Selected Resources for ECON 362 (Economic Development)
Fall 2007
Emory's Electronic Data Center
General Social Science Data Resources
Development Data Resources
CD-ROM/Non-Web Data Resources
Emory's Electronic Data Center (217 Woodruff Library)
http://einstein.library.emory.edu - The Data Center home page
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/links.shtml - The Data Freeway, a thematically-organized collection of links to on-line data sources
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/help_index.shtml - Help Pages for databases and data management
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/citation_guide.html - Guide for citation of electronic data sources
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/contact.shtml - Data Center contact information and hours
GENERAL SOCIAL SCIENCE DATA RESOURCES
ICPSR (Inter-University
Consortium for Political and Social Research)
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/
The ICPSR is the largest collection of Social Science Data in the world. Topics included in the archive
include: economics, government, health care, crime, education, etc. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory. The Data Center
also maintains an archive of ready-to-use ICPSR datasets which are accessible via the search engine on the Data
Center home page.
World Bank Statistical Capacity Building
Project
http://go.worldbank.org/6NPVI562M0
The World Bank's Statistical Capacity Building Project "provides resources to help ... develop better statistical capacity that
advances the national and international monitoring of development policies and goals." The project is in part an outgrowth of
"outcomes-based" approaches to development that place greater emphasis on attemping to actually measure development and the
impact of national and international policies intended to promote it. The resources here include various reports on the
quality of gathering of data/statistics in individual countries, as well as a database of "statistical capacity indicator"
scores.
DEVELOPMENT DATA RESOURCES
Economic Data:
Angus Maddison On-line
http://www.ggdc.net/Maddison/
Angus Maddison an economics professor whose recent books - Monitoring the World Economy and The World
Economy: A Millennial Perspective - are major works in the field of economic history. Dr. Maddison's site
contains links both to excerpts from his books and to much of the data within them. (His books are also available
via SourceOECD.)
International Monetary Fund (IMF) International Financial
Statistics
http://www.imfstatistics.org/imf/imfbrowser.aspx?branch=ROOT
The IFS is a standard source of statistics on various aspects of international
and domestic finance. Please note that this site is restricted to the
Emory community. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory. There is also a CD-ROM version of the IFS available in the
Data Center.
United Nations Commodity Statistics Trade Database (Comtrade)
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/comtrade/
The UN's Comtrade database is a good source for commodity-specific bilateral trade data. Users can create their
own extracts of data for both value and quantity of trade using different industrial classification codes and
download those extracts for later use. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory.
United Nations Statistics Division
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/default.htm
The UNSD provides links to numerous international economic, trade, demographic, social, and political statistics from various
United Nations groups and divisions. The
United Nations Common Database may be of particular interest.
World Bank Research Group
http://econ.worldbank.org/
The World Bank Research Group's site contains both papers and associated datasets from scholars and research projects affilated
with the World Bank.
World Development Indicators (World Bank)
http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/
The World Development Indicators Website provides convenient access to nearly 600
indicators on over 200 countries. Data is generally available from 1960 forward. This resource is also available
via Databases at Emory. There is
also a CD version of the WDI available in the Data Center.
Political Data:
Database of Political Institutions
http://go.worldbank.org/2EAGGLRZ40
This database was put together in part by Phillip Keefer at the World Bank and provides data on the political
institutions and structures of different countries in the world from 1975 to 2006. Additional documentation are also available
here. Please note the authors' preferred
format for citing their data.
World Bank Goverance Data
http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/data
The World Bank hosts a website devoted to data on governance and institutional quality and their relevance for
economic development and performance. The
World Business Environment Surveys and the
Business Environment and Enterprise Performance
Survey may be of particular interest. In addition to the main data page, the Bank also has a
web inventory of data pertaining to institutional quality.
Public Opinion and Survey Data:
Afrobarometers
http://www.afrobarometer.org/
The Afrobarometers are a series of surveys conducted across a dozen Sub-Saharan African countries with the
intent of gathering data on social and political attitudes towards subjects such as political participation,
national identity, civil society, and other such topics. The series is modelled in part after the Eurobarometer
series (see below). The Data Center has many Afrobarometer data files available
here.
