The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been known to alter its economic data. A study published in October used night-time light to determine that China, as well as other autocracies, overstate their gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates.
The U.S. study gathered night-time light (NTL) data from satellites and used that to measure the exaggeration of official GDP data of autocratic regimes.
It found that autocracies overstate their GDP by about 35 percent.
The study, published in October in the Journal of Political Economy, is authored by Luis R. Martínez, an assistant professor at Harris School of Public Policy and the College, University of Chicago….