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NBS-OECD Workshop on National Accounts

6-10 November 2006

Measuring Chinese Productivity Growth

Paul Schreyer

OECD

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Background

OECD Productivity Database:

• Economy-wide labour productivity levels and growth rates for most OECD member countries

• Economy-wide multi-factor productivity growth rates for 19 OECD countries

Objective:

• Extend country coverage to include some large non-member countries, in particular China

Project:

• Paper commissioned from Carsten Holz (University of Hong Kong) to assess data availability for Chinese productivity measures

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Background

Focus of presentation:

• Labour productivity

• Capital measures in the paper are very preliminary

• Also, for multi-factor productivity, OECD constructs its own, “harmonised” capital measures

Purpose of presentation:

• Report on some findings

• Put forward questions to solicit comments from NBS on evaluation of China data

• Present candidate series for labour productivity to be integrated into the productivity database

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Structure of the report

Chapter 2 Output measures

Chapter 3 Labour input measures

Chapter 4 Capital measures

Chapter 5 Productivity analysis

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Output measures (1)

1. Total economy and main industrial sectors

National GDP growth based on production approach, at current and constant prices

Source: Statistical Abstract 2006, which shows data for 1993-2004 which takes account of the 2004 census benchmark revision

Any reason to prefer expenditure or income-based approach over production approach?

Any reason to prefer the sum of provincial GDPs over the national GDP data?

Table 3 reports rising differences of 8 – 19% for the years 2000-2004 in the production based GDP levels with provincial GDPs > national GDP

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Output measures (2)

Link between sectoral and total growth rates in real terms

Which index numbers are used for aggregation?

How did the changes in nominal GDP due to 2004/05 benchmark revision affect real growth rates of sectors and of the total economy?

How is constant-price value added for industrial sectors derived?

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Labour input measuresTotal economy and main industrial sectors

Variable: total employment, or more precisely, total “labourers” i.e., the number of persons at end-year aged 15 and above who worked for monetary or non-monetary compensation for at least one hour in the week preceding the population census

Source: Statistical Yearbook

Primary data source: population censuses

How are intermediate years derived?

Do these numbers include self-employed and military employees?

Is there any information about average hours worked by person?

Any reason to prefer alternative source of employment based on report form data?

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China – total economy: GDP per person employed

0.0

50.0

100.0

150.0

200.0

250.0

300.0

350.0

400.0

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

Index: left scale

% change: right scale90-05: 8.4%

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Total economy – GDP per person employed

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

12.0%

14.0%

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

China

USA

Ireland

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Labour productivity

Some additional questions:

How well do employment and output data match?

Is there a GDP adjustment for the non-observed economy, and if so, is there also an adjustment for employment?

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Proposal for integration of Chinese productivity series for inclusion into

the OECD productivity data baseLabour productivity

Annual labour productivity growth (GDP per employed person)

Total economy and “industry” (=manufacturing)

Starting with 1990

Source: Statistical Yearbook or directly data transmitted to OECD ANA database

Multi-factor productivity: no full integration at this point but link to existing papers

Revised version of the Holz paper as STD Working Paper