List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita

List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita

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These are lists of regions and countries by their estimated real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the value of all final goods and services produced within a country/region in a given year divided by population size. GDP per capita dollar (international dollar) estimates here are derived from PPP estimates.

For estimations of total GDP in history, see List of regions by past GDP (PPP).

Characteristics

In the absence of sufficient data for nearly all economies until well into the 19th century, past GDP per capita often cannot be calculated, but only roughly estimated. A key notion in the whole process is that of subsistence, the income level which is necessary for sustaining one's life. Since pre-modern societies, by modern standards, were characterized by a very low degree of urbanization and a large majority of people working in the agricultural sector, economic historians prefer to express income in cereal units. To achieve comparability over space and time, these numbers are then converted into monetary units such as International Dollars, a step which leaves a relatively wide margin of interpretation.

World

1750–1990 (Bairoch)

In his 1995 book Economics and World History, economic historian Paul Bairoch gave the following estimates in terms of 1960 US dollars, for GNP per capita from 1750 to 1990, comparing what are today the Third World (part of Asia, Africa, Latin America) and the First World (Western Europe, Northern America, Japan, Singapore and South Korea).[1]

More information Year, 1960 dollars ...

According to Bairoch, in the mid-18th century, "the average standard of living in Europe was a little bit lower than that of the rest of the world."[2] He noted variations within both groups in 1750, citing the Asian civilizations of China and India as being the wealthiest among the Third World group, and Russia and Eastern/Southeastern Europe as being the poorest among the First World group.[3] He estimated that, in 1750, the average per-capita income of the East (Asia and Africa) was roughly equal to that of Western Europe, and that China's per-capita income was on-par with the leading European economies. He estimated that it was after 1800 that Western European per-capita income pulled ahead of the East.[4] China was still ahead in 1800; his GNP per capita estimates for 1800, in terms of 1960 dollars, are $228 for China ($1,007 in 1990 dollars) and $213 for Western Europe ($941 in 1990 dollars). But China fell behind not long after, falling to $204 ($901 in 1990 dollars) by 1860.[5]

1–2008 (Maddison)

The following estimates are taken exclusively from the 2007 monograph Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD by the British economist Angus Maddison.[6]

More information Country / Region ...

A ^ From 1 AD to 1913 AD, India includes modern Pakistan and Bangladesh. From 1950 onwards, India refers only to the modern Republic of India.

Maddison's assumptions have been criticized and admired by academics and journalists.[7] Bryan Haig has characterized Maddison's figures for 19th century Australia as "inaccurate and irrelevant",[8] John Caldwell's assessed Maddison's arguments as having a "dangerous circularity",[9] and W. W. Rostow said "this excessive macroeconomic bias also causes him (Maddison) to mis-date, in my view, the beginning of what he calls the capitalist era at 1820 rather than, say, the mid-1780s."[10]

A number of economic historians have criticized Maddison's estimates for Asia. For example, W. J. MacPherson has described Maddison's work on India and Pakistan of using "dubious comparative data."[11] Paul Bairoch has criticized Maddison's work for underestimating the per-capita incomes of non-European regions, particularly in Asia, before the 19th century; according to Bairoch, per-capita income in Asia (especially China and India) was higher than in Europe prior to the 19th century.[12] Others such as Andre Gunder Frank, Robert A. Denemark, Kenneth Pomeranz and Amiya Kumar Bagchi have criticized Maddison for grossly underestimating per-capita income and GDP growth rates in Asia (again, mainly China and India) for the three centuries up to 1820, and for refusing to take into account contemporary research demonstrating significantly higher per-capita income and growth rates in Asia. According to Frank and Denemark, his per-capita income figures for Asia up to 1820 are not credible, go "against what we know from sources" and may need to be adjusted by a factor of two.[13] Maddison's estimates have also been critically reviewed and revised by the Italian economists Giovanni Federico[14] and Elio Lo Cascio/Paolo Malanima (see below).[15]

However, economist and journalist Evan Davis has praised Maddison's research by citing it as a "fantastic publication" and that it was "based on the detailed scholarship of the world expert on historical economic data Angus Maddison." He also added that "One shouldn't read the book in the belief the statistics are accurate to 12 decimal places."[16]

1–1800 (Maddison Project)

The Maddison Project is an international group of scholars who continue and build upon Maddison's work. In their 2020 report they concentrate on the pre-1820 period. Their revised figures show pre-industrial Europe to be richer, but its economic growth to be slower than previously thought.[17] This is consistent with Maddison's view that the income gap to Asia was already large before the Industrial Revolution.[17] The entirety of their GDP per capita estimates can be obtained from their online database.[18] The following data selection they present in their published paper:[17]

More information Country / Region ...

