Historical Prices and Wages (HPW): Index to websites

01 April 2019 - 9:59

This is the index of websites containing data on the subject of Historcal Prices and Wages.

  • If databases on multiple countries are on the same website then the link is placed under the head 'World' or under that of the relevant continent, depending on whether all countries are on the same continent.
  • You can also find this data by clicking on the link to the relevant country below. Under the head of a country, you will find direct links to the data.
  • If the database you are looking for is on a website containing datasets for other countries too, clicking on a link will bring you to the general site under the head of the relevant continent or 'World'. From there on, you can directly go to the site containing the database.
  • This does not apply for truly global databases such as the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, the International Labour Organisation (LABORSTA) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAOSTAT).

World

Africa
  Egypt

Asia
  General
  Bangladesh | China | India | Indonesia | Japan | Korea | Pakistan |
  Philippines | Sri Lanka | Thailand | Viet Nam

Europe
  General
  Andorra | Austria | Belgium | Denmark | Estonia | France | Germany |
  Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Luxembourg | The Netherlands | 
  Norway | Ottoman Empire / Byzantium | Poland | Russia | 
  Spain | Sweden | Switzerland | United Kingdom | Vatican City

North America
  General
  Canada | United States

South America
  General
  Brazil | Mexico | Peru

 

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World

Allen-Unger Global Commodity Prices Database
This database contains price data from various parts of the world on a wide range of commodities. The database now covers a period from the earliest known series in the High Middle Ages up to 1914. In addition, data on Dutch beer excises between 1353 to 1889 can also be found there.

Bureau of Economic Analysis
Mainly GDP and Balance of Payment data subdivided in NationalIndustryInternational, and Regional, sometimes going back to the 1940s.

Center for International Data
This sites offers links to economic data going back to the 1970s. The main categories offered online are U.S. Import and Export dataU.S. Tariff dataWorld Import and Export data, Consortium for the Study of Asian Economies, and Penn World Tables.

CEPII
The website of the Centre d’etudes prospectives et d’informations internationales offers various databases related to international trade.

ECONDATA
ECONDATA forms part of INFORUM (Interindustry Forecasting at the University of Maryland), which is a research organization, dedicated to improving business forecasting and government policy analysis. The data are mostly for the US and sometimes starts around 1950. Data for wages, national accounts etc. are available.

Economic Growth - Data sets
Various important growth data sets are available through this website.

EH.net
EH.net operates the Economic History Services fileserver and several electronic discussion lists to provide resources and promote communication among scholars in economic history and related fields. Under EH Resourcesyou can find data about:
The Annual Real and Nominal GDP for the United States, 1869 – Present,
Purchasing Power of the Dollar, 1665 – Present
Purchasing Power of the British Pound, 1600 – Present,
Inflation Rates for the U.S. (1666 to 2000), and Great Britain (1601 to 2000),
Price of Gold,
The Relative Cost of Unskilled Labor in the United States, 1774 - Present
3 to 6 Month U.S. Commercial Paper Rates, 1831 - 1997
Exchange rate between the the United States dollar and the British pound, 1791 - 2000
Exchange rate between the the United States dollar and forty other countries, 1913 - 1999
What is the Relative Value? Five Ways to Compare the Worth of a United States Dollar, 1789 - Present?

FAOSTAT
Statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations between circa 1961 en 2001. It is not always free downloadable. 

Global Financial Database
The Global Financial Database offers a collection of historical and current financial and economic data available in the world sometimes going back to 1900. It covers circa 150 different countries. You can immediately purchaseand download directly from its website.

Global Price and Income History Group
The main website of the project on global prices and income. It contains a part with data, conversion rates, conferences, and more. It will be steadily extended over the following years.

WageIndicator
Collects and provides global information on wages and labour contracts since 2000.
Research data available via: http://www.wageindicator.org/main/Wageindicatorfoundation/researchlab/datapolicy

Gold Information Network
This site contains a graph of the silver prices and the gold/silver ratio 1344-1998. Further it contains gold prices 1793-2001 (click on 'Back to Gold History' at the bottom of the page).

Groningen Growth and Development Centre
The Groningen Growth and Development Centre is a research group of economists and economic historians at the Economics Department of the University of Groningen. It was created in June 1992 within the Economics Department of the University. The group carries out research on comparative analysis of levels of economic performance and differences in growth rates in the world economy. This research programme is one in which Groningen has developed a comparative advantage since the mid-1970s. Amongst others data about GDP, GDP per capita, population, labourers, GVA per sector from around 1950 till now. This includes the dataset constructed by Angus Maddison.

Growth Datasets
Several datasets concerning economic growth among which data of Barro and Lee, the World Bank and Penn World Table are available.

Historical Charts
On this website you can find graphs about precious metals and international indices. Most of them start in the 1960s or even the 1990s but some of them cover the entire twentieth century.

Historical Statistics-Research Guide
This Historical Statistics - Research Guide contains links to data, both online and in reference works.

