²⁰The splicing occurs when the World Bank data do not go back far enough. The splicing method we use here differs from the multiplicative method we use to splice GDP together. For unemployment our splice method is: First, find the first year the World Bank and United Nation’s series overlap. Second, calculate the difference between these two series at this point, denoted U_WB-U_UN. Third, for all points earlier than this overlap, where World Bank data is missing, we define unemployment to be the United Nations rate plus U_WB-U_UN.