| Free Data |
One of the major
selling points of ... The
Hitchhiker's Guide the the Galaxy .. is its compendious and
occasionally
accurate glossery. The statistics relating to the geo-social
nature
of the Universe, for instance, are deftly set out between pages nine
hundred
and thirty-eight thousand three hundred and twenty-four and nine
hundred
and thirty-eight thousand three hundred and twenty-six.
The Restaurant at the end
of the Universe, Douglas Adams, Harmony Books.
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|
Public domain data from the US Government |
Generally
data from the US Government are public domain and free for
anyone to use without the need for permission.
| Multi-data or Regional data sites |
These sites list political, economic,
demographic data and other
types.
| Demographic data |
The sites listed here are mainly
demography sites, but have other
data as well.
Population Reference
Bureau http://www.prb.org/
Click on the World Population Data Sheet, or the data
finder page http://www.prb.org/datafinder.aspx
for some basic demographic data on world countries.
CHANGING AMERICA:
THE UNITED STATES POPULATION
IN TRANSITION http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itsv/0699/ijse/ijse0699.htm
presenting "fundamental demographic details about the changing U.S.
population
at this moment in history, the U.S. census, new immigration trends and
the growing impact of seniors, among other subjects, and offers
resources
for further exploration of the topic."
Country Reports on
Health, Nutrition,
Population,
and Poverty See povertynet
Then click on health.
A world bank data set. These appear to be socio-economic
differences
in health, nutrition and population, for 44 countries in Africa, Asia,
Near East, North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Each
country
has its own excel and pdf file. Just to mention, there may be a
charge for data use. If data are used for research, not for profit
purposes, data are often free. Otherwise there may be a charge.
Unicef infant and child mortality
data http://childinfo.org/areas/childmortality/
data tables on mortality for infants and for children under 5.
These
tables have data for many countries, and have data for 1960, 70, 80, 90
and 2000.
| Economic data |
The sites listed
here are sites mainly
about
economic data, but have other data as well.
Penn World Tables
http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/
"The Penn World Table displays a set of national accounts economic time
series covering many countries. Its expenditure entries are denominated
in a common set of prices in a common currency so that real
quantity
comparisons can be made, both between countries and over time. It also
provides information about relative prices within and between
countries,
as well as demographic data and capital stock estimates." The
Penn
World Tables currently comprise data for 150 countries and 30 subjects,
including population, real GDP, consumption share of GDP, investment
share
of GDP, real GDP per adult, a Standard of Living Index (Consumption
plus
government consumption minus military expenditure, % of
GDP).
The data can be downloaded at the site above, and there are papers
available.
A new version is expected soon.
Groningen Growth and
Development Centre http://www.ggdc.net/
"The Groningen Growth and Development Centre is a research group of
economists
and economic historians at the Economics Department of the University
of
Groningen. The group carries out research on comparative analysis of
levels
of economic performance and differences in growth rates in the world
economy."
They have a number of data bases available for free including these: Total
Economy Database
with timeseries for GDP in constant 1990 and 1999 prices, Employment,
Population
and Working Hours for at most 75 countries. Series for GDP per Capita,
GDP per person employed and GDP per hour worked are also
available.Series
run from 1950-2002 for OECD countries and from 1950-2000 for other
countries.
60-industry
database: series on value added in current and constant prices,
employment
and value added per person engaged for at most 60-industries covering
the
economy for 16 countries. Series run from 1990 onwards. 10-sector
database:
consists of series on real GDP in national currencies, employment and,
in some cases, annual working hours by broad sector of the economy for
about 20 countries across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America
from 1950 onwards. ICOP industry Database: provides estimates
of
comparative productivity levels by industry, which are compiled within
the framework of the International Comparisons of Output and
Productivity
project. We now provide annual series from 1950-2000 for manufacturing.
The ICOP Database presently covers approximately 30 countries. They
also
publish working papers.
Economic Growth
Resources http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Economics/Growth/
"These pages are designed as a resource for researchers studying
economic
growth". See the data page http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Economics/Growth/datasets.htm
with links to various data sets.
INTERSTATE
STATISTICAL COMMITTEE OF THE
COMMONWEALTH
OF INDEPENDENT STATES. http://www.cisstat.com/
see the Main Macroeconomic Indicators page http://www.cisstat.com/eng/macro0.htm
The pages for individual countries have annual data from 1995 to 2002
on
indicators such as GDP, CPI, Capital Investments, and so on.