History Data Service
The History Data Service provides access to a wide-ranging collection of historical digital resources including resources held by other organizations. The collection covers a time period from the late tenth century to the twentieth century, and although the primary focus is on the UK, it includes a significant body of cross-national and international data collections. The collection is particularly strong in nineteenth and twentieth century economic and social history. In most cases it is necessary to pay for the data.

History of Economics
The History of Economics web site provides online access to resources for teaching, scholarship and research in the history of economics and the history of economic thought.
 

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IMF International Financial Statistics
This database allows access to the international data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It contains data from around 1948 to now. Data included are price indices, national accounts, population etc. A free trial account is available. Long-term access has to be purchased.

Inequality among world citizens
The webpage of François Bourguignon and Christian Morrisson that contains their “Data sources for "Inequality among world citizens: 1820- 1992". This includes a detailed description, references to literature as well as their inequality data set that covers 11 benchmark years.

Intergrated Public use Microdata Series
This site provides access to IPUMS-USA. This is a coherent national census database spanning 1850 to 1990. Further it provides access to IPUMS-International, a new project dedicated to collecting and distributing census data from around the world.

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
This website provides social sciences data and resources for researchers.

Jeffrey G. Williamson
The appendices of Professor Jeffrey G. Williamson's working papers on Asia, Europe, and so on contain data on for example cost of living and wages for Egypt, Burma (Myanmar), India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand (Siam), Ottoman Empire, Serbia, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Uruguay between ca. 1860 and 1950.

LABORSTA
LABORSTA, the Labour Statistics Database operated by the ILO Bureau of Statistics. Data are available on employment, wages and consumers prices, occasionally from 1969.

Medieval and early Modern Data Bank
The Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank is a project established at Rutgers University. Its aim is to provide scholars with an expanding library of information in electronic format on the medieval and early modern periods of European history, circa 800-1815 C.E.
MEMDB contains five large data sets, three pertaining to currency exchanges and two pertaining to prices:

  1. Currency Exchanges (Metz) contains monetary data from Rainer Metz, Geld, Währung und Preisentwicklung: der Niederrheinraum im europäischen Vergleich, 1350-1800 (Frankfurt am Main, 1990).
  2. Currency Exchanges (Mueller) contains monetary data supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore, 1997).
  3. Currency Exchanges (Spufford) contains all currency exchange quotations compiled by Peter Spufford and published in his Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986).
  4. Prices (Metz) contains grain prices supplied by Rainer Metz and compiled for the printed edition of Dietrich Ebeling and Franz Irsigler, Getreideumsatz, Getreide- und Brotpreise in Köln, 1368-1797 (Köln, 1976).
  5. Prices (Posthumus) contains prices drawn from primary sources and published in Nicholaas Wilhelmus Posthumus, Nederlandsche Prijsgeschiedenis (Leiden, 1943).

NBER Macrohistory Database
During the first several decades of its existence, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) assembled an extensive data set that covers all aspects of the pre-WWI and interwar economies, including production, construction, employment, money, prices, asset market transactions, foreign trade, and government activity. Many series are highly disaggregated, and many exist at the monthly or quarterly frequency. The data set has some coverage of the United KingdomFrance and Germany, although it predominantly covers the United States. For information see Improving the Accessibility of the NBER's Historical Data , by Daniel Feenberg and Jeff Miron. (NBER Working Paper #5186). Published in the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Volume 15 Number 3 (July 1997) pages 293-299. The data are mainly on prices, commodities, investment and government.

NBER data
This site offers links to several databases mainly concerned with US and international data.

OFFSTATS
OFFSTATS lists web sites offering free and easily accessible social, economic and general data from official or similar 'quotable' sources, especially those that provide both current data and time series. In the country lists, there are mainly web pages provided by statistical offices, central banks and government departments and agencies, whereas the topics list is comprised of links to the statistics pages of international organizations and associations and a few commercial sites.

Pacific Exchange Rate Service
This service provides access to current and historic daily exchange rates through an on-line database retrieval and plotting system. Also provided is a list of all the currencies of the world with information on each country's exchange rate regime and ISO-4217 currency code. Analyses and trend projections of the Canadian Dollar, the U.S. Dollar, and the Euro are available as well. This site is dedicated to the support of academic research and teaching in the area of exchange rate economics.

Penn World Table
Penn World Table by Alan Heston & Robert Summers. It provides time series on many different subjects from around 1950 till now.

Polity IV
Polity IV contains coded annual information on regime and authority characteristics for all independent states (with greater than 500,000 total population) in the global state system and covers the years 1800-2003.

Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations
This site contains the integral Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations between 1926 and 1944. This contains all sorts of data, including population, price, and banking data.

Time Series Data Library
Time Series Data Library. This is a collection of about 800 time series, drawn from many different fields. The time series may be freely copied and used, provided this source is clearly acknowledged. Data are available for example for agriculture, demography and macroeconomics.

