Genuine progress indicator
Most economists assess progress in people's welfare by comparing the gross domestic product over time—that is, by adding up the annual dollar value of all goods and services produced within a country over successive years. However, GDP was not intended to be used for such purpose. It is prone to productivism or consumerism, over-valuing production and consumption of goods, and not reflecting improvement in human well-being. It also does not distinguish between money spent for new production and money spent to repair negative outcomes from previous expenditure. For example, it would treat as equivalent one million dollars spent to build new homes and one million dollars spent in aid relief to those whose homes have been destroyed, despite these expenditures arguably not representing the same kind of progress. This is relevant for example when considering the true costs of development that destroys wetlands and hence exacerbate flood damages. Simon Kuznets, the inventor of the concept of GDP, noted in his first report to the US Congress in 1934:the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income. If the GDP is up, why is America down? Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.
Historical GDP of China
This article includes a list of China's historical gross domestic product (GDP) values (with the latest to reach above US$14 trillion for 2018), the market value of all final goods and services produced by a nation in a given year. The GDP dollar estimates presented here are either calculated at market or government official exchange rates (nominal), or derived from purchasing power parity (PPP) calculations. This article also includes historical GDP growth.
In 1985, the State Council of China (SCC) approved the establishment of a SNA (System of National Accounting), using GDP to measure the national economy. China started to study and then implement a new system of national economic accounting. In 1986, as the first citizen of the People's Republic of China to receive a Ph.D. in economics from an overseas country, Dr. Fengbo Zhang headed Chinese Macroeconomic Research - the key research project of the seventh five-year plan, as well as completing and publishing the Chinese GDP data according to China's own research and calculations. A summary of the above events has been included in the book "Chinese Macroeconomic Structure and Policy" (June 1988) edited by Fengbo Zhang, and collectively authored by the Research Center of the SCC. This is the first GDP data which was published by China.