I'm so sorry to hear about Macrocat. I've lost cats to being hit by cars before and it's really horrible. Wishing you all the best Joeri.

@JStack

Жыл бұрын

It’s my wife’s favorite part about these videos when I put them on in the living room. We’re both really sorry for your loss and I’m sure you gave Macrocat a great life.

@Alex-ee5pl

Жыл бұрын

keep your cats inside there are way less cars in your living room

@scottwales9178

Жыл бұрын

@@Alex-ee5pl Not every cat is the same. Some are indoor cats but others need time outside.

@jordanmcmorris5248

Жыл бұрын

I lost my cat last month as well. To say it sucks is an understatement.

@AngryR4v3n

Жыл бұрын

I also join in the condolences for Henry, hope you recover from this sad event!

What I would love to see is some independent studies trying to calculate the same deflation factor using different data sources. Then we could compare their error bars.

@Ron4885

Жыл бұрын

Completely agree Nin. 👍

@TheDavidlloydjones

Жыл бұрын

Nobody's stopping you from doing it, Nin.

@Sentient_Blob

Жыл бұрын

@@TheDavidlloydjones not everyone’s an economist, David

@masonkent9468

Жыл бұрын

@John Morgan you do it then, John

@washingtonnovais9130

Жыл бұрын

Love the talk 🗿🍷

Thanks for providing actual quality content while protecting the researchers values AND explaining them to everyone. The world needs more people like you!

@glenwjohnson809

Жыл бұрын

How does it help u? Data shows that China's economy is large and this fool telling u otherwise.

@ew-uy6cs

Жыл бұрын

Taiwan had an economic growth of 12 percent in the 1960s- 1970s so China's Gdp growth rates may be accurate.

@ew-uy6cs

Жыл бұрын

But they kept the same economic growth for 50 years which is higher than Taiwan and South Korea. Making it the country with the highest economic growth in the world for 50 years straight seems somewhat suspicious especially when the Soviet Union also lied about its Economic growth.

@rogerfaint499

Жыл бұрын

@@ew-uy6cs US lied and is still lying about its gdp. Most economists estimated that US' gdp should be 1/8 of its actual claim as its gdp value is grossly overinflated by blatant overprinting of its currency and grossly over-valued stocks. In real comparison, even the daily food consumption per capita of each Chinese is 10 times better than Americans.

@JohnnyLynnLee

10 ай бұрын

There is a MAJOR flaw in this paper. MOST countries that grow the fastest today are not Western Style Democracies and would be classified as "authoritarians". China, Vietnam, India, even Malaysia and Indonesia would be classified like that. Second, the MAJORITY of he poor countries of the world are to some extent authoritarian, and poor low and middle income countries tend to grow more than high income countries, where the vast majority of the MINORITY of countries that are Western Style democracies on our planet are. Simply because, contrary to what most Westerners think, the MAJORITY of planet Earth is made up by countries that would be considered "non-democratic". When it comes to low and middle income countries, where most likely you'll find a fast growing economy, that percentage is even higher. Which brings the problem of how those countries where determined to be "dictatorships" in the first place as well. In other words, most countries that grow fast would be classified as "dictatorships" (whether it being true or not). And that not because dictatorships are particularly good at making the economy grow (since most authoritarian countries are poor and people don't give a flying s** about them unless they are growing and defying the hegemony of the West) but simply because, again, it needs to be stressed again, MOST countries on planet Earth would be classified as authoritarians. Hence, in simple terms, if we will se a poor country becoming a rich country MOST LIKELY it will be a country classified that way. So the paper ASSUMES that "authoritarian countries" lie because they grow more when in fact countries that grow more in its vast majority are even as authoritarian or, at least, not mature democracies. OF COURSE the mature democracies will grow less. They are the richest countries on Earth.

I know I’m late but great vid man I’m sorry for your loss it’s never easy losing a family member who’s been with you for a long time. I’m new to the channel but I love the effort you give to these videos and your cat who was always apart of them. Best wishes and prayers for you and your cat ❤

There was a similar approach to research carried out by Prosper Australia looking at under reported vacant properties in Melbourne in 2017, but rather tha using lights they looked at water records which revealed many supposedly occupied properties had less water usage than a dripping tap.

@patrickriarchy1976

Жыл бұрын

Is this because a vacancy tax?

@serwombles8816

Жыл бұрын

@@patrickriarchy1976 Chinese bought alot of our housing but many don't even live in it, its just a way for them to move money out of China

@schumanhuman

Жыл бұрын

@@patrickriarchy1976 Partly as that creates the obvious perverse incentive to hide the fact, but vancancy rates were high in general due to a highly speculative period in Oz RE where buyers will favour liquidity over yields. Not sure how accurate estimate levels of vacancy are or were before that in general but I expect they are generally under estimated in many markets. The perverse incentive doesn't just apply to vacancy tax. Just anecdotally here in London, UK a person 'lived' in the downstairs flat from me from 2012-15 ish, but was actually only there about 3 weekends over the 3 years they owned it. (suited me as no noise) The reason being as it was officially owner occupied it incurred no capital gains tax on sale which would have been pretty substantial. Create an exemption, and some people find ways to qualify for that.

@kaymish6178

Жыл бұрын

@@sieuwkedevries5211 It's more that they are speculating on the growth house prices, but didn't want to deal with the hassle ir risk of having tenants and wanted to be able to market and sell the house quickly without having to deal with giving notice to the tenant or having to repair the wear and tear caused by people living there.

@zer0nix

Жыл бұрын

Oh now that's a good metric! Water is used for everything, and the more money you have the more water you will use for bathing, etc

If this number is really in the same ballpark, that's remarkable, a 50% smaller economy is quite insane!

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

Its the magic of compounding growth. Overstating growth by e.g. 2% each year will produce staggering results in the long run

@lakshmanb5604

Жыл бұрын

@@MoneyMacro I think it is a flaw to assume that wealth distribution in autocratic countries is similar to democratic countries. A country 1000 people earning 100k$ per annum will cast much much more light than an impoverished country with 10 big shots earning 10M$ per annum even though the wealth is the same. If we look solely based on light emitted it might look like the first country is richer even though the second country is clearly equally rich in terms of money.

@andrethegiant9011

Жыл бұрын

But since China has a lot of so called "ghost-cities", wouldn't that have implications in the rate at which night lights in China grow?

@tobiasL1991

Жыл бұрын

@@lakshmanb5604 Did you watch the video? the paper looked at all the factors that could explain the differences, if you disagree with them maybe go read the paper fight?

@mr.financial

Жыл бұрын

No GDP data is 100% accurate. Just by looking at how big the middle class is, chinas economy has indeed exploded

Yes, you are right. Please convince the US government to believe it.

@parnamsaini4751

11 ай бұрын

They have been lying all this while you mean??

@hzzj

11 ай бұрын

​@@parnamsaini4751 China's GDP is actually only 10% true, I am Chinese, I know it, please don't be too afraid of us surpassing the United States.

@marcma42

11 ай бұрын

@@parnamsaini4751 yes china economic is bulit by rockected real estate market instead of real industrialization, the GDP data match more with the m2 increasing if you take a closer look, its a country built itself by debt.

@localman9063

11 ай бұрын

​@@marcma42China is commonly referred to as the world's factory because so many companies are outsourcing their production to the country. Something they never would've done if proper infrastructure wasn't in place. When you say "real industrialization", what does that mean exactly?

@JohnnyLynnLee

10 ай бұрын

No he is NOT. There is a MAJOR flaw in this paper. MOST countries that grow the fastest today are not Western Style Democracies and would be classified as "authoritarians". China, Vietnam, India, even Malaysia and Indonesia would be classified like that. Second, the MAJORITY of he poor countries of the world are to some extent authoritarian, and poor low and middle income countries tend to grow more than high income countries, where the vast majority of the MINORITY of countries that are Western Style democracies on our planet are. Simply because, contrary to what most Westerners think, the MAJORITY of planet Earth is made up by countries that would be considered "non-democratic". When it comes to low and middle income countries, where most likely you'll find a fast growing economy, that percentage is even higher. Which brings the problem of how those countries where determined to be "dictatorships" in the first place as well. In other words, most countries that grow fast would be classified as "dictatorships" (whether it being true or not). And that not because dictatorships are particularly good at making the economy grow (since most authoritarian countries are poor and people don't give a flying s** about them unless they are growing and defying the hegemony of the West) but simply because, again, it needs to be stressed again, MOST countries on planet Earth would be classified as authoritarians. Hence, in simple terms, if we will se a poor country becoming a rich country MOST LIKELY it will be a country classified that way. So the paper ASSUMES that "authoritarian countries" lie because they grow more when in fact countries that grow more in its vast majority are even as authoritarian or, at least, not mature democracies. OF COURSE the mature democracies will grow less. They are the richest countries on Earth.

