Challenges of working with the Chinese NBS firm-level data

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

China Economic Review

Publication Date

9-1-2014

Volume

30

First Page

339

Last Page

352

Keywords

Administrative data, Firm entry, Manufacturing, Measurement

Abstract

Over the reform period, industry has been the source of 40% of GDP, and has contributed 90% of China's exports. Annual firm-level surveys that begin in 1992, complemented with industry-wide census in 1995, 2004 and 2008, are rich sources of data on firm behavior. It is well-known that working with Chinese data requires overcoming difficult measurement issues. Macroeconomic series, for example, are often suspected of suffering from reporting bias and political interference. Working with the firm-level data has its own challenges. In this paper, we provide an introduction to these data sets. We discuss and illustrate several of the issues that make comparability over time difficult and suggest solutions. The importance of a particular measurement issue often depends on the exact application. We illustrate this point by tracing the evolution of the relative productivity level of entrants and incumbents over time, distinguishing between changes in actual performance and changes driven by measurement problems. We conclude by identifying a few promising areas of future research and margins on which collaboration among users to improve these data might be beneficial.

DOI

10.1016/j.chieco.2014.04.008

Print ISSN

1043951X

E-ISSN

18737781

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Brandt, L., Van Biesebroeck, J., & Zhang, Y. (2014). Challenges of working with the Chinese NBS firm-level data. China Economic Review, 30, 339-352. doi: 10.1016/j.chieco.2014.04.008

Share

COinS