Contributions to Data Provision in the Twenty-First Century

Oxford econometrics has continued its interest in data construction and organisation. The vast, easily accessed and immensely useful provision in Our World in Data (see https://ourworldindata.org/) by Max Roser and his team

Figure 1.1 UK GDP reconstructions, 1300-1700

is a major contribution to understanding the evolution of the world.

Recently, Apostolides et al. (2008) have performed the enormous task of estimating English GDP from 1300-1700, providing an incredibly long run of historical time series data, shown for what the authors call “GDP1” in Figure 1.1, pre- and post- their missing data period.^[4] The downward location shift following the Black Death starting in 1348 is very marked in the left­hand panel, as is the relative stagnation through to about 1500, both high­lighted by using step-indicator saturation (SIS: see Castle et al. 2015). On the right-hand panel (note the different scales), the strong and relatively constant absolute growth from around 1550 onwards is equally obvious, and now SIS picks up the drop in GDP during the English Civil War (1642-1651), and the boom following its ending, as well as another boom over 1664-1672. While it may be thought to be anachronistic to create GDP data for a period where the concept was unknown, the authors' detailed and extensive archival research is an important contribution to understanding the past, and builds on a long Oxford tradition in data curation.

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