Appendix 4 - GDP Per Head in Latin America since 1900

Summary

Since the first edition of this book was published in 1994, there have been considerable advances in our knowledge of GDP per head in Latin America – especially for the years before 1950. At the same time, information is now available electronically through the Internet in a form that makes comparisons across space and over time much easier. This Appendix 4 brings this information together in one convenient place.

The starting point is World Development Indicators (WDI) on the website of the World Bank, which has data for all twenty Latin American republics on population and GDP at 2000 US dollars starting in 1960. The only gaps are Cuba from 1960 to 1969 and Haiti from 1960 to 1990, which I filled using Bulmer-Thomas (2012). WDI has comparable data for the United States, so the ratio of Latin American to US GDP per head can easily be constructed.

From 1900 to 1960, the basic source is MoXLAD, which is based on a variety of official and unofficial secondary sources. MoXLAD has data on population and GDP at 1970 domestic prices, together with nominal exchange rates, so this information (subject to qualifications – see below) can be used to construct an index for each country and splice it to the data in WDI. The result is GDP per head at 2000 US dollars from 1900 to 2011. When three-year averages are taken, this gives 1901 to 2010.