Hey man, sad for your loss! Remember the good work that you are doing for us millions of people and that will give you strength to carry on

Rest in peace, Henry. It's tough to lose your friends, especially before their time, so wishing you the absolute best

Another reason (in addition to the one I posted on air quality) for China's night lights not growing as fast as gdp could be that a lot of Chinas economic activity was building "Ghost Cities" and properties that were not inhabited, but instead held as a second home. These would not generate as much light, as only infrastructure surrounding the uninhabited skyscrapers would be lit.

@matiasfpm

Жыл бұрын

Ah, yes, the infamous "styrofoam buildings"...

@noahof-stuff9151

Жыл бұрын

They can also be useful as a tax write off as they are guaranteed to produce negative returns.

@AlessandroRodriguez

Жыл бұрын

That right, but also can be worse, the ghost cities can qualify as wasted money, second home for vacation or work can be an asset, but those uses aren't realized in China, compounding the fact that many of those house are leases, that in 70 years will be lost money anyways

@daniell1483

Жыл бұрын

The problem there is that so many of these secondary homes are rotten tail projects, homes that have not started or completed its construction phase and the original mortgage is essentially stolen into China's Ponzi scheme. Many citizens are being asked to essentially pay a full second mortgage to resume construction, with many of these projects having serious problems, such as concrete of such poor quality that you can break it by hand, not reinforced with rebar, etc. It is not like say here in the US where when you buy a secondary home, you then have the actual home. In China, the "house" is more of a "promise to build a house with substandard construction."

@raoplns

Жыл бұрын

Why would lights be on in night in residential area anyway?

Sorry if I missed this point but did you discuss if the paper based its figures on the GDP numbers of China when taking into consideration the devaluation of the Yuan? I’m curious to know if the paper considered the relative size of China’s economy using their valuation or our valuation based on what the US believes the size to be if the Yuan were pegged to other currencies. That would theoretically skew the numbers.

@marcma42

11 ай бұрын

the truth is, a coutnry's growth is not mrerely measure by its GDP number. And statement like " Yuan were pegged to other currencies. " has no evidence, it may be a fact, but none to know by US govt or any economists. It's backdoor deal that China and its allies make that others cant be know. which is actually a strength in currency, no data, no analytic , and thus no strategic can be make directly against Yuan.

@buddermonger2000

10 ай бұрын

It's fundamentally tracking growth over time. It's not tracking exact figures. PPP calculations also tend to hold steady over time and include currency exchange rates. In fact, tracking via nominal GDP is why it's more consistent of a value over time than consistently adjusting for exchange rates or PPP. Not to mention PPP is just a multiplier for the initial measurement anyway which means that it's added after, not before. TL;DR It's all tracking for the nominal GDP, and PPP is a multiplier added after

thanks for sharing this paper and gives a insightful remarks.

Thank you so much for having Henry lighten us up all this time. This wonderful cat brought joy to you and so many others here. I'm know he too is grateful for all the love you gave him. Rest in Peace, dear Macrocat. F

I love this channel and the information it presents... but i also loved the glimpses of Macrocat. He contributed to the vibe of the channel and did a good job keeping things relaxed and not over-serious. Thank you for mentioning that he did not suffer... but my heart is still in mourning for Henry. RIP Macrocat and rest easy.

Hi, great video! One question I have though, is how is it not more noticeable and has no evidence other than the fact it has less lights than expected? I could see how it makes sense for even something like 20%, but more than half of a country’s economy being fictional is bound to make people notice sooner and in more forms, isn’t it?

Very intriguing. Thank you for sharing buddy

(DON'T COMMENT IN THIS THREAD TO KEEP IT CLEAN) Is there a good reason for much slower night light growth than GDP in China (compared to other countries) that I, or the paper, didn't think about. Let me know in the comment section. The best arguments will be featured in this thread. Free pdf of the published paper can be found here: bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BFI_WP_2021-78.pdf

@TheZachary86

Жыл бұрын

China has been pushing people to move into cities. You can see more rural areas dim while the city night lights increase. But I’m not so sure how you can parse more night light growth in cities (filled with light pollution) and gdp growth.

@mikemiller7946

Жыл бұрын

@@kjrom You haven't been paying very much attention. China is still doing covid lockdowns because they have no working vaccine and if they open millions will die. They overcounted their population by a huge amount. They pretty much started doing misinformation on themselves trying to pretend to be something they 100% are NOT. You will see... biden took their chips industry which will have an effect on every single high tech company in china. They really fucked up when they let a lifetime dictator who shoots the messenger lead them. The communist world is slowly dissolving.

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

The best argument so far (my opinion) is air pollution. The paper did not check for this!! In the period that the study was done, China had a lot of air pollution. Less than India though. Still, this could have hidden night light growth. However, then the implication is that, if this clears up (it already is), we should start seeing China light up like a Christmas tree. data.oecd.org/air/air-pollution-exposure.htm

@topg7490

Жыл бұрын

you want to flame China or whatnot, its fine, but the data is a joke. Using "Night light growth" as an indicator to show whether China is being honest about their reported GDP is brainless at its finest. 1. using "Night light growth" as EVIDENCE is just plain stupid. For instance, the relationship between age and height. Sure there's an ASSOCIATION between them, but you claim age causes height to increase, which is stupid 2. The data never accounted for the factors such as, "developing countries vs developed countries" (~90% of Autocracies are developing countries) 3. no attempt to provide any statistical analysis, but claim this and that, which is f stupid. you might as well say China reported fake GDP because they're evil. I wrote this comment because I expected some concrete evidence, but instead, you gave me elementary stupidity

@remyheinis

Жыл бұрын

There is one yes, Maybe they are just more efficient than you think with energy and there you go, explanation. The time period is interesting, it goes to 2008, this year are before new leadership and still in very corrupt China, at this time light at night for most Chinese still doesn't exist, half of them and that's a lot still light petrol or coal to light there night, and suddenly with Xi, corruption is a death penalty sentence, and new big China rise, High speed rail in all china in less than 10 year ? USA can't do that, digital money, apps for everything, smart cities, WAY better management of electricity, big growth! Now it's like, "oh China is declining a bit, only 5 or 4% growth instead of 6, oh China is bankrupt", They are COMMUNIST !!!! They don't care about bankruptcy, they can do whatever decision they want. It's wrong to measure China the way we measure a Capitalist country. They PLANJ their economy, they do strategy, they are playing GO, we are playing Chess, we let the market solve it's problem by itself, Chinese analyse and react and CAN do whatever' they want, Why would they destroy value in there stock market ? For us, totally incompetent, look the stock market has fallen, the rich guys are not as rich as can be, why do they don't care? Strategy, efficiency, it's so wrong to assume they are dictator, they are wrong they are stupid, no, not at all, they are achieving right now superpower status, but they don't care, it's not enough, the goal is to DOUBLE USA economy, then they are going to finish buying everyone is free country and they win. How can they do that? By not telling the world how big their economy is, so that we don't know and don't care and forget them while they are buying the world, because that's our weakness, capitalist country CAN be bought! Let's measure output and try to compare GDP, how much new ship a year ? How much concrete a year Follow that and understand how already bigger than USA they are. We still don't want to understand and realize that. There success is not logical to us and all economist in the west, they ALL think capitalism is the only way, the only thing that work, so just mange it; it's wrong, they are new and different to the game; China have always been the global superpower in history, and it's coming back, We should all understand that now and maybe learn from them instead of trying to make it a fake story for 20 year and realizing that if there economy change just a little bit, all the world is affected, a lot That is already super global power. data of lights to 2008, sorry not enough, yes the Chicago school would love that there conclusion is right but they didn't try to refute themselves rationally and understand disruption, new concept, etc. We all know the Chicago school of economy will be the last one to really understand China... The question they should have asked is, why is China different, not how china compare to other dictator that are all corrupt, lazy, lying, capitalist, and SMALL ! China is big and has the aberrant population ! China has plenty of characteristic that are unique to them, efficiency in power, and half of china not needing light at night maybe can be the answer, or find different hypothesis, the Chicago school didn't try like this, they compared totally different country and structures with low sample size and outdated 2008 data, the world is totally different now and must be analyzed differently. I will stop there, just trying to understand China...

