Is it true that the US intentionally over calculates it’s GDP to make it seem larger than it actually is?  If so, how does it do that and what would its true GDP be?

美国真的故意抬高自己的GDP了吗？它是如何做到的？美国的真实GDP是多少？

以下是Quora网友的评论：

Jim Parker

That is a great question David, and it points squarely at an outdated notion about the world, the population and the economy.

150 years ago most Americans labored to have enough food to eat. Most of us lived on a farm or near one. Within fifty years the invention of mechanical harvesters and oil burning tractors meant that big farms could manage huge operations with five percent of the manpower formerly required. By 1930 it had become a huge social problem—millions of farmers out of work, and with no means to make a living.

David，这个问题问得很好，直指一个关于世界、人口和经济的过时观念。

150年前，大多数美国人通过辛劳的工作换取足够的食物。大多数人都住在农场或农场附近。

过了不到50年，机械收割机和燃油拖拉机的发明意味着大农场只需从前所需人力的5%就足以进行大规模的生产。

到1930年时，这已经成为一个巨大的社会问题，数百万农民失业，无以谋生。

Government and industry responded. Markets recovered sufficiently to harness the new manufacturing workforce, which replaced the huge agricultural workforce. Exports of manufactured goods and agricultural products accounted for a vast part of American prosperity and it was measured with a phrase: Gross National Product.

政府和工厂做出了回应。市场的复苏雇佣了新的制造业劳动力，这些劳动力取代了庞大的农业劳动力。工业产品和农产品的出口为美国的繁荣发展做出了很大贡献，可以用一个术语来衡量：国民生产总值GNP。

Today American workers and creators are part of a global economy. GNP (and its successor GDP) no longer are very relevant because the real story no longer centers around the government attempting to plan and allocate capital and resources. Maybe in a few years economists will discover a new way to talk about the free movement of ideas and capital.

如今，美国的工人和创造者是全球经济的一部分。GNP(和后来的GDP)无法准确反映经济发展的成果。因为经济已经不再围绕政府的规划和资本和资源的分配。也许几年后，经济学家会发现一种新的方式来谈论思想和资本的自由流动。

Anonymous

This is sheer nonsense.

这纯属胡说八道。

The GDP data is not some estimate or a number generated by a three man secret department. It is collected at the company level, that is, 10 million real inputs, summarized by zip code and by industrial classification, and compared with economic census data of number of employees, and aggregate bank data of ceposits and transfers, and involves the work of 50,000 people in three departments of government, where it is scrutinized and corrected for missing data and estimates are reevaluted with corrections of several hundreds of downward and upward amounts, some as small as .00001%. The data are shared with marketing companies that make telephone contacts with the preparers of the input data to verify anomolies. The audit and verification stages alone are the work of over 800 people.

GDP数据不是什么估算的数据，也不是三人秘密小组统计的数字。GDP收集的是各家公司的数据，也就是1000万个真正的数据，通过邮政编码和工商行业分类进行汇总，再和经济普查数据中的员工数量，银行存款和转账数据等进行对比。

这个统计工作涉及到政府三大部门的50000名工作人员，遗失缺漏的数据得以审查和修正，还会对概算进行重新评估，上下调整，精确到0.00001%。

这些数据将开放给市场营销公司，这些公司会和录入数据的人员进行电话联系，核实异常情况。仅审核和验证环节就有800多人参与。

Aaron Brown

“The US” is not a single person with defined intentions. There are countries that politicize their economic statistics, and generally overstate GDP, but in the US the calculation is reasonably independent. Moreover many groups estimate US GDP in different ways and do not come to radically different conclusions.

That said, there are some large definitional and measurement issues with GDP. If you included unpaid work—like cleaning your home—the number would be much larger. If you subtracted environmental damage, the number would be much smaller.

“美国”不是带有明确意图的个人。有些国家将经济统计数据政治化，夸大GDP，但在美国，这种统计是独立进行的。此外，很多团体也会用各种方法估算美国GDP，得出的结论也大同小异。

尽管如此，GDP在定义和测算方面存在一些重大问题。如果算上无薪工作，比如打扫房间，这个数字会大得多。如果减去环境破坏，这个数字就会小得多。

These choices are not made by narrow political calculation of what helps the US, but you could ascribe a political aspect. A free-market economist might prefer methodologies that make GDP seem large compared to less developed or more socialist countries; a socialist economist might prefer the opposite.