Professor Jeffrey G.
Williamson's
papers
on the web http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/williamson/jwilliamworkingpapers
see especially his sets of data: Real Wages and Relative
Factor
Prices in the Third World 1820-1940. Includes data for
Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America.
World Income
Inequality Database http://www.wider.unu.edu/research/Database/en_GB/database/
"Developed over the period 1997-99, the World Income Inequality
Database
(WIID) provides information on income inequalities at both
cross-country
and time series levels. It presents data on changes in income
inequality
over the period 1950-98, with a particular focus on the period since
1980
for 149 countries." From the United Nations University.
International Trade
Data http://pss.la.psu.edu/TRD_DATA.htm
"This data set is version 1.1 of Katherine Barbieri's national and
dyadic
trade data, which covers the period 1870-1992." This data set
contains
total and bivariate trade data for Correlates of War countries.
The world economy
statistics http://www.theworldeconomy.org/publications/worldeconomy/
This book is from Angus Maddion, at the OEDC. Very interesting
data,
including very long term data. For example, Table 1-3 Level
and
Rate of Growth of GDP: World and Major Regions, 0-1998 A.D., and Figure
1-4 Comparative Levels of GDP Per capita: China and West Europe,
400-1998
A.D These are samples from the book.
INDEX OF
ECONOMIC FREEDOM http://www.heritage.org/index/
measures the level of freedom and prospects for growth in our global
economy.
The Index is a practical reference guide to the economies of 161
countries.
This site links to the book. You can see the rankings of the countries,
including rankings
from 1995 through current.
Can also find it here http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/
Includes data in both urls.
ECONOMIC FREEDOM OF
THE WORLD Annual
Report
by the Fraser Institute. http://www.fraserinstitute.org/
The report can be found at http://www.fraserinstitute.org/programsandinitiatives/economicfreedom.htm
The summary index is based on 23 components designed to identify the
consistency
of institutional arrangements and policies with economic freedom in
seven
major areas, including size of govt, structure of markets, freedom to
trade
with foreigners, and other... See the freetheworld book
page
http://www.freetheworld.com/book.html
that also lists the current report, and earlier reports, and research
generated
from the economic freedom of the world.
McKEEVER INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC POLICY
ANALYSIS http://www.mkeever.com/welcome.html
inlcudes ratings of economic policies of about 27 countries.
Specifically,
the ratings look at whether the policies facilitates or obstruct wealth
creation.
ILO labor statistics
data http://laborsta.ilo.org
includes "Yearly statistics of Employment, Unemployment, Hours of Work,
Wages, Labour Cost, Consumer Price Indices, Occupational Injuries,
Strikes
and Lockouts" 1969 to current. Also, "Monthly statistics of
Employment,
Unemployment,
Hours of Work, Wages, Consumer Price Indices. 1976 to current.
Completeness
of data for yearly and monthly varies by country, for example, some
countries
only have data for 1990 to present, some earlier.
World bank poverty data Povertynet
(very long url)
As mentioned above, it is not clear that use of worldbank data is
free.
In my contact with them, some people who responded to my questions
indicate
they generally charge for data use, but in some cases data can be used
for free. They allowed us to use some of their data for free in our
reports, which are
posted for anyone to view without charge.
Luxembourg Income Study
site http://www.lisproject.org/
especially see the LIS key figures, "Summary measures for all datasets
in the LIS archive are reported." such as income
inequality,
relative poverty rates, poverty rates for children. These tables
are free. The actual data is free to academic researchers in
member
countries, and to students world wide.
Global Competitiveness Report http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm
ranking countries. "The Global Competitiveness Report is a
contribution to enhancing our understanding of the key factors which
determine economic growth, and explain why some countries are so much
more successful than others in raising income levels and opportunities
for their respective populations, and in joining the upper ranks of
international competitiveness."
Inequality Project http://utip.gov.utexas.edu/
has a data page. UTIP is a small research group concerned with
measuring and explaining movements of inequality in wages and earnings
and patterns of industrial change around the world."
UNCTAD World Investment Report http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1465
includes data sets such as Inward FDI Stock as a
Percentage of
Gross Domestic Product, and many others.
| Political data |
Some research indicates that change is
related to governments.
