CLIO-INFRA adresses the topic of global inequality, the increasing divergence between rich and poor countries, which is one of most pressing concerns of our time.

1. The Clio Infra Project
A Research Infrastructure for the
Study of Global Economic
Growth and Inequality (c. 1500-)
Jan Luiten van Zanden, Reinoud
Bosch, Jerry de Vries, and
Vyacheslav Tykhonov

2. Research question:
Why are some countries rich and
others poor?
Traditions drawn on to answer this question
- New Institutional Economics
- Douglass North, Avner Greif
- New Economic Geography
- Paul Krugman
- Unified Growth Theory
- Oded Galor
- Global Economic History
- Kenneth Pomeranz

3. Literature
Engerman, S.L. & K.L. Sokoloff (2002). Factor endowments, inequality, and
paths of development among new world economics, NBER Working Paper
Series, 9259.
Findlay, R, & O’Rourke, K. (2007). Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the
World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Galor, O. (2005). From stagnation to growth: unified growth theory, in: P.
Aghion & S. Durlauf, Handbook of Economic Growth, Vol. 1A, pp. 171-
293, Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Greif, A. (2006). Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Krugman, P. (1997). Development, geography and economic theory.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
North, D.C. (1981). Structure and Change in Economic History. New York:
W.W. Norton and Co.
Pomeranz, K. (2000). The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making
of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Reinhart,C. & Rogoff, K. (2009). This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of
Financial Folly. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, A. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations

4. Variables in this literature
• Institutions (Engerman & Sokoloff, North, Pomeranz)
• Geography (Findlay & O’Rourke, Krugman)
• Ethics (Sen)
• Psychology, interaction (Greif)
• Factor endowments, power, policies (Engerman &
Sokoloff, Findlay & O’Rourke, Pomeranz)
• Trade (Findlay & O’Rourke)
• Technology (Galor, Pomeranz)
• Education (Galor)
• Population (Galor)
• Culture (Pomeranz)
• Finance (Pomeranz, Reinhart & Rogoff)

5. Global Datasets on Variables
• Wages and prices
• Labour relations
• Demography
• Finance
• Inequality
• Quality of life
• Institutions
• Geography and environment
• Sustainability
• Human capital formation
• Biological standards of living
• National accounts

6. Projectstructure
Collaboratories Management structure Archiving
IISH Stakeholder committee
- wages and prices - executive committee of
- labour relations IEHA
- demography
- finance
Steering committee
Utrecht University - decision-making body
- inequality
- quality of life
- institutions Management team DARIAH
- geography and - daily operations
environment
- sustainability
- human capital formation DANS
IISH
- archiving of
- clio infra system
University of Groningen data
- national accounts
Visualization
University of Tübingen
- Statplanet
- biological standards of
- Gapminder
living

7. The clio infra system
Users clio infra Application Logic Storage
website
Private
Link to Upload
upload
Ingest
Link to API
edit
Edit
Public
Link to
download Download
Retrieve
API
Link to Visualize
visualize

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13. http://alpha.dev.clio-infra.eu/clioinfra/index.html

14. Input / output standards clio infra
• Excelfile
• Working paper

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16. Content of working paper
1. Title
2. Author(s)
3. Production date
4. Version
5. Variable group(s)
6. Variable(s)
7. Unit of analysis
8. Keywords (5)
9. Abstract (200 words)
10. Time period
11. Geographical coverage
12. Methodologies used for data collection and processing
13. Data quality (multiple possibilities)
14. Period of collection
15. Data collectors
16. Sources
17. Text

17. Topic for discussion
How does it all hang together?
- Social theory
- Conceptualization
- Qualitative insights
- Socio-Economics?

18. Variables in this project
• Institutions
• Geography
• Ethics
• Psychology, interaction
• Factor endowments, power, policies
• Technology
• Culture
• Finance
• Wages and prices
• Labour relations
• Demography
• Inequality
• Quality of life
• Environment
• Sustainability
• Human capital formation
• Biological standard of living
• National accounts

19. Thank you