Category Archives: Numbers

The Known Unknowns of Historical GDP Estimates

A figure from the most recent update to the Maddison Project illustrates how little we know about historical GDP.

One of my favourite graphs in recent writing on economic history might seem obscure. Reproduced below, it is found on page 28 of the working paper underlying the latest update of the Maddison Project database of historical GDP estimates. It shows the various estimates of British GDP per capita relative to US GDP per capita from 1770 to 1950. For me, this is interesting because it illustrates how little we know about levels of GDP in the past.

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An Open Source Update of the Buy-to-Build Indicator

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The tendency toward buying other companies more than building new productive capacity continues in the United States

In a past life I had access to expensive databases of corporate statistics, which I used to calculate the buy-to-build indicator for the United States from the 1880s until 2012. In short, the buy-to-build indicator shows how much corporations are spending on buying other corporations (that is, on mergers and acquisitions) relative to how much they are spending on new productive capacity (fixed capital formation). It gives an indication of whether corporations prefer to expand by buying or by building.

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Problems of the Periphery in Federico and Tena’s World Trade Data

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A new data set of historical trade statistics has some familiar methodological problems.

Giovanni Federico and Antonio Tena-Junguito (2016) have produced a data set of world trade that includes exports and imports, in both current and constant prices, going back to the early nineteenth century for over 100 countries. It will give all economic historians a mass of easily available long-term time series. What could there possibly be to complain about? In short, methodologically speaking, it’s a bit iffy.

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Argentina’s Industrial Output, 1876-1913

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A new estimate of Argentina’s industrial output suggests a less optimistic view of the country’s ‘golden age’.

In a previous post I discussed a working paper in which I criticised Roberto Cortés Conde’s estimates of Argentina’s industrial output from 1875 to 1913. In a new version of that working paper I have taken the plunge by producing my own index for this period. It suggests a considerably lower rate of industrial growth than is found in the standard optimistic account of the country’s ‘golden age’.

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Was Argentina Really Better Off Than the United States in 1800?

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Argentina’s economic history provides yet another example of the problem of Mickey Mouse numbers.

When a prominent economic historian provides a new estimate of something, it is likely that the estimate will be taken at face value. Other economic historians will cite it, so it becomes reified, until it is treated as fact, even when it is little more than fancy. John Coatsworth’s estimate of Argentina’s GDP in 1800 provides an example of this.

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Lies, Damn Lies, and Argentine Industrial Output

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An estimate of Argentine industrial output from the 1870s to 1913 illustrates a problem with the New Economic History.

The ‘New Economic History’ has sought to transform the study of history by applying econometric techniques to the past. As such, it has greatly increased the demand for historical statistics. The problem has been the supply, as there simply are not enough good quality data to apply econometric techniques to historical issues.

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How to Find Debate in Academic Journals (Quickly)

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JSTOR’s advanced search can be used to provide a rough estimate of the number of debate articles in academic journals.

In a previous post I presented estimates of the percentage of articles in the five major economics journals that consisted of ‘debate’ – that is, direct discussion of other articles that appeared in those journals. Here I just want to elaborate on how I got those results using JSTOR’s advanced search form.

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Argentina’s Terms-of-Trade Boom, 1780-1913

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Argentina’s terms of trade probably improved by more than 2,000 percent during the long nineteenth century.

In a new working paper I report the most important finding of my PhD dissertation. In ‘Resolving the Halperín Paradox: The Terms of Trade and Argentina’s Expansion in the Long Nineteenth Century’ I show that Argentina’s terms of trade improved dramatically during the long nineteenth century.

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The Periphery’s Terms of Trade (Again)

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My new paper details the problems of measuring the periphery’s terms of trade in the nineteenth century.

In a previous post I outlined some of the problems encountered by Jeffrey Williamson when he attempted to measure the periphery’s terms of trade in the nineteenth century. I have now uploaded a new ‘Technical Paper’ titled ‘The Periphery’s Terms of Trade in the Nineteenth Century: A Methodological Problem Revisited’, which is a considerably revised version of Chapter 2 of my PhD dissertation. In it I have detailed the methodological issue and why it affects Williamson’s analysis.

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Is the Penn World Table Credible?

Accepting Argentina’s GDP statistics in the new version of the Penn World Table would require a major rewrite of its post-war history.

Last year the eighth edition of the Penn World Table (PWT) was released to considerable fanfare – indeed, one commentator described it as ‘a special day for all researchers and practitioners of economics‘. Yet its series for Argentina raises more questions than it answers.

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