Séries longues et économie du développement

This article deals with the many long time series databases that have been built over the last two decades. These series cover more than a hundred years span and allow comparing the situation of present days developed countries at a time when they were developing countries with that of present days developing countries. Longitudinal econometric analyses are now feasible instead of cross-section analyses of recent data concerning developing countries and already developed ones. The field of development economics is thus significantly enlarged. It opens new perspectives and allows to test models and to understand the role of exogenous factors such as technology or institutions, which contribute to making a model valid over two different periods or not. This article offers examples that show how useful such long time series may be as education data which explains fertility rates variations.