Economic Data (updated 2005)

This dataset includes variables that the project has collected from other researchers and institutions. It includes multiple measures of income levels, and variables concerning national accounts, money and trade. Since different measures are used in different ways by researchers, the choice whether to include a variable in the economc.dta or politicl.dta was oftentimes quite subjective. We have chosen for example to treat inflation as an economic indicator rather than a policy variable and to treat government consumption as a policy variable. Other economic variables which contain information on policy such as tax rates, and government revenue and expenditure can be found in the political data set, politicl.dta. The variables from the two sets can easily be merged. We have provided brief descriptions of all variables, for more detailed descriptions please refer to the original sources (listed).