Couple of issues with this study. First, the relationship with night light and GDP has been shown to depend on the level of urbanization. For example, study by Xaquín S.Pérez-Sindín et al. (2021) found that the relationship between satellite measured night light and GDP was strongest for urban areas (coefficient of 0.71 with an R2 of 0.5 for 500K centers vs.0.57 and an R2 of 0.32 for areas with 20-50K). Although having a large population, China is still less urbanized than the US and most Western European countries. Urbanization in China is ~61% vs. 82% in the US, with the difference being much larger during the 1990 - 2010 period. Additionally, Martinez assumes that the relationship between night light and GDP is linear. There's no reason to assume this as you might expect that increased GDP in highly developed countries might be near a saturation point; at some point this relationship will break down as economic growth is less tied to population growth and increased light generation (just an aside, health expenditure as a fraction of GPD in the US is 19% and has been a major contributor to US GDP growth. How is that tied to light generation?). Further, the R2 values are generally low (~0.3), indicating that there are a host of other factors far greater than night light that account for changes in GDP. Again, linear regression with values this low can't be used to conclude something as specific as China lying about its GDP numbers. Finally, the use of the "Freedom Index" is a little dubious. It seems unlikely that something as simplistic and ideological as a "Freedom Index" will capture any nuance in something as complex as a modern government. Correlation is not causation. In complex systems (especially anything as complex as economies and government) one will always find an endless number of variables that are weakly correlated. However, explaining how these variables relate mechanistically and causally is the hard part, which Martinez fails to do. When coupled with the low R2 values and low correlation there really isn't anything specific one can say about how governments lie about GDP measures. If this was a paper in a prestigious science journal it would have been rejected, not because its methods are wrong, but rather because its conclusion cannot be justified on the basis of the results and analyses presented. The only thing we can say with certainty is that there is a relationship between night light and GDP (with plenty of unexplained variance) and lots of variability between countries, regardless of whether we subjectively classify them as free or not.

@kamilo4989

Жыл бұрын

Nice counter-comment. Thanks.

@StevenBerg123

Жыл бұрын

thanks for the counter argument, very thorough. but isn't an R2 of 0.3 quite good for a social science?

@jeffsims5407

Жыл бұрын

Growth in urbanization in China has been dramatic over this period, from 23% in 1990 to close to 64% in 2020, compared with 75%v to 82% in the US. Given what you say above, shouldn't we expect the night life growth to be even faster than GDP growth in China over the same period, rather than less?

@fernrfernandez

Жыл бұрын

@@StevenBerg123 It may very well be a good value for a social science (I'm not in the field of social sciences) but if that is your analysis and value then you have to adjust your conclusions in accordance. You can't make such specific and extraordinary claims (seriously, claiming China is lying and that its economy is 60% less than claimed because it's an autocratic government is a pretty extraordinary and specific conclusion in the field of social sciences) without extraordinary data and more specific results. If someone claimed that the US economy is half of what the government claimed based on, for example, internet usage, nobody would take that seriously without additional data and analyses. Why should we hold any claim about China to a lower standard?

@fernrfernandez

Жыл бұрын

Sure, but it also means that in the early stages of growth, when China's was a more rural society, light measures were a very poor indicator of economic growth. My point was that the level of light and GPD growth will not be linearly related since a country's level of urbanization will change over time, especially a country undergoing rapid development. So, for example, in the early period, when China was more rural and light levels were poorly correlated with GDP, the value would be weighed differently than values when the country was more urbanized. Hence, the relationship between light and GDP will not be linear across time and economic development as assumed by the study. Hence a low value with lots of unexplained variance doesn't really provide any mechanistic insight to reported GDP and light, especially since the definition of what is being compared (autocratic vs. democratic) is so vague and poorly defined. If you read the original study, Martinez also excluded a lot of autocratic countries that don't fit the trend because he claims they don't have any incentive to lie about GDP (mostly West African countries that receive aid and are friendly to Western interests). Why do this if you think autocratic governance is the major motivator for exaggerating GDP numbers. Clearly, things are way more complex than this.

So exports actually make up 50% of China's GDP. That's mighty impressive.

@Squish_that_cat

6 ай бұрын

Nope it means domestic consumption is not enough to keep up the economy It makes economy more vulnerable to foreign consumption and external conflicts This is what led Germany into recession

@patrickt49

3 күн бұрын

That's not good. They need to shift to a more domestic service oriented economy to keep growing and distribute wealth to the rest of society.

One of the reasons may indeed be that ghost cities were counted in GDP but once built turn into a mere deadweight. Another (and more speculative) one is that China may have overstated its population, especially the number of working age people.

@IHZALewis

2 күн бұрын

Do you know your own name?

Great video Joeri. Very sorry to hear about your cat. I hope you are doing well.

@kennethli8

Жыл бұрын

@Patrick - I always watch your channel. Great to see you here!!!

Rest in peace, Henry. This was my first ever video I've seen from this channel and Henry brought joy to my heart.

@ruisu1989

Жыл бұрын

x2

So no China Threat right? Yeah! Let's get back to enjoy our lives!

@connectingthedots1309

11 күн бұрын

How low of you , how pathetic , how cheap, Cant cooperate or stand another nation, You guys are real 3 rd world Dont worry , stay dreaming , well show you how its done

This can be one tool to evaluate GDP reporting, yes. However, it must be used in concert with many other such alternative, creative, GDP-derivative indicators to be able to make any reliable calculations.

Very sorry to hear about Macrocat. He seemed very happy and content. I'm sure you did a good job taking care of him. We too lost our cat Paul unexpectedly this past Easter. It's never easy when you love and care for them.

Light surely also depends on things like population density and wealth disparity. The US typically has fairly spread out suburbs compared to the high-rise flats seen in China's cities. Surely this means one model for light intensity can't just be flatly applied to the other country and extrapolated from.

@o-654

Жыл бұрын

Yeah overall this model just seems too simplistic. A rough estimate is fine, but to present the calculations as anything concrete is a bit irresponsible since it misses out on way too many factors like population density/concentrations, industries involved, how high-rises affect perceived luminosity at night, and not to mention the sample size used in the original study only extends until 2008.

@faviosalinas5891

Жыл бұрын

@@o-654 did you read the paper? or are you just assuming that the people who peer-reviewed were not aware of such basic things?

@ericjiang7986

Жыл бұрын

As a chinese, I am aware of how Marco says the GDP number could be fabricated, I know that well my family member told me a lot and I think many Chinese would joke about it too(by exchanging your old shoes with your friends many many times, now you get a high GDP) but I would also doubt the measurements of just using light intensity to measure GDP. And you are right I think it might be due to there are taller buildings which covers up individual light useage There are several possible other reasons I come up with my friends: 1. Chinese people stay up less at night because of culture of longevity than westerners. Westerners can stay up all night partying. Chinese people value sleep cycle more. Although, yes there are many Chinese people who still stay up late playing majiang or clubing but few. 2. electricity is not cheap. 3. retailing and face-to-face buisnesses are less and less popular because the digitalization and e-commerce, most people can stay at home not going out and live a life. So retailers which emit light is less.

@jg5737

Жыл бұрын

While this model is very rough, it makes sense. This is especially so given that China has had the largest transfer of population from rural areas to urban areas in history over the past 2 decades. They should have very intense increases of light at night in and around their urban areas, and if they don't then something is not right. If even the Chinese Premier looks at power consumption levels rather than official economic data to make his judgement on economic growth, then the theory spoken of in this video makes even more sense.

@neodym5809

Жыл бұрын

Your misconception is that use think in absolute light transmission, while you have to think in relative changes.

Thank you so much! You did a great work! HYJ

Excellent analysis! Well done!!

I am so sorry for the loss of Henry. The Loss of a pet is usually underappreciated by other people, but he was clearly very important to you and the people who watch this channel. I wish you the best.

I haven't read the paper, but one variable to look into is population density in cities. Most urban growth in China seems to be "vertical", that is in tall skyscarpers that will emit proportionally less light per unit area than a growth based on sub-urban sprawl.

@laurencefraser

Жыл бұрын

That makes sense for residential and office space, but they're also rather less relevant than industrial and retail space when it comes to GDP. retail effectively has a limit to how far up you can go (due to the logistics of getting both products and customers in and out), and industrial just doesn't really compress like that unless you start doing rather noteworthy and exotic things. Or at least, such is my understanding.

@robinsoncrusoeonmars8594

Жыл бұрын

Sounds logical, but look at the lights on any map of Manhattan, and they are the brightest. For me, to see how China has manipulated data for decades with reporting GDP of 6% one quarter, 6.1% the next, then 6.2% the next. No legitimate country would report numbers in such a steady manner. Look at the democratic countries and they are 4.0% one quarter, 2.5% the next, 3.2 the next. China has their municipalities report that growth to make their numbers stay the course and have steady growth for their "image", not reality. Soon reality will catch up with them. Can you imagine any legitimate country missing out on a GDP report? That's what China has done because they are slowing down and don't want to admit it or not until the CCP party is over.

