陆树铭歌曲生死百年:550-解读中国官方数据谜团

2011年 10月 25日 07:43解读中国官方数据谜团China's Puzzling Numbers 中国是全球经济增长的重要引擎，对全球金融市场具有举足轻重的作用，这一点毋庸置疑。但很多观察人士却对中国经济数据的可靠性持怀疑态度。No one doubts that China is an important driver of global growth, with a major impact on the financial markets. But many observers doubt that China's economic data can be trusted.

Matt Kenyon

在新书《理解中国经济指标》(Understanding China's Economic Indicators)中，《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)驻北京的专栏作家汤姆?奥尔利克(Tom Orlik)将帮助读者厘清从国内生产总值到债券市场收益等纷繁复杂的统计数据。

In his new book, 'Understanding China's Economic Indicators,' The Wall Street Journal's Beijing-based columnist Tom Orlik guides readers through data on everything from gross domestic product to bond market yield curves.


以下节选的内容阐释了统计学家在测算中国这个仅次于美国的全球第二大经济体的经济规模和增长率时面临的政治和技术上的挑战。The following excerpt explains the political and technical challenges facing statisticians measuring the size and growth rate of the world's second largest economy after the U.S.:


1998年，由于受到亚洲金融危机的影响，该地区的经济发展趋于停滞。中国由于没有开放资本账户而没有受到投机性冲击，而泰国、印度尼西亚和韩国则未能幸免。但是，随着主要贸易伙伴陷入经济衰退，中国也无法在危机中独善其身。能源消耗、航空客运量和进口额等增速的下降都显示中国经济增长将急速放缓。然而，就算中国经济真的即将陷入衰退，从国家统计局(National Bureau of Statistics)的数据来看却并不明显。官方数据显示，中国当年的GDP增长率达7.8%，仅比1997年的8.8%略有下降，非常接近8%这一通常被认为保持中国社会稳定所必须达到的神奇涨幅。
In 1998, the Asian Financial Crisis brought the region's economy grinding to a halt. A closed capital account protected China from the speculative attacks that crippled Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea. But with major trade partners sliding into recession, China was not immune to the effects. Falling growth in energy consumption, airline passenger numbers, and imports all pointed to a sharp slowdown in growth. But if the economy was indeed sliding into recession, it was not evident to the National Bureau of Statistics. Official data for the year shows GDP growth of 7.8%, down only slightly from 8.8% in 1997 and within spitting distance of the magic 8% that is believed to be the minimum required to maintain social stability in China.

1998年的GDP数据引起了极大的争议。学院派经济学家花费了大量的精力，有的为统计局的数据辩护，有的则对官方数据大加抨击，并且拿出自己的估算数据──后一种情形更为常见。日本一桥大学(Hitotsubashi University)的伍晓鹰(Harry Wu)教授和已故的安格斯?麦迪森(Angus Maddison)教授是这些人当中最为严苛的。按照他们自己编制的工业生产指数推算，中国1998年的GDP增长仅为0.3%（在伍晓鹰教授的最近一次更新中，这一数据被调整为-0.1%）。香港科技大学(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)教授卡斯顿?霍兹(Carsten Holz)则对此持强烈反对的态度。在他看来，尽管计算一个规模庞大而且发展迅速的经济体的GDP本身存在困难，但要识别统计局数据中的系统性偏差或者另外得出令人信服的估算结果也不容易。
The 1998 GDP data has generated a storm of controversy. Academic economists have expended much energy in either defending the NBS calculation or, more common, attacking it and offering their own alternative estimates. Professor Harry Wu of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo and the late Professor Angus Maddison were among the most stern, concluding on the basis of their own index of industrial production that China's GDP grew just 0.3% in 1998 (minus-0.1% in Professor Wu's recent updated results). Professor Carsten Holz of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has weighed in forcefully on the other side, concluding that although there are inherent difficulties with calculating the GDP of a large and rapidly developing economy, it is difficult to identify systematic biases in the NBS data or to arrive at compelling alternative estimates.

