We do not know the Population of Every Country in the World for the Past Two Thousand Years

Timothy Guinnane

Janeway Institute Working Papers from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: Economists have reported results based on populations for every country in the world for the past two thousand years. The source, McEvedy and Jones’ Atlas of World Population History, includes many estimates that are little more than guesses and that do not reflect research since 1978. McEvedy and Jones often infer population sizes from their view of a particular economy, making their estimates poor proxies for economic growth. Their rounding means their measurement error is not "classical." Some economists augment that error by disaggregating regions in unfounded ways. Econometric results that rest on McEvedy and Jones are unreliable.

Date: 2022-12-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.janeway.econ.cam.ac.uk/working-paper-pdfs/jiwp2233.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: We Do Not Know the Population of Every Country in the World for the Past Two Thousand Years (2023)
Working Paper: We do not know the Population of Every Country in the World for the Past Two Thousand Years (2022)
Working Paper: We Do Not Know the Population of Every Country in the World for the past Two Thousand Years (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camjip:2233

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Janeway Institute Working Papers from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jake Dyer ().