A new Research Memorandum has been published in the GGDC Working Paper series. Research Memorandum GD-96 is a paper by Abdul Azeez Erumban titled Productivity and Unit Labor Cost in Indian Manufacturing: A Comparative Perspective.

If you want to be informed of extensions and updates of databases or releases of new Research Memoranda, please send an email to GGDC@eco.rug.nl, stating your name, email address, affiliation, postal address, phone and faxnumber.

July 2007: A new Research Memorandum has been published in the GGDC Working Paper series. Research Memorandum GD-95 is a paper by Robert Feenstra, Alan Heston, Marcel Timmer and Haiyan Deng which proposes a new approach to international comparisons of real GDP measured from the output-side.

• GD-95: Feenstra, Robert C., Alan Heston, Marcel P. Timmer and Haiyan Deng (July 2007), Estimating Real Production and Expenditures Across Nations: A Proposal for Improving the Penn World Tables

Both the separate appendix and data appendix for this paper can be found in the GGDC Working Papers section.

A new cross-county database for sectoral employment and productivity in Asia and Latin America from 1950 to 2005 is now available click here.

July 2007: Three new Research Memoranda have been published in the GGDC Working Paper series. The first two papers are in the usual GGDC format. Research Memorandum GD-94 will contain a serie of papers written by Rainer Fremdling on the reconstruction of the German National Accounts. The first two parts have been published now, additional work will follow in due time.

• GD-85: Gerard Ypma (July 2007), Productivity Levels in Transport, Storage and Communication: A New ICOP 1997 Data Set
• GD-93: Ewout Frankema and Daan Marks (July 2007), Was It Really “Growth with Equity” under Soeharto? A Theil Analysis of Indonesian Income Inequality, 1961-2002
• GD-94: Rainer Fremdling, (Re)Construction Site of German Historical National Accounts (July 2007):
  -GD-94a: Machine Building: A New Benchmark before World War I
  -GD-94b: German Industrial Employment 1925, 1933, 1936 and 1939: A New Benchmark for 1936 and a Note on Hoffmann's Tales

March 2007: The public release of the EU KLEMS database will take place on Thursday 15 March in Brussels. This extremely interesting event is open for everyone. More information is available on the EU KLEMS website. You can sign up for the public release by sending an e-mail to Gerard Ypma, before Friday 9 March.

March 2007: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre has launched two new working papers:
-GD-82: Marcel Timmer, Gerard Ypma and Bart van Ark (March 2007), PPPs for Industry Output: A New Dataset for International Comparisons
-GD-91: Dirk Akkermans, Carolina Castaldi and Bart Los (March 2007), Do 'Liberal Market Economies' Really Innovate More Radically than 'Coordinated Market Economies'? Hall & Soskice Reconsidered

January 2007: The January update of the Total Economy Database of the Conference Board and Groningen Growth and Development Centre is available now. It includes series on GDP, employment, hours worked and population up to 2006 now for 42 OECD countries and EU member states, and for the period 1950-2005 for 83 other countries.

January 2007: For coverage from The Financial Times on the January 2007 release of the Total Economy Database, click here.

December 2006:The Groningen Growth and Development Centre is very happy to announce that we have two new participants: Dirk Bezemer and Misbah Choudhry.

We are very proud to inform you that our founder and intellectual leader Angus Maddison was awarded the title of Commander in the order of Orange-Nassau. After the end of the workshop to celebrate his 80th birthday, deputy mayor J. van Schie has presented the award. The news site of the University contains a longer description of the ceremony of last Friday.
All papers that have been presented at the interesting and succesful meeting can be downloaded from the special page on the GGDC website. For the papers that have been presented on the meeting on 5 and 6 December in Brisbane we can direct you to the site of the University of Queensland.

October 2006: A special page has been constructed for the Workshop at the occassion of Angus Maddisons 80th birthday on Friday 27 October. All papers for the workshop are now available at this page. If you want to attend the workshop, please send an email to Bart van Ark or Gerard Ypma.

