Shortly after my arrival at the OECD in 1996, I came upon the study by Angus Maddison “Monitoring the World Economy 1820–1992”. It is a fascinating and stimulating work providing a complete coverage of the world economy during the period in question. It brought together data of some 56 countries accounting for 93 per cent of the world output and 87 per cent of the world population and world exports. It never left my desk. Probably I was not alone in my appreciation of this quite extraordinary work, as I kept coming on references to it in the work of other authors
