How GDP spread to China: the experimental diffusion of macroeconomic measurement

Abstract

Gross Domestic Product (GDP), one of the world’s most influential economic indicators, did not become truly global until it was implemented by China. China officially adopted GDP as an indicator of economic performance in 1993 when the country abandoned its Marxist-inspired national accounting system and joined the internationally harmonized System of National Accounts. As such, it was the last major country to begin producing GDP figures according to international standards. Since then, GDP has become deeply ingrained in China’s economic governance. Yet, the adoption of GDP was complicated by mismatches between the ideology guiding China’s reform process and the economic ideas underpinning international statistical standards. The Chinese government’s translation of the standards into the domestic political-economic context lasted nearly a decade. This process was not foisted upon China from the outside, but rather was driven by domestic factors in an experimental fashion. This is best characterized as an atypical case of diffusion and an unsuccessful case of translation. It makes clear that macroeconomic measurement is inherently political, not a set of neutral ‘best practices’. The findings also point to the characteristics of the diffusion object as an underexplored but important factor that can undermine domestic attempts to translate or localize global policy ideas.