UT Inequality Project
UTIP research group is concerned with measuring and explaining movements of inequality in wages and earnings and patterns of industrial change around the world. They offer data sets on different parts of the world.
 

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Africa

Egypt
Data on Egypt you can find in the Medieval and early Modern Data Bank. This data bank contains all currency exchange quotations compiled by Peter Spufford and published in his Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986). It covers the city of Alexandria.
 

Asia

General
Asian Development Bank
Asian Development Bank. Online availability of key indicators of developing Asian and Pacific countries.

Asian Historical Statistics Project
Asian Historical Statistics Project. The object of the research project is to compile modern economic statistics on modern Asia and make them readily available to the public. This is a collaborative project, which will draw on the efforts of numerous researchers in many, mainly Asian, countries. The initial phase of the Project will last five years from mid-1995. It is intended to cover the whole of Asia, excluding Japan, on the most comprehensive scale possible. The basic geographic regions to be examined are defined as East, Southeast, South, Southwest, and North Asia (the latter including eastern Russia), plus the Middle East and even North Africa. Although the entire region is in principle the subject of research, difficulties in gathering data mean that, realistically, it may not be possible to include every single country in the region. It is the intention to compile statistics beginning from what we define as the "early modern" era (just prior to the advent of industrialization) up to the present. There are various historical datasets available, mainly on GDP and (household) consumption.

CAPSA
CAPSA's database provides statistical data focusing on secondary crops in Asia and the Pacific at national, provincial and district levels. Data currently available covers eight countries (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam). You have to fill in a registration form (free).

Digital South Asia Library
Historical data from Statistical abstract relating to British India of the Digital South Asia Library. The statistical abstracts are available in digital book form and in spreadsheet form 1840-1920.

CGPRT Centre
The CGPRT Centre is a regional co-ordination centre for research and development of coarse, grains, pulses, roots and tuber crops in the humid tropics of Asia and the Pacific. It offers a wide range of data on crop production, general indicators as GDP, trade, food balance sheet, and cost structure such as wages between 1960 and 1999.
Click on logo to proceed.
To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.
To get an overview of the available data click on IndonesiaThailand,PhilippinesPakistanSri LankaViet Nam, and Bangladesh. Clicking on each of these links displays a chart with an overview of the data available for the respective countries.

China
State and Handicrafts in Peking, 1700-1900
This website contains databases on Materials, Wages, and Transport Costs in Public Construction in the Qianlong Era for the Zhili Province and the GansuProvince

Bangladesh
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Bangladesh are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Bangladesh. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.

India
Digital South Asia Library
Historical data from Statistical abstract relating to British India of the Digital South Asia Library. The statistical abstracts are available in digital book form and in spreadsheet form 1840-1920.

PovertyNet
This database contains detailed statistics on a wide range of topics in India. The data are presented at the state level and at the all-India level separately. The database uses published information to construct comprehensive series in six subject blocks. Period coverage is roughly from 1950 to 1994. The database contains 30 spreadsheets and 89 text files (ASCII) that are grouped into the six subject blocks. The formats and sizes of the 30 spreadsheets vary considerably. The list of variables included Expenditures (distribution), National Accounts, Prices Wages, Population and Rainfall.
 

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Indonesia
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Indonesia are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Indonesia. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.

RAND
These site provides data on Estates Wages in Indonesia. Click on the respective years. The Statistik Perkebunan: Upah Perkebunan di Indonesia is available for 1953-1960 and 1963.

Japan
Historical Statistics of Japan
On this site, the Japanese Statistics Bureau claims to have extended the Historical Statistics of Japan (First Edition) issued in 1987-1988 to cover the period 1868 to 2002. However, the data do not (yet) fully cover all the data that is present in the first edition, especially for the period prior to the Second World War. The source covers in 31 chapters data ranging from land and climate to population, GDP, and prices and wages.

Korea
Korea National Statistical office
Data for wages and prices are available from circa 1970.

Pakistan
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Pakistan are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Pakistan. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.

Philippines
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Philippines are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Philippines. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.

Sri Lanka
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Sri Lanka are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Sri Lanka. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.

Thailand (Siam)
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Thailand are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Thailand. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.

Viet Nam
Agriculture and general data such as GDP on Viet Nam are available from the CGPRT Centre. To get an overview of the available data click on Viet Nam. To access the data click on 'Queries'. The national data are available for download after filling in a registration form.
 

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Europe

General
Currency Exchanges (Metz)
See also about this datafile
This forms a part of the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank. This database contains monetary data from Rainer Metz, Geld, Währung und Preisentwicklung: der Niederrheinraum im europäischen Vergleich, 1350-1800(Frankfurt am Main, 1990). The Currency Exchange (Metz) data set reconstructs monies of account for 29 cities and regions in Europe, mainly from the Lower Rhine region, and their changes in value, expressed in gold or silver equivalents, over the period indicated. The cities are Aachen, Aachen/Koeln, Augsburg, Basel, Brabant, Danzig, Deutsche Staedte, Dueren, England, Europa, Flandern, Frankfurt, Frankreich, Hamburg, Juelich, Koblenz, Koeln, Krakau, Luzern, Mailand, Muenchen, Niederlande, Oesterreich, Speyer, Strassburg, Venedig, Wesel, Wuerzburg, and Xanten.

