Delivering historical national accounting data, including GDP per capita estimates, for China and several European economies such as Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. It is the replication package for a study on the Great Divergence in economic history authored by Stephen Broadberry. The dataset was last updated in February 2026.
Use Cases
- Analyze long-term GDP per capita trends for China and European economies to study the timing of the Great Divergence.
- Compare economic growth rates between Asian and European historical economies using the provided national accounting estimates.
- Replicate the findings of the associated study on the Great Divergence debate using the included historical data.
Strengths
- Data is associated with a specific academic study on a major historical economic debate.
- Includes historical GDP per capita estimates for multiple major economies, including China.
- Dataset was updated in February 2026, indicating recent maintenance.
Limitations
- The specific data structure, including column names, row counts, and file formats, is unknown.
- The temporal coverage and exact geographic scope for each included economy are not specified in the input.
Provenance
- Source
- Stephen Broadberry, ICPSR Harvested Dataverse
- Collection Method
- Replication package for a historical national accounting study.
- Time Range
- Medieval period to likely more recent historical periods (exact range unspecified).
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-02-23.
- Geography
- China and European economies including Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain.