Talk:List of regions by past GDP (PPP)/Archive 1

message: Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm afraid that the US didn't exist at that time.--Arash Eb (talk) 06:11, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  United States in 1500s 

message: Which Indian nationalist created this article and is maintaining it against edits against its blatantly obvious POV?  India didn't even exist as a nation during the 1st century.  It didn't exist as a nation in 1000 AD either.  In fact even 1500 AD should barely count, as the Islamic Mughals were just starting to expand their empire into the region by that time.  Calling the region "Indian" at those times would be as dishonest as lumping all European states in 1 AD or 1000 AD into one nation and counting all their GDPs as one lump GDP.  So why is this being done?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.119.64.100 (talk) 09:32, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Indian Subcontinent" is a geographic term; it's probably derived from the fact this part was once a floating continent that jammed with Asia or due to the boundaries of the Indian tectonic plate. Whatever, such a term that has only geographic connotations cannot be used to tag with the aggregate GDP of that region; Moreover, the term "India" doesn't mean the "Republic of India" when you are talking in an article that has to do with history. we know terms like "British India" but not "British Indian subcontinent". Also we have an article dealing with history of pre-partition India  titled History of India in Wikipedia, (where I assume that this topic has been discussed and well settled there, because its a much more popular topic) which supports my case. Therefore, we have to use "India" and link it to "History of India". Arjuncodename024 06:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: What's up with "India" in the 1st Century???

message: "These estimates refer to the combined economy of the various states located in the regions now corresponding to the Republic of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. ^ Goldsmith (p. 263, 267)."
Unless I am misinterpreting the description of the source, I believe it should be titled as "Indian Subcontinent", as the measurement seems to encompass the entire region. Furthermore, the source implies that the "various states" were not united a single political entity, such as in the Roman or Han empires. In the unlikely chance the source was only incorporating regions within the Maurya Empire (which was non-existent by the 1st century) or the Kushan Empire (which did not entirely cover the regions cited), the name should be altered to reflect so (i.e. "Han China" instead of "China", or "Mughal India" instead of "India")to alleviate any confusion. 24630 (talk) 19:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "Indian Subcontinent" is a geographic term; it's probably derived from the fact this part was once a floating continent that jammed with Asia or due to the boundaries of the Indian tectonic plate. Whatever, such a term that has only geographic connotations cannot be used to tag with the aggregate GDP of that region; Moreover, the term "India" doesn't mean the "Republic of India" when you are talking in an article that has to do with history. we know terms like "British India" but not "British Indian subcontinent". Also we have an article dealing with history of pre-partition India  titled History of India in Wikipedia, (where I assume that this topic has been discussed and well settled there, because its a much more popular topic) which supports my case. Therefore, we have to use "India" and link it to "History of India". Arjuncodename024 06:17, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: India vs. Indian Sub-continent

message: A little tough considering the prices were fixed. I know there are CIA estimates but the differences are huge. The USSR says military budget accounted for 5% of its GDP, the CIA says 50%. I mean c'mon.
-G  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 22:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: So how was the Soviet Unions GDP calculated?

message: I added the move or rename tag but not too sure how to list the article on WK:RM.. can someone help?--Kaio™ (talk) 20:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move or rename

message: *Is data after 1900 accurate?
*There should be enough information to get a basic estimates of GDP of all the country in the 20th century
*A separate page should be made for national GDP from 1900-2000
*It is very useful information is the information is correct!!!
* Very interesting page, but the numbers on top of the 1913 table look out of order.  67.84.164.114 22:32, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Question

message: I consider most of these estimates as made out of thin air, with includes all then made before the late XXth century. How could you "measure" the gdp of such ancient economies as india and china, the ammount of information we have about their economies is nearly non existant since they did not use money in daily transactions and had no prices to make PPP. And simply because they were densely populated, he assumes that they were the weathiest regions in the planet, since he simply puts per capita incomes of 450 dollars for everybody before 1500. Also, he greatly underestimates the gdp of the roman empire, he assumes subsistence levels, something simply absurd for such advanced agricultural economy. Also, he computed the total population of the roman empire as only 45 million, lowest than all serios estimates, with put its population in the 65 million to 120 million range. 
And he assumes a per capita income of only 450 dollars, with contrasts with the 2,000 dollar figure of Peter Termin (with was calculated using the rate of urbanization as and yardstick), also it is  absolutely impossible to estimate per capita income with certain because of the desproportionality of price changes.
To his estimates, the roman empire had 20% of the global gdp, if Termin estimate is computed with the most accepted population estimate, the gdp of the roman empire would be 130 billion dollars, about 65% of the global gdp.--RafaelG 03:07, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who is Peter Termin? deeptrivia (talk) 20:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, a mean the Economist Peter Temin.--RafaelG 01:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