October 2006:The following new working papers are available now:
-GD-88: Carolina Castaldi and Sandro Sapio, The Properties of Sectoral Growth: Evidence from Four Large European Economies (October 2006)
-GD-89: Robert Inklaar, Marcel Timmer and Bart van Ark, Mind the gap! International Comparisons of Productivity in Services and Goods Production (October 2006)

September 2006: A lot of updates from the database front:
-The 60-industry database has been updated with new data for Australia, Canada and the United States
-There is also an update of the Industry Growth Accounting database available on this website now. This update contains more countries and longer timeseries.
-Finally, the September update of the Total Economy Database is available now. We do apologize for the delay in providing this update.

July 2006: Another two new working papers have been launched in the GGDC Research Memorandum series:
-GD-81: Ewout Frankema, The Colonial Origins of Inequality: Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Land Distribution (July 2006)
-GD-87: Abdul Azeez Erumban, Lifetimes of Machinery and Equipment. Evidence from Dutch Manufacturing (July 2006)

May 2006:Angus Maddison has updated the historical data series on GDP, Population and GDP per capita. Series start in the year 1 and run up to 2003 now. These series can be used to extrapolate the GGDC Total Economy database back in time.

April 2006:Two new working papers are available now in the GGDC Research Memorandum series:

January 2006:The January 2006 version of the Total Economy Database is available now. In this update data up to 2005 for OECD and European Union countries is included, both in 1990 prices (based on 1990 GK PPPs) and in 2005 prices (based on 2002 EKS PPPs updated to 2005). For all other countries series run up to 2004 now. In comparison with the previous version we have changed the regional classification and added Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. The introduction of chain indices and distribution of FISIM has been processed for all countries that did change their methodologies yet. Furthermore we provide a flat file to facilitate the use of the database in statistical programs now. More detailed differences can be consulted in the differences file

An update of the 60-industry database is publicly available now. Dataseries run to 2003 now for EU-15 countries (including an EU-15 aggregate), Central and Eastern Europe, Australia and the United States. Series include data on value added, value-added deflators, employment, hours, and indexes of real value added and productivity. Compensation and employees are only available for larger countries. Updates for Asian countries and Canada as well as a txt file are under work and will appear in 2006.

November 2005: If you want to attend the Conference on "The Measurement and Analysis of Innovation and Productivity Growth", which takes place in Groningen on 10-11 November, please let us know before 28 October. The registration form can be downloaded from the "How to register" paragraph on the Conference website. Please note that attendees are expected to arrange accommodation themselves.

For everyone who was not able to attend the Conference on "The Measurement and Analysis of Innovation and Productivity Growth", which took place in Groningen on 10-11 November, we have collected all papers and presentations. These can be downloaded from the special conference page.

September 2005: Research Memorandum GD-79 Catching up or Getting Stuck? Europe's Troubles to Exploit ICT's Productivity Potential written by Bart van Ark and Robert Inklaar is available now.

August 2005: A set of three new GGDC Research Memoranda has been launched.
GD-77: Rainer Fremdling, The German Industrial Census of 1936, Statistics as Preparation for the War (August 2005)
GD-78: Robert McGuckin and Bart van Ark, Productivity and Participation: An International Comparison (August 2005)
GD-80: Bart van Ark, Edwin Stuivenwold and Gerard Ypma, Unit Labour Costs, Productivity and International Competitiveness (August 2005)
Another package of papers (among others GD-79) is under construction at the moment and we plan to publish them in October.

August 2005: The August update of the Total Economy Database is available now. In comparison with the previous version all preliminary estimates have been replaced with official figures for 2004. As we did receive positive reactions on the publishing of the whole database in one file, we continue to provide this alternative and have added a total version with horizontal series. We are even considering to stop to produce the specific files by country group and variable. Any objections against this plan or suggestions for other formats are welcome on ggdc@eco.rug.nl.

June 2005: The Total Economy Growth Accounting Database has been updated to 2004. The database does now cover the full EU-15. We apologize for the unexpected delay in updating the old October 2003 database.

April 2005: The GGDC Research Memoranda series has been extended with three new Working Papers:
GD-74: Robert Inklaar, Cyclical Productivity in Europe and the United States, Evaluating the Evidence on Returns to Scale and Input Utilization
GD-75: Bart van Ark, Does the European Union Need to Revive Productivity Growth?
GD-76: Marcel Timmer and Robert Inklaar, Productivity Differentials in the U.S. and EU Distributive Trade Sector:Statistical Myth Or Reality?
As usual papers can be downloaded for free from this website.

