经济学人下载:中国的房地产泡沫,迟早爆破

In other countries, such as America, economists can rely on clear signals from credible price indices. In China the National Bureau of Statistics used to publish a price index spanning 70 cities. But that measure muted both the highs and lows of China’s housing market. It suggested that prices for new and existing homes never fell by more than 1.3% during the financial crisis, and never rose by more than 12.8% a year in the boom that followed. That was hard to square with the head-splitting prices homebuyers were paying in the big cities. People stopped paying attention to the national index. In December the government ceased publishing it.

在别的国家，比如在美国，可信的物价指数可以给出明确的信号，经济学家可以借此加以分析。在中国，国家统计局过去通常发表的是包括70个城市在内的物价指数。但那种方法并无法说明中国房地产市场的起起落落。它只是表明，即便是在经济危机时期新建和现有住宅的销售量在一年内跌幅也从未超过1.3%，且在随之而来的繁荣期里其涨幅也从未超过12.8%。那可和大城市里购房者面临的令人头疼的房价是不相符的。人们已不再关注国家发布的指数。在12月政府也不再发布此指数。

The bureau does, however, still track prices in the 70 individual cities that made up the index. Weighting the cities by population, and weighting the mix of new and existing properties by floorspace, The Economist has tried to rebuild China’s abandoned house-price index (see chart) from its constituent parts. Our calculations suggest nationwide prices are still rising—by 4% in the year to April—but only slowly. The pace of increase has eased steadily for 12 months in a row.

然而，统计局仍然关注着构成这个指数的70个城市的房价。按人口来定这个城市的权重，还按建筑面积来定新建和现有房产的权重，经济学人试图通过这种方法来重新得出已被弃用的房价指数（如图所示）。我们的估算表明，全国的价格仍在上升，今年截至4月上涨了4%，但增长速度是比较慢的。增长的步伐在12个月里已趋于平缓。

In the absence of credible government figures, many analysts have turned to private-sector alternatives. A 100-city index published by Soufun, a property consultancy, shows prices rising by 5.1% in the year to May. But in many of those cities its coverage is patchy, especially in smaller localities where developers may not have good, computerised records to share. That is one reason why Ms Yao, who draws on Soufun’s figures, concentrates only on the nine cities it covers best.

由于缺乏可信的官方数据，许多分析家转而借助私营部门给出的数据。房产咨询机构搜房发布了100个城市的房价指数，表明今年截至5月房价上涨了5.1%。但在那些城市中有许多的覆盖范围是不完全的，特别是在一些小地方，开发商也许仍未备有完善的电脑记录。这就是为什么负责制作搜房的这个数据的Ms Yao只关注覆盖范围最完整的九个城市。