text: In that case you're ignoring the GDP of India and China. If you say that the population of Rome is ::incorrect that it isn't ~55-60 million, then the 50-55 million figure of the Han Dynasty isn't ::correct either. So even if the Roman empire had 120 million people, it still wouldn't have anything ::close to 65% of the world's gdp. You're just pulling numbers out of thin air there. Remember that ::the Romans, like the Han and India, were all primarily agricultural states. Trade was important but ::farming still provided the main source of income and taxation.
Intranetusa (talk) 01:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Absurd Estimates

message: Is anyone going to put this article for deletion or is it all talk? This article is full of propaganda started and used by an Indian private company (India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF)) to highlight the greatness of India (see also “Invisible side of India” on Youtube which is up loaded by the same people (IBEF) and refers to this article as evidence to India’s greatness). I doubt that anyone can learn anything useful from this article; it is no more than unreliable, un-credible targeted propaganda. Country names are not real (for that time) no real data to rely on (such as number of population and income) It is clear case of COI and data distortion to serve a commercial purpose I don't think Wikipedia is the place for such patriotic junk...! KS™ 17:08, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, even in the case of roman egypt with we have a very large ammount of papyrus preserved with mentions prices and financial data is impossible to make even a imprecise estimate for the total output of the economy.--RafaelG 21:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deletion Candidate

message: Data from UN's National Accounts Main Aggregates Database : (Just for reference)
Estimates of GDP at current prices in Billion US Dollars
1970	1970       	1970   		1980	1980        	1980    		1990	1990       	1990    		2000	2000       	2000
Rank	Country    	GDP    		Rank	Country     	GDP     		Rank	Country    	GDP     		Rank	Country    	GDP
—   	World      	3,257.4		—   	World       	11,771.2		—   	World      	21,944.3		—   	World      	31,654.6
1   	US         	1,025  		1   	US          	2,768.9 		1   	US         	5,757.2 		1   	US         	9,764.8
2   	USSR       	402.7  		2   	Japan       	1,062.8 		2   	Japan      	3,039.7 		2   	Japan      	4,746.1
3   	Germany    	208.7  		3   	USSR        	928.4   		3   	Germany    	1,711.9 		3   	Germany    	1,900.2
4   	Japan      	204.4  		4   	Germany     	915     		4   	France     	1,231   		4   	UK         	1,438.2
5   	France     	148.8  		5   	France      	690.6   		5   	Italy      	1,102.4 		5   	France     	1,328
6   	UK         	123.6  		6   	UK          	536.1   		6   	UK         	989.6   		6   	China      	1,080.7
7   	Italy      	107.7  		7   	Italy       	448.8   		7   	Canada     	574.2   		7   	Italy      	1,074.8
8   	China      	91.5   		8   	China       	301.5   		8   	Russia     	569.7   		8   	Canada     	714.5
9   	Canada     	85.1   		9   	Canada      	265.3   		9   	Spain      	526.4   		9   	Brazil     	601.7
10  	Brazil     	67.1   		10  	Brazil      	245.9   		10  	Brazil     	438.3   		10  	Mexico     	580.8
11  	India      	61     		11  	Spain       	228.4   		11  	China      	383     		11  	Spain      	580.7
12  	Australia  	42.9   		12  	Mexico      	207.7   		12  	India      	324.3   		12  	S. Korea   	511.7
13  	Spain      	40.2   		13  	India       	183.3   		13  	Australia  	310.5   		13  	India      	464.9
14  	Mexico     	39.6   		14  	Netherlands 	178.2   		14  	Netherlands	294.8   		14  	Australia  	387.5
15  	Netherlands	35.4   		15  	Australia   	166.1   		15  	S. Korea   	263.8   		15  	Netherlands	370.6
16  	Sweden     	34.8   		16  	Saudi Arabia	147.6   		16  	Mexico     	262.7   		16  	Argentina  	284.3
17  	Argentina  	31     		17  	Sweden      	129.7   		17  	Sweden     	240.2   		17  	Russia     	259.7
18  	Belgium    	25.6   		18  	Belgium     	121.8   		18  	Switzerland	235.8   		18  	Switzerland	246
19  	Switzerland	22.6   		19  	Switzerland 	111     		19  	Belgium    	197.2   		19  	Sweden     	239.6
20  	Poland     	20.7   		20  	Nigeria     	92.1    		20  	Austria    	197.2   		20  	Belgium    	228.4
I don't think anyone can find accurate GDP statistics before late 40s. --Kerry7374 22:23, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other References 