February 2005: An intermediate update of the 60-industry database is available now. This new release does not contain new countries or updated data. Instead, it was mainly triggered by suggestions of various users to make our treatment of ICT goods deflators more transparent. In addition to this, we took the opportunity to revise a limited set of industry series on the basis of new information. A detailed description of differences with the October 2004 version provides a clear view of all changes.

January 2005: The January 2005 update of the Total Economy Database is available and can be downloaded from this website. This version includes some revisions, based on the latest statistical sources from the OECD, World Bank, ECLAC, Asian Development Bank and the IMF. Compared to the August 2004 version of the database, the series have been updated to 2004 (2003 for non-OECD countries) and the base year for the EKS GDP levels has been shifted from 1999 to 2002, using the latest benchmark 2002 PPP estimates published by OECD in January 2005. All details and new sources can be found in this file.

January 2005:GGDC-participant Eddy Szirmai has published a textbook on development: The Dynamics of Socio-Economic Development. An Introduction, published by the Cambridge University Press. The textbook is also accompanied by website which shows the worksheets and basic data underlying the 70 tables in the book. The presentation of the book will be on 26 January at 15.00 and will take place at the University of Eindhoven, IP0 building, room 0.98.

December 2004: The ILO World Employment Report 2004 on "Productivity and Employment" for which GGDC has written one of the background reports is now available from the ILO web site. The background report itself has been published as Research Memorandum GD-71 in May 2004.

November 2004: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre is looking for an experienced database manager for the EU KLEMS project. This person should be located in Groningen and will be responsible for the development of the database structure. A detailed profile description can be downloaded here. Information can be obtained by sending an email to Marcel Timmer (m.p.timmer@eco.rug.nl) or Bart van Ark (h.h.van.ark@eco.rug.nl). THIS VACANCY IS ALREADY FILLED.

November 2004:The 2004 update of the 60-industry database is available now. Compared to the previous release of this database (October 2003), all series are updated to 2002 instead of 2001 and countries from Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), Asia (Japan, Korea, Taiwan) and other industrialized countries (Australia, Canada) have been added. The detailed differences with the October 2003 version of the 60-Industry Database are described in the comparison with the previous version.

October 2004: Information about the EU KLEMS Project is available on the EU KLEMS website (http://www.euklems.net). It contains among others the program of the EU KLEMS Conference of 26 and 27 October in London and some of the papers that will be presented there.

September 2004: On 9 and 10 September our colleagues of the Centre for German Studies (University of Nijmegen) and the Posthumus Institute are organizing a conference on Economic Growth and the Entrepreneur in Germany and the Netherlands.

August 2004: The midyear update (August 2004) of the Total Economy Database is available and can be downloaded from this website. This version includes some revisions, based on the latest statistical sources from the OECD, World Bank, ECLAC, Asian Development Bank and the IMF. Compared to the February 2004 version of the database, some of the largest changes appear for:
* France (which includes a 6% downward adjustment for working hours per person employed in 2003)
* South Korea, where GDP has been revised upwards by 9% in 1999
* Various Central and East European countries referred to labour force in the previous version, which we now changed to employment numbers
All details and new sources can be found in this file.

May 2004: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre has published three new Research Memoranda:

-GD-70: Erik Dietzenbacher, Alex Hoen, Bart Los and Jan Meist, International Convergence and Divergence of Material Input Structures: An Industry-Level Perspective
-GD-71: Bart van Ark, Ewout Frankema and Hedwig Duteweerd, Productivity and Employment Growth An Empirical Review of Long and Medium Run Evidence
-GD-72: Harald Edquist, The Swedish ICT Miracle: Myth or Reality?

June 2004: On 22 and 23 June The Conference Board and the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs will organize a conference on "Productivity, Innovation and Value Creation". This meeting will represent a mix of academia, policy and business strategies, and includes a large range of themes which are relevant for productivity research. A brochure and registration form can be downloaded on-line here.

March 2004: The number of downloadable working papers has been extended again. Bart van Ark and Marcin Piatkowski wrote a new GGDC Research Memorandum (GD-69), called Productivity, Innovation and ICT in Old and New Europe (March 2004).
Furthermore three publications (GD-10 , GD-12 and GD-13) that were out of stock, can be downloaded as pdf-file now.