Currency Exchanges (Spufford)
See also about this datafile
This forms a part of the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank. This database contains all currency exchange quotations compiled by Peter Spufford and published in his Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986). The period covered by the Currency Exchange (Spufford) data set runs from the earliest available twelfth-century material up to the late fifteenth century.

European State Finance Database
The European State Finance Database is an International Project concerned with the collection of the sources and data of European Fiscal History. There are data available on different aspects of finance in different periods.

The Marteau Early 18th-Century Currency Converter
This is a project in development. At the moment it offers:
Conversion of several European currencies in the early eighteenth century
Pages on the individual currencies and their coins
Pages on the economies of the countries involved
This link provide data on prices, wages and living standards. The countries included are France, Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, Netherlands, Ottoman Empire, Spain, and the Spanish Netherlands.
Editions of contemporary materials dealing with the respective economies and their monetary politics

Prices and other monetary valuations in Roman history: ancient literary evidence and modern scholarship
These data were collected by Professor Walter Scheidel and give an insight into the prices of diverse goods such as foodstuffs, raw materials, real estate, forced labour (i.e. slaves) and free labour. Professor Scheidel has used these data in his paper Real Wages in Early Economies: Evidence for Living Standards from 2000 BCE to 1300 CE. This paper is available through Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics and the Social Science Research Network.

Revenues and expenditures Swiss towns, interest rates and accounts of several other European towns and states
Data on the revenues and expenditure of Swiss towns, mostly sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on comparative European expenditure, fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, on interest rates in certain European countries, and on Nuremberg city finances, supplied by Professor Dr. Martin Körner. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Stock Prices from John Castaing's Course of exchange
Data concerning stock prices from John Castaing's Course of exchange, which appeared twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays) from 1698 throughout the following century. The data was transferred in full from a tape supplied by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Ann Arbor, USA. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Wages, Prices & Living Standards
This web site provides time series of consumer price indices and wages for leading European cities running from the Middle Ages to the First World War.

Andorra
Departament d'Estudis i d'Estadistica
Data are available on economic indicators of Andorra back to about 1980.

Austria
Austrian Finances
Data on Austrian finances in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, drawing upon published sources. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Statistik Austria
This site provides data in German going back to the 1970s. Population data are going much further back.

Belgium
Some data on Belgium you can find in the Medieval and early Modern Data Bank. This data bank contains monetary data supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore, 1997). It covers the city of Bruges.

Federal Planning Bureau
The Federal Planning Bureau website can be viewed in English, French and Dutch. It has for example national accounts from around 1960. These data can be found under the head 'Software & Databases' > Our databases. The data that are available in French and Dutch in the html-files do not go as far back as in the xls-files.

Denmark
Army costs
Some data on army size in Europe, and on Danish army costs, chiefly of the eighteenth century and chiefly supplied by Dr. Gunner Lind. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Danish Economic History
This website contains some data on money and prices (farm rent, rye, and barley) between approximately 1600 and 2000.

Danish Price History
Site with data from the book:
Astrid Friis & Kristof Glamann, A History of Prices and Wages in Denmark, 1660-1800. Vol. I, Longman, Green and Co., London, New York, Toronto. 1958.
Furthermore, there are samples of the book:
Dan H. Andersen & Erik Helmer Pedersen (with the cooperation of Mette Ehlers), A History of Prices and Wages in Denmark, 1660-1800. Vol. II. Prices and Wages in Danish estate Accounts, Copenhagen 2004. Schultz Grafisk.

Danish State Finance
Data on Danish state finance made available by Dr. Björn Poulsen. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Danish State Finance under Christian IV (1589-1648)
Data on Danish state finance under Christian IV (1589-1648), researched, supplied and interpreted by Professor Kersten Krüger. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Estonia
Pärnu city customs books in the Estonian Historical Archives (1764-1782)
Customs books of the Estonian town of Pärnu. The value of the registered goods has been included in these documents.
 

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France
Some data about the 'Data and silver prices in Paris 1500-1870' are available at the Agricultural History Center.
Some data about prices you can find in the NBER Macrohistory Database - Series from France. Other data you can find in the Medieval and early Modern Data Bank. This data bank contains monetary data supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore, 1997). It covers the city of Paris.

