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Historical Consumer Prices: Worldwide

Guide to sources for historical consumer price data including currencies used, foreign exchange conversions, and present value calculations.

Worldwide

  1. Current Value of Old Money 
    Website: http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html

    Provides links to many online sources of information on the changes in the value of money over time.
     
  2. EH.NET How Much Is That? 
    Website:  http://eh.net/hmit/

    Most of the data pertains to either the U.S. or the U.K. but there is also information on exchange rates between the U.S. Dollar and forty other countries from 1913 to the present.
     
  3. Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) Exchange Rates
    Website: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/categories/15

    Provides weekly and monthly data since 1971 on the exchange rate between selected foreign currencies and the U.S. Dollar.
     
  4. Food Timeline FAQs: Historic Food Prices
    Website: http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq5.html
     
  5. Historical Currency Converter
    Website: https://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp
     
    Converts the historical buying power of American and British currencies down to cents and pences into current dollars.
     
  6. IFS Online
    Database (ASU access only): https://libguides.asu.edu/ifsonline

    Includes monthly, quarterly, and annual exchange rates in U.S. Dollars for the currencies of all countries monitored by the International Monetary Fund. Data coverage extends back to 1948.
     
  7. International Institute of Social History: Prices and Wages
    Website: http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/data.html
     
  8. Journal of Economic History
    “Dollar-Sterling Mint Parity and Exchange Rates, 1791-1834.”
    E-journal article (ASU access only): http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/stable/pdfplus/2120078.pdf

    “Foreign Interest Rates in American Financial Markets: A Revised Series of Dollar-Sterling Exchange Rates, 1835-1900.” 
    E-journal article (ASU access only):  http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/stable/pdfplus/2119832.pdf
     
  9. MeasuringWorth.com
    Website:  http://www.measuringworth.com/

    Provides calculators and data sets for measuring the present monetary value of a past amount for the US (since 1774), the UK (since 1270), Australia (since 1828), Japan (since 1879) and China (since 1952); for calculating inflation in the US (since 1775) and the UK (since 1265); and for converting a historic price in British pounds to present-day US dollars and vice versa. Additional data sets include the price of gold since 1257.
     
  10. NBER Macrohistory Database
    Website: http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/contents/

    Covers mostly U.S. data series but also includes some for the U.K., Germany, and France.
     
  11. Pacific Exchange Rate Service
    Website: http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/

    Includes historic annual average exchange rates since 1948 for various currencies against the U.S. Dollar, Canadian Dollar, and U.K. Pound.

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