An empirical investigation on the temporal properties of Chinaʹs GDP

This paper employs a structural time series model designed with three components of stochastic seasonality, trigonometric expression of cyclicality and local linear trend to investigate the evolutionary process of Chinaʹs GDP. In particular, the model is able to detect the stop–go feature of Chinaʹs economic growth, i.e., growth cycle, as well as business cycle. The empirical result suggests that most variation in Chinaʹs macroeconomic performance came from business cycle. The investigation of the three components along with historical events suggests that the Chinese economy had been largely influenced by political activities up to the early 1990s. In the mid-1990s China entered a period of stable and highly growing economy, thanks to the economic reform and the successful implementation of macroeconomic policies. However, since the mid-2000s China has become more sensitive to the turbulences in international markets. In the foreseeable future, the challenge facing China is a more volatile economy with possible slowdown in the economic growth, although the growth rate would still be high compared to developed economies.