ChinaNow - Research

We use our ChinaNow GDP series in our research.

What Happens in China Does Not Stay in China. (November 2025, submitted)

(joint with William Barcelona, Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia, and Jasper Hoek)

Coverage: The Economist, Hutchins Roundup (Brookings), Adam Tooze's Chartbook, Rhodium Group

We show that Chinese credit policies significantly influence the global financial cycle, offering new insights into a literature that has largely established U.S. monetary policy as its main driver. Using a novel methodology, we isolate Chinese policy-induced demand shocks and develop an alternative measure of GDP growth that better captures China’s business cycle. These methodological contributions are crucial to establish China as a driver of the global financial cycle. Our analysis shows that China’s influence operates primarily through global risk sentiment channels, as stronger Chinese consumption enhances global growth prospects by raising commodity prices and global trade outside China.

Is China Really Growing at 5 Percent? Finance and Economics Discussion Series Note (2025)

(joint with William Barcelona, Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia, and Jasper Hoek)

In this note, we revisit an alternative indicator of Chinese GDP growth developed by Barcelona et al. (2022) to examine whether official data overstate Chinese GDP growth. Our findings suggest that recent GDP growth figures, which have been in line with the stated target, appear to align closely with broader Chinese economic indicators and do not appear to be overstated. We find that the recent near-target growth has been driven by a strong supply-side performance, supported by sustained global demand for Chinese goods and industrial policies promoting self-reliance. This has helped offset weak domestic consumption, which never fully recovered from COVID-era lockdowns and continues to be constrained by the ongoing property slump.

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