message: Apart from all the other faults mentioned above on inaccuracy and wild speculation and inavailability of data, the article is also misleading because political boundaries have been extremely variable in the past. When one says "India" in reference to the patchwork of kingdoms existing around 1 AD, it is more than inaccurate, it is misleading. Also, political boundaries have a great effect on the GDP of a particular nation.
In addition, it makes no sense to single out certain years -- 1600, 1700, etc. -- just because they are "round", as this does not take into account periodic troughs or crests in economies.
These factors, coupled with the inaccuracies and biases (the data is from just one source, for instance) mean that the article's data prior to 1950 should be discarded wholesale, and a more detailed overview of 1950-2000 be substituted, for this is the era for which meaningful and widely accepted GDP statistics can be obtained, and the era in which the political divisions of the world settled down close enough to modern boundaries to permit meaningful comparisons.
laddiebuck 23:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for backing me up. I think the whole thing is taken from a book someone read and decided to type in. Maybe we should add a VfD template. laddiebuck 00:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion or refocusing 

message: we should write a caveat to this article... depending on the economic source that a person can quote, these countries can have different rankings.  For instance, in many economic tallies, the chinese empire, the roman empire, the mongol empire, would have occupied the number one spot depending on the time period.  Further, it is odd that we are using only one source of economic information...  Not only that, the subcontinent of india for most of the pre-1945 era was subdivided into various kingdoms and it wasn't until the moghuls came along that the country looked similar to what is seen today. Don't know how that economist made these numbers.  I'll add a disclaimer to the top of the page to reflect our discussions.  Kanga1 22:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: agreed

message: I notice that there are no statistics for the countries' GDP in between WWI and WWII. I think it would be very interesting to include a table with data from, say, 1920,'30, or '40, if possible of course. Daniel Montin 10:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Between World Wars 

message: It is absurd that two of the largest empires (Abbasid Caliphate and Ottoman Empire) in world history aren't even listed in the centuries they were simply the most powerful countries on earth. Instead they are probably scattered into West Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. However the comparable territory of Roman Empire is kept intact. No caliphate in 1000, no Ottoman Empire in 1600, who are they kidding?
Other that that, in the 20th century listings, the same few European countries seem to be listed repeatedly while there were many other larger economies.
:Funny, "two of the largest empires " are unable to provide info to Wikipedia, who to blame?
:So should we contact the Porte and ask them to submit their financials? ;)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cruist22 (talk • contribs) 17:58, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bizarre boundaries 

message: It seems that this list is based on the work of one economic historian, Angus Maddison, which is controversial at best.  I have noticed is that Maddison accomplishments (which are substantial regardless) have been finessed here and there.  Thus he is referred to as "director of OECD," which he never was.  As I say on the Talk:India page, Madison was an undergraduate at Cambridge, England; attended McGill and Johns Hopkins for graduate work, but didn't finish graduate school; thereafter joined OEEC (later OECD) in 1953 and became Assistant Director of Economic Development in 1963; left OECD in 1964 and became a consultant for the next 15 years, before joining Groningen University in 1978 and remaining there until his retirement.  Maddison's book The World Economy: Historical Statistics has been criticized in many circles.  Here are excerpts from a review by Brian Haig (Australian National University), the last sentence of which is a withering assessment of Maddison's Australian statistics:
Expand to read excerpts of review of Maddison's book by Bryan Haig:
This article needs balance more than anything else.  A Wikipedia article or list should not be based on one idiosyncratic work.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Urgent need for balance

message: It is impossible for French GDP to be merely $38 billion as that implies wages were at par with China then. The correct figure should be atleast $90 billion (or 50% of China) considering the large population of France and wages had climbed to atleast 6 times that of China then. Anwar 15:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 1820 data is nuts

message: By 1870, Indian GDP is widely believed to have shrunk to 80% of the USA due to collapse of central authority of the Mughal dyasty since 1720. Anwar 15:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 1870 data is nuts

message: Considering the kingdoms of Korea were much richer and much more powerful than Japan until the 15th century, I find it surprising Japan has a GDP figure but not Korea...
Intranetusa (talk) 01:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Inclusion of Korea

message: Where is the economy of this major empire of the medieval period? It needs to be included.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.249.59.94 (talk) 21:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Inclusion of the Turkish/Ottoman Empire

message: --64.180.226.234 (talk) 00:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  In fact I'm reading the article specifically looking for Canadian vs Australian GDP...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.197.100 (talk) 13:32, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are Canada & Australia grouped together? 

message: An interesting article, but the data for 1000 simply doesn't seem believable at all. 1500 does make some sense, but this one frankly seems absurd. Kievan Rus and the Byzantine Empire, which could be included into Russia or Eastern Europe, were clearly on par with Western European states. The GDP of Poland seems to be larger than that of the entire Western Europe, even though it was freshly formed and was still struggling against the HRE (which I suppose is Western Europe). On what grounds is it excluded from Eastern Europe? Why is there no notification of its exclusion next to Eastern Europe? It is quite difficult to understand to what regions or nations do the terms used in this particular table refer. Say, Africa obviously refers to Northern Africa, yet it is impossible to understand this without knowing a little history. Perhaps it would be for the better to mark this period with an additional notification emphasising the extreme unreliability of the data once again, or exclude it altogether. --Humanophage (talk) 08:37, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  1000? 

