Michael Kremer

Data Sets

Development-Related Datasets

August 2006

The World Bank The World Bank offers various resources for data:

• It has conducted household surveys, called Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), in a number of countries, which can be found at http://www.worldbank.org/lsms/lsmshome.html. Related to this dataset, Margaret Grosh and Paul Glewwe of the World Bank published an article entitled "Watch: The World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study Household Surveys." It was published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 12, Number 1. (Winter, 1998).

• Some country level and other data can be obtained on http://econ.worldbank.org/. In addition, datasets that were compiled for World Bank research are provided free of cost, including for example the Deininger and Squire Inequality dataset.

• Another very useful place to start searching is the list of the World Bank's programs. Select a program that you are interested in. After clicking on it, you will find a link on the left to a list of datasets relating to this program.

• The World Bank Social Indicators of Development can be found at http://www.ciesin.org/IC/wbank/sid-home.html

• HNPStats, the World Bank’s Health, Nutrition and Population data platform, provides access to more than 100 indicators, with time series for countries and country groups from 1960 to the most recent year, where data are available.

Many datasets can be downloaded right off the web site, but some datasets will need a subscription. Harvard might have an institutional subscription for the dataset you need already. For this you can check with the Harvard-MIT Data Center (see below).

For more information about World Bank statistical publications, contact: Information Center, Development Data Group
Fax: (202) 522-1498
E-mail: info@worldbank.org
http://www.worldbank.org/wdi

For information about the World Bank research projects and datasets, you can also contact research@worldbank.org

Harvard-MIT Data Center

HMDC is the main place for Harvard students to look for social science data. You can find a wealth of resources on their webpage. Their website allows you to directly download the data from their site after searching for datasets by topic at their Virtual Data Center and browsing the collections.

You can also send them questions regarding datasets by email to support@help.hmdc.harvard.edu, they usually answer very quickly. For example if you find a dataset online that doesn’t have free access, and you are not sure whether you can get access to it through Harvard.

BREAD

The Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development has a list of development datasets available, including household surveys, firm level data, macro data sources and links to national statistical offices.

CID

The Center for International Development at the Kennedy School has posted a number of relevant datasets on its webpage on topics such as education, geography, natural resources, etc.

IFPRI

In collaboration with institutions throughout the world, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is often involved in the collection of primary data and the compilation and processing of secondary data. Many of theses datasets are freely available on their website, including a large number of household and community-level surveys, geospatial data, institution-level surveys, regional data and “social accounting matrices”.

NBER

The data website of the National Bureau of Economic Research has links to many relevant datasets, listed by topic.

OECD Aid statistics

The OECD has some data on official and private aid flows from its member countries.

Data on China

Sebastian Bauhoff hosts a list of data resources for China on his website.

International Household Survey Network (IHSN)

The Intenational Household Survey Network offers a large catalog of data from household surveys and censuses, mainly for developing countries. It provides basic information on the surveys as well as links and contact information.

University of Bristol Growth page

The University of Bristol has a growth page with general resources for researchers interested in growth related questions, and a list with links to helpful datasets.

Center for Data Sharing, Economic Growth Center, Yale University

T. Paul Schultz at Yale is disseminating data through the CDS. They can be reached via the web at www.econ.yale.edu/~egcenter/special.htm

Sources of Quantitative Data in Development Economics

Pamela Jakiela host a list of data sources on her website, including some data on Mexican health and aging, migration, conflict, values and beliefs, etc.

Data in Dewey

The Dewey Library at MIT has a research advisor with information on development data issues at the following link

Brazilian Dataset

Based on the Demographic Census (Censo Demografico) and the National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicilios—PNAD), this dataset offers information on everything from trade and population statistics to national accounting and migration. Some information is available to be downloaded at www.ibge.gov.br. Much of the information, however, is available only in Portuguese.

RAND

RAND has the Family Life Surveys for Bangladesh, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Malaysia available on their webpage, http://www.rand.org/FLS. They are very good household surveys (the IFLS has also a community supplement) and can be downloaded or requested by mail.

USAID

USAID conducts the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for about 50 countries. They focus on fertility history, contraceptive use, etc. IF you are using this data in Stata, you may want to download Emily Oster’s DHS data extractors from the CID webpage.

UNICEF

UNICEF’s Multi Indicator Cluster Surveys MICS involve questionnaires similar to DHS but are often a better resource for child labor and AIDS data.

PRIO

The International Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) has datasets on armed conflict at http://www.prio.no/

ICPSR

The Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research has s a wealth of information, but it mainly pertains to the U.S. Still, you can locate some good data. I would like to thank Dora Costa for calling attention to datasets located in ICPSR's Recent Additions, specifically Gertler's 1993 Indonesian Family Life Survey.

Penn World Tables

The Penn World Table by Heston and Summers provides purchasing power parity and national income accounts converted to international prices for 168 countries for some or all of the years 1950-2000.

American Economic Association (AEA)

The AEA has Resources for Economists with many useful things for economists, but in particular there is a collection of World and Non-US Data with further links to datasets including indices and world data, country studies, indices of economic freedom and corruption, international organizations, and regional and national datasets.

COMTRADE

Comtrade, the United Nations’commodity statistics database provides commodity trade data for all available countries and areas since 1962

UNCDB

UN’s statistical database with more than 300 statistical series from UN and other international organizations

CIA World Factbook

The CIA Factbook can be an interesting source of information for summary statistics and general information about specific countries. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

Collecting your own data

If you would like to collect your own data sets, Harvard may have money for this. For more information on financial resources, consult the document on grants and fellowships that you can find on our website.

Helping Update this Document

If you have information on other data sets, we would appreciate it if you could provide it to us, preferably electronically. Explain what is in the data set and how people can obtain it. We'll include it in the next version of this document. Please E-mail it to Jeanne Winner at jwinner@fas.harvard.edu

Send comments or questions to Jeanne Winner