Piketty's dataset: part of a trend which is changing economics.  Merijn Knibbe

I'm reading Thomas Piketty's book about wealth, capital and inequality. At this moment one remark:

His book is based upon a very extensive `open source' dataset which spans the centuries and the globe (wealth, return on capital, labour share, share of capital etc.). This seems to be part of a trend as Piketty is not the only economist who does this. Other examples are:

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff with their `This time it's different. Eight centuries of financially folly` dataset, which spans the centuries and the globe (debt).

The late Angus Maddison data on GDP  (dataset continued by `a group of close colleagues') which span the millenia and the globe

The Bank for International Settlements with their recent dataset on house prices which span decades (for Norway: centuries) and the globe.

The (real) wages datasets of the International Institute of Social History (moderator: Jan Luiten van Zanden) which span the centuries and the globe.

These datasets are changing or did already change the science of economics. A common theme: there is no such thing as a stable monetary capitalist economy.

I do think that, as long as we have the Sveriges Riksbank prize in economics science in memory of Alfred Nobel, the founding and maintenance of such datahubs should be one of the arguments to award the prize.

Such awards would certainly seem more appropriate than many of their choices over the last quarter century - presuming they are rewarding advances in understanding and not advances in obfuscation.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."