Obituary: Angus Maddison

choi

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Maddison counting; A long, passionate affair with numbers has finally come
to an end. Economist, Apr. 29, 2010.
http://www.economist.com/business-finance/economics-focus/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16004937

Note:
(1) "Maddison is a variant spelling of the surname Madison.

Mr. Maddison (1926-2010) was British. He attended graduate schools at McGill
University and the Johns Hopkins University but did not seem to obtain
master's degree--certainly not PhD.

(2) "How to Pay for the War" was published in 1940. Cf.

John Maynard Keynes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes
(Section 2.5: "During World War II, Keynes argued in How to Pay for the War,
published in 1940, that the war effort should be largely financed by higher
taxation and especially by compulsory saving (essentially workers loaning
money to the government), rather than deficit spending, in order to avoid
inflation")

(3) The Economist states, "In 1995 he published GDP estimates for 56
countries as far back as 1820. In 2001 his romantic adventures culminated in
an estimate for world output in the year 1AD: $105.4 billion at 1990 prices
."

The first sentence refers to the book "Monitoring The World Economy 1820-
1992," while the second sentence, The World Economy: A Millennial
Perspective (Paris: OECD, 2001)--which is about the second millennium.

He did publish, though: Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD; Essays in
Macro-Economic History, Oxford, 2007.

(4) The Economist continues, "GDP is a modern term."

It is Mr. Keynes who coined the term "gross domestic product" (GDP) in his
book above mentioned. See

Prof. Schlomo Maital, The Man Who Invented GDP. Technion Institute of
Management (Tim; at Tel Aviv, Israel), Feb. 22, 2009.
http://timnovate.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/the-man-who-invented-gdp/
("Partly as a result of Keynes’ influence, Britain did finance World War II
with relatively little inflation, far less than in World War I")

(5) The Economist further talks about Mr. William Petty in 1665.
(a) William Petty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Petty
(1623-1687)
(b) Second Anglo-Dutch War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Anglo-Dutch_War
(1665-1667; "England tried to end the Dutch domination of world trade. After
initial English successes, the war ended in a Dutch victory;"  King of
England, Scotland and Ireland was Charles II whose reign for the nation was
from 1660 to 1685)

(6) The Economist, "By 1773, John Harrison was claiming a £20,000 prize
from the British Parliament for inventing a seaworthy chronometer."
(a) Marine chronometer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer
("The first true chronometer was the life work of one man, John Harrison,
spanning 31 years of persistent trial and error that revolutionized naval (
and later aerial) navigation as the Age of Discovery and Colonialism hit a
new gear")

Basically chronometer is a portable time piece, which is typified by a watch
today.
(b) John Harrison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
(1693-1776)
(c) John Harrison's chronometer can be found in

The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake
http://www.reformation.org/sir-francis-drake.html

where a panel of three pictures (toward the bottom of the web page) shows he
held the chronometer in his right hand.

(7) Scurvy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy
(It was described by Hippocrates (c. 460 BC–c. 380 BC); Scurvy was one of
the limiting factors of marine travel, often killing large numbers of the
passengers and crew on long-distance voyages; It was a Scottish surgeon in
the British Royal Navy, James Lind who first proved it could be treated with
citrus fruit in experiments he described in his 1753 book, A Treatise of
the Scurvy; finally vitamin C was isolated in 1932 and its link to scurvy
proven)

(8) The "Mughal" in Mughal India is a variant spelling of the adjective "
Mogul."

(a) Mogul (n AND adj; etymology: Persian Mughul, from Mongolian mongyol
Mongol): "an Indian Muslim of or descended from one of several conquering
groups of Mongol, Turkish, and Persian origin"

(b) Mughal Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal_Empire
(The Mughal Empire, or Mogul Empire in former English usage, was an Islamic
imperial power that ruled Indian subcontinent which began in 1526 and ended
in the mid-19th century when the British came)

(9) vizier (n; from Turkish): "a high executive officer of various Muslim
countries"
(10) The Conference Board
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conference_Board
(a non-profit global business organization whose headquarters are at New
York City, with offices at Brussels and Hong Kong)
(11) Colin Clark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Clark
(1905-1989)
(12) foreshadow (vt): "to represent, indicate, or typify beforehand"
(13) The Economist states, "His [Maddison's] estimates of per head GDP
provide a useful empirical crosscheck for a grand thesis proposed by Daron
Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson in 2005."
(a) It may refer to the paper

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, Institutions as the
Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth. Handbook of Economic Growth (Chapter 6
, pages 385-472; Edited by Philippe Aghion and Stephen Durlauf, Elsevier,
North Holland), 2005.
http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/4469

(b) Daron Acemoglu
http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/publication
and Simon Johnson
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=198
are professors at MIT.

