We discussed three sub-items of GDP: investment, consumption, and net exports. We have already introduced investment, but we have not discussed the sub-item of consumption. The most important consumption data is the total retail sales of social consumer goods announced by the Statistics Bureau in the middle of each month.
In the general argument, consumption is considered to be the healthiest of the three GDP drivers. After all, it is said that the largest contribution to the GDP of the United States is consumption, so many people believe in this model. Here we will not discuss whether this argument is correct or not; whether it is correct or not, our understanding of consumption and data analysis are important.
First of all, let's take a look at the general statistical method of the indicator of "total retail sales of consumer goods". Theoretically, if we want to count the consumption situation of the whole society, we should find all consumers or scientifically sample a representative consumer group, and then conduct questionnaires or other forms of investigation. But for a country as large as China, this process is really too difficult. Then you can change the angle: if someone buys, someone must sell it. Therefore, our data is actually obtained by investigating the "selling" groups to obtain social consumption.
But we know that China has a vast land and abundant resources, and the group of "selling things" is a very huge volume, so what should we do? As the saying goes, "Shoot people first, shoot horses, catch thieves first, and capture kings first." The Bureau of Statistics first finds large groups of "selling things" and asks them for data; and then samples the smaller ones. investigation.
So there is the word "above the quota" in the statistics of the Bureau of Statistics.
For the whole sample, the result of summing up the data above the quota plus the data below the quota is the total retail sales; while the units above the quota are directly requested by the Statistics Bureau to report directly online, which has high reliability and timeliness, so will be given more attention.
Then, we have to pay attention to one more point, that is, the "consumption" in this data does not include service categories. For example, Lao Wang had a sore back and went for a massage, which is not counted in the "consumption" here. The "consumption" in this data from the Bureau of Statistics refers to consumption in kind.
In addition, one thing to note is that in the total social retail sales, the four items of food, clothing, automobiles, and petroleum account for a particularly large proportion.
We know that consumer goods can be divided into mandatory consumption and optional consumption. The so-called mandatory consumption, to put it bluntly, means that the demand elasticity is small, and you have to buy it no matter what. The most typical ones are food and medicine. It's impossible to say that I won't eat if my bonus is deducted this month. Optional consumption is usually large items, and more often it is optional. The most typical example is the car. There are a lot of year-end bonuses, so I may change a car soon, but the food is still the same.
Therefore, it is reflected that the volatility of mandatory consumption is relatively low, and the volatility of optional consumption is relatively high.
It can be seen that among the four categories with the highest proportion above, food and clothing are mandatory consumption; petroleum and products are more general; automobiles are typical optional consumption. Obviously, the automobile category has the highest proportion. Therefore, when observing social zero data, it is especially necessary to observe the data of automobiles. Whether it is this big category that has dragged down the entire company zero; or is it that the better sales of cars have caused the false impression that the company has exceeded expectations.