January 2004: Our colleagues from the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis are looking for a PhD Student to carry out a research on the Indonesian Economic Development. The exact description of the job (in Dutch) can be downloaded here.

December 2003:GGDC Research Memorandum GD-68 by Robert Inklaar, Mary O'Mahony and Marcel Timmer is out now. It' s called ICT and Europe's Productivity Performance, Industry-level Growth Account Comparisons with the United States and can be downloaded on this website.

December 2003: Our recent joint work with the National Institute of Economic and Social Research on industry and sectoral productivity measures for European member countries and the United States has been completed. The full study, which is titled EU Productivity and Competitiveness: An Industry Perspective Can Europe Resume the Catching-up Process? (O'Mahony and van Ark, eds., Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg, 2003), has appeared in print around mid-December. A pdf-version of the full report is available for downloading here. This study was financially supported by the European Commission, DG Enterprise. Part of the data - on labour productivity by industry - will be extended updated as a part of our regular 60-Industry Database.

October 2003: Another new GGDC Research Memorandum is available online:
GD-67: Timmer, Marcel, Gerard Ypma and Bart van Ark, IT in the European Union: Driving Productivity Divergence? (October 2003).
The Total Economy Growth Accounting Database underlying this paper, including investment series and capital stocks of three ICT-assets (computers, communication equipment and software) is provided at this website. Total factor productivity growth is derived by combining the capital input data with growth in output and labour input in a growth accounting framework. The database covers 14 European Countries, the European Union and the United States for the period 1980-2001.

October 2003: Hardcopies of GD-3 (Comparative Performance in Indonesian Manufacturing, 1950-90 by Adam Szirmai) are out of stock, but the document is available in pdf-format now.

October 2003: On Friday 17 and Saturday 18 October 2003 the N.W. Posthumus Institute and the Groningen Growth and Development Centre will jointly organize a Conference on Catch-up Growth and Technology Transfer in Asia and Western Europe. Further information can be obtained by clicking here

September 2003: GGDC Research Memorandum GD-66 has been released. This working paper by Bart van Ark is called "The Productivity Problem of the Dutch Economy: Implications for Economic and Social Policies and Business Strategy"

September 2003:This website kan be approached on the domainname http://www.ggdc.net from now onwards. Please change your links to this address, the old url (http://www.eco.rug.nl/ggdc) can still be used but will disappear in due time.

August 2003: The GGDC 60-industry database, which includes data on value added in current and constant prices and the number of persons employed covering 52 industries for 1990 to 2000, has been revised and extended. Later in 2003 we hope to update and extend this database further as a result of a data project we presently carry out in cooperation with the National Institute for Economic and Social Research for DG Enterprise of the European Commission. In due course we will also extend our 10-sector database with updates and estimates for 10 Asian countries.

July 2003: We are in the process of updating and extending the GGDC databases on industry output and factor input. As a first step we now provide a 60-Industry Database online, next to our 10-sector database which is also still available. This contains data value added and employment series for (at most) 60 industries. Presently the database includes data on value added in current and constant prices and the number of persons employed covering 16 OECD countries and 52 industries for 1990 to 2000. This 60-Industry Database underlies the report "'Changing Gear': Productivity, ICT and Service Industries: Europe and the United States" (GGDC Research Memorandum GD-60). Later in 2003 we hope to update and extend this database further as a result of a data project we presently carry out in cooperation with the National Institute for Economic and Social Research for DG Enterprise of the European Commission. In due course we will also extend our 10-sector database with updates and estimates for 10 Asian countries.

July 2003: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre has published three new Research Memoranda:
-GD-63: Edwin Stuivenwold and Marcel Timmer, Manufacturing Performance in Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan before and after the Crisis. An international Perspective, 1980-2000 (July 2003)
-GD-64: Robert Inklaar, Harry Wu and Bart van Ark, "Losing Ground" Japanese Labour Productivity and Unit Labour Cost in Manufacturing in Comparison to the U.S. (July 2003)
-GD-65: Peter Hein van Mulligen, Alternative Price Indices for Computers in the Netherlands using Scanner Data (July 2003)

Furthermore three old Memoranda (GD-6, GD-25 and GD-35) which are out of stock are now available as pdf-files.

