Around November 1, 2003, I had what I thought was a neat idea. I solicited opinions from approximately 30 prominent economists, environmentalists, and technologists (people who study technology trends) regarding world economic growth in the 21st century. Specifically, I wanted each of those 30 people to predict world average per-capita GDP in the 21st century. I would then publish their predictions, along with my own, on this website.
To provide some background for their predictions, I supplied the following table of average world per-capita GDP from the year 1500 to the year 2000. The data for the table were obtained or calculated from this website:
Brad DeLong's calculations of historical world GDP per capita
Table 1. Historical Values for Average World GDP Per Capita (DeLong, 1998)
Year.....“Preferred” GDP per........Annual Growth Rate
..................Capita, $............From Preceding Date, %
1400...............128........................................----
1500...............138........................................0.1
1600...............141........................................0.0
1700...............164........................................0.2
1800...............195........................................0.2
1900...............679........................................1.3
1910...............818........................................1.9
1920...............956........................................1.6
1930.............1134........................................1.7
1940.............1356........................................1.8
1950.............1622........................................1.8
1960.............2270........................................3.4
1970.............3282........................................3.8
1980.............4231........................................2.6
1990.............5204........................................2.1
2000.............6539........................................2.3
2010................?............................................?
2020................?............................................?
2030................?............................................?
2040................?............................................?
2050................?............................................?
2060................?............................................?
2070................?............................................?
2080................?............................................?
2090................?............................................?
2100................?............................................?
Unfortunately, I received predictions from only 3 of the approximately 30 people I sent the email to. But the results are still interesting. Here, in alphabetical order, are the people who actually sent back predictions:
Dr. Jesse Ausubel is a professsor at Rockefeller University, who I would describe as a technologist. That is, he studies trends and makes predictions of future directions in technology. For example, he's studied the "decarbonization" of various economies. That's the progressive use of less and less carbon, per unit of economic activity. (This has implications with respect to predicting greenhouse gas emissions in the 21st century.)
Dr. Wilfred Beckerman is an economist and the author of the books "A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth," and "Through Green-Colored Glasses: Environmentalism Reconsidered."
Dr. Arnold Kling is an economist. He's an author on Tech Central Station. He has a weblog called Bottomline that deals with economics and technology. And he's a teacher of economics to some very lucky high school students.
However, despite the disappointing small number of responses, the results were interesting; I'll post them tomorrow.
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