@daniellejajko6204

Жыл бұрын

​@@robinsoncrusoeonmars8594 I think you're not quite familiar with the usual grography of chinese cities(spoiler it's totally different from Manhatta) For starters, Manhattan is extremely small and has a population density of over 72,000 people, no city in mainland China is that dense; it has been fully occupied for over 100 years, the only way to buil new stuff is by tearing old stuff down, theres barely a centimeter of undevelopped land in Manhattan. For contrast, cities in china have enormous land area, also being the center of administration of dozens of villages and smaller towns, so the population density is always relatively low; this one might sound a bit astonishing to you if youre from the US, but the average residential building in China is still taller than most buildings in Manhattan(because most of it was built a century ago, when there was no better technology. Also contrary to the popular belief, appartaments in mainland China are actually quite spacious, they only got a bad reputation because of Hong Kong and Macau); if you look on google maps you'll notice that in general urban areas in China are covered by HUGE parks, sometimes built right in the downtown areas, which is probably why it's not as bright as you'd expect. Also, Manhattan has a per capita of over 100,000USD, theres no reason to compare it to anywhere in China anyway.

@spacechemsol4288

Жыл бұрын

@Keyboard Emperor To build empty ghost cities and get itself into a major debt crisis. Good job! Btw the US build more aircraft carriers in 10 years than China in 2000 years.

@ottogibob

Жыл бұрын

China also has vertical residential facilities, but so do other countries. Since the more vertical, the higher the population density, so this can be verified through population density. According to that, the population density of India is higher than that of China. Many cities, such as Delhi in India, New York in the United States, Shanghai in Egypt, and Seoul in South Korea, have higher population densities than China. Well, yeah. Houses usually turn off the lights for sleep at night. Right? If so, the facilities that shine even at night are probably factories. But factories usually don't build high. The reason is.... The reason has been explained by many others. lol Then, China's GDP statistics should not be different from other countries. Because every country in the world has the same height of factories. +) How did the idea that only China build skyscrapers and live on?

Solid video, keep up the work.

Fascinating analysis. Thank you very much.

Light is one indirect measurement, but I wonder if these findings can be verified using different proxies (energy consumption? emissions? trade balances?)

@jamesnichols5163

Жыл бұрын

I understand China used to release lots of other measures that could be used as a proxy for GDP, however one of the first things Xi Jinping did was to reduce the amount of statistics released

@joey199412

Жыл бұрын

The Chinese centralized state already does approximations of energy consumption + emissions + trade balances to adjust the "official regional report" down because the central government wants to know the true growth numbers for their 5 year plans. The regional governments caught on over time and adjusted these other numbers in accordance with their fake growth. However light pollution is a new metric that isn't used so that shows the true growth. However now that this paper has been published I'm sure the central government will use it to adjust local figures down which will result in corrupt local officials doing stupid stuff like forcing new buildings and companies to install brighter lights to fake more growth or something like that. There was the scandal of fake solar and wind installations in shenzhen city a couple of years ago as well.

@cyrilio

Жыл бұрын

Fire/heat maps can also be used for this exact measure.

@SimFoxSim

Жыл бұрын

No they can not... China consumes 60-70% of global production of concrete, for instance... And there are many more metrics lite this. And this "light" metric is absolute and total BS. Also author of video conviniently forgot to say that access to this article costs 30$! That is all you need to know about how Western GDP is generated and calculated.

@jds1275

Жыл бұрын

@@joey199412 They might, but that would require more electricity, which would require more spending and a higher GDP to sustain such a thing. Though they could just do it by making more debt to that would hasten a collapse.

Very sorry for the loss of Henry! Thank you for your videos, I show them to my buddies who are finance/politics wonks, they are very high quality and informative. I hope you are doing alright in the wake of this tragedy.

@user-sf7ng6mw9y

Жыл бұрын

中华人民共和国万岁，习近平总书记是全世界最伟大的人，他带领全世界人民走向光明

@ahmedbukar8633

Жыл бұрын

have been researching all this while for a digital asset to invest in and I found the crypto market to be the most profiting of them all, I'm definitely bouncing on it

@asmauyusuf7802

Жыл бұрын

Wow, Her scores are everywhere😮

@phillip76

Жыл бұрын

I imagine folks don 't like china, and that is why there is popularity with these estimates. The underlying assumption is pretty stupid tho. We can't compare china with other countries. More accurately, we should compare countries next to china, and with similar bloodline and culture as China: Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Singapore etc.. China is exceptional because it got an exceptional population. Secondly, the correlation between gdp growth and light intensity isn't linar. It is linear up to a point, but diminish in return as a approximation of national output.

@indiasuperclean6969

Жыл бұрын

WOW SIRR VERY DANGEROUS !!😠😠😠 BUT THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA 🤗🇮🇳 THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD , WE NEVER DO SCAM AND WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

I'm sorry to hear about Henry. He looked like he enjoyed his life while you presented economic videos. He will continue to bring us joy!

Always good to get uncorrelated sources of data to back up your main observation. Other growth indicators are oil and gas, steel, copper, and electricity generation. Though changing technologies and the balance of service industry to production would modify those. One other satellite measure might be to measure infrared emissions as well as almost all economic functions generate heat. Anyway interesting take.

@PejmanMan

11 ай бұрын

They’ve literally downscaled steel and coal since 2016 as stated publicly?? In an intentional move to service industry??

Goddamn...that ending got me. We are nothing without love, and the only way we can have love in our lives is by accepting it's brutally honest traveling partner, tragedy. RIP Rumi...please show Macrocat a good time.

@1Plebeian

Жыл бұрын

Just started the video but I'm going to go ahead and agree. Tragedy is the environment that makes love possible. A great deal of people train themselves to not see tragedy and love shallowly as a result. Imo.

My condolences for your loss. For me Macrocat was one of the highlights of the show, thank you for sharing him with us through your channel. He will be missed.

Great analysis 👍

Aside from light activity, I think there has been other metrics used such as food production/consumption, steel usage, and other commodities that people can try to rely on for GDP growth

This kind of real question asking followed by open consideration of both the alternatives and implications of the inquiry is what science, finance, and policy making needs more of today. Great video! Sorry for your loss with Henry's passing, he was great as Macrocat.

@Luca-ly7vh

Жыл бұрын

Exactly! I was skeptical after the first few minutes. Still somewhat skeptical but far less when many of the nuances were covered

This channel deserves millions of subscribers, top quality.

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

Thanks Tijl!

@identity2257

Жыл бұрын

Shitty resources and information collecting, more like deserves much less subscribers

@0xszander0

Жыл бұрын

@@MoneyMacro Truly is! Best macro content. One tiny little tip I wanna give is to improve audio a little. It can sound a little muffled sometimes compared to some other top channels. Maybe just a little eqing in the top end can already do the trick :)

Absolutely fascinating insight to assess economic growth in relation to night time lighting... inspired

If the nightlight growth vs GDP isn't dependent on industry an is instead dependent on the freeness of the nation then we we should expect the variance to be minimal between two regions in a country. This means that if a touristy region doubles its GDP we should expect about the same light growth as if tech focused regions doubles its GDP.

As an architecture student who had lived in China in the past, I am not sure I believe the findings of this paper to quite the extent as you do. I think urban typology is heavily important when considering nightlight growth, countries like the US, Canada or Australia rely heavily on auto dependent suburbia with low density housing and large distances involved, American cities are the physically largest cities in the world by quite some margin, even with medium sized populations. China meanwhile and much of east Asia and other autocratic states like Russia or places in the former USSR are definitely poorer than the US, however, their cities are characterized by high density pedestrianised tower complexes with rarer but larger arterial roads with few exceptions. We have few examples of western style suburban development in authoritarian states outside of places like Dubai. To put things simply, a standard Chinese residential tower can house say roughly 500 people, a small cluster of 6 towers can house a whole towns worth of people but they may only need say 20 street lamps for the whole development which is typically pedestrianised, more so, that development won't take up a lot of land so won't seem very big when viewed from space. That same town in the US would have perhaps 900 detached houses, with each on average having a suburban road connection and a streetlight in close proximity to the door to the house, this is not even considering roof lights or skylights or garden lighting, which are far more common in suburban developments. The American development might take up to 20 times the area of the Chinese development and as a result emit nearly 20 times the light, even though both developments have the same population. Dense tower based developments do not emit nearly as much light as typical Western suburbia in large part due to the limitations imposed by the typology of building emitting the light. Don't get me wrong, I still think China is inflating it's GDP figures, but 60% seems far too much to me.

@ChadPANDA...

Жыл бұрын

A comparison with japan , india and Vietnam would certainly make it clear whether the GDP growth/ night light growth theory has any truth to it . Imo it 20 % smaller than official figures compared to 60% smaller as such fraudulent data would've already been caught by world bank or imf or even usa.

@MysteryKmt

Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@singularityraptor4022

Жыл бұрын

You made it sound like only poor nations don't follow American style suburbias which is laughable and not true.

@nerfherder4284

Жыл бұрын

When a country is run by autocrats who want to be the largest economy you'll find that it's easier to fudge the numbers than actually grow. Ask D.J. tRump, the inflator in chief.

@DavidSmith-nx3zw

Жыл бұрын

Chinese bots everywhere nowadays. How much rice you got writing all this?