message: How can you possibly have two separate entries for the British Empire and the U.K. unless the latter was included in the former?  Indeed, for the $265 billion figure, the U.K. is explicitly included in the British Empire, and yet is still separately listed.  If so, the figures cannot possibly add up to 100%.
Also, why am I the first to notice this glaring error?
:The data in the table needn't add up to 100%, each table only shows what info is available. So for that time, data was available for the British Empire, and the UK, so both pieces of information are given. Somebody using this list might not want to know the GDP of the whole empire, but just the UK itself, so why not give both? Deamon138 (talk) 21:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  British Empire and U.K. 

message: It is absurd that such a large country as India should be seen as one region. Keeping in mind that India was only unified for two centuries (3rd and 4th BC) and was then divided into a number of Middle Kingdoms, why is the historical GDP of India seen as a whole? The division for the other countries is obviously not by modern geopolitical boundaries, but for existing empires at the time - take the Roman Empire and the Han Empire. They were by all means historical empires. If India is taken as one region, so should France, Italy, Germany, etc. (and whatever other countries there were in the Roman Empire), be taken in terms of GDP separately, as according to the divisions today - China should be taken as a whole as well, not just including Song China, for example, but the Liao and Xi Xia kingdoms, which occupied the north of China as it is today. Another possibility is to consider the Middle Kingdoms of India separately for GDP, after all, why should they be all considered together, when no such empire existed at the time?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Whipster (talk • contribs) 12:07, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most likely for the very reason that is given in the article, "It is important to note that for the earlier dates there is an almost complete lack of the kind of hard data that today is used to calculate GDP values." The data for the individual parts of India just probably doesn't exist. Deamon138 (talk) 01:22, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  India? 

message: What are we to make of lists adding to 100% that include both "Western Europe" and individual Western European countries?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.197.100 (talk) 13:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organization Seems to Be a Mess 

message: What's with Medieval Poland having 10% of world GDP?
Ruler in 1000AD: "At the time of the reign of Mieszko there was no single place serving as the capital, instead he built several castles around his country."
10% of world GDP?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.197.100 (talk) 13:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medieval Poland 

message: A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries.  Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: New Discussion

message: Per capita would be the most interesting add TomasCantorFriedman (talk) 09:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Per capita would be the most interesting add 

message: I'm aware that AO333 is trying to POV-push his anti-India bias into this article, but keep in mind that "India" does not mean "Republic of India".  The entire subcontinent was united, for example, under Asoka.  This is why the #1 spot states India but links to History of India.  It is correct that way and if I may quote Arjun024's comment above:
"Indian Subcontinent" is a geographic term; it's probably derived from the fact this part was once a floating continent that jammed with Asia or due to the boundaries of the Indian tectonic plate. Whatever, such a term that has only geographic connotations cannot be used to tag with the aggregate GDP of that region; Moreover, the term "India" doesn't mean the "Republic of India" when you are talking in an article that has to do with history. we know terms like "British India" but not "British Indian subcontinent". Also we have an article dealing with history of pre-partition India titled History of India in Wikipedia, (where I assume that this topic has been discussed and well settled there, because its a much more popular topic) which supports my case. Therefore, we have to use "India" and link it to "History of India".
Try as you might.  It's staying that way. GSMR (talk) 18:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "India" is correct. 

message: Who calculated the value of "22 000" citing Goldsmith as reference? This is what he actually wrote on p. 263 (the p. 267 reference given leads nowhere):
In terms of settled territory the early Roman empire with about 3.3 km2 was the largest political, economic and monetary unit in the Western world until it was overtaken by the expansion of the United States and of the Russian empire in the mid-19th century. With about 55 million inhabitants it was more populous than any western country until, again, the mid-19th century, equalling even the present population of the large European nation-states-France, Germany, Great Britain and Italy; and probably was not surpassed by its only two competitors, the Chinese empire and the less durable empires that arose from time to time in the Indian peninsula, until about AD 1000. Finally, in terms of real national product, a comparison which is much more difficult to make, the Roman empire with a national product of, as will be shown below, slightly over 20 billion sesterces (HS), equal to about 1,700 t of gold, probably surpassed any Western economy until the early 19th century. On all three tests, then, the early Roman empire was the largest Western economic unit for nearly two millennia.
So how became 20 billion sesterces 22 000 international dollars? Any takers? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: None? Thought so. Even for a dim-wit, it must ring true that Raymond W. Goldsmith could not have computed this value in terms of 1990 International Dollars, since he died in 1988...So who is in charge of this splendid piece of article? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:20, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roman Empire