Budget tailles, and capitation of burgundy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Data on the budget tailles, and capitation of Burgundy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as compiled by Dr J. Swann, Birkbeck College, London. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Expenditure in France
Data supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon Véron de Forbonnais (1758). This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Forbonnais' finance schemes
Data on Forbonnais' Finance schemes, supplied by Dr T. G. A. Le Goff, York University, Ontario. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

French Accounts of the later sixteenth century
Unpublished French accounts of the later sixteenth century, transcribed from the MSS in the Bibliothèque Nationale by Dr. Mark Greengrass. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

French Economic Indicators
French economic indicators compiled for the purposes of calculating the real increase of taxation over time. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

French revenues and taxation
Data supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, mostly drawing upon archival sources. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

French Taxes
Data on French taxes of Caen, Paris and Brittany, supplied by Dr Michael Kwass of Yale University. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Revenues of the Duchy of Brittany from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century
Data on Revenues of the Duchy of Brittany as collected by Professor Jean Kerhervé in L'État Breton aux 14e et 15e siècles: les ducs, l'argent et les hommes (Paris, 1987). This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Revenues and expenditure for seventeenth-century France
Data supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon Archives Nationales, KK 355, a register of revenues and expenditure for seventeenth-century France. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Revenues of the French Monarchy
Data supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon Boislisle (1874-9). This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Seventeenth-century French revenues and expenditure
Data on seventeenth-century French revenues and expenditure supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney drawing upon Malet (1789) and the extant Malet MSS. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Seventeenth-century French revenues and expenditures
Data on seventeenth-century French revenues and expenditure supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon Malet. The data is presented in the form of the original tables and as published in Bonney and Bonney (forthcoming, 1993). This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Taxation, Representation and Dictatorship in France, 1789-1830
Data collected by Professor D.M.G. Sutherland, and used in the preparation of his chapter on 'Taxation, Representation and Dictatorship in France, 1789-1830', in W. M. Ormrod, M. M. Bonney and R. J. Bonney (editors), Crises, Revolutions and Self-Sustained Growth: Essays in European Fiscal History, 1130-1830 (Stamford, UK, 1999). This is part of the European State Finance Database

The French King's debt
Data supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon Bonney (1981). This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Versailles, 1664-1695
Data concerned with the finances of Versailles in the period 1664-1695. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Germany
Some data for Germany you can find in the NBER Macrohistory Database - Series from Germany.

Currency Exchanges (Metz)
See also about this datafile
This forms a part of the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank. This database contains monetary data from Rainer Metz, Geld, Währung und Preisentwicklung: der Niederrheinraum im europäischen Vergleich, 1350-1800(Frankfurt am Main, 1990). The Currency Exchange (Metz) data set reconstructs monies of account for 29 cities and regions in Europe, mainly from the Lower Rhine region, and their changes in value, expressed in gold or silver equivalents, over the period indicated. The cities are Aachen, Aachen/Koeln, Augsburg, Basel, Brabant, Danzig, Deutsche Staedte, Dueren, England, Europa, Flandern, Frankfurt, Frankreich, Hamburg, Juelich, Koblenz, Koeln, Krakau, Luzern, Mailand, Muenchen, Niederlande, Oesterreich, Speyer, Strassburg, Venedig, Wesel, Wuerzburg, and Xanten.

Federal Statistical Office Germany
Several available data. Time series database only available in German.

Prices (Metz)
See also about this datafile
This forms a part of the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank. This database contains prices of Barley, Oats, Rye, and wheat supplied by Rainer Metz and compiled for the printed edition of Dietrich Ebeling and Franz Irsigler, Getreideumsatz, Getreide- und Brotpreise in Köln, 1368-1797 (Köln, 1976). All data on price and quantity are drawn from sales of the weekly market in Cologne, which served as a trans-shipment hub for grain. Prices are weekly averages and quantities refer to volume sold during an entire week. The weeks in each month are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. These data reflect, insofar as officials took care in recording them, the activities of a "free" market. The data from the seventeenth century should be used with special caution, because transactions from these years were often negligently recorded. All prices are quoted in monies of account of Cologne, either in Gulden or Mark (1 Gulden = 4 Mark = 24 Albus = 288 Heller). For information about the bullion equivalents of these monies of account or their exchange rates, see the data set named Currency Exchanges (Metz).

Prussian state finance, 1688-1806
Data on Prussian state finance, 1688-1806, supplied and interpreted by Körner. This is part of the European State Finance Database.
 

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Hungary
ECOSTAT - Institute for Economic Analysis and Informatics
Click on the graph by "time series". You get main time series data for Hungary from about 1960. Data are available on for example GDP, population and education.

Iceland
Historical Statistics of Iceland
This is the remaining website of the (now closed down) National Economic Institute of Iceland. However, the site still contains the Iceland historical statistics. There are chapters on:
 1. Gross Domestic Product, Gross National Product and value of fixed assets
 2. National Expenditure
 3. General government
 4. Industrial profitability and gross domestic factor income by industries
 5. Labour market
 6. Prices, earnings and working hours
 7. Foreign trade
 8. Foreign debt
 9. Monetary and exchange rate matters
10. International comparison

Ireland
Database of Irish Historical Statistics
The Database of Irish Historical Statistics holds recurrent statistics for Ireland for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries collected from a variety of printed census sources. It contains quantitative information, including decennial census data, emigration statistics, annual totals of births, deaths and marriages collected by the Registrar General, yearly statistics of agricultural production, poverty data from Poor Law records, and crime statistics. All population censuses from the first comprehensive Irish census in 1821 to the last not already in digital form in 1971 are included.