They are certainly smaller than official reports, but 60% seems too much. I would bet 30-40% compared to official numbers. The metodology also has a vague point, after a certain threshold of development, more electricity and more energy will not just occupy more space, several sweatshops producing clothes in Bangladesh can easily emit the same light Google's headquarters does. Economies speciallize and grow in extremely complex products, not just size and volume. After some point, you Will not just detect more light. Great video as always Joeri.

@stephenjenkins7971

Жыл бұрын

I agree, to me this paper is using the worst possible estimates to get attention and clout. It seems very unlikely to me that so much of China's economy is basically faked, but I could be wrong.

@FutureBoyWonder

Жыл бұрын

I agree with your statement except even 30% seems extreme The argument in the paper and yours can only imply intentional and nefarious lying and to successfully dupe the entire globe for so many years jist seems entirely too far fetched. Even 30% of their GDP is such a colossal number that concrete and irrefutable evidence would be had years ago

@stephenjenkins7971

Жыл бұрын

@@FutureBoyWonder At no point is that statement extreme. It has been a trend all throughout history to exaggerate economic growth to keep people content; it's not nefarious as it is short-sighted for the sake of political stability. There are no barriers to stop such things and thus it becomes far too attractive to not do so. Noticeably, I said exaggerate, not completely make up. As long as people in China FEEL some improvements, then the real economic numbers don't matter all that much and can easily be justified. It doesn't take much to dupe the world when the world takes a country at face value. GDP is not something you can find with evidence, you can only discern it by parsing through the data of an entire country which only said country's government can accomplish. So the end result is; any attempts to disprove said stats can only come from within, which is impossible for China due to government control over media, or be judged through a less accurate but more honest method like the paper made.

@castor3020

Жыл бұрын

He said 60% of the size of current AKA 40% smaller. 30-40% of the size of current would be 60-70% smaller.

@pachekusdimitrescus1

Жыл бұрын

China's GDP is certainly smaller than what they claim it to be, however if it was 60% smaller it would have massive implications because you can lie about statistics; but this true to a certain extent due to these "numbers" exposing an economy that it's not true at all. In my country, Spain, if the offical gdp fake was around what France has it wouldn't make sense because the median annual wage is around 25k while France is closer to 35k (maybe a bit more); it is also important to take into account that these 2 countries have different ammount of inhabitants; but still, my point is that you can't present a flawed number if that precise number is showing an opposite reality or very different atleast... and as far as I'm concerned China GINI is 38,2 therefore gdp is moderately distributed and not kept by a small percentage of the population

TLDR also used night light as a measure of GDP. Your broadcast was both informative and entertaining.

Sorry for out of topic but what watch do you wear?

There is one concern with nightlight data that you could mention : saturation. It doesn't mean that the calculation is wrong or anything like that, but rather than a straight line it's likely that the relationship between nightlight growth and GDP growth is concave in GDP (when GDP becomes larger, light intensity is more saturated so it grows slower for the same growth rate of the economy). So my only concern with the paper is that the relationship is overstated because Chinese economic growth is concentrated in rich areas where saturation is more of a thing. It would be cool to check the relationship for different provinces in China as a robustness check if you have the data !

@diegomartinez6100

Жыл бұрын

Honestly, it sounds like you've got a chunk of money sitting in China, and this is a rationalization to make yourself feel better rather than any logical conclusion or argument.

@abd5596

Жыл бұрын

@@diegomartinez6100 Nah I'm an academic doing economic research using nightlight as well so I was just pointing out the caveats that we all face when working on this ! What an aggressive tone !

@DiegoMartinezCoria

Жыл бұрын

@@abd5596 Apologies if I came off that way, the Chinese economy is like the recent American election, subject to a lot of hype and incorrect numbers because of vested interests. A lot of the analysis regarding China has felt like people rationalizing their beliefs as opposed to anything factual, especially when you take into account the irregularities regarding their economy and population as well, both of which have been inflated by people on the ground that just want more funding for their particular municipality/regional government. Personally, I expect the CCP to spend the next couple of years dealing with threats to it's very existence, akin to '89 and this time furthered by the advent of the internet. People now can see what the other side lives like, and Xi has neither the chutzpah nor the balls to push China back to a pre-Deng Xiaoping sort of society.

@donaldduck830

Жыл бұрын

I agree with most of the above, but a different approach. In the video the question was: Do you trust China's numbers or this research? I would trust the numbers of almost anybody over the official numbers of China. Most importantly I observed a few years ago how shipping went down and two big shipping companies went bust (around 2015/16 iirc). China's exports faltered but the official gdp growth numbers were +6.5% as forecast. I don't think so. And they fudged the numbers for decades. So yeah, I believe the research 100%.

@LiuXiang411

Жыл бұрын

I worked in both US and China. When I worked in US, we left all lights on for thew whole night even nobody in the office building. In China, we have to turn off lights before leaving. Chinese is very conservative on energy consumption.

Hey bud, Sorry about Henry. Pets become family and their loss is huge. I know editing the end won't have been easy. Sending my love out champion. We're here for you. Thanks for the video. I've been saying something similar for a few years now.

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

Thank you. It wasn't an easy edit for sure. But, in the end, I felt blessed to have the opportunity to do something like this for him.

@Xylos101

Жыл бұрын

@@MoneyMacro None of us are permanent, unlike the growth of CCP GDP. Look after yourself please mate. I've lost two brothers to cars. Still miss em dearly but life is for living not being sad. You can do that later.

Great analysis

Your all videos are very interesting

My biggest concern is the paper's claim to be able to control for confounding variables. Not just are there so many crucial factors to consider but it's easy to see how they might correlate strongly with a countries status of democracy. However, your comparison between India and China seems very interesting. It should be much more doable to examine the reasons for their specific discrepancy in light to gdp growth rates.

@sacredceltic

Жыл бұрын

India has plain sight brothels open at night, China hasn’t, it’s all hidden…

@qgyunyc

Жыл бұрын

India Standard Time is 2.5 hours behind China Standard Time. Meaning if you measure the light intensity of Indian cities at their peak values, ~8:00PM, most Chinese have already gone to bed. This, of course, assumes those images weren't modified. Forget satellite photos, just look at power generation numbers. China generally produces more than 5 times that of India, or about twice as much as the United States.

@ravishbhasin7041

Жыл бұрын

@@qgyunyc yes and thats why streetlights must've been closed too. Makes sense only if its sarcasm.

@neveryahoo3318

Жыл бұрын

China is the only developing country to successfully prevent informal settlements, i.e shanty towns, being built. Over 1 million people live in basements in Beijing whereas India has large slums built entirely above ground.

@user-sl6gn1ss8p

Жыл бұрын

The correlation on the graph he shows for china vs india seems to be incredibly low though. Like, I haven't checked the math, but just look at it, there's no way the data gives strong support for those lines

Condolences 😢.

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@apidas

Жыл бұрын

I'm so sorry for the cat

@bumbiedumb

Жыл бұрын

I’m really curious, have you ever step foot into china??!?

I remember back more than 10 years ago I wrote an paper on Sino-American relations and American declinism. Some paper i cites went on about Chinese government accounting "cooking the books", one example being that they recorder record high automobile purchases (domestically) but without a corresponding rate of gasoline sales.

One must also consider the switch to LED street lighting. LED light can be directed down and throws less light into the night sky which could affect the results.

I'm so sorry to hear about Henry. You're doing a great job, Joeri. Thank you very much for making macroeconomics more accessible and doing it in a such elegant, knowledgeable and accessible way!

@LMB222

Жыл бұрын

WTF is wrong with you, folks‽ Here's a serious topic being discussed, and you whine about a cat?

@phillip76

Жыл бұрын

I imagine folks don 't like china, and that is why there is popularity with these estimates. The underlying assumption is pretty stupid tho. We can't compare china with other countries. More accurately, we should compare countries next to china, and with similar bloodline and culture as China: Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Singapore etc.. China is exceptional because it got an exceptional population. Secondly, the correlation between gdp growth and light intensity isn't linar. It is linear up to a point, but diminish in return as a approximation of national output.

@indiasuperclean6969

Жыл бұрын

WOW SIRR VERY DANGEROUS !!😠😠😠 BUT THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA 🤗🇮🇳 THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD , WE NEVER DO SCAM AND WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

As a Chinese, I agree. Our GDP is 96% smaller than reported figures. We can't even afford to eat. Every lunch time, we all need to walk to India for free curry just so we can survive until the following day.

@user-de2qu3yn1v

Жыл бұрын

hhhhhhhhh

@Profit_Momo_Pdf-File

Жыл бұрын

at least you can't afford babies😂😂😂

@karmathefirst1945

Жыл бұрын

so that's why you guys eat bats 💀💀

@user-os5ou4kc2q

Жыл бұрын

@ karmathefirst1945 No one eats bats in China. This is all false news. The virus came from the United States. It was leaked by the laboratory there. You can look it up. E-cigarette pneumonia.

