Deflating China’s Nominal GDP Growth: 2004-2018 (CEIBS Working Paper, No. 042/2020/ECO, 2020）

In this paper, we use both the expenditure approach and the value added approach with double deflation to deflate China’s nominal GDP over a fifteen year period (2004- 2018). The resulting estimates of China’s real GDP growth during the period show significantly more fluctuation than the official figures indicate, and inflation as measured by the official implicit GDP deflator is generally overestimated during the booming years but underestimated during the down years. In particular, we show that the extent of China’s growth slowdown in recent years may have been more severe than the official figures suggest.