Caloric Suitability Index - Data

Galor and Özak (2016) introduced a novel index of land suitability: “The Caloric Suitability Indices” (CSI) that capture the variation in potential crop yield across the globe, as measured in calories per hectare per year. Moreover, in light of the expansion in the set of crops available for cultivation in the course of the Columbian Exchange, the CSI indices provide a distinct measure for caloric suitability for the pre-1500 and the post-1500 era.

The CSI indices provide four estimates of caloric suitability for each cell of size 5′× 5 in the world:

1. The maximum potential caloric yield that is attainable given the set of crops suitable for cultivation in the pre-1500 period.
2. The maximum potential caloric yield that is attainable given the set of crops suitable for cultivation in the post-1500 period.
3. The average potential yield (within each cell) attainable given the set of crops suitable for cultivation in the pre-1500 period.
4. The average potential yield (within each cell) attainable given the set of crops suitable for cultivation in the post-1500 period.

This Zenodo repository serves as a backup and public source for the data. See the Caloric Suitability Index website for more information.