Data

GDP per capita

Historical data – Maddison Project Database
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What you should know about this indicator

  • The Maddison Project Database is based on the work of many researchers who have produced estimates of economic growth and population for individual countries. The full list of sources for this historical data is given in the original dataset.
  • This GDP per capita indicator provides information on economic growth and income levels in the very long run. Some country estimates are available as far back as 1 CE and regional estimates as far back as 1820 CE.
  • This data is adjusted for inflation and for differences in the cost of living between countries.
  • This data is expressed in at 2011 prices, using a combination of 2011 and 1990 PPPs for historical data.
  • Time series for former countries and territories are calculated forward in time by estimating values based on their last official borders.
  • For more regularly updated estimates of GDP per capita, see the World Bank's indicator.
Learn more in the FAQs

Real GDP per capita in 2011$

In two ways, this analysis leads to departures from the original Maddison approach and closer to the multiple benchmark approach as developed by the PWT. There is, to begin with, no doubt that the 2011 PPPs and the related estimates of GDP per capita reflect the relative levels of GDP per capita in the world economy today better than the combination of the 1990 benchmark and growth rates of GDP per capita according to national accounts. This information should be taken into account. At the same time, the underlying rule within the current Maddison Database is that economic growth rates of countries in the dataset should be identical or as close as possible to growth rates according to the national accounts (which is also the case for the pre 1990 period). For the post-1990 period we therefore decided to integrate the 2011 benchmarks by adapting the growth rates of GDP per capita in the period 1990–2011 to align the two (1990 and 2011) benchmarks. We estimated the difference between the combination of the 1990 benchmark and the growth rates of GDP (per capita) between 1990 and 2011 according to the national accounts, and annual growth rate from the 1990 benchmark to the 2011 benchmark. This difference is then evenly distributed to the growth rate of GDP per capita between 1990 and 2011; in other words, we added a country specific correction (constant for all years between 1990 and 2011) to the annual national account rate of growth to connect the 1990 benchmark to the 2011 benchmark. Growth after 2011 is, in the current update, exclusively based on the growth rates of GDP per capita according to national accounts.

We also use the collected set of historical benchmark estimates to fine tune the dataset for the pre-1940 period, but only in those cases where the quality of the benchmark was high and there were multiple benchmarks to support a revision. The most important correction concerns the US/UK comparison. The conventional picture, based on the original 1990 Maddison estimates, indicated that the US overtook the UK as the world leader in the early years of the 20th century. This finding was first criticized by Ward and Devereux (2003), who argued, based on alternative measures of PPP-adjusted benchmarks between 1870 and 1930, that the United States was already leading the United Kingdom in terms of GDP per capita in the 1870s. This conclusion was criticized by Broadberry (2003).

New evidence, however, suggests a more complex picture: in the 18th century, real incomes in the US (settler colonies only, not including indigenous populations) were probably higher than those in the UK (Lindert & Williamson, 2016a). Until about 1870, growth was both exten- sive (incorporating newly settled territory) and intensive (considering the growth of cities and industry at the east coast), but on balance, the US may—in terms of real income—have lagged behind the UK. After 1870, intensive growth becomes more important, and the US slowly gets the upper hand. This pattern is consistent with direct benchmark comparison of the income of both countries for the period 1907–1909 (Woltjer, 2015). This shows that GDP per capita for the United States in those years was 26% higher than in the United Kingdom. We have used Woltjer’s (2015) benchmark to correct the GDP series of the two countries. Projecting this benchmark into the 19th century with the series of GDP per capita of both countries results in the two countries achieving parity in 1880. This is close to Prados de la Escosura’s conjecture based on his short- cut method (Prados de la Escosura, 2000), and even closer to the Lindert and Williamson (2016a) results.

Changing the US/UK ratio on the basis of the new research by Woltjer (2015) raises the question of which country’s GDP estimates should be adapted. In the current PWT approach, the growth of GDP per capita in the United States is the anchor for the entire system. For the 19th century, however, it is more logical to take the United Kingdom as the anchor, because it was the productivity leader, and because most research focused on creating historical benchmarks takes the United Kingdom as reference point. We have therefore adapted the UK series for the period 1908–1950 to fit the 1907–09 (Woltjer, 2015) benchmark in our view the best available benchmark for this period. The reason is that there are doubts about the accuracy of price changes and deflators for the UK for the period 1908–1950, given that it was characterized by two significant waves of inflation (during the two World Wars) and by large swings in relative prices and exchange rates (as documented in the detailed analysis by Stohr (2016) for Switzerland). Future research will have to assess whether this choice is justified.

