Chapter 6 Data Apps

Growth and Ideas

Explore the data of Chapter 6 without any code. Every chart below is live: hover over it to read the values, and use its buttons, menus and sliders to change what it shows.

← Back to Chapter 6: Growth and Ideas

See also: Chapter 6 Model Apps, the chapter’s models without code.

Ideas and growth in the data

Fig. 5: The real price of industrial commodities

Hover over the line to read the index; apart from the World War I spike, prices fell for most of the century, with a trough in 2002.

Sources. Data: Jacks (2019), “From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run”, Cliometrica 13(2), data file “Real commodity prices, 1850–2020” (archived copy of the author’s data page), for 1900–2020; extended to 2025 with the World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), deflated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPIAUCSL), via FRED. The textbook’s figure uses proprietary Global Financial Data, so our index is built from these open sources instead. Prepared file: data/ch06/fig6-5.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 6.5 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.

Fig. 5, inside the index: six commodities

Hover over a line to read a commodity’s real price; click a name in the legend to hide or show it.

Sources. Data: Jacks (2019), “From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run”, Cliometrica 13(2), data file “Real commodity prices, 1850–2020” (archived copy of the author’s data page), for 1900–2020; extended to 2025 with the World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), deflated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPIAUCSL), via FRED. Prepared file: data/ch06/fig6-5.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 6.5 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.

Fig. 5, beyond the six: 40 commodities

Switch between the textbook’s six and all lines with the buttons; click a name in the legend to add or remove a commodity.

Sources. Data: Jacks (2019), “From Boom to Bust: A Typology of Real Commodity Prices in the Long Run”, Cliometrica 13(2), data file “Real commodity prices, 1850–2020” (archived copy of the author’s data page), for 1900–2020; extended to 2025 with the World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), deflated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPIAUCSL), via FRED; the World Bank extension covers 30 of the 40 commodities. Prepared file: data/ch06/commodity_prices.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 6.5 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.

Fig. 6: A slowdown in U.S. economic growth?

Move the slider to change the number of years in the average; shorter windows show more ups and downs, longer ones smooth them away.

Sources. Data: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Real Gross Domestic Product (GDPCA), via FRED and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Population (B230RC0A052NBEA), via FRED; recessions from the NBER based Recession Indicators (USREC), via FRED, which follow the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee. Prepared files: data/ch06/us_gdp_pc.csv, data/ch06/recessions.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 6.6 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.

Fig. 6, beyond the United States: growth slowdowns in every country

Pick a region from the menu, then click a country in the legend to add it; hover to read its growth rate.

Sources. Data: Penn World Table 11.0, Groningen Growth and Development Centre (DOI 10.34894/FABVLR), variables rgdpna (real GDP at constant national prices) and pop (population); cite as Feenstra, Inklaar and Timmer (2015), “The Next Generation of the Penn World Table”, American Economic Review 105(10). Regions: World Bank country and lending groups. Prepared file: data/ch06/gdp_pc_countries.csv (see the data notes). Chart: inspired by Fig. 6.6 in Jones (2024), Macroeconomics, 6th ed.