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How far back does China's macroeconomic record go, and what does it show? Fifteen figures drawn from the Global Macro Database (Müller, Xu, Lehbib & Chen 2025), which integrates 160 historical and contemporary sources into continuous annual series for 239 economies. The set covers every core concept in the database: output and population, prices and house prices, unemployment, demand composition, interest rates, money, exchange rates, the fiscal accounts, external trade and the current account, and the coded chronology of banking, currency, and sovereign-debt crises. Unit variants (local-currency and USD levels, the narrower M0/M1 and broader M3/M4 aggregates) stay queryable in the SQL console as view gmd. Values run through 2024; the database's IMF-consistent extensions beyond 2024 are excluded. Coverage for China starts in 1640.
Real GDP per capita in constant US dollars is the standard single-number summary of living standards. Long spans expose what annual data hides: growth is episodic, and the level differences between countries dwarf the year-to-year fluctuations within them (Pritchett 1997, 'Divergence, Big Time,' Journal of Economic Perspectives).
Population on 1 January, in millions. The demographic transition (mortality falls first, fertility follows decades later) governs the long-run shape: near-flat, then steep, then flattening again as fertility converges toward replacement.
Period-on-period CPI inflation. Over long spans the fiat-era regime change is visible in almost every country: price levels were roughly trendless under commodity standards and drift upward persistently after them (Reinhart & Rogoff 2009, This Time Is Different, ch. 12).
The unemployment rate as a percent of the labor force. Historical coverage is thinner than for prices or output; where it reaches the interwar years, the Great Depression is usually the extreme of the whole series.
Household consumption, government consumption, and gross capital formation as shares of GDP. Development shows up here as a falling household-consumption share and a rising investment share; the fastest catch-up growers sustained investment above 30% of GDP for decades.
Nominal house-price index, 2015 = 100. Knoll, Schularick & Steger (2017, 'No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870-2012,' American Economic Review) show real house prices were roughly flat from the 19th century to the mid-20th and rose sharply only after 1950, driven mostly by land prices. The GMD carries house-price series for 58 of its 239 countries.
The central bank policy rate, a short-term market rate (usually 3-month), and a long-term rate (usually the 10-year government bond yield). Homer & Sylla (A History of Interest Rates, 4th ed. 2005) document that long rates in stable states cluster in single digits for centuries; sustained double digits mark inflation or default risk, not normal times.
Year-over-year growth of the M2 money stock, computed from the GMD level series over consecutive years. Across countries and decades, sustained money growth and inflation move almost one-for-one at low frequencies (McCandless & Weber 1995, 'Some Monetary Facts,' FRB Minneapolis Quarterly Review; Friedman & Schwartz 1963, A Monetary History of the United States).
Annual change in the local-currency price of the US dollar (positive = depreciation), computed from the GMD exchange-rate level over consecutive years. Kaminsky & Reinhart (1999, 'The Twin Crises,' American Economic Review) built their currency-crisis chronology from exactly these discrete depreciation episodes; the crisis years coded below usually coincide with the spikes here.
The REER (2015 = 100) summarizes price competitiveness against trading partners: a rising index means the country's goods are getting more expensive relative to its partners', whether through nominal appreciation or faster domestic inflation.
Government revenue, expenditure, and tax receipts as shares of GDP. Tanzi & Schuknecht (2000, Public Spending in the 20th Century) document the century's defining fiscal fact: government spending in advanced economies rose from roughly a tenth of GDP before WWI to two-fifths or more by the 1990s.
The overall government balance as a percent of GDP, negative in deficit. Wars and deep recessions dominate the extremes; the interesting long-run question is whether the balance recovers between them.
Government debt as a percent of GDP. Wars and financial crises produce the large upward steps; the descents come from growth, inflation, or default rather than sustained surpluses (Reinhart & Rogoff 2010; Hall & Sargent 2011, 'Interest Rate Risk and Other Determinants of Post-WWII US Government Debt/GDP Dynamics,' AEJ: Macroeconomics).
Exports and imports of goods and services as a percent of GDP. Unlike the BACI-based openness figure on the macro profile, which covers merchandise trade from 1995, these are national-accounts series and often reach back a century or more, spanning both globalization waves.
The current account balance as a percent of GDP: the trade balance plus net factor income. Persistent imbalances are the long-run signature of capital importers and exporters; the intertemporal approach reads them as saving and investment decisions rather than competitiveness verdicts (Obstfeld & Rogoff 1996, Foundations of International Macroeconomics).
Years coded in the Global Macro Database as banking, currency, or sovereign-debt crises. The dummies consolidate the standard crisis chronologies the database harmonizes; consult the source paper for the underlying definitions.
References. Müller, K., Xu, C., Lehbib, M. & Chen, Z. (2025). 'The Global Macro Database: A New International Macroeconomic Dataset.' NBER Working Paper 33714. Data: globalmacrodata.com, release 2026_06, free for academic and non-profit research. Friedman, M. & Schwartz, A. J. (1963). A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. Princeton University Press. Hall, G. J. & Sargent, T. J. (2011). 'Interest Rate Risk and Other Determinants of Post-WWII US Government Debt/GDP Dynamics.' American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3(3): 192-214. Homer, S. & Sylla, R. (2005). A History of Interest Rates, 4th ed. Wiley. Kaminsky, G. L. & Reinhart, C. M. (1999). 'The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems.' American Economic Review 89(3): 473-500. Knoll, K., Schularick, M. & Steger, T. (2017). 'No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870-2012.' American Economic Review 107(2): 331-353. McCandless, G. T. & Weber, W. E. (1995). 'Some Monetary Facts.' Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review 19(3): 2-11. Obstfeld, M. & Rogoff, K. (1996). Foundations of International Macroeconomics. MIT Press. Pritchett, L. (1997). 'Divergence, Big Time.' Journal of Economic Perspectives 11(3): 3-17. Reinhart, C. M. & Rogoff, K. S. (2009). This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton University Press. Tanzi, V. & Schuknecht, L. (2000). Public Spending in the 20th Century: A Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press.