这些选择并非出于对美国有利的狭隘政治考量，但你也可以将其归因于政治因素。自由市场经济学家可能更喜欢让GDP超越欠发达国家或社会主义国家的方法；社会主义经济学家可能会倾向于相反的观点。

TomW

Within the knowledgable circles of major corporations, banking and almost all of Wall Street, the idea of using economic numbers provided by the government is the source of a lot of jokes. Even when the numbers appear to come from non-government sources, they often rely on inputs to the calculations from government sources. All these people know that most of these economic numbers are pure bullshit and have been so politicized that they bear almost no basis in reality - a relative indicator at best.

在大公司、银行和几乎整个华尔街的知识圈子里，使用政府提供的经济数据的想法往往会惹出笑话。就算有些数据看似来自非政府机构，但也往往依赖于政府来源的原始数据。所有人都知道，这些经济数据大多纯属扯淡，而且已经被政治化干预过了—充其量只是一个相对指标。

The poster child of this data manipulation for political purposes is the unemployment number. When Trump was reporting under 5%, the real number was closer to 19%. The strict definition of what is included in that number makes it always look MUCH better than it really it.

这种出于政治目的的数据操纵的典型代表就是失业率。特朗普当年公布失业率低于5%，但实际数字逼近19%。这个数字中的严格定义总是让其比实际情况要好看得多。

The GDP number is similar. There is a serious effort to keep the GDP-to-Debt ratio as low as possible by redefining both the GDP and the national debt. They do this by defining certain debts as “unfuned liabilities” and by boosting the GDP number. Currently, that ratio is a not-to-scary 1.49 - meaning that our national debt is 149% of our GDP.

If you want the truth, First go see this site: U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

The official US National Debt in the upper left corner of the page. (about $26 trillion)

GDP数字也是如此。政府竭力矫饰GDP和国债，尽可能地将GDP与债务的比率保持在低位。他们将某些债务定义为“无资金担保债务”，提高GDP数字，实现了这一点。目前，两者的比率不算吓人，为1.49—这意味着我们的国债占GDP的149%。

如果你想知道实际数据，先看看这个网站：美国国债时钟：实时

美国官方国债约26万亿美元

Now go down to the last line above the advertisements and see the far-right entry labeled: US Unfunded Liabilities. Now ADD that to the US National Debt in the upper left corner of the page. The total is over $179 trillion that our government is really in debt. THAT is the real national debt. That is 895% of the GDP. Debt-to-GDP ratio is climbing every day.

That is 600% larger than the official published Debt-to-GDP ratio. If you believe the government numbers or the numbers that quantify government actions, then you are being manipulated and deceived.

现在，可以看到美国无资金担保债务。把它和美国国债相加，我们的政府的实际负债已超过179万亿美元了。这才是美国真正的国债规模，即GDP的895%。国债占GDP的比例每天都在攀升。

这比官方公布的国债占GDP的比例高出了600%。如果你相信政府的数字，那么你就上当受骗了。

David Tufte

There is not credible evidence to support this assertion. There never has been. It’s an urban myth.

Measuring GDP is a huge job, with many moving parts. No one claims it is 100% accurate … just much more comprehensive and accurate than any extent alternative.

There is a consulting group called World Economics that assesses the accuracy of different country’s GDP calculations. The U.S., like most of the richer countries, ranks near the top. This isn’t surprising: we have the money to invest in good data.

没有可靠的证据可以支持这一说法。从来没有过。这只是一个城市神话。

测算GDP是一项大工程，涉及到许多可变内容。没人敢说GDP是100%准确的，但已经比其他统计方式更全面准确了。

有一个名为“世界经济”的咨询小组，评估不同国家GDP计算的准确性。与大多数富裕国家一样，美国的排名也位列前茅。这并不稀奇：我们有资金，所以有良好的数据。

Don Cascini

The is a formula for calculating the GDP and it is based on data. As more information cones in the GDP is adjusted quarterly. Neither over or under estimated, just adjusted. You can Google tge formula for the specific calculation. W we are a very open nation, no need to fuck around with the numbers, they are what they are and we stand by them good or bad.

