Historic GDP and Population Estimates from 1500 to 2018

Global country-year estimates for Gross Domestic Product, GDP per capita, and population from 1500 A.D. to 2018 A.D. The data was created by Christopher J. Fariss of the University of Michigan using a latent variable modeling framework that incorporates multiple indicators to estimate measurement uncertainty. This expanded temporal coverage provides new insights into relationships between development and democracy, conflict, repression, and health.

Use Cases

• Modeling the relationship between economic development and democracy based on the expanded historical coverage.
• Analyzing the link between conflict processes and GDP per capita over centuries.
• Incorporating measurement uncertainty into observational models of repression and development.
• Studying long-term trends in population and health outcomes relative to economic indicators.

Strengths

• Covers over 500 years of historical data from 1500 to 2018.
• Provides a principled framework for estimating uncertainty for all country-year variables.
• Uses a latent variable model that makes use of multiple indicators for each core variable.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

University of Michigan

Collection Method

Latent variable modeling framework using multiple indicators.

Time Range

1500 A.D. to 2018 A.D.

Geography

Global (country-level)