CIP Database 2023

The "East Asian Industrial Productivity" project under the "Raising Industrial and Firm Productivity" program of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), in cooperation with the Growth Lab of Peking University and the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University, has been revising and updating the China Industrial Productivity Database (hereinafter referred to as CIP), a basic resource for analyzing economic growth and structural change in China. The CIP Database 2023 (CIP 4.0) is now available on this website. It is a substantial revision of CIP database 2015 (CIP3.0) because of the new data available after CIP 3.0 and the new methods we used in handling the unsolved data problems in CIP 3.0. The features and major revisions of the CIP 4.0 Database are briefly introduced as follows.

First, the CIP 4.0 time series covers the period from 1987 to 2017 rather than a straightforward extension of the CIP 3.0 series from 1980 to 2010 This is to use China’s two SNA-type complete input-output tables, 1987 and 2017, to confine our time series construction to the best available input-output structures. We explain the reason why we do not prolong the series beyond the control of the two structures as we did in CIP 3.0 in Wu et al. (2023 forthcoming).

Second, in the construction of China’s national input-output time series CIP 4.0 no longer uses the so-called reduced input-output tables published between the complete tables that are available every five years since 1987 because of some unreasonable abrupt structural changes over just one or two years (see Wu and Li, 2023 forthcoming).

Third, CIP 4.0 has substantially revised the distribution of labor employment data across service industries through new methods of handling the two unclassified residuals within and outside the formal sector of the economy, hence having solved the problem of the unreasonable rapid decline of the material services (defined as the services with direct connections or extension of the goods production, e.g., transportation) compared to the non-material services (such as financial services). Information on labor by ownership type and related compensation (not included in CIP 4.0) is used in the revision (see Wu and Zhang, 2023 forthcoming).

Fourth, CIP 4.0 has considerably revised the capital data by a new attempt to distribute the data gap between the CIP investment total and the gross fixed capital formation or GFCF, as given by the national input-output tables, to the CIP 37 industries. Information on investment by ownership type (not included in CIP 4.0) and assumptions are used in the revision. This has significantly affected our estimates of capital stock and capital input by industry (see Wu and Liang, 2023 forthcoming).

Fifth, the growth accounting results using the CIP 4.0 data are provided for China’s aggregate growth and productivity performance with their industry origin, but without the contribution of the types of assets and labor to show a general contribution of the primary inputs rather than the contribution of factor types that are decomposed inevitably based on various assumptions (see Wu et al., 2023 forthcoming).

• Wu, Harry X. and Zhan Li. 2021. “Reassessing China’s GDP Growth Performance: An Exploration of the Underestimated Price Effect”, RIETI Discussion Papers, 21-E-018, 2021 (RIETI: Research Institute for Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan)
• Wu, Harry X. and Zhan Li. 2023 (forthcoming). Construction of China’s National Input-Output Tables in Time Series 1978-2018.
• Wu, Harry X., Zhan Li, David T. Liang, Guang Zhang and Huimin Zhu. 2023 (forthcoming). Accounting for China’s Growth and Productivity Performance in 1978-2018: An Introduction to the CIP 4.0 Database.
• Wu, Harry X. and Guang Zhang. 2023 (forthcoming). Measuring Labor Input in the Post-Reform Chinese Economy, 1978-2018.
• Wu, Harry X. and David T. Liang. 2023 (forthcoming). Measuring Capital Input in the Post-Reform Chinese Economy, 1978-2018.

The CIP Database was initiated by Professor Harry Wu in 2010. It was since then and till 2019 a collaborative effort between the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industries (RIETI)’s East Asian Industrial Productivity Project and the Institute of Economic Research (IER) at Hitotsubashi University. After Professor Wu moved to Peking University in late 2019, it has become a collaboration between the Growth Lab of Peking University, the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University and RIETI, basically extended from the previous RIETI-IER/Hito-U collaboration.

The CIP Project, especially for the construction of CIP 4.0, would like to thank the following people for critical comments and constructive suggestions in their reviews of the CIP data work (in alphabetical order):

When using the data, please cite the CIP Database 2023 published by the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) and Hitotsubashi University, Peking University Growth Lab as the data source.

For inquiries, please contact:
JIP Database Office, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University
E-mail: jip-info@ier.hit-u.ac.jp