Human cultural Diversity - A Cross-national data set

A cross-national data set of 21 variables was assembled for 212 countries from three sources (Barro and Lee 1994; Gordon 2005; CIA World Fact Book 2005). Our data set includes several proxy measures for national wealth, cultural diversity, social instability (both at national and international levels), and demography. Separate diversity measures were calculated for three different cultural domains, namely language, religion and ethnic groups . In addition, wealth variables (per capita GDP, and GINI, the coefficient of income inequality) were assembled, along with indicators of societal functioning drawn from the literature (especially Barro and Lee 1994), including indices of political rights (PRIGHTSB), revolutions and coups d'états (REVCOUP), and political instability (PINSTAB). Measures of international conflict were extracted from the social science literature, and the following were used: the proportion of the time between 1960-85 the country was involved in an external war (WARTIME), the number of international disputes in which the country was involved (TOTINTDISP), and an index of total military expenditure (TOTMILITEXP). Possible confounding variables such as population size (POPSIZE) and the number of international borders (NBINTBORDERS) were also included.

本研究从三类数据源（巴罗与李（Barro and Lee）1994年、戈登（Gordon）2005年、美国中央情报局（CIA）《世界概况》（World Fact Book）2005年版）中提取了212个国家的21项变量，构建了跨国数据集。本数据集包含多项用于衡量国家财富、文化多样性、国家与国际层面社会不稳定程度以及人口结构的代理变量。研究分别针对语言、宗教与族群三个不同的文化维度计算了多样性衡量指标。此外，数据集还纳入了人均GDP、收入不平等系数基尼系数（GINI）等财富相关变量，以及来自既有文献（尤以巴罗与李1994年的研究为代表）的社会运行指标，包括政治权利指数（PRIGHTSB）、革命与政变次数（REVCOUP）以及政治不稳定指数（PINSTAB）。国际冲突相关衡量指标则取自社会科学文献，具体包括1960年至1985年间该国卷入外部战争的时长占比（WARTIME）、该国参与的国际争端数量（TOTINTDISP）以及总军费开支指数（TOTMILITEXP）。研究同时纳入了人口规模（POPSIZE）、国际边界数量（NBINTBORDERS）等可能产生混杂效应的变量。