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While it would not be surprising if China had pass the US due to sheer population size differences alone, there is data that makes it a valid question as to whe

While it would not be surprising if China had pass the US due to sheer population size differences alone, there is data that makes it a valid question as to whether that has actually happened or not. On an annual basis, “non-free” countries seem to overstate GDP growth, which has a compounding effect over the long-run, resulting in large gaps between stated and actual GDP. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-of-lights-at-night-suggests-dictators-lie-about-economic-growth https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/09/29/a-study-...

xtian 4y ago
This conspiracy theory would also have to account for what China is doing with all of the energy it's consuming (and how it's paying for this energy) if it's not manifesting as GDP. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=chart&country=CHN~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=c... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-aramco-s-deal-will-cement-china-s-oil-demand-and-push-its-peak-higher https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Building empty cities and tearing them back down isn't productive.
  - xtian 4y ago
    How would that activity allow one to purchase ever greater quantities of energy imports?
    - shukantpal 4y ago
      You still need energy to build cities even if no one lives there.
      - xtian 4y ago
        And how does unproductive activity enable one to purchase that energy on the global market?
        mrguyorama 4y ago
        Are you saying you aren't aware of china's current economic woes and partial bust of real estate market?
        xtian 4y ago
        I'm aware that China's economic collapse has been continuously predicted for the last 30 years, but they nevertheless continue to produce more and more real commodities and infrastructure. Of course that doesn't hold a candle to our services-rent-IP-speculation economy here in the US.
        mrguyorama 4y ago
        Do you deny that China recently had a downturn in the real estate market?
        dirtyid 4y ago
        Sure, central gov _chose_ to cracked on on the sector, but the denial is that will lead to doomer level of collapse portrayed in western media. Here's a recent primer on PRC land finance and why market remains resilient / impact on gov finance overblow. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-s-mysteriously-resilient-real-estate-prices-new-economy-saturday?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-... The real denial is western analysts with little understanding of why real estate crack down won't lead to PRC collapse. At end of the day, realestate is about as wasteful as US extravagant health care spending in % terms. Inefficient sure, but not end of the world in terms of misallocation. Even less so when ~100m surplus/vacant housing units still not enough for 200m that needs to be rehomed to bring urbanization from 65% to 80% in next 20 years.
potatototoo99 4y ago
Looking at the chart it shows every single "partly free" and "not free" country as overstating the GDP, no exception. A much better explanation is just that measuring GDP by night light is plain dumb.
- eightysixfour 4y ago
  Did you read the article, or maybe the relevant paper? Did you consider the people doing the research aren’t dumb and look to see if maybe they thought of alternate explanations? Or did it not confirm some existing beliefs so you returned immediately and said “this is dumb” and walked away from it?
  - dirtyid 4y ago
    > maybe the relevant paper? Did you consider the people doing the research aren’t dumb and look to see if maybe they thought of alternate explanations? Martinez 2017 study has been loled to death by night time data analysts familar with the dataset and its limits. It's rudimentry methods only useful to generate clickbait headlines - it's actually that dumb. Every few years he "updates" study with new weak data but not better methods to be republished. I think latest is 3rd revision. For reference, much more sophisticated light study by NBER (by multiple FED economists on one country vs assistant prof on entire world) conducted same year concluded PRC growth was higher than PRC reported GDP, by ~10%. In line with several studies (like CSIS broken abacus) that use much more rigorous methods. But Martinez's democracy vs authoritarian narrative gets republished every few years because the alternate explanation is stupid studies that confirm western biases gets more clicks. Again, studies using better data/methods that tried to calc PRC GDP and conclude it's been underreported bt 10-20% as of 2010s data. Which makes sense because PRC incentivized to over report population and under report gdp to stay under high income per capita to stretch development perks reserved for developing countries. That's without going into PRC's conservative GDP estimation methods (relative to developed economies) that underestimate imputed vlaues from rent to consumption that would tag on another 10-20%. This has been pattern since the beginning for PRC global integration, i.e. in 80s PRC and IMF used different surveys to negotiate per capita values to base future gdp calcs, IMF wanted $250 vs PRC wanted $150 and settled somewhere under %200. The TLDR is PRC would rather appear poorer than she is on paper.

xtian 4y ago

This conspiracy theory would also have to account for what China is doing with all of the energy it's consuming (and how it's paying for this energy) if it's not manifesting as GDP. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=chart&country=CHN~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=c... https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-aramco-s-deal-will-cement-china-s-oil-demand-and-push-its-peak-higher https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-27/saudi-...

