Global Development: Views from the Center
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December 03, 2007
Data sources for development research
Posted by Michael Clemens at 12:26 PM
You might have seen Gunilla Pettersson’s excellent Development Data site mentioned recently on Dani Rodrik’s blog. Any development researcher will find riches in what Gunilla has carefully amassed and organized. Here are some other general-interest sources of data for empirical research on economic development:
- Masayuki Kudamatsu at Stockholm University maintains the useful Devecondata Blog.
- Harvard’s Center for International Development keeps a rich data site.
- Bill Easterly (NYU/Brookings/CGD) hosts the Global Development Network Growth Database.
- Don’t forget more traditional data sites like the World Bank’s, the Penn World Tables, the DHS surveys, the LSMS surveys, the Total Economy Database, and the ILO’s child labor survey microdata.
- Long-run historical data are available in free databases like the League of Nations Statistical Yearbooks and in proprietary databases like Global Financial Data, the Cross-National Time Series Data Archive, and Mitchell’s International Historical Statistics.
There are many, many others beyond this smattering. Please put your favorite in the comments.
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Comments
Lots of great stuff here and out there that we would all benefit from hearing about! I would add Swivel, an innovative initiative that allows people to upload data from any source and compare it with others-including 'official source' data from organizations like the OECD-in one appealing and user-friendly interface. Swivel currently houses 7630 (and counting!) data sets. A posting on their blog highlights the need for making already available public data more easily accessible to users.
Posted by: Danielle Kuczynski at December 4, 2007 04:00 PM