Angus Maddison

[4] Maddison is particularly known for documenting economic performance over long periods of time and across major countries in every continent of the world.

[5] Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, Maddison was educated at Darlington Grammar School and subsequently attended Selwyn College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate.

To this end he combined modern research techniques with his own extensive knowledge of economic history and in particular countries' performances in the field of GDP per capita.

This study has strongly boosted the historical debate about the strengths and weaknesses of Europe and China as two of the world's leading economic forces.

Until the end of his life, Maddison lived in Chevincourt, near Thourotte (France), but maintained strong connections with the University of Groningen.

[15] After his death Maddison's exhaustive work quantifying global economic history has been praised as pioneering and important.

A graph compiled from Angus Maddison's data comparing the GDP per capita of a few major economies since 1700 AD. Since 1700 and after, Western countries were the richest on per capita basis. [ 7 ]
The global contribution to world's GDP by major economies from year 1 to 2003 according to Angus Maddison's estimates. [ 8 ] Before the 18th century, India and China were the two largest economies by GDP output.