Is there evidence to suggest India's GDP numbers are fraudulent?

有证据表明印度的GDP数据是伪造的吗？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Rahul Raghavan

While it is certainly true that they are late (published 2 months after the end of the relevant quarter) and riddled with errors calling for regular and significant revisions, it would go too far to suggest that the Indian economic numbers are "fraudulent"

虽然这些数据确实出得有点晚(在每个季度结束后2个月才发布)，而且还有很多错误需要定期进行重大修订，但如果据此认定印度的经济数据存在“欺诈”，这种想法也太过分了。

Going by Hanlon's Razor ("Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"), one must first point a finger at the incompetence of the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), the public body charged with publishing Indian economic data.

按照汉隆雷泽的说法(“永远不要把可以用愚蠢来充分解释的事情归咎于恶意”)，人们必须把矛头指向负责发布印度经济数据的公共机构中央统计组织CSO，是他们太过无能。

The exact methodology and inputs used to compute the quarterly Indian GDP figures is kept confidential. What is known, however, is that the most "dependable" quarterly data is based on a supply-side calculation, that is, using the method of factor cost. This technique collates the value added in various sectors of the economy, using benchmark indicators for each of those sectors (for instance, an indicator used would be for sector specific Index of Industrial Production), and then "deflates" the estimate to some pre-defined price levels. Estimating GDP this way requires very careful estimations of the constitutent elements such as the IIPs; that these themselves are revised significantly and regularly does not leave one with much confidence.

计算印度季度GDP数据的确切方法我们无从得知。但我们已知最“可靠”的季度数据是基于供给侧计算的，也就是使用生产要素成本的方法。这种技术利用每个行业的基准指标(例如，一个指标将用于工业生产的特定部门指数)，对各个经济部门的增加值进行比较，然后将估计值“缩小”到某些预先确定的价格水平。以这种方式估算GDP，需要对IIPs等构成要素进行非常仔细的估算；这些规则被大幅、定期地修改，让人对数据的准确性没有太多信心。

A few years ago, the CSO also started reporting a demand-side estimate of quarterly GDP growth. Calculating this typically calls for statistically well designed surveys - it is not known if/how these are conducted.

几年前，CSO还开始报告季度GDP增长的需求侧数据。计算这些数据通常需要在统计上进行设计合理的的调查——不知道这些调查是否/如何进行。

The two estimates of GDP growth should typically be close (correcting for indirect taxes), but on one truly absurd occasion in 2010, were published approxmately as 9% (production-side) and 3.5% (demand-side) respectively. After general uproar, the latter figure was corrected and the original mistake (using an incorrect deflator) blamed on something akin to a clerical error. To be fair however, the correction came almost immediately.

这两种对GDP增长的计算通常应该是接近的(修正间接税)，但2010年出现过一次非常荒谬的情况，CSO公布的数据分别约为9%(生产侧)和3.5%(需求侧)。这个数据引发了一片哗然，随后CSO对后一个数字进行了修正，称是因为笔误等原因导致了最初的错误(使用的紧缩指数有误)。但公平地说，这个修正几乎是即刻进行的。

This leads to a key issue that has a lot in common with other public services in India: basic systems and processes that are required to handle what is essentially an intensive IT-based task are missing. It is likely that the statistical computing systems required for a task of this magnitude are not in place. The people in charge have jobs for life - they really do not have the incentives to get the numbers right. The organizational setup at the CSO for calculating these statistics is geared towards an economy where the government is the major player, not a liberalized market economy where private firms generate the bulk of the GDP.

这引发了一个与印度其他公共服务拥有许多共同点的关键问题：处理基于IT的密集运算任务所需的基本系统和流程形同虚设。这个庞大的任务所需要的统计系统很可能还没有到位。负责此项任务的人—他们的工作是终身制的—真的没有动力把这些数字搞清楚。CSO内负责计算统计数据的组织考虑的是政府为主体的经济，而非创造了大部分GDP的私营企业所在的自由市场经济。

In short, lesser transparency than required, habitual incompetence and bad incentives for change. Not fraud. Well, I hope not.