@user-bg4ly8zv3i

11 ай бұрын

战忽局哪都有啊，hhh

Good stuff

Zoals steeds: zeer professionele video. Interessant onderwerp, goede en duidelijke uitleg. Je weet heel goed de aandacht vast te houden. Heel erg dat Henry naar de overzijde is gegaan. Hij heeft een leven van een prins gehad. We zullen macrokat missen in de volgende filmpjes!!!

@johnwt7333

Жыл бұрын

Wie is Henry?

@AricHaldan0782

Жыл бұрын

@@johnwt7333 de kat.

Thank you for your analysis, as always, and I am so so sorry about Henry. May the little guy rest in peace 😿.

Another key point is that the Chinese government has been implementing foreign exchange controls to prevent the free convertibility of the currency, which has greatly increased the valuation of the RMB; would be overrated.

@lolasdm6959

11 ай бұрын

RMB is both overvalued and undervalued, there are already enough videos on the topic.

True that the Chinese official figures are to be suspected as ever (BTW, interestingly, it is said that sometimes they adjust the GDP numbers down when things are too good so that over the long run, the numbers will smooth out). But it can't be 60% wrong. If it is, we would know from their standard of living.

@carkawalakhatulistiwa

Жыл бұрын

can you tell the difference between the lighting of an apartment vs. a single-family house by relying solely on WEST's satellite photos from outer space. you basic western hypocrisy

@user-xj7vu5cl4s

11 ай бұрын

thank you .

@steffengustavsen9678

7 ай бұрын

In china electric vehicles are 40% of sales. In a dirt poor communist countries like the US where everyone live in commie blocks same figures are 7%.

Wait, if they're economy was like half the size they say it is... Shouldn't that be like blindingly obvious and everyone should agree? Like it's not a small lie.

@ericjiang7986

Жыл бұрын

I am thinking about that too, if it’s that different, then people wouldn’t consider it a threat

@gabriellechow4440

Жыл бұрын

One trip to China and you'll know it will overtake the US economy. Channels like these are just coping because they cannot accept that very obvious fact. What is not made in China these days? 1.4 billion highly motivated people who work hard to produce products and services will of course overtake a much smaller population, no matter how exceptional the US is, or was.

@konstantinriumin2657

Жыл бұрын

His method is very unreliable. In hard sciences it would have never passed review

@adhirbose9910

Жыл бұрын

Yes and No. If certain interest groups, in the West aside from the CCP stand to make a ( financial) killing by pumping up the bubble, and then exit at the right time just before the bubble bursts and the gullible people have deposited all their money into the ( sinking) hole, then they will turn a Nelson's eye.

@hkchan1339

Жыл бұрын

It’s also believed that china overstated their population size as well. So it’s not surprising the GDP is fake and off the mark. As to why provinces fake their population numbers, love govts can get more salary cheques and farm/school subsidies from faking the numbers. Population growth targets are also assigned to local govts as a KPI of performance It’s very difficult to audit the true number in a dictatorship as any attempt will get you a one way ticket to prison

So sorry of your great loss. Rest in peace, Henry. You’ll be missed.

We always remember to turn off the lights when left the office and never get a bulk stack of napkins from McDonald's when we just order a happy meal.

this sounds like economist's version of astrology ngl

I wish I had access to the paper, because there's a lot of factors that I'd love to read about, to know how they were accounted for: 1. Density- the USA is incredibly sprawl-y. For example, a huge percentage of land in the USA is devoted to single family homes, and I cannot imagine these look 100x dimmer than a towering residential building since the lower floors will be covered by the upper floors. But even focusing on single family homes though; they're huge in the USA, with huge driveways and lots of road-space in between. I've seen other countries build closer together, with less driveway space. I imagine brightness from space is a function of factors like window-size and the asphalt around a building the light can bounce off, which will be lower for denser countries. Moreover, countries with better rail and public transport will see less lights at night from trucks and trailers. 2. Authoritarianism & data-points- how is this calculated? I don't doubt this hypothesis is probably true for some countries, but in order to show a trend one needs a consistent measure of "authoritarianism" which sounds like it could be subjective. Moreover, is the sample size all countries? Wouldn't the omission of countries be a possibility for counter examples that would muddle the data and erase a clearly-visible trend? 3. Culture- Where I'm from we turn off the lights at night, and one thing that surprised me in the USA is just how laissez-faire it is with electricity. This is also a place that's quite thorough with public lighting, and I can only imagine it has at least partially to do with a cultural looming sense of disaster and distrust for one's neighbors. All streets have public lighting here, even the ones that are not that transited, the huge parking lots of supermarkets (you don't see those in China), etc. Can we assume that other nations will demand the same level of public illumination when they develop? I live in the USA now and have certainly grown more accustomed to "leaving the lights on", but not to the degree of other people here. I can imagine there's a whole generation or two in China who are still very mindful of energy conservation in spite of their increased purchasing power, which could show in residential areas, and if their perception of security is also different, why waste energy? I have to wonder also how points 1 & 3 above correlate with "authoritarianism". Ie, would an "authoritarian" country give a greater sense of security to people, thus reduce their desire for public lighting? Or perhaps state-affiliated energy/development companies simply set up less public lighting since consumer demands matter less? Are denser countries more likely to be "authoritarian" or vice versa? I don't doubt China's numbers are made-up to some degree, though speaking of China's case, a ballpark 3x difference in official vs real economy size sounds crazy, and the correlation between brightness and GDP sounds true but very variable from culture to culture, history to history, city to city.

@Pasta_Pirate

Жыл бұрын

Same by itself this leaves too many questions I can believe theyd perhaps mess around with it, but him deciding to extrapolate from these numbers is also ill advised since the author certainly had a reason he didn't do so himself. Furthermore I completely agree with your points and wish that while making such a groundbreaking/clickbait claim to expand and find other references aka import/export data, resources, capital flows, standard of living, and various other components and tie that into this since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and one paper (even a good paper) indicating something might be the case alone is at best a starting point.

@vince14genius

Жыл бұрын

I agree with you on #2 and #3, but for #1 don't forget that there are many dense/transit-oriented democratic countries and sprawling/car-dependent authoritarian countries as well.

@mma93067

Жыл бұрын

Exactly. I’d like to see the dataset and controls used for analysis. Have they accounted for cultural differences like asian families who have multiple generations in a single household vs nuclear families? Relative safety of the region? Suburban areas vs nightlife zones? There are a lot of controls required that i can’t take this at face value. At worst, this😊 is the perfect example of “correlation does not imply causation”

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/BFI_WP_2021-78.pdf

@jackzhou4813

Жыл бұрын

@@Pasta_Pirate It is very simple. You need to get the real GDP of China, and infer it by looking at the trade volume between China and other countries in the world. It should be the most accurate. Only commodities and trade can truly reflect the GDP of each country.

Well, he didn't realize Chinese city residents live in very tall apartments. The light on those tall builds projecting to the space are not proportional to a single-story house.

Please keep future Macrocats indoors. Indoors live longer, obviously. Great and wonderful, educated guesstimates based off of 'official' reported data and collected data of both related and unrelated sources.

very nice breakdown

I was born in China and moved to the UK with my parents when I was 10, I went back to China every couple of years to visit my grandparents and everything I was astonished by how much the city has changed, and this has been happening in the past 15 years. This could be the fact that my parents are living in the coastal region of China where the trade flourished, whereas the development of the middle and west part of China is lacking behind, but I tend to believe the development at least in my region, is real.

@Intranetusa

Жыл бұрын

First and second tier cities likely have real development. The other lower tier and more rural places have bad incentives for economic growth like building apartment buildings that nobody lives in and endlessly funding unnecessary construction so they meet central government GDP quotas.

@Mr-fy6zb

Жыл бұрын

I believe the development to be very real too; however, not as rapid as is presented by official data

@maritaschweizer1117

Жыл бұрын

I agree with your subjektive impression. I often visit Ningbo and it is astonishing if you look the New buildings. But as soon as you go into a the company than it is shocking how inneffective the production process is. Better production and less expensive building would convince me more.

@difficiliscarere9838

Жыл бұрын

Most definitly devolopment is real. China can claim the biggest economic miracle that ever happened. Even in this portrayed scenario China still would be the second largest economy, just not as close to the US as their own released data would make it seem. We will certainly know in 10 years or so :D

@Tommi414

Жыл бұрын

Some parts of China definitely experienced development. The research piece is not disputing that. It’s just saying that that development was overstated.

