However, the above chart is problematic for a few reasons. Firstly, there appears to be an implicit Malthusian assumption. Indian per-capita GDP as well as the per-capita GDP of Western Europe in 1AD is estimated at $450, only marginally higher than that of North America the same year (at $400).

Now we all know that at the beginning of the Common Era, North America was a sparsely populated wilderness for the most part. In contrast, the Indian subcontinent was a society with large empires, considerable urbanisation, and copious literature. Western Europe was a part of the Roman Empire. Yet Maddison estimates the highly advanced states of China, India and Western Europe to be only marginally richer than North America.

In Maddison’s defence, he has acknowledged that these estimates involve considerable conjecture. He fixed the Chinese per-capita income at $450 in 0AD – a notch higher than subsistence income, and then assumed a similar income for other similarly complex societies like India and Western Europe. To quote him:

“Before 1500, the element of conjecture in the estimates is very large indeed. The $450 level of per capita income assumed here is sufficiently above subsistence to maintain the governing elite in some degree of luxury and to sustain a relatively elaborate system of governance. It seemed reasonable to assume that the level of per capita income (for rest of Asia) was similar to that in China and showed no great change from the first century to the year 1000.”

But this is not entirely convincing. Can societies with sufficient surpluses to produce works as large as Mahabharata, Ramayana, the Homeric epics, Bible, Dharma Shastra texts and numerous other works, be barely $50 richer than a subsistence economy like North America? There is room to be sceptical here.

Maddison’s estimates suggest a very strong adherence to the Malthusian maxim that is at odds with the historical memory and records of the societies in question. There definitely needs to be greater research to come up with better estimates for the periods preceding 1000 AD.

Post 1500: Contesting Narratives

Having discussed the reservations with the estimates for early India, let us turn our attention to more recent periods – the last 500 years. Here, Maddison has in fact been challenged by other economic historians. Let us compare the estimates of Broadberry, Bishnupriya, and Custodis (2014) with those of Maddison. As the table below indicates, the narratives from the two papers are vastly different.