Wang Xiaolu, a scholar at the National Economic Research Institute under the China Reform Foundation, recently published an article that calculates the 2008 urban residents’ “hidden income” to be as high as 9.26 trillion yuan, about 30% of the year’s gross domestic product (GDP). Wang believes that the existence of gigantic amount of “hidden income” or “grey income” shows the severe distortion of the distribution of national income. The sources of the “hidden income” include corruption, and other means of misappropriation of public funds and private wealth.
On August 24 and 25, the National Bureau of Statistics published two articles on its website, confronting Wang’s study by questioning its methodology.
Source: Jinghua Daily, August 26.
http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2010-08/26/content_580292.htm
[Editor’s Note: Jinghua Daily is a Beijing local newspaper]