Few MAJOR red flags with this paper: > Data was originally collected by the U.S. Air Force on behalf of the MIC - untrustworthy collector, potential data manipulation > Luminosity measurements recorded during mid-eve period (8:30-10pm) across the year *rather than an early eve period closer to standard working hours* (e.g. 6pm-9pm), measured as averaged pixel intensity measurements - a time period that would correlate more to household electricity use than industrial electricity use > No positive control used as another correlate of GDP (e.g. tax data) > No 'null hypothesis' - the paper opens with the premise that autocratic regimes *do* (rather than *may*) exaggerate GDP once surpassing the GNI per capita threshold for claiming benefits through the International Development Association (IDA) > No negative control used - e.g. the author could, and in my opinion should, have been also using NTL to correlate GNI per capita with household electricity use, for which the mid-eve period he measured would be a better correlate. This is because GNI per capita is the threshold at which regimes may claim financial aid from the GNI, so the incentive for low-income developing countries would be to fudge the statistics for as long as possible to maintain aid - another indicator of regime untrustworthiness. To his credit, the paper's author did rigourously collate and analyse this data, and shows in Table C4 the year at which countries became ineligible for IDA assistance. China became ineligible in 2000, 4 years behind of Indonesia (dictatorship until 1999) but 10 years ahead of democratic India and 13 years ahead of Pakistan (dictatorship in 1999 gradually democratised in the 00's and 10's)

@oldernu1250

Жыл бұрын

Bet you have investments in China and talk your book. Bulletin: all Chinese stats are bull.

@davidrowland6

Жыл бұрын

@@oldernu1250 As the old saying goes: there are lies, damned lies, and statistics :D

@zhess4096

Жыл бұрын

@@oldernu1250 I don't get why western people are scared of China, so what if they have a different government; it clearly works for them. It feels like the western media just wants to see China fail. Why don't we want to help each other succeed?

@zainahmad1621

Жыл бұрын

@@oldernu1250 That sounds like someone who has investments in the US or EU

@zainahmad1621

Жыл бұрын

@@oldernu1250 And just like the paper, your opinion is hardly something I'd call unbiased

interesting way to calculate a country's GDP, not totally convinced me but it's very interesting and valuable. Nice video!

Thank you

I'm a data scientist and trying to find a correlation between a country's GDP and satellite surveillance of a country's night life and calling it a "calculation that's rough around the edges" is an understatement lool.

@jds1275

Жыл бұрын

Energy output. More energy requires more resources to sustain, which requires more money.

@royarnehansen

Жыл бұрын

They did create a baseline by doing the same research for a lot of countries to be able to see patterns so maybe a bit less rough on the edge than you might suspect. But of course, if you add a few more metrics to the data set you would be more accurate, but what else can you measure when the official data owners are also the data manipulators. The number of smartphones or something?

@ianlouden7939

Жыл бұрын

@@royarnehansen you can't use smartphones as a metric, more people on the planet own a smartphone than they have running water and a toilet!

@missk1697

Жыл бұрын

@@royarnehansen 1. energy consumption 2. trade balance 3. emissions

Thank you for your considered, researched and scrutinizable content. Always well received. Also, much love to you on the passing of Henry. I hope the knowledge that his presence in your videos obviously brought a smile to many helps bring a smile to yours when you think of him 🙂

Perhaps a more plausible approach to validate this light theory would be to check against energy generation/consumption?

Their reported GDP figures are in line with electricity consumption figures, and also with trade quantities.

Sorry about the lost of Henry, it is hard to loss a family member. Wishing you the best Joeri.

A very intresting point. In order to reaffirm the data, maybe a few more data points should be collected: -infrared radition into space (= Energy consumption) -foreign trade -money spent by Chinese tourists abroad (via credit card and ATM withdrawl) -car traffic -cargo traffic on chinese rivers, railroads and freeways The problem that I see, is that a direct correlation between economic power and light emitted is probably very difficult. The light-emission curve is probably very steep at the beginning when people start to afford electricity, but once people's need for light has been satisfied, I doubt that further GDP-groth will lead to substainial further light emission groth.

@primeradiant827

Жыл бұрын

Also Chinese cities tend to grow upwards not outwards. As most live in tower apartment blocks and not inefficient sprawling suburbs. This study just sounds like a desperate cope and more fuel for the anti-China train.

@EzraMerr

Жыл бұрын

​@@primeradiant827 the light intensity would show, that's the issue; you can't come here like a 无毛 and call him "anti-共产党" , he's just asking a question that has come to light from a research paper, other developing nations with growing economies also prefer constructing high rises and apartments instead of villas and houses, and you can also see the light intensity growth as their gdp is reported to increase, I lived and worked in China closely with the government as an advisor, and I do know they like to change statistics for their own interests.

@EzraMerr

Жыл бұрын

Money spent by Chinese tourists is used to purchase luxury brands which they sell back in the mainland since the luxury items are cheaper in the west than China, although illegal; many 阿姨's do this business to sell for profit. Also ypu can't collect that information since Union Pay is chinese and does not allow any organisation besides the chinese financial body to observe transactions in real-time (live), foreign trade is already accounted for , and it has been dropping ever since 2018, since more regulations have increased product and labour cost, many companies are now looking to other developing countries to start manufacturing.

@ThorsMartell

Жыл бұрын

​@@EzraMerr Thank for the info. And thanks for responding in an academic matter. Having a civilized academic disscussion on the Internet is really hard... Yes, most of the data points I suggested are probably much harder to collect than light emission. However, I like the approach to collect data that is hard to manipulate. There should at last be data on infra-red radiation that would allow to meassure the energy consumption. The correlation between energy consumption and GDP is pretty reliable.

@yudogcome5901

Жыл бұрын

Trying to reflect a complex and unfamiliar society by creating simple iconic indicators. Is this person naive or lazy? I have a question. The infrared emission of LED bulbs is much lower than that of other bulbs. China has fully used LED bulbs many years ago and banned the sale of tungsten bulbs for lighting. Street lights are also fully LED, so you think your data Will it be correct?

@Money & Macro Great Video! I wanted to ask this: There is one issue I heard recently. Some KZreadrs are claiming that inflation was calculated differently in the past and was more accurate. The whole point was that we have stagflation, like in the 70s, but the economists are hiding it through stat padding. Does this claim have any basis?

@MoneyMacro

Жыл бұрын

Yes and no. Yes, they changed how they measure inflation then to account for changes in product quality. E.g. a car today is much more advanced than a car in the 1970s, which might account for some of it's price increase. But, as far as I can tell e.g. some alternatives like 'shadowstats' calculations are very rough estimations, not a proper analysis. There are also quite a few studies (like the billion prices project) that find that CPI is not perfect. But, pretty accurate. So, for now, I would say this claim is loosely anchored to reality. But, mostly overblown. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.30.2.151

@Ducac321

Жыл бұрын

@@MoneyMacro Hey, thank you for the quick response. I'll read the article for sure. It was just something that seems plausible as every time I go to the store or look at the housing prices it seems like there is more than an 8% increase, I feel like I wouldn't have even noticed if there was an 8% increase in the price of anything. If you ever want to make a video about it it would be fun to watch. Thanks and keep up the good work!

I think it is a fascinating. Thank you.

When I first moved to Canada in 2010, I was so shocked at my high school not turning off lights at night.

@yl128pang3

Жыл бұрын

Canadians are proud it and are contributing more to Global warming ?

@terry1708

Жыл бұрын

Not only the school, almost all the company don't.

@guq6012

Жыл бұрын

In China, most buildings turn off lights at night. Only street lights are left on. I bet Mr. Martinez will have to write a second paper to adjust his conclusions.

@kzmino4923

Жыл бұрын

do china's high shcool students study at night with candle?

@user-wh9er8pe9n

Жыл бұрын

@@kzmino4923 是的中国很落后的，都是用蜡烛有的时候还要用木头点起篝火来学习。

I heard about this study and had some questions about the methodology. I appreciate that you covered a lot of the details of the study.

@rcbrascan

Жыл бұрын

This night light GDP analysis has been going on since 2005 and Martinez's 2018 paper has been peer reviewed but the video did not report on the results of the reviews. Economists said this type of night light GDP analysis falls under bad-faith analysis and often inaccurate. I think there is a 2022 paper from an University in New Zealand that debunked this analysis.

