Economists Debate Existence of China's Grey Income

An official from the National Bureau of Statistics has criticised the methods used by economist Wang Xiaolu, an economist with the National Economic Research Institute's China Reform Foundation, when putting together a report that estimated China's hidden or unreported income totaled 9.3 trillion yuan in 2008. The NBS official said that Wang's survey sample of 4,000 people was too small. Wang has replied to the criticism by pointing to China's turbulent housing market. Wang argues that only the presence of a sizable grey income can explain the fact that China's housing market has been booming over recent years, despite the fact that the ratio of housing prices to average income had already reached very high rates.

Source
Guangzhou Daily

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