IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhheco/2018_025.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars cannot be a foundation for reliable long run comparisons of GDP

Author

Listed:
  • Brunt, Liam

    (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

  • Fidalgo, Antonio

    (Fresenius University of Applied Sciences)

Abstract

Using a large, new dataset of agricultural prices and quantities for many countries and regions, we create five new international Geary-Khamis pounds – for 1870, 1845, 1775, 1705, and a superior chained series. We show that estimated levels and changes in output per worker look very different – more extreme – using 1705 international pounds and 1990 international dollars, compared to all other series; growth rates appear substantially higher using 1990 international dollars. In short, out-of-sample baskets and/or prices create extremely unreliable output estimates. We also show that individual country price indices (rather than international indices) can generate substantially different estimated growth rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Brunt, Liam & Fidalgo, Antonio, 2018. "Why 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars cannot be a foundation for reliable long run comparisons of GDP," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 25/2018, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2018_025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/2575366
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Geary-Khamis prices; economic growth; international comparisons; price indices;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N50 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - General, International, or Comparative

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2018_025. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Karen Reed-Larsen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sonhhno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.