9:18 What is that!? It's like an oil refinery with giant Christmas lights. That's hilarious, and adorable, kinda

You've got to be kidding me! I can't believe any serious economist would use such ridiculous factors as “night lights” to gauge a country's economy. I don't know about you, but normal people do not engage in production activities at night! More lights at night would, at best, indicate a country has a richer nightlife. For a country like the US, which doesn't have much industrial capacity left and drives its GDP mostly by its services sector, there might be a correlation between night lights and GDP growth. Imagine all those nightclubs with shiny neon lights. However, for an industrial powerhouse like China, the most GDP-creating activities happen during the daytime. In fact, you may use less nightlight to argue that China has a more vibrant economy because most people have to go to bed early to be productive at the workplace during the daytime. Only people who don't need to work the next day would stay up late. If you want to find alternative indicators of a country's economy, why don't you look at energy consumption or import and export data? If you know economics, you'd know it's very hard to manipulate these numbers. I bet that if you study China's import and export data for the past few decades and can be objective, you'd definitely find support for China's officially released GDP data. And the whole “authoritarian” versus “democratic” data trustworthiness is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, which only goes to show your inherent bias. I'll point out one major flaw in your argument. You suggest that the Chinese government fudges its GDP data to deceive the world, citing a report as evidence that claims the Chinese premier publicly stated he doesn't trust the government's GDP data. However, would someone deliberately lying openly admit he’s lying? That would defeat the whole purpose of lying, wouldn’t it? In fact, the Chinese premier never made such a statement; it’s once again a misinterpretation by Western media. Lastly, if China's economy were truly overblown to such an extent, why would the US leadership be so concerned about China potentially surpassing the US? Don’t you think they have access to better data and intelligence than you

Rest In Peace macrocat, you were loved by your owner and thousands around the world 😢

@subasthapa4839

Жыл бұрын

💖

Very sad news to hear of the loss of Henry, I always enjoyed seeing him in your videos. My condolences to you, Joeri, he will be missed. RIP ❤

@indiasuperclean6969

Жыл бұрын

WOW SIRR VERY DANGEROUS !!😠😠😠 BUT THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA 🤗🇮🇳 THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD , WE NEVER DO SCAM AND WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

@VMRDY

Жыл бұрын

@@indiasuperclean6969 Okay bot.

It's interesting, when USSR was competing with the US, they spent significant chunk of the budget on their space program. While China only needs to adjust some numbers.

saw in EE's comments that you critise him occasionally instantly subscribed, keep up the good work

I'm so sorry for your loss (Macrocat). It's the first video I see of yours and I immediately subscribed to your channel. I am certainly not qualified to refute any of the points in the document, and I must admit that I am glad to believe that China is far from imposing itself on the world economic power.

I appreciate that you take non-partisan dives into the evidence and accept criticism. When discussing a question like this, it's very easy for content creators, or even researchers to be heavily biased - like when oil execs pay researchers to understate or outright deny climate change. A lot of China critics work off of faulty evidence, but you took an even deeper dive into a well-renowned paper, supplementing further evidence and including disclaimers. So, thank you. It's really been hard for me to find unbiased news and research.

@JK-br1mu

Жыл бұрын

that doesn't happen, you just don't like contrarian views from people on climate change, sometimes funded by the Oil Boogeyman that you try to demonize........even when the people making contrarian claims have a long, established record of credibility in the field..........and weak diversion attempt from China's GDP lies

@penskepc2374

Жыл бұрын

Or when environmentalist get funding from solar and electric lobbyists and outright lie about biomass and biofuel, same thing

@phillip76

Жыл бұрын

I imagine folks don 't like china, and that is why there is popularity with these estimates. The underlying assumption is pretty stupid tho. We can't compare china with other countries. More accurately, we should compare countries next to china, and with similar bloodline and culture as China: Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Singapore etc.. China is exceptional because it got an exceptional population. Secondly, the correlation between gdp growth and light intensity isn't linar. It is linear up to a point, but diminish in return as a approximation of national output.

@indiasuperclean6969

Жыл бұрын

WOW SIRR VERY DANGEROUS !!😠😠😠 BUT THIS WHY IM SO LUCKY LIVE IN SUPER INDIA 🤗🇮🇳 THE CLEANEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD , WE NEVER DO SCAM AND WE GIVE RESPECT TO ALL WOMEN THEY CAN WALK SAFELY ALONE AT NIGHT AND WE HAVE CLEAN FOOD AND TOILET EVERYWHERE 🇮🇳🤗🚽, I KNOW MANY POOR PEOPLE JEALOUS WITH SUPER RICH INDIA 🤗🇮🇳🤗🇮🇳🤗

@vancouverbarista

Жыл бұрын

@@phillip76 There are interest in these estimates because the CCP is an authoritarian government who controls media and censors speech in their country. It is difficult to get accurate information about what is actually happening, like their GDP growth. Please explain why race has anything to do with economics? but sure compare china to Taiwan, Japan etc they have all performed much better economically and present accurate statistics, which is nice

Did Martinez's research look at whether China has been using more energy efficient lightings (than the US)? Judging a GDP over/understatement based on night light seems flimsy at best.

China produces way more electricty than US though. The energy comsumption is propotional to real GDP, the electricty prodction is far more acurate than some satellite photo.

I absolutely agree with you, I'm a Serbian guy living and working in China, 5 years in Beijing, 3 years in Guanzghou and almost 1 year in Foshan, and everything in China looks weird, buildings that are being made all around, even in the most distant parts of the cities ( in Foshan district Gaoming, for example, the whole new development is happening in 2022 and not just for living but luxury villas for tourist next to a small river that nobody cares about), bridges that are the bigger and the longest in the world and that not so many people are using, bullet trains that are going into nowhere. And at the same time south part of China does not have inside heating system, so this winter was pretty cold in Foshan, 4 degree outside and 4 degrees inside, kids from my bilingual, pretty expensive private school were freezing and teachers were freezing, but heating is not something that you can show off to the outside world so it doesn't matter. It seems that at the beginning Chinese communist party was doing some good and sustanable things ( for example bullet trains from Beijing to Shanghai) and aftet that success they confinue to do it to the second tier cities and Im sure that it is already not profitable and that they are losing the money but instead of stopping it they continue to build bullet trains into the third tier cities and that is when a catastrofe begun. It is the same problem with the covid zero case, 2020 was not bad, in 2021 we were the only country in the world that almost did not have any cases and we could freely do what ever we wanted all around China but then in january 2022 we got omicron, and the rest of the world stopped doing any lockdowns and after cavination of most of its population the other coutries just let omicrom make some kind of a herd immunity but China just could not stop, and they continue with a terrible 2 months lockdown in Shanghai that demolished the chinese economy in Q2 ( Im very sure that in 2022 Q2 GDP growth was negative, but they faked it and made it look 0.4%) and since pharaon Xi Jinping cannot be wrong they just continue insain zero case policy and they will continue it until at least 2027 and that will totally destroy Chinese economy. I left China for ever on June 30th, the last 6 months there were a nightmate, concentracion camp, waiting in the endless lines to do endless, every days test, most of the poor Chinese people know that omicrom is like a flu but there is nothing that they can do against Mao Xi Jinping Zedong.

@bulbigood6558

Жыл бұрын

trying to look good when playing badly leads to disastrous consequences (Germany 1945, Russia 2022) The first thing that suffers is ordinary people.

@slanwar

Жыл бұрын

So we have 3 world leaders destroying their own economy, Biden, Xi and Putin.......

@THEGIPPER34

Жыл бұрын

I only visited for 10 days 6 years ago but tried to look at the outskirts of the cities a little in between school organized events and it was very eye opening. Having some background in construction and seeing what was clearly building for buildings' sake with poor materials and workmanship knowing it didn't matter if it worked or lasted was very concerning and told me the economy was far worse than anyone believed. I felt for a lot of the people I could tell were just getting by from those more rural rural parts

@jakubgadzala7474

Жыл бұрын

Live in Guangdong for last decade, totally agree. Nothing here makes sense after having a better look at things around.

@dissdent6498

Жыл бұрын

As a Chinese, I totally agree with what you said. But I need to add that Xi's media has greatly exaggerated the severity of Omicron, and ordinary people do not think that it is a flu. I was living in lockdown when I replied to your message. I had a cold a while ago, but I couldn't buy medicine. I can only suffer and pray. Buying groceries is like going back to Soviet times. However, my family told me that life is more important than freedom. You left China, you are lucky and happy.

It's in the U.S.'s best interest to assume China is a threat regardless of the reality. This is how we are kept on our toes and hopefully out of complacency.

@danhtran6401

Жыл бұрын

China is beyond ungrateful for retaliating against the US. Don't forget it was the US that made China second in the world. How would you feel if the person you fed betrayed you?....

@crescentprincekronos2518

Жыл бұрын

Because humans will fight humans? Always the same

@kamelkadri2843

Жыл бұрын

Exactly underestimating China is the main reason we're here, fentanyl on one hand, Taiwan on the other, Countries ditching dollar and siding with China and Economic collapse as more & more bow and kneel to China

@EzraMerr

Жыл бұрын

Never underestimate your enemy

@EzraMerr

Жыл бұрын

​@CrescentPrince Kronos from the start the CCP (共产党) have been calling for the death of Americas for over 70 years now , if you call America an enemy expect America to take your threat seriously

Just discovered your channel. Like the content. Loved the cat. Then tragedy. I'm so sorry for your loss.😪

The best GDP estimate is not PPP or muh nightlight. Energy consumption is the economy-Kardashev scale. Based on energy consumption, Chinese economy is 160% time that of the USA.

Thank you for your presentation of the issues. Poor Macrocat 😭