Organizing Team:
Jan-Pieter Smits (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)
Ola Honningdal-Grytten (Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Norway)
Magnus Lindmark (Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Norway; & Umea University, Sweden)
The Historical National Accounts project aims to give a quantitative overview as to how the various parts of Europe have developed in the long run and to produce a Europe-wide database on economic growth and productivity, covering the highest possible number of European countries. Furthermore, the aim is to organise education and training activities around this research agenda and to stimulate comparative analyses on levels and growth rates of productivity and economic welfare. The final results of this project will be embedded in the data-hub on long-term economic growth and structural change of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre.
The first part of this project focuses on the growth rates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for the various countries. For some countries the historical national accounts still need to be constructed. By inviting scholars from the new EU countries and bringing them into contact with scholars with a track-record in historical national accounting, we will significantly aid the construction of historical GDP estimates for these countries. Moreover, attention will be paid to the standardisation of historical national accounts. Scholars in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands have already started doing this, but especially in the field of deflation techniques as well as the measurement of services, also in other countries estimation techniques need to be standardised in order to be able to make sound comparisons of levels as well as growth rates of output.
A proper economic history of the EU can not be written as long as we do not have the disposal of a standardised set of historical national accounts of the several member states. Only with such a comprehensive dataset can processes of globalisation and de-globalisation be properly understood. The second part of the project attempts to combine the accounts for the individual countries to one consistent set of EU accounts. Such a data-set will enable us to analyse structural changes within Europe by means of a shift-share analysis. A long-term dataset on economic growth and structural change will show us to what extent the formation of the EU changed the dynamics of the European economy, or if some of the present characteristics of the present EU have deep historical roots that predate the institutionalisation of economic ties between European countries. Besides, a dataset on comparable historical accounts will make it possible to make long-run comparisons between the characteristics of the US and EU which will enable us to study many of the topics raised in the wake of the ‘Lisbon agenda’ from a historical perspective.