Latinobarómetro Data
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/Latinobarometro-Data.shtml
The Latinobarómetro is an annual survey conducted amongst 18 countries in Latin America. The survey, which has been
conducted since 1995, asks respondents about topics such as globalization, democratic governance and political institutions,
"social capital," the environment, and gender issues. The Data Center has microdata files for this survey from 1995 through
2005.
Polling the Nations
http://poll.orspub.com
This website allows you to search a large database of results from surveys and opinion polls conducted throughout the world.
World Values Survey Series
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
The World Values Survey is "a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It is conducted by a
network of social scientist at leading universities all around world. The survey is performed on nationally
representative samples in almost 80 societies on all six inhabited continents." It is an excellent source for
cross-national survey data and is a widely-referenced resource. The Data Center has all four "waves" of the World
Values Survey available here.
Social Indicators:
Global Education Database
http://qesdb.cdie.org/ged/index.html
The U.S. Agency for International Development's Global Education Database (GED) allows users to search for international
education statistics. Users can search for specific variables and/or countries and save data in Excel files.
Global Market Information Database (GMID)
http://www.portal.euromonitor.com/portal
GMID is produced by Euromonitor International and contains time-series data (1977-present)
on a very wide range of economic and social indicators such as income, GDP, consumer expenditures, and
population demographics. The data are available through both Excel-ready spreadsheets and .pdf
reports. GMID is also accessible via
Databases at Emory.
PovertyNet: Data on Poverty
http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/data/index.htm
PovertyNet has brought together a variety of datasets pertaining to the study of poverty, along with other resources
relevant for international development and economics. Be warned - the World Bank tends to change addresses for
websites without warning.
United Nations Human Development Reports (HDR)
http://hdr.undp.org/
The HDR is an annual report from the United Nations that scores and rank countries on various indicators of "development"
broadly defined. Data tables from the HDR are available as .pdf files and, for the most recent report, in Excel. Data from
some earlier reports are available via Carleton University's
Country Indicators for Foreign Policy site.
United Nations Millennium Developent Goals (MDG) Indicators
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx
The Millennium Development Goals are a set of goals devised by the international community and whose achievement is meant
to result in improved quality of life and well-being for residents of the poorest countries in the world. The indicators
for the MGD include measures such as child mortality, literacy, HIV prevalence, sanitation, and debt relief. In addition to
this MDG site hosted by the United Nations,
data and reports on the Millennium Development Goals are also available from the World Bank.
World Bank Topics in Development
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/thematic.htm
This site is a thematically-organized portal for data and bibliographic resources available at the World Bank's
website. The Bank has another such site here.
CD-ROM/NON-WEB DATA RESOURCES
Banks Cross-National Time-Series (CNTS) Data Archive
The Banks CNTS Data Archive contains time-series data from 1815-2005 on
a wide range of political, economic, and social
indicators. An older version of the archive is available
here.
Datastream Advance
Datastream Advance is a very good source for data on exchange rates, interest rates, prices, stocks, and various
macroeconomic data. It is available on workstations in both the EDC and the Goizueta Business Library.
International Historical Statistics, 1750-2000 by B.R. Mitchell
Mitchell's International Historical Statistics series provides a detailed set of historical time-series
data covering a wide range of social and economic topics. There are three volumes in this set, each of which is
available in Woodruff Reference: Africa, Asia & Oceania (HA4675 .M552 2003), The Americas
(HA175 .M55 2003), and Europe (HA1107 .M5 2003).
World Bank Africa Database (WBAD)
The WBAD is similar to the World Development Indicators (see above), but with a more intensive focus on
African countries. The WBAD contains over 1100 indicators, with time-series coverage extending back to 1965
depending on the country and variable.
World Bank Global Development Finance (GDF)
The GDF contains annual statistics on stocks and flows of public and private debt owed over 100
countries, with data coverage extending back to 1970 (varying by series) and projections for certain indicators
extending up to 2010. A complete list of the
indicators available in the GDF is available here.
A complete list of the Data Center's non-web databases is available here. The databases are accessible via the Data Center's public workstations.
Home | Analyze Data Online | Help Resources | Contacts & Hours | Emory General Libraries