Jones-Obstfeld Saving, Investment, and Gold Data for 13 Countries
This page contains links to the data used for the paper
Saving, Investment, and Gold: A Reassessment of Historical Current Account Data
by
Matthew T. Jones
and Maurice Obstfeld.
Complete documentation of data sources is
in Appendix 9.2 of the publication. Please
study that document and the
full paper
before making use of the series offered here.
Jones_Obstfeld_Data.zip is a pkzip 5.7 Mb file containing all the Excel
and ASCII text files for all the countries. It includes the source data.
Complete data by country is available in the following spreadsheets
and text files below.
Each country spreadsheet has 4 basic pages. The first page contains the
final series for the country. Consult the
data file description below the data table for more detail.
Updates and changes
Each country spreadsheet has 4 basic worksheets. The first worksheet contains
the final series for the country.
Australia and the U.S. have extra worksheets described below.
Updates and changes
Years | All Files, Pkzipped |
. | |||||
MS Excel (Original version) |
ASCII Tab-delimited text | ||||||
Final | National Accounts |
Gold | Notes | ||||
1861-1945 | Australia | Australia | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
Mint | Curr Ac | Misc | UK Gold | ||||
1870-1945 | Canada | Canada | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1874-1914 | Denmark | Denmark | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1872-1945 | Finland | Finland | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1851-1913 1919-1938 |
France | France | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1877-1913 | Germany | Germany | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1861-1936 | Italy | Italy | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1885-1944 | Japan | Japan | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1865-1939 | Norway | Norway | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1885-1913 | Russia | Russia | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1875-1945 | Sweden | Sweden | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1869-1945 | U.K. | U.K. | Final | Natl Ac | Gold | Notes | |
1870-1945 | U.S. | U.S. | Final | Kuznets | NBER | Notes | |
USHS | Curr Ac |
Australia and the U.S. have extra worksheets described below.
Worksheet | Contents |
Final |
GDP -- gross domestic product or net national product CF -- capital formation, which includes changes in stocks/inventories ST -- changes in stocks/inventories CAO -- original current account data from historical sources CAA -- our nongold current account CA_NG, which excludes all gold flows SG -- net shipments or exports of gold CMG -- change in the monetary gold stock |
National Accounts |
GDP, capital formation, stocks etc. *called Kuznets in the U.S., see below |
Gold | Gold flows and monetary stock |
Notes | Details on the data sources |
Mint | Flows of gold through the mints -- (Australia) |
Current Accounts |
More detailed data on the current account -- (Australia) |
Misc | Mostly more gold data -- (Australia) |
U.K. Gold | More gold data -- (Australia) |
Kuznets | National accounts data from Kuznets -- (U.S.) |
USHS | Data from U.S. Historical Statistics -- (U.S.) |
NBER | Data from the NBER Macrohistory database -- (U.S.) |
Current Accounts |
More detailed data on the current account -- (U.S.) |
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