HNAG Database of Irish Historical Statistics
The main fields of attention in this project are Agriculture, Finance, Industry, Labour, Population, Prices, Trade, and Miscellaneous. At the moment most data are still related to trade, starting around 1820.

Italy
Currency Exchanges (Mueller)
See also about this datafile.
This forms a part of the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank. This database contains monetary data supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500(Baltimore, 1997). It contains exchange rates for Barcelona, Bologna, Bruges, Florence, Genoa, London, Lucca, Milan, Paris, Pisa, and Rome.

Florentine Public Finances
Data supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon published sources. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Luxembourg
Le Service Central de la Statistique et des Études Économiques
The Statec-website is in French and provides historic data about Luxembourg going back for financial data to around 1960 and for population data further back. To view these data one has to click 'Informations statistiques' and next 'Annuaire statistique'. If one is not already registered one finds first a form to register.

The Netherlands
Central Bureau of Statistics
Click STATLINE. This electronic databank contains various historical time series data on the Netherlands. Click 'figures' and 'statline'.

Dutch Expenditure
Data on Dutch expenditure provided by L. van der Ent, W. Fritschy, E. Horlings & R. Liesker, c/o Fritschy, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Dutch National Accounts 1800-1913
This project started in 1990. On the site there are data on many different aspects of the Dutch national accounts.

The Low Countries in the Middle Ages
Data collected by Professor Wim Blockmans, and used in the preparation of his chapter on 'The Low Countries in the Middle Ages', in R. J. Bonney (ed.), The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200-1815 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 281-308. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Medieval Economic History
This homepage of Richard Unger contains data on beer & excise around 1350 to 1850 and on grain prices between around 1400 and 1800 for Angers, Antwerp, Aragon, Arnhem, Amsterdam, Augsburg, Aix, Andalusia.

Prices (Posthumus)
See also about this datafile
This forms a part of the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank. This database contains prices taken from the tables of absolute prices contained in volume 1 of N. W. Posthumus's Nederlandsche Prijsgeschiedenis (Leiden, 1943). Posthumus took most of the quotations from published listings of the Amsterdam commodity exchange. The listings appeared irregularly from 1585 to 1609, weekly from 1609 to 1796, and twice a week from 1796 to 1813. Of the approximately 12,000 price currents that were issued between 1585 and 1813, Posthumus was able to find 3,033, or about one-fourth. There are, moreover, large gaps among these. Only 138 years are represented, so that numerous years are lacking, particularly before 1624, and between the years 1654-64, 1694-1701,1710-18, and 1722-28.

The United Provinces, 1579-1806
Data collected by Dr Marjolein 't Hart, and used in the preparation of her chapter on 'The United Provinces, 1579-1806' in R. J. Bonney (ed.), The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200-1815 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 309-326. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Norway
Historical Monetary Statistics
This is Occasional Papers No 35 - Historical Monetary Statistics for Norway 1819 - 2003 - of the Norges Bank. In each chapter it has a pdf-file with text and statistics and a excel spreadsheet containing the historical data. Contents:
       Preface
  1 - Introduction
  2 - A historical perspective on monetary statistics in Norway
  3 - A consumer price index for Norway 1516-2003
  4 - Bond markets and bond yields in Norway 1820-2003
  5 - Monetary aggregates in Norway 1819-2003
  6 - The gross domestic product for Norway 1830-2003
  7 - Historical exchange rate data 1819-2003
  8 - Historical stock price indices in Norway 1914-2001
  9 - House price indices for Norway 1819-2003
10 - Credit, banking and monetary developments in Norway 1819-2003

Historical Statistics of Norway
This site of the Statistics Norway contains historical data on all aspects of Norwegian society. There are chapters on natural resources, population, health conditions, education, culture, social conditions, law, labour, wages, personal income and property, private consumption, housing, agriculture, fishing, oil extraction, building and construction, external trade, internal trade, transport, business services, national accounts, general government, financial institutions, and administrative divisions.

Statistics Norway
Divided in 12 subject categories it deals with many statistics sometimes going back to the 1070s.

Ottoman Empire / Byzantium
Some data about the Ottoman Empire are available at the Agricultural History Center for 'Prices and Wages in Istanbul, 1469-1914'.

Economic history of the Ottoman Empire
A website dedicated to the economic history of the Ottoman Empire for the measurement of prices, incomes, and economic welfare and for the study of the nature, causes and consequences of economic institutions.