Matt Kenyon

中国政府从未承认官方数据存在任何问题。实际上，在2004的经济普查(Economic Census)之后，中国政府重新修正了历年的GDP数据，而1998年的数据是唯一险遭调整而未遭调整的。官方媒体刊载的讲话和文章中透露的消息都将问题指向了地方官员对经济发展的过度狂热。一面是经济陷入危机的现实，另一面是倚赖8%经济增长以实现官运亨通的理想，陷入两难的官员们开始对产值数据疯狂作假。前任总理朱镕基曾经指出，统计系统刮起了一股“虚报浮夸风”。国家统计局内部刊物《统计教育》(Economics Education)甚至构建了博弈论模型， 以说明一个官员的夸大其词如何会引发其他官员的虚报浮夸──中国官僚的政治的攀比之风即是如此。

The government has never admitted any problem with the data. Indeed, in a revision to the historical GDP data as a result of the 2004 Economic Census, the 1998 figure was the only one that was left untouched. But it has come close. The story that has trickled out in speeches and articles in the official press points the finger of blame at an excess of enthusiasm from local officials. Caught between the reality of an economy in crisis and the dream of career progression that depends on delivering growth hitting the 8% mark, officials engaged in rampant falsification of production data. Premier Zhu Rongji spoke of a 'wind of embellishment and falsification' that swept through the statistical system. An article in the NBS in-house magazine, Economics Education, even developed a game theory model to explain how exaggeration by one official could trigger a wave of exaggeration by other officials, a kind of Chinese bureaucratic version of keeping up with the Joneses.


在随后的几年里，中央对地方统计部门的管控有所加强，更多的数据被直接报送给北京的国家统计局总部（绕过地方领导的虚报浮夸之手），同时针对地方上报数据还进行了更多调查，并通过其他各种方式核实其准确性。这些制衡措施使得国家级统计数据可以免受地方部门虚报──也就是中国人所谓的“注水”──的影响。
In the years that have followed, controls on local statistics offices have been improved, more data is reported directly to the NBS headquarters in Beijing (bypassing the embellishing hand of local leaders), and more surveys and other checks on the accuracy of data collected at a local level are now conducted. These checks and balances have freed the national-level data from the impact of local exaggeration岸or 'adding water,' as it is called in China.

但是地方GDP数据，特别是对于经济发展水平比较落后的省份来说，仍然很不可靠。2010年底爆出的维基解密内容显示，即便是中国当时的候任总理李克强也对各省的GDP数据也没有多少信心。在2007年与美国大使的一次交谈中，时任辽宁省委书记的李克强表示，那些数据都是人造的，靠不住。为了真正地把握辽宁经济的增长率，他依赖的是追踪电力消耗量、铁路货运量和银行贷款等数据。
But local-level GDP data, especially for more backward provinces, remains deeply unreliable. In the Wikileaks scandal that broke at the end of 2010, it was revealed that even China's premier-in-waiting, Li Keqiang, had little faith in the provincial GDP data. Speaking to the U.S. ambassador in 2007, when he was still party secretary of Liaoning province, Li said that the data was 'man-made' and, therefore, unreliable. To keep a handle on the growth rate of the Liaoning economy, he relied on tracking electricity consumption, rail cargo volume, and bank lending.

但是，中国官方经济增长数据的问题并不仅仅在于地方官员说谎，国家统计局也并不总是高估增长水平。正如中国GDP统计令人困扰的历史所表明的那样，中国经济的规模和复杂程度也可能让统计学家束手无策，官方数据可能低估中国经济的真实规模。
But lying local officials aren't always the problem with China's official growth data, and the NBS doesn't always err on the upside. As a second episode in the troubled history of China's GDP calculation shows, the sheer size and complexity of the Chinese economy can also defeat the statisticians, and the official numbers can understate the true size of the economy.

2004年，中国进行了一次经济普查，其中一项任务就是全面掌握经济活动中最难把握的行业之一：服务业。随着大批统计学家在街边的咖啡馆、外语学校和IT支持中心里展开工作，国家统计局得以对服务业这一重要但长期被忽略的经济领域的总产值有了更加准确的把握。
In 2004, China conducted an Economic Census, including a thoroughgoing attempt to get to grips with one of the most slippery parts of the economy: the services sector. With legions of statisticians on the ground in street-side cafes, foreign-language schools, and IT support centers, the NBS was able to get a more accurate gauge of the total output of this important but overlooked sector of the economy.