July 2003: An updated version of the Total Economy Database (July 2003) is available on this website. From now on, we will publish two updates per year: in February and in July. Apart from updating to 2002, the July 2003 also includes some revisions. Differences with the February 2003 version are described in this file

April 2003: A new Research Memorandum has been released: Constructing Price Indexes Across Space and Time: The Case of the European Union, written by Robert Hill from the University of New South Wales. This Research Memorandum can be downloaded from our website.

April 2003: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre has published a new Research Memorandum called The 'Appropriate Technology' Explanation of Productivity Growth Differentials: An Empirical Approach, written by Bart Los and Marcel Timmer.

March 2003: The Conference Board has released its latest report on productivity up to 2002, which are based on the GGDC's Total Economy Database. The report, titled Performance 2002: Productivity, Employment, and Income in the World’s Economies was authored by Robert H. McGuckin and Bart van Ark. Further information can also be obtained from the Conference Board's Economics website.

March 2003: Research Memorandum GD-56 about ICT Investments and Growth Accounts for the European Union has been revised.

February 2003: The Conference Board has released its latest Executive action report on productivity up to 2002, which are based on the GGDC's Total Economy Database. The report, titled Despite Cyclical Downturn, Structural trends in Productivity Remain in Place into 2003 was authored by Robert H. McGuckin and Bart van Ark. Further information can also be obtained from the Conference Board's Economics website.

February 2003: The Total Economy Database has been updated and includes time series up to 2002 for OECD countries and up to 2000 for Non-OECD countries now. The database contains series for GDP, Employment, Annual hours worked, GDP per Capita, GDP per Employee and GDP per Hour.

December 2002: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre has published 11 new Research Memoranda for the year 2002, starting with issue 50. From this issue onwards we have stopped printing hardcopies of the working papers.
GD 1-38: Only available as hardcopy (Copies of working papers can, as long as available, be ordered from GGDC@eco.rug.nl)
GD 38-49: Available as pdf file and hardcopy (Copies of working papers can, as long as available, be ordered from GGDC@eco.rug.nl)
GD 50-60: Only available as pdf file

October 2002: Angus Maddison, emeritus professor at the University of Groningen and founder of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre has now a website with downloadable publications.

September 2002: We have just released our latest report on ICT Growth Accounting in the European Union which we have written in cooperation with the CEPII (Paris) for the European Commission (DG ECFIN).

August 2002: The Dutch interuniversity research group"Technology and Economic Growth" (TEG), sponsored by the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research NWO, will organize a scientific conference on "The Empirical Implications of Technology-Based Growth Theories", on August 26 and 27, 2002, in Groningen, The Netherlands. More information about the program, information for invited speakers, including maps and links to hotels, and information for people who would like to register for the conference can be found here.

July 2002: The Groningen Growth and Development Centre is co-organizer of a session on 'Modern Economic Growth and Distribution in Asia, Latin America and the European Periphery: A Historical National Accounts Approach' to be held at the XIII World Congress of the International Economic History Association from 22-26 July 2002 in Buenos Aires.
The papers of a workshop on this topic at Hitotsubashi University, Kunitachi, Tokyo from 16-18 March 2001 can be downloaded here.

February 2002: The Conference Board has released its latest report on productivity up to 2001, which are based on the GGDC's Total Economy Database. The report, titled Performance 2001: Productivity, Employment, and Income in the World’s Economies was authored by Robert H. McGuckin and Bart van Ark. Further information can also be obtained from the Conference Board's Economics website.

February 2002: The updated Total Economy series are ready. The series contain estimates up to 2001 and include revised estimates before 1990 from Angus Maddison's new book, The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective. The new series also include data about GDP per Capita, GDP per Person Employed and GDP per Hour.

April 2001: Angus Maddison, emeritus professor at the University of Groningen and founder of the Groningen Growth and Development Centre has published a new book, The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective. This book provides a comprehensive view of the growth and levels of world population and GDP since the year 1000.

May 2001: The FAO economic and social development paper about Intercountry comparisons of agricultural output and productivity written by D.S. Prasada Rao (1993) is available now in pdf-format.