China

Economic historians: Angus Maddison; Stephen Broadberry; Hanhui Guan; David Daokui; Li Jutta Bolt; Robert Inklaar; Yi Xu; Zhihong Shi; Bas van Leeuwen; Yuping Ni; Zipeng Zhang; Ye Ma, have offered differing estimates of historic productivity in region, but show a similar trend of a decline between the beginning of the 17th and middle of the 20th centuries, before recovering:

More information Authors ...

Europe

Europe 1830–1938 (Bairoch)

Evolution of the GDP per capita for selected European countries between 1830 and 1890 according to Bairoch

The following estimates were made by the economic historian Paul Bairoch.[24] Unlike other estimates on this page, the GNP (PPP) per capita is given here in 1960 US dollars. Unlike Maddison, Bairoch allows for the fluctuation of borders, basing his estimates mostly on the historical boundaries at the given points in time.[25]

More information Country / Region ...

Western Europe 1–1870 (Lo Cascio/Malanima)

The following estimates are taken from a revision of Angus Maddison's numbers for Western Europe by the Italian economists Elio Lo Cascio and Paolo Malanima.[26] According to their calculations, the basic level of European GDP (PPP) per capita was historically higher, but its increase was less pronounced.

More information Authors ...

Indian subcontinent

Main article: Economic history of India
Further information: Mughal Empire, Bengal Subah, Economy of the Kingdom of Mysore, and Historic GDP Estimates for South Asia

According to some evidence cited by the economic historians Immanuel Wallerstein, Irfan Habib, Percival Spear, and Ashok Desai, has theorised that per-capita agricultural output and standards of consumption in 17th-century Mughal India was on-par with 17th-century Europe and early 20th-century British India.[27]

According to economic historian Prasannan Parthasarathi and Jeffrey G. Williamson earnings data from primary sources show that mid-late 18th-century real wages and living standards in Bengal sultanate (under the Nawabs of Bengal) a South Indian Kingdom of Mysore and Maratha Empire were higher than in Britain, which in turn had the highest living standards in Europe.[28][29] The economic historian Sashi Sivramkrishna estimates Mysore's average income for skilled laborers in the late 18th century to be five times higher than subsistence leval[30] Parthasarathi also slates the real wage decline occurred in the early 19th century, or possibly beginning in the very late 18th century, under British rule.[28][29][31]

Economic historians Angus Maddison,[32] Stephen Broadberry, Johann Custodis, Bishnupriya Gupta,[33] Jutta Bolt, Robert Inklaar, Herman de Jong and Jan Luiten van Zanden[19] have offered differing estimates of historic productivity in region, but show a similar trend of a decline between the beginning of the 17th and middle of the 19th centuries, before recovering:

More information Authors ...

Ottoman Egypt

According to economic historian Jean Batou, Ottoman Egypt's average per-capita income in 1800 was comparable to that of leading Western European countries such as France, and higher than the overall average income of Europe and Japan.[35] Barou estimated that, in terms of 1960 US dollars, Egypt in 1800 had a per-capita income of $232 ($1,025 in 1990 dollars). In comparison, per-capita income in terms of 1960 dollars for France in 1800 was $240 ($1,060 in 1990 dollars), for Eastern Europe in 1800 was $177 ($782 in 1990 dollars), and for Japan in 1800 was $180 ($795 in 1990 dollars).[36][37]

Roman and Byzantine empires

See also: Roman economy and Eastern Roman economy

Much of the recent work in estimating past GDP per capita has been done in the study of the Roman economy, following the pioneering studies by Keith Hopkins (1980) and Raymond Goldsmith (1984).[38] The estimates by Peter Temin, Angus Maddison, Branko Milanovic and Peter Fibiger Bang follow the basic method established by Goldsmith, varying mainly only in their set of initial numbers; these are then stepped up to estimations of the expenditure checked by those on the income side. Walter Scheidel/Steven Friesen determine GDP per capita on the relationship between certain significant economic indicators which were historically found to be plausible; two independent control assumptions provide the upper and lower limit of the probable size of the Roman GDP per capita.[39]

More information Unit, Goldsmith 1984 ...

Italia is considered the richest region, due to tax transfers from the provinces and the concentration of elite income in the heartland; its GDP per capita is estimated at having been around 40%[47] to 66%[48] higher than in the rest of the empire.

