Preliminary Programme

GDP (per capita) is the most frequently used indicator for measuring the economic performance of countries, which is a central driver of well-being. Not only because higher income per person means higher material standards of living, but also because income is needed for spending on non-material components of well-being, such as education and health. If we use current prices to construct GDP, it measures the value of goods and services produced within a country for a given year. If we convert it to constant prices makes it possible to calculate the growth of GDP (output produced in a country) over time or the differences between countries across space. And if we compare the constant GDP series to the current GDP series for a given country, we can analyse price level movements between countries, that is, the relative cost of a basket of goods and services across countries over time.
However, the only available GDP figures for a global set of countries prior to 1950, are those of Maddison (2001, 2003; updated in 2013 by the Maddison-Project, see Bolt and van Zanden, 2013) which are purchasing-power-parity (PPP) adjusted and expressed in constant (1990) international prices. Recently, Chen et al. (2007) have collected nominal GDP series for 11 currently developed countries between 1870 and 2004, and constructed data set on long run price levels using Maddison’s (2003) constant series. They use that test for price level convergence between these countries.
In this paper we will take a similar approach but widen the scope to a global set of countries. We start by introducing a newly constructed historical database on current price GDP series for a global set of countries. Second, we will test for global price level convergence. (Show less)

In the early 1980s, the UN General Assembly realized that there was a heavy deterioration of the human environment and natural resources, as result of decades of external exploitation and institutions promoting economic globalization, leading to an era of free markets. The UN decided to establish the Brundtland Commission, named after Gro Harlem Brundtland who was the former Prime Minister of Norway. An important basic idea of the Brundtland report was ‘intergenerational equity’. In sum, the "needs" are basic and essential, economic growth will facilitate their fulfillment, and equity is encouraged by citizen participation. This means in general that mankind does not simply have to limit themselves in their growth, and to decrease their claim on the Earth natural resources, but merely change the way we are living. For example, the kind of energy carriers/fuels we use now and in the future (~renewables), how we produce our food (eat less meat requires far much less space (~stemming from natural ecosystems thus reducing loss of biodiversity), how much waste we produce (~much more recycling), and where do we put it (cradle to cradle), etc. This Sustainable development (SD) is often described as a pattern of economic growth in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come.

This paper attempts to quantify some historical indicators which describe this (un)sustainable development over the past five-hundred years.
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