An Expenditure-Based Bilateral Comparison of Gross Domestic Product between China and the United States.

This paper presents a detailed bilateral comparison of GDP between China and the United States, with 1986 as a reference date, using the purchasing power parity approach formulated by the United Nations International Comparison Program. An estimate of purchasing power parity over GDP made for Chinese currency in this study is used to estimate China's dollar per capita GDP in 1986 and 1991. The specific issues in the comparisons of the housing and the comparison-resistant services categories is discussed and an approach similar to the estimation of shadow rent is exercised. The possible errors in the bilateral comparison are analyzed. Copyright 1994 by The International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.