Basic Drivers - GDP and population projections
Updated projections of GDP and population (v3.2, May 2025)
The SSP v3.2 (release May 2025) of the "basic drivers" of the SSPs includes GDP and population projections until the end of the century. The dataset is the result of a widespread collaboration within the scientific community over the last two years with the objective to update the basic elements of the SSPs.
The update release replaces the earlier GDP and population projections from 2017 (KC et al, 2017; Delink et al 2017; Crespo Cuaresma, 2017). Further efforts are under way to provide also new updated projections for urbanization as well as further information on subnational income distributions and equity.
The updated projections take into account:
- Improvements in the underlying economic and demographic models (e.g., improved representation of migration)
- Consistency with recent national trends, for example, taking into account the effect of the COVID pandemic and other geopolitical events on socioeconomic trends.
Recommended citation for the updated population projections
Samir KC, Michaela Potancokova, Saroja Adhikari, Dilek Yildiz, Maria Mamolo, Tomas Sobotka, Krystof Zeman, Guy Abel, Wolfgang Lutz, and Anne Goujon (2024)
IIASA Working Paper: WP-24-003
Data prepared by Samir KC, Moradhvaj Dhakad, Michaela Potancokova, Saroja Adhikari, Dilek Yildiz, Maria Mamolo, Tomas Sobotka, Krystof Zeman, Guy Abel, Wolfgang Lutz, and Anne Goujon (2024)
Recommended citation for the updated GDP projections
Data prepared by Rob Dellink, Jean Chateau, Laura Atarody, Ruben Bibas, and Elisa Lanzi (2025)
Scientific publications of the 2013 release
Samir KC and Wolfgang Lutz (2017)
Global Environmental Change, Volume 42, Pages 181-192
Rob Dellink, Jean Chateau, Elisa Lanzi, and Bertrand Magné (2017)
Global Environmental Change, Volume 42, Pages 200-214
Review of the updated GDP and population projections
The data of the 2025 update of the projections were subject to extensive public and internal review. We would like to thank all who have provided comments during the public review phase. In addition, we'd like to gratefully acknowledge Nico Bauer, Marian Leimbach, and Johannes Koch (PIK) for their support in coordinating an additional internal technical review.
Disclaimer on on GDP projections for turbulent economies
The countries Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria and Venezuela have gone through significant economic turbulence in recent years. Therefore, the economic projections are approximations and abstract from any further exogenous shocks to their economies from 2020 onwards.
These projections are not robust enough to be used for country-level analysis, but they are used to complement the database when aggregating countries to regional totals.
The GDP projections for these countries are not included in the "Basic Drivers" Data Explorer, but they are included in the downloadable xlsx file as an own sheet and marked as "Turbulent Economy Data" to clarify the limited reliability of these timeseries.
Disclaimer on regional aggregates of the basic drivers
Regional aggregates ("World" and R5/R9/R10) were computed from national projections provided by the modeling teams. This implies that countries not included in the projections are omitted from regional aggregates included in this database.
The definitions and list of countries included in the aggregate regions are available in the common-definitions repository on GitHub.