How big is China’s digital economy?

This paper reviews international measures of the digital economy and compares them with those developed by Chinese officials and private sources. Given the lack of comparability, we use China’s input and output and census data to come up with an internationally comparable estimate of the size of China’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector (the core of digital economy), in terms of both value added and employment.

Based on the latest available statistics, our measurements indicate that China’s digital economy is not bigger relative to the size of the Chinese economy than the OECD average, especially in terms of ICT employment. This finding, which might look striking based on the current perception of China’s digital economy, masks large differences across regions (with Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai ahead of the OECD average).