简而言之，透明度不足，习惯性无能，又没有动力改变。倒不是欺诈。起码我希望不是。

Vignesh Nithyanandan

Calculating GDP in India is a difficult task. More than 80% of the business and large part of the workforce is in the unorganized sector. Those numbers are not added in the GDP calculation.

Thanks to digitization, more people are included into the organized numbers. But a long long way to go. This is one factor why our numbers are not always accurate.

印度GDP的计算是一项艰巨的任务。超过80%的企业和大部分劳动力都没有加入工会。这些数字并不计入GDP计算中。

推行数字化管理后，又更多的人纳入了工会的数据中。但印度还是有很长的路要走。这就是为什么我们的数据经常不太准确的原因之一。

Eg: I buy vegetables and fruits from the farmer directly or from a road side seller and use cash for the transaction . This transaction is not recorded anywhere, hence does not come up in the spending numbers while calculation GDP.

In developed countries this does not happen, everything is packed and bill is mandatory, hence most of the transactions are recorded.

Indian economy is much more bigger and stronger than projected.

我直接从农民或路边小贩手中购买蔬菜和水果，使用现金进行交易。这种交易没有被任何机构记录下来，因此在计算GDP时，是不计入支出数字中的。

在发达国家，这种情况不会发生，所有的东西都必须使用票据，因此大多数交易都有记录。

印度经济比现在统计的数据要大得多，也更为强劲。

Shambavi Jha

India’s GDP is not fraudulent , IMF’s data on India is fake, India actual GDP is bigger

India has digitalize it’s money system using UPI

印度的GDP并没有骗人，国际货币基金组织披露的印度数据才是假的，印度的实际GDP只会更大。

印度使用UPI对货币系统进行了数字化

Advantages of UPI

1) No need to print money , cost of printing is reduced as it is burden for a state

2) Less inflation as paper money circulation is less

3) For UPI to operate, Bank account is necessary hence making chances of Bank run very less.

4) Cashless and very fast transaction between a Person’s account to Merchent account

5) very Less corruption as demand of paper currency becomes less attractive and there is limit of amount to which you’re transacting

6) Now Informal sector has become more Formal, hence more chances of tax collection

7) problem of atm crunch, many times ATM are not functioning so no cash available and burden of visiting ATM again & again has become very less.

8) Increase in standard of living , now you don’t need to carry money wallet only mobile is required.

UPI的优势

1)不需要印刷货币，降低了印刷成本，这对国家而言也是一笔负担。

2)由于纸币流通减少，通货膨胀得到缓解。

3) UPI系统需要银行账户，因此发生银行挤兑的机会非常小。

4)从个人账户到商户账户，无现金结算非常快。

5)腐败会大大减少，因为对纸币的需求降低，同时UPI系统的交易金额也设置了上限。

6)现在非正式部门也越来越正规，因此更方便税务核征。

7) ATM机紧张的问题也得到解决，多数时候ATM机没有现金可用，频繁使用ATM的需要得到降低。

8)提高了生活水平，现在你不需要带钱包，出门只要带手机就行。

UPI itself is an alternative to Dollar reserve paper currency system because UPI is a money transaction system

BTW Our Informal economy is 75–80% of the Indian economy which is not accounted

UPI本身是美元储备货币系统的替代品，因为UPI是一个货币交易系统。

顺便说一下，我们的非正式经济规模占到印度经济的75-80%，这部分并没有被计算在GDP内。

Vdhay Kumar N

Hi thanks for A2A

its very hard to manipulate GDP of a country but way of calculation can be slightly modified to get bigger numbers. Similar happened for growth calculations. A low growing country is shown as high growing country with slight change in calculations.

你好，谢邀。

操纵篡改一个国家的GDP难度极大，但可以稍微修改一下计算方法，让结果更可观。计算GDP增长也是如此。低增长国家被调成了高增长国家，只是计算方法略有变化。

Prakash Bapat

Related

Why did Modi Govt fake the GDP numbers of India?

This is a pretty complicated matter ?

It may take a very long thesis to put it this way or the other.

It has many important angles to it.

为什么莫迪政府要伪造印度的GDP数据？

这是一个非常复杂的问题？

也许我们需要用一份篇幅很长的论文来说明这一点。

其中有很多重要的角度。

1. The political one

2. The stastical aspect

3. The reliability of the agencies which are delegated the work of calculating it.

4. The last one is wether India will ever become the global growth engine etc.. this can not be faked as other countries also have data . So this aspect not dealt with in this answer.