The GDP per capita of the Byzantine Empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east, has been estimated by the World Bank economist Branko Milanovic to range between $680 and 770 (in 1990 International Dollars) at its peak around 1000 AD, the reign of Basil II.[49] This is 1.7 times the subsistence level as compared to the slightly higher value of 2.1 for the Roman Empire under Augustus (30 BC–14 AD).[50]

See also

Notes

  1. [1]
    Paul Bairoch (1995). Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes. University of Chicago Press. p. 95.
  2. [2]
    Chris Jochnick, Fraser A. Preston (2006), Sovereign Debt at the Crossroads: Challenges and Proposals for Resolving the Third World Debt Crisis, pages 86-87, Oxford University Press
  3. [3]
    Paul Bairoch (1995). Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes. University of Chicago Press. p. 104.
  4. [4]
    John M. Hobson (2004). The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. Cambridge University Press. pp. 75–76. ISBN 9780521547246.
  5. [5]
    Fernand Braudel (1982). Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century. Vol. 3. University of California Press. p. 534. ISBN 9780520081161.
  6. [6]
    Maddison 2007, p. 382, table A.7.
  7. [7]
    Zanden, Jan Luiten van; Ma, Debin (2017). "What Makes Maddison Right". World Economics. 18 (3): 203–214.
  8. [8]
    Haig, Bryan. 2005. "Review of The World Economy: Historical Statistics by Angus Maddison," Economic Reports, volume 81.
  9. [9]
    Caldwell, John C. (Sept. 2002), "Reviewed Work(s): The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective by Angus Maddison", Population and Development Review, Vol. 28, No. 3., pp. 559-561.
  10. [10]
    Rostow, W. W. "Reviewed Work(s): Phases of Capitalist Development. by Angus Maddison," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 45, No. 4. (Dec., 1985), pp. 1026-1028.
  11. [11]
    MacPherson, W. J. "Reviewed Work(s): Class Structure and Economic Growth. India and Pakistan since the Moghuls by Angus Maddison." The Economic Journal, Vol. 82, No. 328. (Dec., 1972), pp. 1470-1472.
  12. [12]
    Paul Bairoch (1995). Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes. University of Chicago Press. pp. 105–106.
  13. [13]
    Andre Gunder Frank, Robert A. Denemark (2015). Reorienting the 19th Century: Global Economy in the Continuing Asian Age. Routledge. pp. 83–85. ISBN 9781317252931.
  14. [14]
    Federico 2002, pp. 111–120
  15. [15]
    Lo Cascio, Malanima Dec. 2009, pp. 391–420
  16. [16]
    "China's magnificent historic past". BBC News. 2005-03-10. Retrieved 2010-05-08.
  17. [17]
    Bolt, Jutta; Luiten van Zanden, Jan (2020). "Maddison Project Database 2020". University of Groningen. 1990 to 2011 International $ 1:1.72. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  18. [18]
    Maddison Project Database, accessed 4 April 2015
  19. [19]
    Bolt, Jutta; Inklaar, Robert (2018). "Maddison Project Database 2018". University of Groningen. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  20. [20]
    Xu, Yi; Shi, Zhihong; van Leeuwen, Bas; Ni, Yuping; Zhang, Zipeng; Ma, Ye (2015). "Chinese National Income, ca. 1661–1933". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  21. [21]
    "China, Europe and the Great Divergence: A Study in Historical National Accounting, 980-1850 | Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers | Working Papers". www.economics.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  22. [22]
    Exchange rate of 1 ($ 1990) : 1.721 ($ 2011)
  23. [23]
    Harding, Enopoletus (2018-07-19). "Understanding and reconciling the two real GDP series in Maddison Project 2018". Medium. Retrieved 2021-04-26. The Maddison Project has thus made the unusual decision to produce two GDP series. One series (rgdpnapc) is purely within-country, with the international price comparisons being done only once (2011). The other (cgdppc) coerces the GDP data to fit every international price comparison the Maddison Project has on record, no matter how ridiculous
  24. [24]
    Bairoch 1976, pp. 286, table 6; 297, table 12; 301, table 14
  25. [25]
    The border between "Western Europe" and "Eastern Europe" as defined by Bairoch corresponds to the iron curtain, with "Eastern Europe" being identical to the Eastern Bloc (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and the USSR plus Albania). All the rest of Europe makes up "Western Europe" (Bairoch 1976, pp. 317, 319).
  26. [26]
    Lo Cascio, Malanima Dec. 2009, p. 411, table 6
  27. [27]
    Vivek Suneja (2000). Understanding Business: A Multidimensional Approach to the Market Economy. Psychology Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780415238571.
  28. [28]
    Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, pp. 38–45, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0
  29. [29]
    Jeffrey G. Williamson, David Clingingsmith (August 2005). "India's Deindustrialization in the 18th and 19th Centuries" (PDF). Harvard University. Retrieved 2017-05-18.
  30. [30]
    Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, p. 45, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0
  31. [31]
    Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, p. 45, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0
  32. [32]
    Maddison, Angus (6 December 2007). Contours of the world economy, 1–2030 AD: essays in macro-economic history. Oxford University Press. p. 379. ISBN 978-0-19-922720-4.
  33. [33]
    Broadberry, Stephen; Gupta, Bishnupriya (2015). "India and the great divergence: an Anglo-Indian comparison of GDP per capita, 1600–1871". Explorations in Economic History. 55: 58–75. doi:10.1016/j.eeh.2014.04.003. S2CID 130940341. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  34. [34]
    Broadberry, Stephen; Gupta, Bishnupriya (2010). "Indian GDP before 1870: Some preliminary estimates and a comparison with Britain" (PDF). Warwick University. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  35. [35]
    Jean Batou (1991). Between Development and Underdevelopment: The Precocious Attempts at Industrialization of the Periphery, 1800-1870. Librairie Droz. pp. 181–196. ISBN 9782600042932.
  36. [36]
    Jean Batou (1991). Between Development and Underdevelopment: The Precocious Attempts at Industrialization of the Periphery, 1800-1870. Librairie Droz. p. 189. ISBN 9782600042932.
  37. [37]
    M. Shahid Alam (2016). Poverty From The Wealth of Nations: Integration and Polarization in the Global Economy since 1760. Springer Science+Business Media. p. 33. ISBN 9780333985649.
  38. [38]
    Scheidel, Walter; Morris, Ian; Saller, Richard, eds. (2007): The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-78053-7
  39. [39]
    Scheidel, Friesen Nov. 2009, pp. 63–72
  40. [40]
    Goldsmith 1984, pp. 263–288
  41. [41]
    Hopkins 1995/96, pp. 41–75. His estimates are upward revisions from Hopkins 1980, pp. 101–125, where he lays out his basic method.
  42. [42]
    Temin 2006, pp. 31–54
  43. [43]
    Maddison 2007, pp. 43–47; 50, table 1.10; 54, table 1.12
  44. [44]
    Milanovic, Lindert, Williamson Oct. 2007, pp. 58–66
  45. [45]
    Bang 2008, pp. 86–91
  46. [46]
    Scheidel, Friesen Nov. 2009, pp. 61–91
  47. [47]
    Lo Cascio, Malanima Dec. 2009, pp. 391–401
  48. [48]
    Maddison 2007, pp. 47–51
  49. [49]
    Milanovic 2006, p. 468
  50. [50]
    Milanovic 2006, p. 459. This latter value also forms the basis for the only superficially lower $633 given by Milanovic et al. 2007 in the table above. The difference in the Roman and Byzantine GDP (PPP) per capita is due to the authors operating with differing conversion rates for the subsistence level: $300 in the Roman case (2.1 x $300 = ~$633), $400 in the Byzantine one (1.7 x $400 = $680). This means that Roman GDP (PPP) per capita was around 20% higher than the Byzantine one.

