Page 279 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS587 Shujian X. et al.

Measuring the structure of digital economy -
The case of China
1
2
2
Shujian Xiang* ; Yingmei Xu ; Wenjun Wu
1 School of Statistics and Mathematics, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China.
2 School of Statistics and Mathematics, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan,
China.

Abstract
Since the G20 officially proposed the digital economy development and
cooperation initiative in 2016, the G20 summit has included the measurement
of the digital economy as an important agenda to discuss in recent years. At
the same time, the Intersecretariat Working Group on National Accounts
(ISWGNA), supported by the European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World
Bank and established by the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC),
also listed the digital economy as one of the most momentous research issues
at the latest 12th National Accounts Advisory Group (AEG) meeting in 2018,
where it stressed the challenges confronted on measurement, entailing the
satellite framework, the free products and the role of data in statistical
measurement etc.. This study aims to bridge the gap between the studies of
OECD and China on digital economy and tries to fill the blank between theory
and practice on the measurement. In general, this paper mainly focuses on
two questions: how Chinese digital economy satellite account can be
designed, and how it integrates with the satellite framework proposed by
OECD digital economy working group. Specifically, this paper first introduces
the overall design ideas and accounting concepts, and builds up the
identification mechanism of key activities. Then, the comparison of industry
and products categories in digital economy was made between OECD and
China. On the basis, this paper explores the feasibility of supply table, usage
table and generalized investment matrix in the framework of China's digital
economy satellite account. Furthermore, it provides a preliminary research
paradigm for input-output structure of the digital economy, its technical
relevance to the traditional economy, and the value added of China's digital
economy. Finally, combined with the status quo of China's digital economy
research, it suggests a systematic satellite framework for the accounting of
China's digital economy, the research and development of high-frequency big
data acquisition methods, and the improvement of innovation-oriented
industry and product classification and other recommendations.

Keywords
Satellite account; Statistical classification; Statistical measurement; OECD

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