Prices and Wages in the Byzantine World, ± 300 - ± 1400 (pdf, 336 Kb)
This is part of the book The Economic History of Byzantium. From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century and consists of prices and wages in several European, Asian, and African cities.

Poland
Polish State Finance, 1576-1717
Data on Polish state finance, 1576-1717, deposited by Professor Anna Filipczak-Kocur. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Russia
Revenue and expenditure of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth century Russia
Data on eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Russia supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon published materials. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Prices and Wages in S.-Petersburg 1853-1910
The Faculty of History of the Moscow State University offers on above site (only main page in English) four databases with economic history data on Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century. The first database links to the wages of construction workers and the price behaviour of bread in S.-Petersburg (1853-1910).

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Spain
Some data about 'Spain 1500-1800' are available at the Agricultural History Center.
Other data you can find in the Medieval and early Modern Data Bank. This data bank contains monetary data supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore, 1997). It covers the city of Barcelona.

Castile, 1504-1808
Data collected by Professor Juan Gelabert, and used in the preparation of his chapters on 'Castile, 1504-1808', in R. J. Bonney (ed.), The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200-1815 (Oxford, 1999), pp. 201-242, and 'The King's Expenses: the Asientos of Philip III and Philip IV of Spain', in W. M. Ormrod, M. M. Bonney and R. J. Bonney (editors), Crises, Revolutions and Self-Sustained Growth: Essays in European Fiscal History, 1130-1830 (Stamford, UK, 1999), pp. 233-259. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Castilian finances in the fifteenth century
Data on Castilian finances in the fifteenth century (to 1504), researched, supplied and interpreted by Professor Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Spanish treasury
Data on late ancien-régime Spain supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney, drawing upon published materials, some unavailable on loan within the UK. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Sweden
Calculate the monthly value of the Swedish crown for any month between 1914 and now
This site contains a calculator in which you can fill in any amount of Swedish crown in a year (and month) between 1814 and now. It then calculates the value of that amount of crown for any year between 1814 and now.

Lund University Macroeconomic and Demographic Database
The goal of the database is to assemble in one place a large and detailed collection of annual demographic and macroeconomic data about Sweden. This site provides documentation and raw data series, as well as contact information for those researchers responsible for the initial data collection. For now, data are available on Money and FinanceNational AccountsPopulation, and Prices and Wages.

Revenues and money in eighteenth-century and early nineteenth century Sweden
Data on eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Sweden supplied by the Project Director, Professor Richard Bonney drawing upon published materials. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Swedish CPI 1290-2006
A CPI for Sweden constructed by Rodney Edvinsson and Johan S�derberg. This website contains the index (Excel) as well as a paper (PDF) describing sources and procedures.

Swedish CPI from 1830 to the present
These CPI data can be found on the website of Statistics Sweden.

Swedish Historical Statistics
This site of the Swedish Statistical Bureau contains several historical series on GDP, construction, trade, inflation, etc.

Switzerland
Revenues and expenditures Swiss towns
Data on the revenues and expenditure of Swiss towns, mostly sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on comparative European expenditure, fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, on interest rates in certain European countries, and on Nuremberg city finances, supplied by Professor Dr. Martin Körner. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

United Kingdom
Some data about prices you can find in the NBER Macrohistory Database - Series from the United Kingdom.
Other data you can find in the Medieval and early Modern Data Bank. This data bank contains monetary data supporting material presented in Reinhold C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics, and the Public Debt, 1200-1500 (Baltimore, 1997). It covers the city of London.

English Economic Indicators
Data on English economic indicators compiled for the purposes of calculating the real increase of taxation over time. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

English Revenues
Miscellaneous published and unpublished data, mostly concerning English revenues (especially those from indirect taxation), supplied by Professor W. M. Ormrod. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

English Revenues, 1485-1815
Data prepared on English revenues, 1485-1815, by Professor P. K. O'Brien and Dr. P. A. Hunt. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

English State Finance, 1534-47
Data collected by Dr Peter Cunich, and used in the preparation of his chapter on 'Revolution and Crisis in English State Finance, 1534-47' in W. M. Ormrod, M. M. Bonney and R. J. Bonney (editors), Crises, Revolutions and Self-Sustained Growth: Essays in European Fiscal History, 1130-1830 (Stamford, UK, 1999), pp. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Grants
Data on the mise of Chesire, Flintshire and the redemption of the general eyre of Carmarthanshire supplied by Dr T. Thornton, Huddersfield University. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

London Fix Historical Gold
London Gold Bullion Market, Yearly Average Price (1833 – 1999). The same data until 1997 can also be found on http://members.tripod.com/~placerstrike/goldprice.htm

London Fix Historical silver
Silver 1792 – present, yearly average price.

Medieval Wool and Cloth Exports
Data prepared by Dr. Margaret Bonney, ESRC Research Associate on the European State Finance Database Project, making available for the first time in machine-readable form the published data on medieval wool and cloth exports and imports. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

StatBase
Here there are statistical data, time series included, available. Also on the site of the statistical bureau UK in figures is available. This contains a sample cross section of data showing how people live in the UK today.