这是一个计算GDP的公式，是以数据为基础的。GDP会按季度根据实际情况进行调整。既不会高估也不会低估，只是据实调整。你们可以通过谷歌搜索具体的计算公式。我们是一个非常开放的国家，没有必要在数字上作假，该多少就多少，无论好坏，我们都接受。

Andy White

GDP is calculated by real money supply M2 X money velocity.

Real M2 Money Stock

If we do that for the US economy we get a GDP of $8.5 trillion.

What other GDP figures don't reflect is the difference created by inflation and relative prices. Other GDP calculations showing US GDP at $20 trillion are only accurate when calculating GDP domestically without considering inflation.

If you want to compare relative sizes across different economies across the world, the $8.5 trillion is what you need to use.

GDP由实际货币供应量M2 X货币周转率计算。

实际M2货币存量

如果我们通过这个方式计算美国经济，我们的GDP是8.5万亿美元。

GDP数据无法反映的是通胀和相对价格造成的差异。其他GDP计算显示，美国GDP为20几万亿美元，只有在不考虑通胀的情况下计算国内GDP才准确。

如果你想比较世界各国不同经济体的相对规模，你必须用8.5万亿美元进行对比。

Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam

Related

Is it true that China's GDP is overestimated? Which other countries underestimate/overestimate their GDP?

There are two ways to evaluate your GDP

Consumption

Production

中国的GDP真的被高估了吗？还有哪些国家高估/低估了他们的GDP？

有两种方法来测算你们国家的GDP

消费

生产

Many Countries evaluate GDP though the Consumption method wherein they evaluate how much is the Spending and base their assumption on the fact that All Amount Spent is on Goods and Services Produced and thus this is the GDP. However there is a flaw here.

First - Migrants - An Indian working for 1 year Onsite in US could earn $ 90K and spend $ 65K and this counts as Spending whereas HE WONT BE PRESENT THE FOLLOWING YEAR. Likewise Tourists who spend money also count when they shouldnt.

许多国家通过消费方法来评估GDP，他们评估支出金额，并假设所有的金额都花在购买商品和服务上，由此统计GDP。但这个方法有一个bug。

首先—移民—一个被派往美国工作1年的印度人可以赚9万美元，花6.5万美元，这被计入支出，但他第二年就不在美国了。同样，游客也会在不应该花钱的时候消费。

US uses the Consumption Method to calculate GDP since 1993.

The Consumption Method is perfect for Countries where Services is the Key

Chinas GDP by the Consumption Method was evaluated to be 16.52 Trillion Dollars

US GDP by Consumption Method was evaluated to be 24.05 Trillion Dollars

US, Canada, France, Italy, EU, HK all use the Consumption Model

美国从1993年就开始采用消费法统计GDP了。

这种消费模型对于那些以服务业为主的国家来说很完美。

按消费模型计算，中国的GDP为16.52万亿美元

美国的GDP为24.05万亿美元

美国、加拿大、法国、意大利、欧盟、中国香港都采用消费模型计算。

Many Countries evaluate the GDP through the Production Model or Manufacuring Model

They evaluate how much of Goods is produced and how much Inventory is sold

This method is very cumbersome but very accurate because Production is very well chronicled unlike Consumption. You may pay Cash to buy a Starbucks but a Factory will always list every Steel Plate it manufactures and uses.

This method is mainly used for Manufacturing economies like CHina , Vietnam, Indonesia , India, Bangladesh and even Pakista etc.

Chinas GDP by Production Method is 19.06 Trillion Dollars

USAs GDP by Production Method is 20.53 Trillion Dollars

Indias GDP by Production Method is 3.09 Trillion Dollars

许多国家通过生产模型或制造模型来统计GDP

他们评估生产了多少商品，销售了多少库存

这种方法非常麻烦，但非常准确，因为生产与消费不同，生产可以得到很好地记录。你可以用现金买一家星巴克，但工厂会列出它生产和使用的每一块钢板。

这种方法主要用于以制造业为主的经济体，如中国、越南、印度尼西亚、印度、孟加拉国，甚至巴基斯坦等。

中国按生产模型计算的国内生产总值为19.06万亿美元

美国按生产模型计算的GDP为20.53万亿美元

按生产模型计算，印度的GDP为3.09万亿美元。