中国GDP、或いはCo2、鬱病

先週は仕事+義父が上海に来ていた影響で、blogの更新はおろか、新聞を読んだり、WEBを巡回する余裕もあまりなかった。
ということで、少し古いが、http://d.hatena.ne.jp/kaikaji/20071123#p1にて知る。AFPの記事;


China's economy 40 percent smaller than estimated: analyst

Nov 14, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — China's economy is 40 percent smaller than most recent estimates, a US economist said Wednesday, citing data from the Asian Development Bank and guidelines from the World Bank.

Albert Keidel, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US Treasury official and World Bank economist, made the comments in a report published by the US think tank and in a commentary in the Financial Times.

Keidel told AFP he made the calculations based on a recent ADB report that made its first analysis of China's economy based on so-called purchasing power parity (PPP), which strips out the impact of exchange rates.

"The results tell us that when the World Bank announces its expected PPP data revisions later this year, China's economy will turn out to be 40 percent smaller than previously stated," Keidel wrote.

"This more accurate picture of China clarifies why Beijing concentrates so heavily on domestic priorities such as growth, public investment, pollution control and poverty reduction."

The ADB data was the first using purchasing power analysis, according to Keidel.

Based on this new analysis, he said "the number of people in China living below the World Bank's dollar-a-day poverty line is 300 million -- three times larger than currently estimated."

Keidel told AFP that under these calculations, China's gross domestic product (GDP) would have been roughly five trillion dollars in 2005, compared to some 12 trillion for the United States on the same basis.

This would still mean China's economy is moving ahead of Japan as the world's second largest economy, but might not overtake the United States until around 2030.

"These calculations are not just esoteric academic tweaks," Keidel wrote.

"Based on the old estimates, the US Government Accountability Office reported this year that China's economy in PPP terms would be larger than the US by as early as 2012. Such reports raise alarms in security circles about China's ability to build a defense establishment to challenge America's," he said.

The use of PPP began in the 1950s in an effort to compare economies without the distortion of exchange rates that could be influenced by trade or investment flows.

Keidel said his analysis has little meaning for the debate on whether China's yuan is undervalued, as many economists say.

"The PPP shouldn't be used to check whether the commercial exchange rate is valid," said Keidel, who has argued that it is not clear whether the yuan is vastly undervalued.

But he said the data helps explain why Chinese authorities are paying little heed to calls by Washington and Europe to boost the yuan.

"Our focus in the US on trade and exchange rates is secondary or tertiary in their view," he said.

Keidel said the US Congress and administration officials "should recognize the limitations and opportunities revealed by these more accurate data."

"For example, risks to its impoverished rural hinterland from a sudden large revaluation of its currency loom larger in Beijing's eyes than in Washington's," he added.

Keidel had been deputy director for the Office of East Asian Nations at the US Treasury and was previously a senior economist in the World Bank office in Beijing.

Based on the new data from ADB, Keidel said the World Bank is in the process of revising its estimates on the Chinese economy. He said the ADB report earlier this year drew little attention but that "the Chinese have never before participated in a survey that allowed these comparisons."

In Beijing, the World Bank's lead economist for China, Bert Hofman, said he thought it was too early to use the PPP as a basis to revise the size of China's economy.

"I think it's still at the moment at a research stage," Hofman told AFP.

"There is a big international effort going on about international price comparisons ... to correct differences in price levels across countries (in order) to give a better comparison across economies," Hofman said.

That effort is "still very much work in progress," he said. "It's too early to tell what the final implications will be."
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iAQ-cie6r6S__Wuw_oTsuunUZg5A

世界銀行が発表する中国の購買力平価(purchase power parity=PPP)ベースのGDPが40%近く過大評価されているという米国のCarnegie Endowment for International PeaceのAlbert Keidel氏の主張が紹介されている。何故これほどまで過大評価されたのかという理由については、先ず冒頭に掲げた梶ピエールさんの言を参照されたい。また、『しんぶん赤旗』の2001年の記事では、

購買力平価というのは、それぞれの国のなかで同じ内容、同じ量の商品やサービスを比較して、各国の通貨でどれだけのものが買えるのかを基準とした通貨の値打ちの比率のことをいいます。日米間で考えると、米国において一ドルで買えるものを日本で買うといくらかかるかを表すものです。例えば、一杯のコーヒーがアメリカで一ドルのとき、日本が二百五十円だとすると、購買力平価は一ドル=二百五十円となります。
http://www.jcp.or.jp/faq_box/01-10/2001-1004faq.html
と定義した上で、「購買力平価は、それぞれの品目の品質や規格の厳密な調整が困難であることや、比較できる品目数などの限界はありますが、投機などによって大きく変動する為替レートよりも商品価格を基準にするため安定しており、生活の実感に近い値が求められるので、賃金水準や各国の経済規模の比較などに使われます」と購買力平価の限界を説いている。
さて、梶さんのところに、「GDPが増えれば、CO2とうつの発病率が増える。コミュニティの中の金銭を媒介しない助け合いがなくなり、農村で食べられなくなって、都市のスラムに行かざるをえなくなったほうが、GDPが増える」というコメントあり。GDPに限らず、近代的な経済指標は人間の諸活動がマネーに還元できることを前提としている。だから、GDPは人間の諸活動が貨幣経済化していることの指標でもある。鬱病の発病率に関して言えば、GDP増大の結果というよりは原因のひとつとして考えれば納得できる。社会の医療化の問題。医療化が進めば、鬱病に限らず病気の存在は医療費としてGDPに算入される。また、CO2の増大の問題についていえば、GDPとCO2排出との比例関係が特に顕著になるのは、(重工業を中心とした)工業化社会という段階においてだろう。上で述べたように、GDP貨幣経済と関係しているので、CO2排出削減技術が開発されて、貨幣的な付加価値が見出されれば、CO2が減少してもその分GDPは増大することになる。これに関しては、GDPをCO2排出量(或いは燃料消費量)で割った値を比較することもできるだろう。また、その国の経済が脱工業化して、金融に、或いはデザインなどのクリエィティヴ産業中心にシフトしていても、この値は高くなる筈である。