The geographical distribution of taxable wealth in England, 1291-1535
Data on the geographical distribution of taxable wealth in England, 1291-1535, supplied by Dr R. S. Schofield, Cambridge. This is part of the European State Finance Database.

Vatican City
Finances of the Papacy
Data on the finances of the papacy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, supplied by Dr JP. Partner, Winchester. This is part of the European State Finance Database.
 

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North America

General
Oxford Latin American Economic History Database
The Oxford Latin American Economic History Database (OxLAD) contains statistical series for a wide range of economic and social indicators covering twenty countries in the region for the period 1900-2000. The database contains data on population and demography, labour force, industry, transport and communications, external trade, finance, national accounts, consumer and producer price indices, and commodity price indices.

Canada
Historical Statistics of Canada
Data from the statistical bureau of Canada covering retail and wholesale prices, government expenditure, population, etc. In general the data start between 1860 and 1960.

United States
Some data on the US Economy are in ECONDATA. The data are mostly for the US and sometimes starts around 1950. Data for wages, national accounts etc. are available.
The NBER Macrohistory Database also provides data on prices for the United States.

Bureau of Economic Analysis
Mainly GDP and Balance of Payment data subdivided in NationalIndustryInternational, and Regional, sometimes going back to the 1940s.

Calculate the value of an amount of US dollars between 1913 and now
This site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis contains CPI calculator allowing you the calculate the value of an amount of US dollars for any year between 1913 and now.

Center for International Data
This sites offers links to economic data going back to the 1970s. The main categories offered online are U.S. Import and Export dataU.S. Tariff dataWorld Import and Export data, Consortium for the Study of Asian Economies, and Penn World Tables.

economagic.com: Economic Time Series Page
Going back to the 1940s data on GDP, money supply and population for the United States are offered.

Economic Research Service
Economic Research Service (ERS). (Click on data). There are also wages and other sources of income available for example 1910.

Fedstats
The gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies .

Historical Labour Statistics Project
The HLSP's first objective is to collect in machine-readable format detailed data on American labour markets selected from over 150 separate investigations undertaken between 1874 and 1920 by the Bureaus of Labour Statistics established by the governments of 29 states. You can download the data on download. There is also a readme file.

Historical Statistical Abstracts of the United States
This site contains the Statistical Abstract of the United States running from 1878 to now. These books contain data on all aspects of American economy and society including prices and wages.

IPUMS-USA
This is a coherent national census database spanning 1850 to 1990. The data series includes information on a broad range of population characteristics, including fertility, nuptiality, life-course transitions, immigration, internal migration, labor-force participation, occupational structure, education, ethnicity, and household composition.

National Agricultural Statistics Service
National Agricultural Statistics Service (click on historical data).

NBER data
This site offers links to several databases mainly concerned with US and international data.

Panel study of income dynamics
A research project – ongoing since 1968 – that studies 8,000 U.S. families.

United States Historical Census Data Browser
The data presented here describe the people and the economy of the US for each state and county from 1790 to 1960.
 

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South America

General
By Jeffrey Williamson you can find data about the PPP-Adjusted Real Wages for Latin America. Go to HIER Paper #1853: Real Wages and Relative Factor Prices in the Third World 1820-1940 and look at the separate index.

Oxford Latin American Economic History Database
The Oxford Latin American Economic History Database (OxLAD) contains statistical series for a wide range of economic and social indicators covering twenty countries in the region for the period 1900-2000. The database contains data on population and demography, labour force, industry, transport and communications, external trade, finance, national accounts, consumer and producer price indices, and commodity price indices.

Brazil
Banco Central do Brazil
Click on 'economic and financial information' and then on 'time series'. This brings you to a menu where you can choose between different economic indicators going back to circa 1960.

Evaluation of Capital Productivity in Brazil in the XX Century
Paper by Aumara Feu. At the bottom of the paper one can find the data.

Statistics of the 20th century
This website offers two datasets. The first includes population, social, political and cultural statistics. The second contains economic indicators. The data come from the Statistical Yearbooks of Brazil published between 1916 and 2000. The site is in Portuguese.
 

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Mexico
Revenues and expenditure in Spanish America, c. 1570 to c. 1816
Data concerning revenues and expenditure in Spanish America, c. 1570 to c. 1816. Chiefly the work of Professors Herbert Klein and J. J. TePaske but with additional datasets to be deposited which have been modified at Leicester to produce standard years instead of uneven accounting years. This is part of the European State Finance Database.
 

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Peru
Revenues and expenditure in Spanish America, c. 1570 to c. 1816
Data concerning revenues and expenditure in Spanish America, c. 1570 to c. 1816. Chiefly the work of Professors Herbert Klein and J. J. TePaske but with additional datasets to be deposited which have been modified at Leicester to produce standard years instead of uneven accounting years. This is part of the European State Finance Database.
 

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