Maddison Project Database

Maddison Project Database
Name	Maddison Project Database
Established	2010s
Focus	Historical national accounts
Founder	Angus Maddison
Maintained by	University of Groningen
Country	Netherlands

Maddison Project Database is an academic compilation of historical national income estimates and long-run time series for gross domestic product and population across countries and regions. It extends the work of Angus Maddison and is curated by scholars associated with institutions such as the University of Groningen, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and various university departments. Researchers in comparative economic history, development studies, and quantitative history rely on it for cross-country analyses spanning centuries.

Overview

The project provides harmonized estimates of real per capita income, total output, and population for a broad set of polities and regions, permitting comparisons over long horizons. Users often employ the dataset alongside sources like the Penn World Table, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Cambridge Economic History of Europe to study patterns such as the Industrial Revolution, the Great Divergence, and the Great Depression. The database aims to reconcile disparate national and subnational series through a common currency and base year framework.

History and Development

Originating from the pioneering reconstructions by Angus Maddison published in monographs and papers, the initiative was formalized to update and extend those tables after his death. Key contributors include scholars affiliated with the University of Groningen, the European Historical Economics Society, and individual researchers linked to universities like Harvard University, University of Oxford, London School of Economics, Yale University, and University of California, Berkeley. Successive releases incorporated feedback from conferences such as the Cliometrics Conference and workshops at institutions like the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Economic History Society.

Methodology and Data Sources

The compilation blends primary sources—national statistical offices, colonial administration records, customs registers, tax ledgers from states like the Ottoman Empire, the Ming dynasty, the British Empire, and the Spanish Empire—with secondary syntheses found in works by scholars from Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and articles in journals including the Journal of Economic History and Economic History Review. Key methodological tools include purchasing power parity adjustments using price series comparable to those in the International Comparison Program, benchmark linking strategies reminiscent of the Penn World Table approach, and demographic estimates drawing on research by teams at the Population Reference Bureau and the United Nations. Contributors apply sectoral reconstruction, extrapolation, and interpolation to bridge gaps for events such as the Thirty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Two World Wars.

Coverage and Content

Coverage spans prehistoric estimates for regions associated with Ancient Rome, Han dynasty, Gupta Empire, and later polities including Mughal Empire, Qing dynasty, Tokugawa Japan, Kingdom of France, Holy Roman Empire, and modern nation-states such as the United States, China, India, Russia, and Brazil. The dataset includes annual and decadal series of GDP and population, sectoral breakdowns where available, and supplementary tables recording methodology notes and source citations from archives like the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Regional aggregates permit comparison of blocs such as Western Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia over long-run transitions like industrialization and deindustrialization.

Uses and Impact

Scholars employ the resource in quantitative analyses addressing topics like the timing of the Industrial Revolution, income convergence debates stemming from work by authors at Stanford University and Princeton University, and policy-relevant studies cited by organizations including the World Bank and UNESCO. The series underpins cross-disciplinary research linking economic performance to outcomes in demography, health (linked to research at Johns Hopkins University), and conflict studies involving datasets like the Correlates of War and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program. It has influenced public discourse on historical inequality, growth accounting, and development narratives featured in outlets associated with The Economist, Financial Times, and academic monographs.

Criticisms and Controversies

Critiques focus on uncertainties in early-period estimates, assumptions underlying purchasing power parity conversions, and the challenges of attributing modern national boundaries to premodern polities such as Mesopotamia or the Aztec Empire. Methodological debates involve scholars from Cambridge University, Princeton University, and the London School of Economics who question extrapolation choices, source selection, and the treatment of informal economies. Controversies have arisen over sensitivity analyses, revisions that alter prominent claims about the Great Divergence, and the political implications of ranking countries across centuries, drawing commentary from researchers at institutions like Columbia University and University of Chicago.

Access and Availability

The compilation is distributed as downloadable datasets, documentation files, and reproducible code suitable for statistical packages used by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and elsewhere. Academics access it for replication studies and for teaching in programs at universities such as Yale University, University of Cambridge, and Australian National University. Data users are encouraged to consult accompanying notes for provenance and to reference related works by Angus Maddison and subsequent editors in publications from presses like Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan.

Category:Economic history