Global Prices and Incomes 1200-1950 - Stage 3

National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The Global Price and Income History (GPIH) Group expands its mission of supplying data and reinterpreting global patterns in incomes and purchasing power in three ways. First, the Group continues building its supply of downloadable data sets on prices, wages, and income distributions. A key advantage of these data sets is that all historical measures are reported in standard metric equivalents, as well as in the units of the primary historical sources. This facilitates comparisons between distant places, instead of the old specific index numbers. Second, several GPIH group members continue to shift toward interpretations of the global data patterns revealed through this project. Three members have books coming out soon, and are moving on to further interpretive books and articles that should enrich the study of world history. Third, this project shifts toward more national income accounting from the income side (as opposed to the expenditure or production sides). The income-side approach offers fresh insights into the history of income distribution. Its use of nominal incomes and new GPIH Group price deflators is also a valuable crosscheck on the real product measures offered by past scholarship. Specifically, this project uses archival materials to develop new measures of income, wages, and prices in these historical settings: pre-revolutionary Russia, pre-Revolutionary China, Vietnam since 1880, ancient Japan (1000-1600), South Africa 1650- 1800, eight countries of Latin America 1700-1910, and the 13 colonies/United States 1774 and 1800. Broader Impacts: Ten research collaborators are just starting their careers, and stand to gain from the research experience of this project. All the investigators serve as teachers and mentors. Knowing the material standards and the price incentives that humans faced around the world over eight centuries will offer enormous new insights for environmental history and health history, in addition to social science history. The investigators are happy to offer their results in formats and writing styles accessible to non-scientists. Our data-supplying services should be especially useful for scholars in countries that lack access to extensive libraries or research centers. Undergraduate readers around the world will also soon benefit from Global Economic History, currently being written by Robert Allen for the Very Short Introduction series of Oxford University Press. This will use the Groups global wages and prices to pursue the question of why some countries are rich and others poor since 1500. In addition, the projects estimates will eventually hook-up to the income estimates of the International Comparisons Project (Penn World Tables), which are disseminated through the UN, the World Bank, and the OECD, and other public agencies