We here provide three different economic time series that amend or combine various existing time series for Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GDP per capita, and population to create consistent and continuous economic time series between 1850 and 2009 for up to 195 countries:

(1) A continuous table of global income data (in 1990 Geary-Khamis $) based on the Maddison Project data base (MPD) for 160 individual countries and 3 groups of countries from 1850-2010: Maddison_Project_data_completed_1850-2010.csv.(2) A continuous table of global income data (in 2005 PPP $, PPP = purchasing power parity) for 195 countries based on a merged and harmonized dataset between MPD and Penn World Tables (PWT, version v8.1) from 1850-2009, and additionally extended using PWT v9.0 and World Development Indicators (WDI), that is consistent with future GDP per capita projections from the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs): GDP-per-capita-national_PPP2005_SSP-harmonized_1850-2009.csv.(3) A continuous table of global GDP data (in 2005 PPP $) for 195 countries from 1850-2009 based on the second income data set multiplied by country population data, again consistent with future SSP GDP projections: GDP-national_PPP2005_SSP-harmonized_1850-2009.csv.

These data are supplemented by a masking table indicating MPD original data and amended data based on current country definitions (Maddison_data_availability_masked_1850-2010.csv) and a file with PPP conversion factors used in this study (PPP_conversion_factors_PPP1990-PPP2005.csv).

We use various interpolation and extrapolation methods to handle missing data and discuss the advantages and limitations of our methodology. Despite known shortcomings this data set aims to provide valuable input, e.g., for climate impact research in order to consistently analyze economic impacts from pre-industrial times to the distant future. More information about data sources and data format description is given in the data description file (Data-Description-GDP_1850-2009.pdf).

Version history: Please use the updated version of this dataset which contains correction of errors in the original dataset. For a detailed description of the changes please consult the CHANGELOG included in the data description document of the new version.