We Do Not Know the Population of Every Country in the World for the Past Two Thousand Years

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Yale University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050723000293
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 912-938
• 关键词: Urbanization; Europe; income

摘要

Economists have reported results based on populations for every country in the world for the past two thousand years. The source, McEvedy and Jones' Atlas of World Population History, includes many estimates that are little more than guesses and that do not reflect research since 1978. McEvedy and Jones often infer population sizes from their view of a particular economy, making their estimates poor proxies for economic growth. Their rounding means their measurement error is not classical. Some economists augment that error by disaggregating regions in unfounded ways. Econometric results that rest on McEvedy and Jones are unreliable. horizontal ellipsis we haven't just pulled the figures out of the sky. Well, not often.-McEvedy and Jones (1978, p. 11)