What are the limitations of GDP calculation?

First, the accounting scope is not complete enough. Theoretically, the scope of production includes the production of all goods and all services provided to the outside world, but due to the limitation of data sources, the accounting of some departments is incomplete. For example, in the real estate industry, there is no accounting for non-real estate development and business units engaged in for-profit housing rental activities. The scope of end-use accounting is also incomplete, such as the transfer cost of unproductive non-financial assets in the formation of fixed capital is not fully included. In addition, the activities of the informal sector have not been well estimated at present.

Second, there is a serious data source gap in the accounting of added value of service industry. On the one hand, service enterprises and self-employed units do not have a regular statistical investigation system, especially emerging service industries such as property management, computer services, business services, information consulting, accountant services and lawyer services, and their regular data sources are basically blank. On the other hand, the service industry statistics of the relevant administrative departments are generally limited to this system, and the scope is too narrow, and the statistics of physical quantity are emphasized while the statistics of value quantity are ignored, which cannot meet the needs of GDP accounting.

Third, quarterly GDP accounting is still manifested as cumulative production accounting, which can neither provide quarterly accounting data nor quarterly expenditure GDP accounting data. Its root is that professional and departmental statistics cannot provide some important basic data needed for quarterly GDP accounting and expenditure GDP accounting.

Fourth, there is a gap in the production price index of the service industry. At present, there is no producer price index of service industry in China, and the constant added value of service industry is mostly calculated by the corresponding service item price index in the consumer price index. However, some services, such as computer services, accounting services and advertising services, are often not provided by residents, so there is actually no corresponding consumer price index to calculate the constant added value of these services. In this case, the relevant price index can only be used as a substitute, which can not but affect the accuracy of the calculation of constant price added value.

Fifth, the classification of industrial sectors and expenditure items in China's GDP accounting is too rough, which can not meet the needs of analysis of production structure and demand structure, nor can it meet the needs of submitting materials to international organizations such as the United Nations. From the classification of industrial sectors, industry is a prominent example. At present, the industrial added value accounts for a large proportion of GDP, but it is only an industrial sector, which cannot meet the needs of analyzing the development and structural changes of different industrial sectors within the industry. The main reason is that the sampling survey of industries below the scale cannot provide detailed classified data of industrial sectors. At present, the relevant administrative departments have put forward the information demand for the added value of comprehensive industrial sectors across the national economy, such as cultural industry, information industry, tourism industry and high-tech industry. Because the classification of industrial sectors in China's GDP accounting is too rough, it is difficult to meet this demand. From the classification of expenditure items, the total amount of fixed capital formation is classified according to asset types such as housing, non-housing buildings, transportation equipment and office equipment, and government consumption is classified according to functions such as education, administration, health and national defense, which is of great value to the analysis of demand structure. Due to the lack of corresponding classification of expenditure items, this demand cannot be met.

Sixth, there are unreasonable problems in GDP accounting and data release procedures, which has also become one of the reasons why domestic and foreign parties question China's GDP and growth rate data. For example, the annual forecast is generally released at the end of 65438+February, which easily leads people to mistake the forecast for statistics and thus doubt the reliability and seriousness of China's GDP data; After obtaining more comprehensive basic data, it is often only to adjust the absolute GDP data, but not to modify the growth rate data accordingly. It is difficult to objectively reflect the actual situation of China's economic development, and it is also inconsistent with international practice, and there are many international criticisms. At present, we are gradually solving these problems.