James A. Robinson is professor of government at Harvard University.
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jrobins/

(c) For the general thesis, see

Geography and wealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_and_wealth

whose reference 11 is

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, The Colonial Origins of
Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation. American Economic
Review, 91: 1369-1401, 2001.
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~chad/ajr2001.pdf

(14) credulous (adj): "ready to believe especially on slight or uncertain
evidence"
(15) go figure: "try to figure it out"
(16) University of Groningen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Groningen
(a state university; "located in the city of Groningen, was founded in 1614.
It is the second oldest university in the Netherlands as well as one of it
largest")

Groningen (city)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_(city)

--

choi

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My comment:
(1) I look at China with cold eyes, without passion. The more I delve into
it, the more I am convinced that it was a great nation, up to mid-eighteenth
century. Contrary to most Chinese, I thought Chinese, not the foreign
powers, were the culprit of China's decline. Fundamentally, my thesis is
Chinese bungled--even shot themselves in the foot.
(2) Mr. Angus Maddison authored two books about China; the first was earth-
quaking.
(a) Chinese Economic Performance in the Long-Run. Paris: OECD, 1998.
http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/

(b) Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run, 960-2030, Paris: OECD,
2007.
(3) Of late, Greece and a few other European nations are flirting with
default. So, all eyes are on historical economic well beings of nations.
(a) There is this colorful and pictorial graphic in the print but the online
version is text only. Still the IDEAS come through.

Defaults, Near-Defaults, and Other Financial Disasters; A crisis timeline.
Bloomberg Businessweek, Apr. 22, 2010.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_18/b4176019891509.htm
("1800-1815  Napoleonic wars. Austria, France, Russia, the German states all
default under the cost of financing armies.")

(b) Just a few days ago, a graphic in an Financial Times report (whose
horizontal axis--time line--starts from 1800 to the present) indicates UK
had public debt of ~200% in 1800, decreased sharply throughout years* but
shot up to 325% at the end of World War I, but rose only moderately in World
War II.

* The public debt was ~150% in 1839, when the First Opium War (1839–1842)
started.

(c) List of regions by past GDP (PPP)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)
("Most of the information below is based on estimates by economic historian
Angus Maddison")

Section 6, titled 1820, listed Qing China's GDP (PPP) was 32.9% of the world
but UK, 5.2%. (In comparison: India (16.0), France (5.5), Russian Empire (5
.4), Germany (3.8), Italy (3.2), Japan (3.0), Spain (1.9) and US (1.8)).

The 1820 estimate is the closest to First Opium War.

This did not stop UK from taking over India and defeating China.

Considering its public debt, however, UK might not be so powerful and China,
not destined to bite the dust in that war.

(4) Incidentally, opium might have been traded millennia ago.

Sarah Halzack, book review. Washington Post, May 2, 2010 (available now).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/30/AR2010043001089.html
(on Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, Opium; Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy,
Harvard, 2010)

Quote: "Chouvy outlines the history of opium trafficking, beginning in
ancient times when it was likely traded on the Silk Road."

(5) At last I will train my attention to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945; this is the name of the war in
Wikipedia).

Unlucky for the generalissimo, John Maynard Keynes' book How to Pay for the
War (1940) came too late, with the war against Japan having started 4 years
before. The public debt and inflation destroyed Chiang's regime in the
mainland.

【 在 choi 的大作中提到: 】
: Maddison counting; A long, passionate affair with numbers has finally come
: to an end. Economist, Apr. 29, 2010.
: http://www.economist.com/business-finance/economics-focus/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16004937
: Note:
: (1) "Maddison is a variant spelling of the surname
: (以下引言省略...)

--

choi

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Correction:
(a) In Note (3):

The first sentence refers to the book "Monitoring The World Economy 1820-1992," while the second sentence, The World Economy: A Millennial
Perspective (Paris: OECD, 2001)--which is about the last millennium.

I will make it "the LAST millennium."

(b) In Note (15):

Add the citation at the end of "go figure":  www.dictionary.com

I will add further: "All other English definitions are from www.m-w.com."

(c) In My comment (1):

"The more I delve into
it, the more I am convinced that it was a great nation, up to mid-eighteenth century."

I will change "mid-eighteenth century" to "mid-nineteenth century."

【 在 choi 的大作中提到: 】
: My comment:
: (1) I look at China with cold eyes, without passion. The more I delve into
: it, the more I am convinced that it was a great nation, up to mid-eighteenth
: century. Contrary to most Chinese, I thought Chinese, not the foreign
: (以下引言省略...)

--