Penn World Tables data in ArcMap

The Penn World Tables (PWT) offer 1950-2000 data for a range of conventional economic data for nations, including GDP in various forms (see codes). I have saved the many thousands of records in R:/global as pwt.mdb --which contains two Tables (pwt61 and, for safety's sake, Copy of pwt61). The procedure below allows a user to extract data for a given year, save it in a .dbf, JOIN the .dbf to a .shp file of national boundaries, and then create a .shp file for that year's data.

Using Access

Open Access and chose the existing file R:/global/pwt

double-click pwt61

From the 'Filter' menu, choose 'Advanced Filter/Sort'

From the 'Field:' dropdown, choose YR

In the 'Criteria:' field, type the desired year to be filtered

Click the 'Apply Filter' icon in the menubar (a funnel)

Choose 'Export' from the File menu and save in .dbf format

Click on the Funnel icon again to REMOVE the filter

(thus, I made r:/global/pwt6199 and /pwt6198 for 1999 and 1998 data)

Using ArcMap:

Start ArcGIS and choose New Empty Map

use the Add Data icon and navigate to: R:\esri2003\world\ and add cntry02.shp

use Add Data to navigate to: R:\global\ and add pwt6199.dbf

Right-click cntry02, choose 'Joins and Relates' and left-click 'Join'

Fill in the form:

Click OK to JOIN the 1999 data to the Attribute table of cntry02.shp
(open the attribute table to check that data have been added)

Right-click cntry02.shp and choose 'Data' and 'Export Data', and save to desired location