1. 政治方面

2. 统计方面

3. 统计机构的可靠性。

4. 最后是印度能否成为全球增长引擎。这一点是无法伪造的，因为其他国家也有数据。所以我在下面的回答中就不赘述这个方面了。

Let's consider one by one

From political angle it is very important for the ruling party to generate fake numbers. Which has its credibility at stake. The demon decision had slowed the growth rate it is now a open secret. Now it was only a temporary effect and not a long time process as pointed by MMS ( the results will accrue only in long run when we all will be dead ) so to counter this charge it was necessary to create favourable data. Its like motive in a …case. So the motive exsts.

让我们一个一个分析看看。

从政治角度看，执政党伪造数字是非常有用的。这关系到执政党的声誉。政府的昏招减缓了增长速度，现在已经是一个公开的秘密了。因此，为了反驳这种指控，政府必须打造有利的统计数据。这和罪犯的作案动机类似，所以这种动机是存在的。

The second angle ..

The stastical aspect which relates to 5 main engines of growth

Govt spending

Public spending

gross fixed capital formation

Exports.

Agricultural production.

第二个角度…

统计方面，涉及了5个主要的增长引擎：

政府支出

公共支出

固定资本构成总额

出口

农业生产

Except the govt spending it is not performing on any other front.

But if we have believe that it is growing at desired rate just on one count it must be much faster (4times) on that count.

The employment problem is really serious. But ..

The public spending depends on buying power which is linked to employment growth

除了政府支出，这一项在其他任何方面都没有表现。

但如果我们相信它真的以预期的速度增长，那么它在这方面肯定快得多(4倍)。

就业问题真的很严重。

公共支出取决于购买力，而购买力又与就业增长挂钩。

Third factor

The capacity utilisationn in industries is at 70 % how can there be any fixed capital formation?

第三个因素

工业的产能利用率是70%，怎么会有固定资本构成？

The fourth factor Exports they are really in trouble due to global problems. So it is beyond our control.

第四个因素是出口，由于全球问题导致出口陷入困境。所以这也不是我们能控制的。

Lastly Agricultural production

It has taken a hit due to first demon then monsoon and last but most important the MSP which is almost constant . Even if there is little increase the government buying is missing.

Unless there is some trick like faking the data or coercing the cso like agencies such figures are not possible. And as seen at the begng there is strong motive for faking it.

最后，农业生产

先是废钞令，再是季风，以及最重要的是最低收购价万年不变，农业生产遭到了沉重打击。即便有些许上涨，政府的买盘也不见踪影。

除非伪造数据或胁迫CSO等机构，否则这些数据绝无可能。我们从一开始就能看出这种作假的动机还是很大的。

Then we have track record of telling lies.

The last thing S Swamy has specifically alleged the organization of faking data with his style of proofs.

Now the truth can not be ever known because the job of actually calculating it is very cumbersome process and requires extensive resources. Which we can not have.

We have to either rely on our logical ability or the government data . It is our choice.

我们惯会说谎。

最后一件事是Swamy用他的证据特别指控机构伪造数据。

现在真相永远不得而知，因为统计工作非常繁琐，需要动用大量的资源。我们不可能拥有这些资源。

我们要么只能依赖我们的逻辑能力，要么只能依赖政府数据。这是我们的选择。

Charan Puneet Singh

Well, i am not an expert on this topic, but i guess most companies who need this data, triangulate it from various sources. Data like FII inflows, FDI, Industrial Output etc is difficult to fudge, and is available from multiple sources. Trends can be correlated and movement of GDP predicted to a reasonable level of accuracy. Wont go into inefficiency of government departments in India. We get what we deserve.

好吧，我不是这方面的专家，但我想大多数需要这些数据的公司都会通过各种信息来源进行多方分析。FII数据流、外国直接投资、工业产出等数据很难造假，多个信息来源都可以进行查验。增长趋势也可以相互关联，GDP的准确度也可以调整到一个合理水平。印度政府部门的工作效率极为低下，我们这就是咎由自取。