A New Look at China’s Output Fluctuations: Quarterly GDP Estimation with an Unobserved Components Approach

This paper provides quarterly real GDP estimates for China from 1978q1-1991q4 using an unobserved component approach. The approach imposes fewer prior restrictions on related series and is more flexible than other disaggregation methods. The multivariate unobserved components model with total trade and domestic credit as related series is selected as the best fit model for temporal disaggregation of China’s real GDP. The estimated quarterly real GDP data are then evaluated with univariate and multivariate time series analysis techniques. The constructed quarterly data are shown of good quality and provide valuable information for the analyses of China’s macroeconomic fluctuations during the period.