Charles, Sébastien & El Karouni, Ilyess, 2008. "La transformation postsocialiste chinoise : ouverture économique et contrainte extérieure," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 84(4), pages 391-413, Décembre.
    21. Mihaela Iacob & Rodica Gherghina & Georgiana Camelia Cre?an, 2019. "„Comparative (Bio)Economic Systems” in Terms of Social Responsibility: The Natural Environment – Between Ideal Capitalism, Utopian Socialism and Real-World Interventionism," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 21(52), pages 707-707, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
    • P27 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Performance and Prospects
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0504012. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.