Source: World Bank

Back in 1994, Carnegie Senior Associate Albert Keidel, as a consultant for the World Bank, made a detailed analysis of GNP per Capital in China published at an internal World Bank report. He evaluated the various estimates at that time of China's PPP-dollar GNP, including the one the World Bank subsequently used through 2007. He pointed out a number of biases in the World Bank estimate at that time that likely made the estimate too high. Other chapters in the report calculated how the underpricing of services in the early 1990s made China's official GDP statistics reporting understate the scale of the economy. This estimate became the basis for Chinese GDP figures reported in World Bank statistics until the late 1990s. In 2000, a subsequent World Bank evaluation of then recent price reforms, in which Keidel also participated, concluded that service sector price reforms had made the earlier adjustments no longer necessary. Analysis of China's PPP figure adopted at that time begins on page 41 of this report.

This report was orignally published by the World Bank Reserach Committee.