==================== HES POSTING ===================== 
 
H-NET BOOK REVIEW 
Published by [log in to unmask]  (January, 1997) 
 
Angus Maddison, _Monitoring the World Economy, 1820-1992_. 
Washington, D.C.: Organization for Economic Cooperation and 
Development, 1995.  255 pp. Tables and bibliographical references. 
$30.00 (paper), ISBN 9-26414-549-4. 
 
Reviewed for EH.Net by John R. Hanson II, Department of Economics, 
Texas A&M University <[log in to unmask]> 
 
The heightened interest in economic globalism in recent times makes this a 
timely book.  At the behest of the OECD Angus Maddison, arguably the dean 
of scholars on the history of the world economy, summarizes the available 
data and research on trends in the global economy during most of the 
modern era, defined as the period since the Industrial Revolution.  The 
OECD's offer also affords Maddison an opportunity to synthesize and 
summarize his views on world economic integration after a long career 
studying the subject.  This volume, therefore, will be widely welcomed and 
perhaps accepted in some quarters as a definitive treatment, especially 
since a standard of "Maddison reliability" for historical international 
economic data seems to have replaced the former "Kuznets standard" among 
academics.  Currently only Alan Heston and Robert Summers, leaders of the 
International Comparison Project, have similar stature. Yet their work, 
which Maddison utilizes extensively, lacks Maddison's breadth. 
 
The book's main contribution consists of consistent estimates of GDP, 
population, and GDP per capita for the period 1820 to 1992 for fifty-six 
countries accounting in 1992 for over 90 percent of world product. Other, 
less complete, series are presented for related magnitudes, including 
employment, exports, capital stocks, and several measures of productivity. 
Maddison relies on a wide range of sources, corrects for discontinuities 
in series, and makes adjustments in data provided in the various sources 
to achieve comparability and continuity.  The appendices contain most of 
this information and are the heart and soul of the volume.  The data are 
accompanied by a concise, general analysis of the major forces accounting 
for the long-run economic growth and development of countries within the 
framework of a growing world economy.  The analysis is non-Marxist. 
 
Maddison's prestige as an economist and the OECD's imprimatur make the new 
data set a seductive one.  It should be labor-saving, thereby raising 
scholarly productivity in both teaching and research.  It will stimulate 
research in world economic history, which, though growing, remains 
peripheral to the larger academic agenda.  It is informative about the 
thoughts, conjectures, and conclusions of a distinguished senior scholar 
in the later stages of a remarkable career. Still, several words of 
caution are in order. 
 
The book's title, first of all, is misleading.  There is little useful 
content for the years before roughly 1870, especially with respect to the 
non-Western world.  Some income estimates and other economic data going as 
far back as 1820 are offered, but Maddison's tone in presenting these is 
insufficiently tentative.  Early per capita income estimates sometimes are 
proferred only for it to be revealed in other tables that important 
concomitant or supporting data are not available, raising many obvious 
questions.  Maddison's determined and persistent efforts to push income 
estimates for poor countries back in time are laudable, but the results 
still must be taken with many grains of salt. 
 
Maddison's presuppositions in this area, incidentally, were formed during 
the mid-twentieth century, when Western scholars habitually underestimated 
Third World incomes. Until recently Maddison has been a critic of the 
Heston-Summers upward revisions, although this volume suggests that he has 
finally joined the mainstream.  Nonetheless, it is well to remember that 
Maddison long has lowballed historical income estimates for the less 
developed world.  One of his students, Pierre Van der Eng, recently raised 
Maddison's historical estimates for Indonesia. Although Maddison himself 
deserves great credit for his adaptability and intellectual integrity, 
many of his historical estimates for poor countries must be regarded as 
provisional and his judgments tentative even when, as is common, he omits 
caveats. 
 
Finally, users of this volume should be aware that during his long career 
Maddison has been fortunate in escaping the minute scrutiny and evaluation 
to which Heston and Summers and other scholars in this general area have 
been subjected.  Maddison's enviable reputation is well deserved, yet as 
Van der Eng and some of my own work have shown, the natural tendency to 
accept Maddison uncritically must be resisted.  His historical income 
estimates for LDCs, for example, are less consistent with general trends 
in the world economy than some I derived from the work of other scholars. 
These are arcane matters, to be sure, but users of this volume should 
understand that much more work will be required before historical income 
estimates for most of the world can be confidently accepted.  With respect 
to developed countries, however, historical estimates, especially after 
1900, are more reliable.  On these, Maddison stands on firmer ground. 
 
    Copyright (c) 1997 by EH.Net and H-Net, all rights reserved. 
    This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper 
    credit is given to the author and EH.Net. For other permission, 
    please write [log in to unmask] 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]