This new version of the MPD extends GDP per capita series to 2022 and includes all new historical estimates of GDP per capita over time that have become available since the 2013 update (Bolt & Van Zanden, 2014). As new work on historical national accounts appears regularly, a frequent update to include new work is important, as it provides us with new insights in long-term global development. Furthermore, we have incorporated all available annual estimates for the pre-1820 period instead of estimates per half-century, as was usual in the previous datasets.

A general “warning” is in place here. For the period before 1900 (and for parts of the world such as Sub-Saharan Africa before 1950), there are no official statistics that fully cover the various components of GDP; and the more one moves back in time, the more a scarcity of basic statistics becomes a problem for scholars trying to chart the development of real income and output. The statistics needed for reconstructing GDP are often produced in parallel to the process of state formation, but even large bureaucratic states such as China or the Ottoman Empire only rarely collected the data that allow us to estimate levels of output and income. Much of the work on pre-industrial economies makes use of the “indirect method,” which links data on real wages and levels of urbanization to estimates of GDP per capita. But a few countries, during the Medieval and Early Modern periods, did collect the (tax) data to estimate GDP in the “proper” way (Tuscany in 1427, Holland in 1514, and England in 1086). These benchmarks, in combination with the many “indirect” estimates, allow us to create a tapestry of estimates which becomes—with the increase of the number of studies—increasingly robust. Where the original Maddison dataset included 158 observations for the pre 1820 period, the current 2023 MPD includes close to 2800 data points for the preindustrial period.

For the recent period, the most important new work is Harry Wu’s reconstruction of Chinese economic growth since 1950. Inspired by Maddison, Wu’s model produces state of the art estimates of GDP and its components for this important modern economy (Wu, 2014). Given the large role China plays in any reconstruction of global inequality, this is a major addition to the dataset. Moreover, as we will see below, Wu’s revised estimates of annual growth are generally lower than the official estimates. Lower growth rates between 1952 and the present, however, substantially increases the estimates of the absolute level of Chinese GDP in the 1950s (given the fact that the absolute level is determined by a benchmark in 1990 or 2011). This helps to solve a problem that arises in switching from the 1990 to the 2011 benchmark: namely, that when using the official growth estimates, the estimated levels of GDP per capita between 1890 and the early 1950s are substantially below subsistence level, and therefore too low. Including the new series as constructed by Wu (2014) gives a much more plausible long-run series for China.

Often, studies producing very early per capita GDP estimates—particularly work on the early modern period (1500–1800)—make use of indirect methods. The “model” or framework for making such estimates is based on the relationship between real wages, the demand for foodstuffs, and agricultural output (Álvarez-Nogal & De La Escosura, 2013; Malanima, 2011 among others). This model has now also been applied to Poland (Malinowski & van Zanden, 2017), Spanish America (Abad & van Zanden, 2016), and France (Ridolfi, 2017; Ridolfi & Nuvolari, 2021). In this update, we have now included annual estimates of GDP per capita in the period before 1800 for these countries.

For some countries during a period before 1870 or 1800, we only have series of a certain province or similar entity. The British series links to estimates for only England for the period before 1700; the series for the Netherlands links to estimates for only Holland for the period before 1807. The switch from the national to the “partial” series is clearly indicated in the dataset, and the “correction” in terms of GDP per capita is indicated.

Finally, we have extended the national income estimates up to 2022 for all countries in the database. For this we use various sources. The most important is the Total Economy Database (TED) published by the Conference Board, which includes GDP per capita estimates for a large majority of the countries included in the Maddison Project Database. The 2013 MPD update took the same approach (Bolt & van Zanden, 2014). For countries unavailable through TED, we relied on UN national accounts estimates to extend the GDP per capita series. To extend the population estimates up to 2022, we used the TED and the US Census Bureau’s International Database 2022.18 The TED revised their China estimates from 1950 onwards based on Wu (2014). As discussed above, we also included Wu (2014)’s new estimates in this update. Finally, we have extended the series for the former Czechoslovakia, the former Soviet Union, and former Yugoslavia, based on GDP and population data for their successor states.

GDP per capita
Historical data – Maddison Project Database
This data is adjusted for inflation and differences in the cost of living between countries.
Source
Bolt and van Zanden - Maddison Project Database 2023 – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
April 26, 2024
Next expected update
April 2027
Date range
1–2022
Unit
international-$ in 2011 prices

Frequently Asked Questions

What are international-$ and why are they used to measure incomes?