Specifically,
successfull change requires the presence of stable and flexible
political
systems. I'm not sure there is data on this exact topic, so these
sites have data that might be indicators of state stability or
flexibility.
A number of these sites focus on political or economic freedom.
Also
see the LANIC site above.
The Comparative
Study of Electoral Systems
(CSES)
http://www.cses.org/
"collaborative program of cross-national research among election
studies
conducted in over fifty consolidated and emerging democracies. The
goals
of this unique program of research are threefold: illuminate how
electoral
institutions constrain the beliefs and behaviors of citizens to
condition
the nature and quality of democratic choice as expressed through
popular
elections; understand the nature of political and social cleavages and
alignments; and shed light on how citizens, living under diverse
political
arrangements, evaluate democratic institutions and processes."
They
can look at "satisfaction with the performance of democracy: how do
citizens
respond to varying institutional forms of democracy?"
Freedom house
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=1
especially see their country ratings page, which is "an annual
assessment
of state state of freedom by assigning each country and territory the
status
of "Free," "Partly Free," or "Not Free" by averaging their political
rights
and civil liberties ratings.
This data is available as html, excel and pdf, for 1972/73 to the
current year.
Kansas Event Data
System (KEDS) http://web.ku.edu/keds/index.html
"The Kansas Event Data System uses automated coding of English-language
news reports to generate political event data. These data are
used
in statistical early warning models to predict political change."
As I understand it, this is data about dyadic interacations between
pairs
of countries. The interactions could be diplomatic (e.g.,
denounce),
or military (e.g., mobilize, or force), or economic. The data
sets
are at http://web.ku.edu/keds/data.html
There are also papers and descriptions of the issues and other types of
data.
The Polyarchy Scale
http://www.nd.edu:80/~mcoppedg/crd/datacrd.htm
This is a scale "measuring thresholds of polyarchy in every independent
state in the world as of mid-1985." Also has updated data for
2000.
Developed by Michael Coppedge. The scale ranges from "Meaningful
fair elections are held, there is full freedom for political
organization
and expression, and there is no preferential presentation of official
views
in the media." to "No meaningful elections are held, all organizations
are banned or controlled by the government or official party, all
public
dissent is suppressed, and there is no public alternative to official
information."
Polity IV Project
http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/polity/
"This Web site contains information on and access to the most recent
update
of the well-known and highly respected Polity data series, originally
designed
by Ted Robert Gurr. Polity IV contains coded annual information on
regime
and authority characteristics for all independent states (with greater
than 500,000 total population) in the global state system and covers
the
years 1800-2002." Some variables include general openness of
political
institutions, and polity durability based on the number of years since
the last regime transition or since 1900. Look at other data on
the Center for International Development and Conflict Management
(CIDCM) at http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/
Sachs and Warner
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Economics/Growth/sachs.htm
this data set includes some economic data such as per capita gdp
growth,
purchasing power, but also the degree to which an economy is rated as
'open'
and 'institutional quality index' which is political stability,
corruption,
a few other criteria. The Sachs and Warner data set is also
available
at http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciddata/ciddata.html
SIPRI database on military
expenditure http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_database1.html
especially read the sources and methods carefully.
Transparency International corruption perception index http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices These are also available at Internet Center for Corruption Research http://www.icgg.org/ The TI site also has a global corruption barometer and a bribe payers survey.
World Audit http://www.worldaudit.org/
lists data on democracy, political rights, civil liberties,
corruption.
The civil liberties and political rights are Freedom House data
(described
above).
World bank governance
indicators http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/govdata/
data on corruption and other governance indicators.
This data set is also listed at the World Bank Research Data Sets
described above. The variables in this data set are: Voice and
Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government
Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of
Corruption.
Failed States
Index here
"It assesses violent internal conflicts and measures the impact
of
mitigating strategies." Started in 2005. This is from
the Fund for Peace http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/
They also have explanations of why each state got their score. The
Index is in the publications.
State failure http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/pitf/index.htm
has data (and research) about Internal Wars and Failures of Governance,
1955-2005
| Social data |
WORLD DATABASE OF HAPPINESS http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/
This is "an ongoing register of scientific research on subjective
appreciation
of life. It brings together findings that are scattered throughout many
studies and provides a basis for meta-analytical studies." The
data
can be accessed at the distributional findings in nations
page. When
I clicked on this page I got a popup.
