News Center



Home News Center News

Xu Xianchun: How to Correctly Comprehend Official Statistics

Aug 09-2023   



The releases of official statistics tend to be accompanied by different voices from various corners of the society. To dispel confusion about the issue, Mr. Xu Xianchun, NSD contract research fellow, has recently published a new book entitled A Probe into China’s Official Statistics: Comprehension and Utilization.

 

Working from the perspectives of theory, case study, and practical application, Mr. Xu expounds on some categories of official statistics that have drawn the most attention from the public, the academia, and policy makers, including GDP, disposable income, consumption, investment, and import and export. Official statistics are valuable economic and social resources, of which the proper usages are instrumental in making objective and accurate judgement on economic and social development situations, drafting scientific and rational economic and social development policies, and achieving academic research results of theoretical significance and application value, he said in a recent media interview.

 

Official statistics are likely not to dovetail with people’s perceptions, a case in point being about the disposable income. Mr. Xu explained that The National Bureau of Statistics gets the statistics by sampling 160,000 households across a whole spectrum of income levels in China. Their average, usually higher than the median figure, is usually superior to the income of some families, who therefore might feel that the figure is bloated. CPI is another example, as the public, who are keenly aware of prices moves of daily consumption products, might not know that durable consumption products are also included in the calculations.

 

Another issue concerns the so-called ‘data fighting’, namely the inconsistency of data sets. Some have cast doubt on the phenomenon that national GDP figures are not what regional numbers add up to. In fact, the NBS calculates the added values of all industries and then aggregate them. Numbers might have been doctored in some areas before 2012 when enterprises were not directly linked to an official reporting system, but the quality of statistics has since been vastly improved, said Mr. Xu. The NBS has also instituted high-level appraisal meetings and dispatched teams to check the authenticity and reliability of numbers.

 

Some statistical indexes are misunderstood also because of their technicality, said Mr. Xu. For instance, there exists the fallacy of using the changes in the total amount of social consumption goods to gauge the changes in consumption demand, or taking the changes in fixed asset investment to judge the changes in investment demand.

 

Mr. Xu recommended selecting official statistics that are representative, high-quality, and consistent. It’s also important to understand how the statistics come about, such as the criteria for categorizing, survey scope, survey methods, and collection methods. Attention should also be paid to statistical caliber and calculation methods, which might evolve over time. This is especially relevant when using historical data, he said.

Xu Xianchun: How to Correctly Comprehend Official Statistics

Aug 09-2023   



The releases of official statistics tend to be accompanied by different voices from various corners of the society. To dispel confusion about the issue, Mr. Xu Xianchun, NSD contract research fellow, has recently published a new book entitled A Probe into China’s Official Statistics: Comprehension and Utilization.

 

Working from the perspectives of theory, case study, and practical application, Mr. Xu expounds on some categories of official statistics that have drawn the most attention from the public, the academia, and policy makers, including GDP, disposable income, consumption, investment, and import and export. Official statistics are valuable economic and social resources, of which the proper usages are instrumental in making objective and accurate judgement on economic and social development situations, drafting scientific and rational economic and social development policies, and achieving academic research results of theoretical significance and application value, he said in a recent media interview.

 

Official statistics are likely not to dovetail with people’s perceptions, a case in point being about the disposable income. Mr. Xu explained that The National Bureau of Statistics gets the statistics by sampling 160,000 households across a whole spectrum of income levels in China. Their average, usually higher than the median figure, is usually superior to the income of some families, who therefore might feel that the figure is bloated. CPI is another example, as the public, who are keenly aware of prices moves of daily consumption products, might not know that durable consumption products are also included in the calculations.

 

Another issue concerns the so-called ‘data fighting’, namely the inconsistency of data sets. Some have cast doubt on the phenomenon that national GDP figures are not what regional numbers add up to. In fact, the NBS calculates the added values of all industries and then aggregate them. Numbers might have been doctored in some areas before 2012 when enterprises were not directly linked to an official reporting system, but the quality of statistics has since been vastly improved, said Mr. Xu. The NBS has also instituted high-level appraisal meetings and dispatched teams to check the authenticity and reliability of numbers.

 

Some statistical indexes are misunderstood also because of their technicality, said Mr. Xu. For instance, there exists the fallacy of using the changes in the total amount of social consumption goods to gauge the changes in consumption demand, or taking the changes in fixed asset investment to judge the changes in investment demand.

 

Mr. Xu recommended selecting official statistics that are representative, high-quality, and consistent. It’s also important to understand how the statistics come about, such as the criteria for categorizing, survey scope, survey methods, and collection methods. Attention should also be paid to statistical caliber and calculation methods, which might evolve over time. This is especially relevant when using historical data, he said.