Much of the economic data we use to understand the world – for instance on the goods and services bought or produced by households, firms and governments, or the incomes they receive – is initially recorded in terms of the units in which these transactions took place. That means this data starts out being expressed in a variety of local currencies – as so many rupees, US dollars, or yuan, etc. – and without adjusting for inflation over time. This is known as being in ‘current prices’, or in ‘nominal’ terms.

Before these figures can be meaningfully compared, they need to be converted into common units.

International dollars (int.-$) are a hypothetical currency that is used for this. It is the result of adjusting both for inflation within countries over time and for differences in the cost of living between countries.

The goal of international-$ is to provide a unit whose purchasing power is held fixed over time and across countries, such that one int.-$ can buy the same quantity and quality of goods and services no matter where or when it is spent.

The price level in the US is used as the benchmark – or ‘numeraire’ – so that one 2017 int.-$ is defined as the value of goods and services that one US dollar would buy in the US in 2017. Similarly, one 2011 int.-$ is defined as the value of goods and services that one US dollar would buy in the US in 2011.

The year 2017 (2011) here indicates two things, related to the two adjustments mentioned. Firstly, it tells us the base year used for the inflation adjustment within countries. This is the year whose prices are chosen to be the benchmark. If prices are higher than this benchmark year, nominal data will be adjusted downwards. If prices are lower, nominal data will be adjusted upwards. In the base year itself, the nominal and inflation-adjusted figures are the same by definition.

Secondly, 2017 (2011) indicates the year in which the differences in the cost of living between countries was assessed.

Purchasing Power Parity rates

Converting data in local currencies to international-$ means dividing the figures by a set of ‘exchange’ rates, known as Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rates. Unlike the exchange rates between currencies you would see at the foreign exchange counter, these account for differences in the cost of living between countries.

If you have ever shopped or eaten in a restaurant abroad, you may have noticed a country as being a particularly expensive or particularly cheap place to live. A given amount of your own currency, when exchanged for another country’s currency, may buy you considerably more or less there than it would have done at home.

The goal of PPP rates is to account for these price differences. They express, for each country, the amount of local currency that is needed to buy the same goods and services there as 1 US dollar buys in the US.

You can read more about this in our article What are PPP adjustments and why do we need them?

The ‘rounds’ of the International Comparison Program

The calculation of PPP rates is the task of the International Comparison Program (ICP), which gathers data on the prices of thousands of goods and services in each country in a particular year.

The ICP does not calculate PPP rates every year, but rather conducts its work in ‘rounds’ that are several years apart. The most recent round was conducted in 2017 and the previous round was conducted in 2011.

In converting economic data to international-$, which round of PPPs are used to adjust for cost-of-living differences between countries is, in principle, a separate issue to the base year used to adjust for inflation over time. By convention, however, the same year tends to be chosen for both. When converted to 2017 international-$, nominal local currencies are first adjusted for inflation to local 2017 prices, and are then adjusted to US prices using the PPPs calculated in the ICP’s 2017 round. Likewise, 2011 international-$ adjust for inflation using 2011 local prices, and then use the 2011 PPPs to adjust for cost-of-living differences.

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The Maddison Project Database provides information on comparative economic growth and income levels over the very long run. The 2023 version of this database covers 169 countries and the period up to 2022. The new estimates are presented and discussed in Bolt and Van Zanden (2024), "Maddison style estimates of the evolution of the world economy: A new 2023 update", Journal of Economic Surveys, 1–41.

Retrieved on
April 26, 2024
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
  • Bolt, Jutta and Jan Luiten van Zanden (2024), "Maddison style estimates of the evolution of the world economy: A new 2023 update", Journal of Economic Surveys, 1–41. DOI: 10.1111/joes.12618.
  • The Maddison Project Database is based on the work of many researchers who have produced estimates of economic growth and population for individual countries. The full list of sources for this historical data is given in the original dataset.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: GDP per capita”, part of the following publication: Max Roser, Pablo Arriagada, Joe Hasell, Hannah Ritchie and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2023) - “Economic Growth”. Data adapted from Bolt and van Zanden. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Bolt and van Zanden - Maddison Project Database 2023 – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Bolt and van Zanden - Maddison Project Database 2023 – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “GDP per capita – Maddison Project Database – Historical data” [dataset]. Bolt and van Zanden, “Maddison Project Database 2023” [original data]. Retrieved October 13, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison