IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cte/whrepe/45843.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

World Population 1800-1938

Author

Listed:
  • Federico, Giovanni

Abstract

The number of people is one of the most basic facts about any society, but it is difficult to ascertain. The data are missing for most of human history and scarce until the early 19th century for advanced countries and the early 20th century for the rest of the world until. Yet, historical demographers have tried hard and often successfully to estimate population in the past, but their results have been neglected largely in the most common general historical databases. Our research project fills this gap in our knowledge. We have estimated the population series for all polities from 1800 to 1938 at historical and 1991 borders, using firsthand sources and country-specific literature. In this working paper we survey the previous estimates, list our sources, describe the methods of estimation in general and their application to each polity, sketch out main trends and discuss the reliability of our data, estimating their margin of error

Suggested Citation

  • Federico, Giovanni, 2025. "World Population 1800-1938," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 45843, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    • Handle: RePEc:cte:whrepe:45843
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/rest/api/core/bitstreams/34ce9182-38c7-40ac-85ff-9d6e2a769caa/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bulmer-Thomas,Victor, 2012. "The Economic History of the Caribbean since the Napoleonic Wars," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521145602, October.
    2. Bernard Baffour & Thomas King & Paolo Valente, 2013. "The Modern Census: Evolution, Examples and Evaluation," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 81(3), pages 407-425, December.
    3. Markevich, Andrei & Harrison, Mark, 2011. "Great War, Civil War, and Recovery: Russia's National Income, 1913 to 1928," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 672-703, September.
    4. Robert J. Barro & José F. Ursúa & Joanna Weng, 2020. "The Coronavirus and the Great Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from the “Spanish Flu” for the Coronavirus’s Potential Effects on Mortality and Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 26866, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Miikka Voutilainen & Jouni Helske & Harri Högmander, 2020. "A Bayesian Reconstruction of a Historical Population in Finland, 1647–1850," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1171-1192, June.
    6. Schulze, Max-Stephan, 2000. "Patterns of growth and stagnation in the late nineteenth century Habsburg economy," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 311-340, December.
    7. Schulze, Max-Stephan, 2000. "Patterns of growth and stagnation in the late nineteenth century Habsburg economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4370, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Bulmer-Thomas,Victor, 2012. "The Economic History of the Caribbean since the Napoleonic Wars," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521198899, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2015. "World Human Development: 1870–2007," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 220-247, June.
    2. Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, 2019. "Human Development in the Age of Globalisation," CEPR Discussion Papers 13744, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Michel Fouquin & Jules Hugot, 2016. "Two Centuries of Bilateral Trade and Gravity data: 1827-2014," Vniversitas Económica, Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá, vol. 0(0), pages 1-39, August.
    4. repec:cte:whrepe:wp13-01 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Ivanov, Martin & Kopsidis, Michael, 2023. "Industrialisation in a small grain economy during the First Globalisation: Bulgaria c. 1870–1910," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 76(1), pages 169-198.
    6. Codruta Boar & Henry Holden & Amber Wadsworth, 2020. "Impending arrival - a sequel to the survey on central bank digital currency," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 107.
    7. Giovanni Federico & Antonio Tena‐Junguito, 2017. "Lewis revisited: tropical polities competing on the world market, 1830–1938," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1244-1267, November.
    8. Lampe, Markus, 2009. "Effects of Bilateralism and the MFN Clause on International Trade: Evidence for the Cobden-Chevalier Network, 1860-1875," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1012-1040, December.
    9. Annemarie Steidl & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2007. "Coming and leaving. Internal mobility in late Imperial Austria," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp107, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/603 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Max‐Stephan Schulze & Nikolaus Wolf, 2012. "Economic nationalism and economic integration: the Austro‐Hungarian Empire in the late nineteenth century," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 65(2), pages 652-673, May.
    12. Rota, Mauro, 2011. "Military Burden and the Democracy Puzzle," MPRA Paper 35254, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Michael Tomz & Mark L. J. Wright, 2007. "Do Countries Default in "Bad Times" ?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(2-3), pages 352-360, 04-05.
    14. Constantine, Collin & Khemraj, Tarron, 2019. "Geography, economic structures and institutions: A synthesis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 371-379.
    15. Grosfeld, Irena & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2015. "Cultural vs. economic legacies of empires: Evidence from the partition of Poland," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 55-75.
    16. Carlo Ciccarelli & Anna Missiaia, 2018. "The fall and rise of business cycle co-movements in Imperial Austria’s regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 60(1), pages 171-193, January.
    17. Liu, Dan & Meissner, Christopher M., 2015. "Market potential and the rise of US productivity leadership," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 72-87.
    18. Blanca Sánchez‐Alonso, 2019. "The age of mass migration in Latin America," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(1), pages 3-31, February.
    19. Bertinelli, Luisito & Mohan, Preeya & Strobl, Eric, 2016. "Hurricane damage risk assessment in the Caribbean: An analysis using synthetic hurricane events and nightlight imagery," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 135-144.
    20. Michael Pammer, 2015. "Income inequality in Imperial Austria, 1911," Working Papers 15028, Economic History Society.
    21. Worrell, DeLisle, 2021. "The Time Has Come to Permanently Retire All Our Caribbean Currencies," Studies in Applied Economics 179, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    22. Joel Huesler, 2024. "Impact of tropical storms on the banking sector in the British Colonial Caribbean," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 18(3), pages 653-690, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    World population historical dataset;

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cte:whrepe:45843. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ana Poveda (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://portal.uc3m.es/portal/page/portal/instituto_figuerola .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.