Relative per capita income levels in the United Kingdom and the United States since 1870: Reconciling time-series projections and direct-benchmark estimates

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Warwick
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 852-863
• 关键词: comparative productivity; british; britain

摘要

There are currently two ways of estimating relative levels of per capita income back to the nineteenth century. The most commonly adopted approach, popularized in particular by Angus Maddison and labeled long-span estimates by Marianne Ward and John Devereux, is to use time-series projection from a recent benchmark.(1) The alternative procedure, labeled direct estimates by Ward and Devereux, is to use direct benchmark estimates for earlier years. Ward and Devereux provide some new direct estimates which they claim over-turn the conventional chronology of U.K./U.S. relative per capita income levels for the period 1870-1990, derived using long-span projections. One important purpose of this note is to dispute the new estimates, and hence to reassert the conventional chronology. Along the way, however, I wish also to make a more general methodological point about the use of time series projections and direct benchmark estimates of relative per capita income levels. In my view, it is unsatisfactory for researchers to note a large discrepancy and simply claim the superiority of one type of evidence over the other. Rather, a satisfactory account of the evolution of relative per capita incomes over a long period should be able to encompass both sorts of evidence.