We are now close to reaching what climate scientists advise is a ‘tipping point’ when the injuries we have visited on the planet will become self-reinforcing and produce an ecosystem that is alien to human life. The mal-distribution of consumption within and between nations is a major reason why there is little agreement on appropriate remedial action. Ensuring planetary survival while reducing inequity is made the more difficult, because the richest one-seventh of the world’s population has already reached consumption levels beyond the capacity of the planetary ecosystem to accommodate it.

This article discusses the available sources of information on the value and volume of Peru’s exports and estimates the current value of exports, the index of export prices and the quantum of exports using a wide variety of sources. By relying on several sources, I estimate the first complete series of the current value of exports for Peru for 1830-1930. Importantly, I adjust other studies’ estimates by taking into account the deficiencies of foreign sources and by distinguishing between exports of specie and of minerals. The estimations show that exports experienced substantial growth in the 1850s and 1860s, during the Guano Era. Exports stagnated in the 1870s and dropped during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) before recovering in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially during World War I.

Numerous primary investigators collected and processed long-termed time series on German educational statistics in the context of their studies. As a result, there are a multitude of quantitative empirical studies. On the one hand, there is the project group on German Educational Statistics.1 Its projects were targeted at describing and analyzing the long-term structural changes of the German educational system on a broad empirical and statistical basis. On the other hand, there are comprehensive data compilations of individual research projects, focusing on a wide variety of special educational research topics. The online database “histat” provides central digital access to these datasets on German educational history. Currently, it offers more than 120,000 long-term time series on the German educational system for a period of 200 years. The striking size of the database shows its key importance for researchers in the field of education. Thus, this paper aims to provide useful insights into the background of the database, the special characteristics of the data compilations and their analytical potential. Additionally, examples are given of how the data have already been used by researchers.

Using 1971-2000 data, we examine the accuracy of corn and soybean production forecasts provided by the USD A and two private agencies. All agencies improved their forecasts as the harvest progressed, and forecast errors were highly correlated and unbiased. The relative forecast accuracy of the agencies varied by crop and month. For corn, USDA's forecasts ranked as most accurate of the three agencies in all periods except for August during the recent period and improved most markedly as harvest progressed. For soybeans, forecast errors were very similar, with the private agencies ranking as most accurate for August and September and making largest relative improvements for August during the recent period. The USDA forecasts were dominant for October and November. Our findings identify several patterns of relative forecast accuracy that have implications for private and public decision makers.