During the past few decades, many economists have tried to forecast Mainland China’s national income. As yet few of these efforts have yielded data that could be broadly used in an international context. The major obstacle to this type of analysis is that the methodological principles adopted in Mainland China differ from the System of National Accounts employed by the United Nations. Another problem is that most of the estimation approaches have emphasized the production side.
This study begins with a description of the net material product and the processes of distribution and final expenditures as used in Mainland China’s methodological framework. Following that, an alternative approach to forecasting national income, measured from the expenditure rather than the production side, is derived. The study undertakes a forecast of national income in Mainland China for 1985-1990.