结果，中国政府将2004年的GDP数据大幅上调了2.3万亿元（约合3,600亿美元），经济规模一下子增加了16.8%。常规的年度决算何以会忽略中国如此庞大的一块产出？部分原因在于，服务业中大多数都是小企业，经营不够规范。汇总100万家理发店的产值──其中一半没有账本，另一半即便有账本也是不尽不实──要比计算在工业生产领域占主导地位的大型现代公司的产值更加困难。
The result was an upward revision of GDP for 2004 of a whopping 2.3 trillion yuan ($360 billion), adding 16.8% to the size of the Chinese economy. How could the regular annual accounting exercise have overlooked such a large chunk of China's output? Part of the reason is that the services sector is made up of many small enterprises and informal operations. Adding up the output of a million local hairdressers, half of them with no accounting ledger and half with a ledger that conceals as much as it reveals, is a bigger challenge than taking stock of the output of the big modern firms that dominate the industrial sector.

然而这并不是问题的全部。
But that's not the entire story.

如今，国家统计局采用联合国认可的国民经济核算体系(System of National Accounts)作为计算GDP的基础。但是，在改革初期，中国采用的是从苏联借鉴的物质产品平衡体系(Material Product System)。这一体系用来测算实物产出（中央计划经济所看重的钢铁和水泥产量）相当不错，但用它来测算服务业的无形产值就不那么灵验了。考虑到这一体系出自苏联，也就无足深怪了。旧体系中的一些偏差在新体系中仍然存在，这也是国家统计局遗漏如此庞大的一部分服务业产值的另一个原因。
The NBS now uses the United Nation's approved System of National Accounts as the basis for calculating GDP. But in the early reform era, the Material Product System, borrowed from the old U.S.S.R., was employed. As might be expected from a scheme devised in Soviet Russia, the Material Product System is rather good at measuring physical outputs (the tons of steel and cement valued by central planners) and less good at measuring the intangibles produced by the services sector. Some of the biases in the old system linger in the new, and that's another reason the NBS missed such a large volume of services output.

在经历了2004年经济普查的尴尬之后，国家统计局付出了极大努力克服对服务业产值统计不足的问题。占据经济普查前多年遗漏产值中相当大一部分的新兴服务产业，被纳入了年度统计的范畴。但是，计算迅速发展的服务业的产值仍然是中国统计学家面临的一项挑战。2008年，新一轮经济普查发现了另外一笔此前被忽略的1.3万亿元人民币的GDP，令中国经济的预计规模又增加了4.4%。绝大部分新增的产值仍旧是来自服务业。与2004年增加的16.8%比起来，2008年新增的4.4%要少得多，这表明国家统计局在统计服务业产值方面做得越来越好。但是，低估服务业产值仍然是中国在国民经济核算方面面临的最严重的方法论问题。
After the embarrassment of the 2004 census, the NBS made a serious attempt to overcome the deficiencies of its coverage of the services sector. New service sector industries, accounting for most of the output that was missed in the years before the census, were brought into the fold of the annual survey. But counting the output of a rapidly evolving services sector remains a challenge for China's statisticians. In 2008, the next round of the Economic Census discovered another 1.3 trillion yuan in GDP that had previously been overlooked, adding 4.4% to the estimated size of the Chinese economy. Once again, the lion's share of the addition came from the services sector. A 4.4% addition to GDP in 2008 is considerably smaller than the 16.8% addition in 2004; the NBS is getting better at counting service sector output. But undercounting the services sector remains the most serious methodological problem for China's national accounts.

与过去一样，对中国官方数据可信度的质疑主要集中在造假官员对GDP的“注水”上。但是，更为切实的风险在于：这个快速变化的经济体中可能有很大一块产值再次被统计学家所忽略，这样官方的数据就低估了中国经济的真实规模。
Suspicions about the reliability of China's data continue to focus on lying officials 'adding water' to bias the GDP numbers upward. But the more real risk is that that a large chunk of a rapidly changing economy has again been overlooked by the statisticians, and the official data understates the true size of the Chinese economy.'


（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）