The nominal GDP series serve three immediate scholarly purposes:
• Cross-checking the validity of the real constant-price series. The nominal series often come from quite separate sources, springing from social tables or tax-related evidence, versus the real output origins of many real GDP series. Juxtaposing the real and nominal series immediately poses the constructive question: Do the implied movements in the GDP deflator make sense?
• Supplying a denominator for scholars' local-currency magnitudes relating to many kinds of behavior. For example, nominal GDP is of immediate use for macro-economic studies using such numerators as the money supply and aggregate wealth. It is also a key denominator for fiscal history, as in our current GPIH Group research.
• Providing a total-income denominator for partial measures of income inequality. Much of the literature on inequality takes advantage of superior information on the incomes at the very top income ranks. So it was with Simon Kuznets's estimates of income inequality back in the 1950s, and so it has been with the Atkinson-Piketty-Saez wave of top income shares over the last century. Extending such top-share estimates into the deeper past is made easier by the ready availability of nominal national income estimates.
A. The Americas
-Nominal national product in the Americas since earliest data
B. Western Europe
-Nominal national product in Western Europe since earliest data
-Italy north central GNP 1310-1913
C. Eastern Europe
-Nominal national product in Eastern Europe since earliest data
D. Africa
-Africa GDP
E. Middle East and South Asia
-Nominal GDP, Middle East and South Asia
F. East Asia and Oceania
-Nominal GDP, East Asia and Oceania
-Vietnam GDP, 1800 – 1970 (Bassino)
