Assessing the accuracy of the Penn World Tables

The Penn World Tables are a data set used by many important, widely cited empirical studies on growth and international finance. It displays a set of national accounts time series covering developed and developing countries. Its expenditure entries are denominated in a common set of prices in a common currency so that real international quantity comparisons can be made over time and space using an interspatial extrapolation procedure. The Penn World Tables cover substantially more countries than those included in the individual benchmark year studies; The purpose of this study is to assess the accuracy of the price estimates given in the Penn World Tables. I have two important findings. First, I find that the procedure that the Penn World Tables use to estimate the price of non-benchmark countries is flawed. Second, I find that the price estimates of the Penn World Tables for benchmark countries, of a non-benchmark year, as well as non-benchmark countries may have errors. My findings have serious implications for empirical research in growth and development; Future research should address the accuracy issue to ensure reliable estimates of economic variables can be made.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Economics

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1999

Author dc:creator

• Fitzgerald, Timothy Scott

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lein-Lein Chen

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/1023

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-2022