Integrating the Results of the 2005 International Comparison Program with the Penn World Table

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

International comparisons of economic performance are used across the social sciences, both as a phenomenon to be explained and as a control variable used to explain behavior. This award funds research that will integrate the results of the 2005 International Comparison Program (ICP) conducted by the World Bank into the Penn World Tables (PWT), a leading source for data used to compare economic performance across nations. Integrating the ICP into the PWT includes adjusting for the urban character of Chinese prices in the ICP data; aggregating by countries rather than regions without the fixity constraints of the ICP; and allowing for the fact that the ICP 2005 made productivity adjustments for non-priced services for only 3 of the 6 regions. The new version of the PWT will include 180 countries over nearly 60 years.