JST Macrohistory Database

The Jorda-Schularick-Taylor (JST) Macrohistory Database is a long-run cross-country macro-financial panel: 18 advanced economies, annual, 1870 to 2020 (release R6), assembled in one spreadsheet. It is the standard source for long-run work on credit, banking crises, house prices, returns on the major asset classes, and business-cycle facts. This page is the distilled access recipe.

• Cost: free, no paywall, no key (academic, freely distributed).
• Coverage: 18 advanced economies, annual, 1870-2020 in the current release (R6); 59 variables per country-year.
• Format: a single Excel file (JSTdatasetR6.xlsx, about 1.4 MB, one Sheet1) or the same as Stata (JSTdatasetR6.dta).
• Home: https://www.macrohistory.net/database/

Access

No key, direct download

The download links carry a cache-busting token (?t=...); the host serves the current release at a stable file name. Pull the page once to grab the live link, or use the path below.

https://www.macrohistory.net/app/download/9834512569/JSTdatasetR6.xlsx
https://www.macrohistory.net/app/download/9834512469/JSTdatasetR6.dta

import pandas as pd

jst = pd.read_excel("JSTdatasetR6.xlsx")   # one sheet, tidy country-year panel
jst = jst.set_index(["country", "year"]).sort_index()
jst.loc["USA", "debtgdp"].dropna().tail()  # private credit / GDP

The panel is already tidy: one row per country x year, with iso and ifs country codes, so it merges cleanly onto other country panels.

Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines)

The reason to read this page rather than the workbook. Verified against the live R6 file on the date above.

• Cite the right subset, not just the headline paper. The base panel cites Jorda, Schularick and Taylor (2017). The asset-return columns (eq_tr, housing_tr, bond_tr, bill_rate, and the _interp variants) require citing the 2019 QJE “Rate of Return on Everything” paper, and the bank balance-sheet ratios (lev, ltd, noncore) require the 2021 RES paper. Using a column without its source citation is the most common JST mistake.
• Two crisis dummies, and they differ. crisisJST is the current systemic-banking-crisis indicator; crisisJST_old is the earlier coding. Pick one deliberately and say which; results on crisis prediction move with the choice.
• Real vs nominal is encoded in the name. rgdpmad/rgdpbarro are real (different source vintages, Maddison vs Barro), gdp is nominal, hpnom is a nominal house-price index. Deflate with cpi yourself when you need real series; do not assume.
• Returns are total returns where marked _tr. eq_tr and housing_tr are total returns (capital gain plus yield); eq_capgain / housing_capgain are price-only. The _ipolated / _interp columns fill gaps by interpolation, which you may want to exclude.
• Release versions are not interchangeable. The file name carries the release (R6); country coverage, series, and back-revisions change across releases. Pin the release number in your replication, not just “JST”.
• Coverage is unbalanced early. Many series start well after 1870 for several countries (wars, data gaps); the panel is not rectangular. Drop NaN per series rather than assuming a balanced panel.

Series you actually need

Column	Meaning
rgdpmad, gdp	Real GDP (Maddison), nominal GDP
cpi	Consumer price index (deflator)
tloans, tmort, thh, tbus	Total / mortgage / household / business loans
debtgdp	Private credit to GDP
hpnom	Nominal house price index
stir, ltrate	Short-term and long-term interest rates
eq_tr, housing_tr, bond_tr, bill_rate	Total returns on equity, housing, bonds, bills
crisisJST	Systemic banking-crisis dummy
lev, ltd, noncore	Bank leverage, loan-to-deposit, noncore funding

Standard operations

• Credit and crises: the canonical use is predicting crises or output from debtgdp growth; choose one crisis dummy and report it.
• Returns on everything: the _tr columns give comparable long-run real returns across asset classes once deflated by cpi; cite the 2019 QJE paper.
• Cross-country panels: index by country x year; use iso for merges.
• Pin the release (R6) and access date for reproducibility.

Citation

Jorda, Oscar, Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor. 2017. “Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts.” In NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2016, volume 31, edited by Martin Eichenbaum and Jonathan A. Parker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Add the 2019 Quarterly Journal of Economics “Rate of Return on Everything” citation when using the return series, and the 2021 Review of Economic Studies citation when using the bank balance-sheet ratios.