Abstract

The Maddison Project, initiated in March 2010 by a group of close colleagues of Angus Maddison, aims to develop an effective way of cooperation between scholars to continue Maddison's work on measuring economic performance in the world economy. This paper is a first product of the project. Its goal is to inventory recent research on historical national accounts, to briefly discuss some of the problems related to these historical statistics and to extend and where necessary revise the estimates published by Maddison in his recent overviews (2001; 2003; 2007) (also made available on his website at http://www.ggdc.net/MADDISON/oriindex.htm)

Author(s)

Jutta Bolt and Jan Luiten van Zanden

Production date

January 2020

Variable(s)

Gross Domestic Product per Capita

Keywords

GDP per Capita; Economic Growth

Time period

Between Roman times and 2016

Geographical coverage

Global

Methodologies used for data collection and processing

Database builts on the work of Angus Maddison complemented by work of country specialists who have provided us with their estimates

Period of collection

January 2014-January 2019

Data collectors

Jutta Bolt and Jan Luiten van Zanden; see for a full list of participants of the Maddison Project: http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/participants.htm


(multiple possibilities) Indication of the quality of the data based on the following categories: i. Central statistical agencies ii. Historical reconstructions iii. Estimates

General references

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------. (2012). "Economic Growth in Java 1815-1939: The Reconstruction of the Historical National Accounts of a Colonial Economy", Maddison-Project Working Paper WP-3.

Van Zanden, J. L. and B. van Leeuwen (2012). "Persistent but not Consistent: The Growth of National Income in Holland 1347-1807". Explorations in Economic History, 2012

Caribbean

Anguilla[No Data]

Antigua and Barbuda1500 (5)-2013 (21)

Aruba[No Data]

Bahamas1500 (5)-2013 (23)

Barbados1500 (5)-2016 (28)

Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba[No Data]

British Virgin Islands[No Data]

Cayman Islands[No Data]

Cuba1500 (8)-2016 (35)

Curaçao[No Data]

Dominica1500 (5)-2016 (21)

Dominican Republic1500 (6)-2018 (39)

Grenada1500 (5)-2013 (21)

Guadeloupe[No Data]

Haiti1500 (6)-2018 (37)

Jamaica1500 (6)-2018 (36)

Martinique[No Data]

Montserrat[No Data]

In 2010, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) awarded a subsidy to the Clio Infra project, of which Jan Luiten van Zanden was the main applicant and which is hosted by the International Institute of Social History (IISH). Clio Infra has set up a number of interconnected databases containing worldwide data on social, economic, and institutional indicators for the past five centuries, with special attention to the past 200 years. These indicators allow research into long-term development of worldwide economic growth and inequality.

Global inequality is one of the key problems of the contemporary world. Some countries have (recently) become wealthy, other countries have remained poor. New theoretical developments in economics - such as new institutional economics, new economic geography, and new growth theory - and the rise of global economic and social history require such processes to be studied on a worldwide scale. Clio Infra provides datasets for the most important indicators. Economic and social historians from around the world have been working together in thematic collaboratories, in order to collect and share their knowledge concerning the relevant indicators of economic performance and its causes. The collected data have been standardized, harmonized, and stored for future use. New indicators to study inequality have been developed. The datasets are accessible through the Clio Infra portal which also offers possibilities for visualization of the data. Clio Infra offers the opportunity to greatly enhance our understanding of the origins, causes and character of the process of global inequality.