For a country that is regularly accused of manipulating its statistics, China is remarkably diligent about collecting them. The government has dispatched two million boffins（英[ˈbɒfɪn]研究员，科学工作者，技术专家） to visit companies, stores and even street stalls（摊位） in the first few months of this year, as part of a new national economic census. Ads plastered on billboards（广告贴在广告牌上） implore people to co-operate. In a flashy promotional video（华而不实的宣传视频） on its website, the national statistics bureau warns that any fabrication of data（任何数据制造） is against the law.
But these laudable（值得称赞的） efforts do not appear to be solving the basic problems with Chinese statistics. A new paper, by Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and three co-authors from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, finds that industrial output and investment have been consistently embellished. As a result, they argue that China overstated（夸大） real gdp growth by two percentage points on average every year from 2008 to 2016 (see chart). Over time that adds up: official figures for 2016 would have exaggerated the size of the economy by 16%, or more than $1.5trn.
参考资料：https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/07/chinas-economy-might-be-nearly-a-seventh-smaller-than-reported?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=referral
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