Introduction:
instead of soon becoming the largest economy in the world, China’s economy is only about a third of the size of the mighty U.S. economy.
having much lower GDP also means that China’s debt levels are actually much higher, relative to the size of its economy, meaning that its debt-fueled property bubble is much more dangerous than we thought.
Method:
Martinez looked at 184 countries between 1992 to 2008 and compared the growth of lights at night in each country to the growth of GDP that each country reported.
Autocratic countries typically reported a whopping 35% higher GDP growth numbers compared to night-time lights growth.
China’s GDP growth between 1992 and 2008 was likely 4.9% per year, rather than its average reported growth of 6.3%.
This is literally the dumbest measurement I’ve ever heard of.
If China were overestimating its GDP by 60%, then surely it would be no problem to prove it based on some more objective measure like imports and exports. Wonder why they didn't do that :thonk:
But the L I G H T S
Autocratic countries are known to take oppressive measures like mandating that businesses turn off most of their lights at night to save energy. Compliance is far from total but there is an effect of ~35%.
Authoritarian China genocides rights of business owners to light empty offices at 3 AM
Reminds me of "actually millions died at Wuhan from Covid, just look at disappearing phone numbers and abnormal air quality"