Bibliography

GDP per capita of the Roman Empire
GDP per capita of the Byzantine Empire
  • Milanovic, Branko (2006): "An Estimate of Average Income and Inequality in Byzantium around Year 1000", Review of Income and Wealth, Vol. 52, No. 3, pp. 449–470
European GDP per capita
  • Bairoch, Paul (1976): "Europe's Gross National Product: 1800–1975", Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 5, pp. 273–340
Angus Maddison — reviews and revisions
  • Maddison, Angus (2006): The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective (Vol. 1). Historical Statistics (Vol. 2), OECD, ISBN 92-64-02261-9
  • Maddison, Angus (2007): "Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD. Essays in Macro-Economic History", Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922721-1, p. 382, table A.7.
  • Federico, Giovanni (2002): "The World Economy 0–2000 AD: A Review Article", European Review of Economic History, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 111–120 — review
  • Lo Cascio, Elio; Malanima, Paolo (Dec. 2009): "GDP in Pre-Modern Agrarian Economies (1–1820 AD). A Revision of the Estimates", Rivista di storia economica, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 391–420 — critique of Maddison's estimates
  • Bolt, Jutta; Van Zanden, Jan Luiten (2014): "The Maddison Project: Collaborative Research on Historical National Accounts", The Economic History Review, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 627–651
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