The dataset reports annual estimates for primary energy per capita and GDP per capita for 185 countries for 1950 through 2014. The data allows investigating long-term joint evolution of economic activity and energy demand, which is important for both understanding the past energy needs of economic development, and forming useful baselines for scenario development, especially for integrated assessment modeling around climate change mitigation. Other commonly used datasets only go back to 1971 (International Energy Agency) for worldwide coverage and so extending the data back to 1950 allows analyzing a longer time period than before. The dataset also includes more individual country time series than IEA data thanks to data from the UN.

185 Countries as well as Czechoslovakia, East and West Pakistan, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia prior to their dissolution. Covers upward of 99% of global population after 1970. Data were downloaded from online repositories and then cleaned, harmonized and merged.