List of countries by GDP (PPP) in the nineteenth century

These are lists of countries in the nineteenth century by their estimated real gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the value of all final goods and services produced within a country/region in a given year. GDP dollar (international dollar) estimates here are derived from PPP estimates.

Methodology

Due to the absence of sufficient data for nearly all economies until the 20th century, earlier GDP is only roughly estimated. In a first step, economic historians try to reconstruct the GDP per capita of a given political or geographical entity from the meagre evidence. This value is then multiplied by the estimated population size, another determinant for which as a rule only little ancient data is available.

A key notion in the whole process is that of subsistence, the income level which is necessary for sustaining one's life. Since pre-industrial societies, by modern standards, were characterized by a very low degree of urbanization and a large majority of people working in the agricultural sector, economic historians prefer to express income in cereal units. To achieve comparability over space and time, these numbers are then converted into monetary units such as International Dollars, a third step which leaves a relatively wide margin of interpretation.

The formula is: GDP (PPP) = GDP per capita (PPP) × population size

It should be stressed that, historically speaking, population size is a far more important multiplier in the equation. This is because, in contrast to industrial economies, the average income ceiling of premodern agrarian societies was quite low everywhere, possibly not higher than twice the subsistence level. Therefore, the total GDP as given below primarily reflects the respective historical population size, and is much less indicative of contemporary living standards than, for example, estimations of past GDP per capita.

According to 20th-century macroeconomist Paul Bairoch, a pioneer in historical economic analysis,

Rather, Bairoch advocates a formula combining GNP per capita and total GNP to provide a better measure of the economic performance of national economies.Bairoch 1976, p. 282

The total GDPs of the British Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire were difficult to calculate due to lack of information from some localities in Maddison's work. There is no information to speculate the GDP of many colonies and national subdivisions. In the case of Austria-Hungary, the data given is about the modern territory of the Austria and Hungary, while the majority of the population and economy lay outside today's borders. There were data about future countries that were once part of the Empire. Using that, the Czechoslovakia's GDP was split in the rate of 2:1 to Austria and Hungary respectively because of the location of each part in the former empire and the population rate between Czech and Slovakian territories of 2:1. Data about the GDP of the territory of the future Yugoslavian kingdom in 1890s existed, so the proportion of the population among Croatia-Slavonia, Serbia and the other constituents of the future kingdom were used to deduce the GDP of each place. Information about Galician GDP was deduced using the proportion of the people it had in what would become Poland. Information about other parts were missing, so the GDP of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was actually bigger than shown, as well as the British Empire.

Lists

List by the Contours of the World Economy, 1–2030 AD (Partial forecasted estimates for 1879–1880) and Maddison ProjectGGDC - Maddison Project
/ref>David Rumsey
/ref>

Notes

References

External links

Angus Maddison
— Historical statistics


— Papers on ancient economy and demography

{{GDP country lists

GDP by country
GDP (PPP) Past Nineteenth century
Countries by GDP
GDP (PPP) 19th century