ABSTRACT
In Chinese statistics, there are several types of data related to living standards. Included are retail sales, retail price and cost-of-living indices, wages, social purchasing power, and income and consumption per household and per capita. Social purchasing power is the capacity of urban and rural residents and collective units to purchase retail commodities, and is expressed in monetary terms. Social purchasing power is employed in China to measure the total effective monetary demand for consumption goods and serves as a basis for estimating the social commodity retail volume. In July, 1957, the State Economic Commission and the State Statistical Bureau jointly promulgated a new scheme for compiling data on social purchasing power, in which the scope and methods of estimation underwent substantial changes. The social purchasing power of collective units refers to their monetary expenditure on consumption goods, such as office supplies and cultural and recreational facilities.
