Award Date

1-1-1999

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Economics

First Committee Member

Lein-Lein Chen

Number of Pages

48

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Accuracy; Assessing; Penn; Tables; World

Controlled Subject

Economics

File Format

pdf

File Size

1167.36 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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