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Building empty cities and tearing them back down isn't productive.
- xtian 4y ago
  How would that activity allow one to purchase ever greater quantities of energy imports?
  - shukantpal 4y ago
    You still need energy to build cities even if no one lives there.
    - xtian 4y ago
      And how does unproductive activity enable one to purchase that energy on the global market?
      - mrguyorama 4y ago
        Are you saying you aren't aware of china's current economic woes and partial bust of real estate market?
        xtian 4y ago
        I'm aware that China's economic collapse has been continuously predicted for the last 30 years, but they nevertheless continue to produce more and more real commodities and infrastructure. Of course that doesn't hold a candle to our services-rent-IP-speculation economy here in the US.
        mrguyorama 4y ago
        Do you deny that China recently had a downturn in the real estate market?
        dirtyid 4y ago
        Sure, central gov _chose_ to cracked on on the sector, but the denial is that will lead to doomer level of collapse portrayed in western media. Here's a recent primer on PRC land finance and why market remains resilient / impact on gov finance overblow. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-s-mysteriously-resilient-real-estate-prices-new-economy-saturday?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-03-25/china-... The real denial is western analysts with little understanding of why real estate crack down won't lead to PRC collapse. At end of the day, realestate is about as wasteful as US extravagant health care spending in % terms. Inefficient sure, but not end of the world in terms of misallocation. Even less so when ~100m surplus/vacant housing units still not enough for 200m that needs to be rehomed to bring urbanization from 65% to 80% in next 20 years.

potatototoo99 4y ago

Looking at the chart it shows every single "partly free" and "not free" country as overstating the GDP, no exception. A much better explanation is just that measuring GDP by night light is plain dumb.

eightysixfour 4y ago
Did you read the article, or maybe the relevant paper? Did you consider the people doing the research aren’t dumb and look to see if maybe they thought of alternate explanations? Or did it not confirm some existing beliefs so you returned immediately and said “this is dumb” and walked away from it?
- dirtyid 4y ago
  > maybe the relevant paper? Did you consider the people doing the research aren’t dumb and look to see if maybe they thought of alternate explanations? Martinez 2017 study has been loled to death by night time data analysts familar with the dataset and its limits. It's rudimentry methods only useful to generate clickbait headlines - it's actually that dumb. Every few years he "updates" study with new weak data but not better methods to be republished. I think latest is 3rd revision. For reference, much more sophisticated light study by NBER (by multiple FED economists on one country vs assistant prof on entire world) conducted same year concluded PRC growth was higher than PRC reported GDP, by ~10%. In line with several studies (like CSIS broken abacus) that use much more rigorous methods. But Martinez's democracy vs authoritarian narrative gets republished every few years because the alternate explanation is stupid studies that confirm western biases gets more clicks. Again, studies using better data/methods that tried to calc PRC GDP and conclude it's been underreported bt 10-20% as of 2010s data. Which makes sense because PRC incentivized to over report population and under report gdp to stay under high income per capita to stretch development perks reserved for developing countries. That's without going into PRC's conservative GDP estimation methods (relative to developed economies) that underestimate imputed vlaues from rent to consumption that would tag on another 10-20%. This has been pattern since the beginning for PRC global integration, i.e. in 80s PRC and IMF used different surveys to negotiate per capita values to base future gdp calcs, IMF wanted $250 vs PRC wanted $150 and settled somewhere under %200. The TLDR is PRC would rather appear poorer than she is on paper.