Angus Maddison Project

Angus Maddison Project
Name	Angus Maddison Project
Founded	2010s
Founder	Angus Maddison (legacy)
Discipline	Economic history, Quantitative history
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinate institution	University of Groningen
Output	Historical national accounts, long-run GDP series

Angus Maddison Project The Angus Maddison Project is a research initiative that continues and expands the quantitative historical national-account reconstructions pioneered by Angus Maddison. It compiles long-run estimates of gross domestic product, population, and productivity for many polities, regions, and civilizations, situating these series alongside work by scholars associated with Maddison Project Database, University of Groningen, OECD historical studies, and comparative studies linked to Paul Bairoch, Simon Kuznets, Mancur Olson, Daron Acemoglu, and Robert Fogel. The Project serves scholars in Economic history, Development economics, Cliometrics, Global history, and related fields.

Overview and Purpose

The Project aims to produce internally consistent time series of national income, per capita income, and population for pre-industrial and modern periods, reconciling disparate data from sources such as Maddison Project Database, Angus Maddison’s published estimates, and archival research by historians including E. A. Wrigley, Jan Luiten van Zanden, Kenneth Pomeranz, Niall Ferguson, and Paul Bairoch. Its purpose is to support comparative analyses across entities like United Kingdom, China, India, Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Ming dynasty, Song dynasty, Tang dynasty, Mesoamerica, Aztec Empire, and Inca Empire and to facilitate testing of hypotheses advanced by researchers such as Simon Kuznets, Robert Fogel, Douglass North, Daron Acemoglu, and Angus Maddison himself.

Methodology and Data Sources

Methodologically, the Project synthesizes primary documents, secondary syntheses, and statistical series produced by institutions like International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and national statistical offices including United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, Office for National Statistics (UK), Statistics Canada, and INSEE. It employs sectoral aggregation, backward projection, price deflation, purchasing power parity adjustments following protocols related to Geary-Khamis, EKS method, and cross-comparisons used by PWT authors. Contributors draw on empirical case studies by historians such as Robert C. Allen, E. A. Wrigley, Jan Luiten van Zanden, Luciano Canfora, Kenneth Pomeranz, Timothy Brook, Joel Mokyr, and Alfred Crosby to ground assumptions about sectoral shares, urbanization, and demographic regimes.

Historical Reconstructions and Time Series

The Project publishes multi-century and millennial series covering regions and polities including Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Japan, Korea, Latin America, Caribbean, Australia, and precolonial entities like the Mali Empire. Time series extend through episodes such as the Little Ice Age, the Black Death, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, both World War I and World War II, and postwar reconstruction periods. Reconstructions integrate demographic episodes documented by scholars like Fertility transition theorists and migration studies tied to Atlantic slave trade research and institutional analyses related to colonialism by contributors including Eric Williams and Walter Rodney.

Key Findings and Contributions

Key contributions include standardized international comparisons of long-term per capita income convergence and divergence, refined estimates of preindustrial GDP shares for polities like China, India, and Europe, and time profiles of productivity growth predating the Industrial Revolution. The Project has clarified debates over relative living standards advanced by Angus Maddison, contested by scholars such as Paul Bairoch and Kenneth Pomeranz, and has informed macro-historical narratives concerning the timing of takeoffs identified by Alexander Gerschenkron and the role of institutions emphasized by Douglass North and Daron Acemoglu. It supports measurement frameworks used in research by Brad DeLong, Lant Pritchett, Branko Milanovic, Thomas Piketty, and Joel Mokyr.

Criticisms and Limitations

Critiques focus on the reliance on sparse primary data, extrapolation across long periods, and contentious purchasing power parity adjustments. Skeptics include historians who prioritize micro-evidence such as Kenneth Pomeranz and Jack Goody and economists wary of measurement error like Angus Deaton and Paul Krugman-style commentators. Limitations include sensitivity to base-year choices, price index construction, and assumptions about sectoral composition for pre-statistical societies; debates echo methodological disputes exemplified in controversies around Paul Bairoch’s estimates, Maddison’s revisionist claims, and alternative reconstructions by teams led by Jan Luiten van Zanden and Robert C. Allen.

Applications and Influence in Economic History

The Project’s datasets underpin cross-national research on inequality by Thomas Piketty and Branko Milanovic, growth accounting work by Robert Solow-inspired analysts, and institutional investigations by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. They are used in macroeconomic modeling by scholars affiliated with IMF and World Bank historical studies, in comparative studies by Niall Ferguson and Ian Morris, and in teaching materials at institutions such as London School of Economics, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford.

Ongoing Developments and Data Accessibility

Ongoing work expands geographic coverage, refines PPP methods, and incorporates newly digitized primary sources from archives like the British Library, National Archives (UK), Archivo General de Indias, and regional repositories in Beijing, New Delhi, Addis Ababa, and Brasília. Data distribution follows open-science trends championed by platforms such as Open Data initiatives and replication efforts by research groups at University of Groningen, University of Oxford, Harvard University, and World Bank research teams. Updated releases stimulate dialogue among historians including Jan Luiten van Zanden, Robert C. Allen, Kenneth Pomeranz, Joel Mokyr, and economists such as Branko Milanovic and Daron Acemoglu around long-run human welfare, inequality, and growth.

Category:Economic history projects