G-Econ Project, Yale University

May 2006

 

            The purpose of this project is develop a geophysically scaled economic data set (hence, G-Econ). The result is a global data set on economic activity for all terrestrial grid cells. As of May 2006, version G-Econ 1.3 is available, which includes 27,500 terrestrial grid cells. The G-Econ project will be a gridded data set at a 1 degree longitude by 1 degree latitude resolution. This is approximately 100 km by 100 km, which is somewhat smaller than the size of the major subnational political entities for most large countries (e.g., states in the United States, Länder in Germany, or oblasts in Russia) and approximately the same size as the second level political entities in most countries (e.g., counties in the United States). 

 

The main effort of this research is to create data on gross cell product. In addition, we have merged the economic data with other important demographic and geophysical data such as climate, physical attributes, location indicators, population, and luminosity. This data set is publicly available to all not-for-profit researchers. It will be helpful in environmental and economic studies of energy, environment, and global warming.

 

The G-Econ project has been developed with the generous support of Yale University, the National Science Department, and the Glaser Progress Foundation. Researchers who have contributed substantial time to this project over the last decade include Qazi Azam, David Corderi, Kyle Hood, Nadejda Makarova Victor, Mukhtar Mohammed, Alexandra Miltner, and Jyldyz Weiss. The project director is William Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University.