Unesco statistics
about education Indicators
and data bases of education. http://www.uis.unesco.org/
click "literacy" then "statistical tables". Requires
Java.
Barro-Lee education data set http://www.cid.harvard.edu/ciddata/ciddata.html
"International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and
Implications" with dataset prepared in Feb 2000.
UN Refugee agency http://www.unhcr.ch/
a ton of international refugee data, including current and some trend
statistics.
Click on refugee statistics, then there are a number of reports
available.
The annual reports are in pdf.
Ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization http://www.stanford.edu/~wacziarg/papersum.html fractionalization data available here, as well as a paper, by Romain Wacziarg and others. Fractionalization is presented for three factors: ethnic, linguistic and region. Data for each country varies from 1983 (e.g. Angola) to 1998 (e.g., Austria), but seems only for one year for each country. Overall, there is high correlation between ethnicity and language (0.63) but low correlation between language and religion (0.24) and between religion and ethnicity (0.14). That is, ethnicity and language seem tied together, but religion seems independent.
Ethnolinguistic
Fractionalization (ELF)
Indices
for 1961 and 1985 http://weber.ucsd.edu/~proeder/data.htm
Dr. Roeder writes that "A common interpretation of the index is that it
is the probability that two individuals chosen at random from the
population
(country) will be from different ethnic groups." There is high
correlation
between Roeder's ELF and Wacziarg et al's ethnic (0.79) and language
(0.75)
fractionalization, but low between ELF and religious (0.33)
fractionalization.
The Press Freedom Survey http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=16
from the freedom house. Annual survey from 1994 so far through
2007, but .
Quality of Life http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf
Quality of life data for 2005, includes data.
The data are also in this file http://gsociology.icaap.org/data/PD_useful.xls
available on my data sets page.
| Crime data |
| Misc data |
Democide http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/
murder by governments.
Environmental Sustainability Index http://www.yale.edu/esi/
According to the site, "The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is
a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability,
developed
for 142 countries. The ESI scores are based upon a set of 20 core
"indicators,"
each of which combines two to eight variables for a total of 68
underlying
variables. The ESI permits cross-national comparisons of environmental
progress in a systematic and quantitative fashion. It represents a
first
step towards a more analytically driven approach to environmental
decisionmaking."
Romania Factbook 2004
http://www.factbook.net/
includes bunch of different data about Romania, but also a variety of
different
reports on world data, for example, ESTIMATING GLOBAL ROAD FATALITIES http://www.factbook.net/EGRF_Exec_Summary.htm
including charts and data, and An analysis of the World Muslim
population
by Country / Region http://www.factbook.net/muslim_pop.php
also showing charts and a table.
(The home page doesn't say anything about data, it's real
estate or something.)
Does Globalization Affect Growth? http://www.axel-dreher.de/ by Axel Dreher. According to the abstract, "The paper presents an index of globalization covering its three main dimensions: economic integration, social integration, and political integration." The data uses panel data for 123 countries in 1975 through current. The data set is now here http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/ . "The index measures the three main dimensions of globalization: economic, social, and political. In addition to three indices measuring these dimensions, we calculate an overall index of globalization and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows, economic restrictions, data on personal contact, data on information flows, and data on cultural proximity."
The CSGR Globalisation Index http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/index/
"measures the economic, social and political dimensions of
globalisation for countries on an annual basis over the period 1982 to
2004, and combines these into an overall globalisation index, or score."
Internet World Stats, http://www.internetworldstats.com/
An International website featuring worldwide up to date Internet
Usage Statistics and 2007 Population Data for over 233 countries and
world regions. Their world table http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
shows world data, 2006, and they have more detailed data by
region.
International Telecommunications Union has a statistics
page http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/
with, for example, statistics by country http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/Indicators/Indicators.aspx
and more.
| Sites that list other data sites |
BLS link to other official data sites http://www.bls.gov/bls/other.htm
UN links to other official data sites http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/inter-natlinks/sd_natstat.htm
University of Michigan Statistical
Resources on the Web http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stats.html
This is the most comprehensive site on the web.
Official Statistics of the world http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/stats/offstats/
Key Starting Points for Statistics http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm
Data on all sorts of topics. Some are free but many are not. But this
lists so many varies sources its worth looking at.
Development Data http://www.developmentdata.org/
Data on topics related to development.
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last modified 4/28/08
last verified 4/28/08