https://sites.google.com/site/me ... s/devecondata/macro
Aggregate Economy DataThe [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Penn World Table (PWT) data compiled by the Center for International Comparison at UPenn is the standard dataset for cross-country analysis of aggregate growth and development. The latest version from August 2009 (PWT 6.3) covers 189 countries for some or all of the years 1950-2007. Base year is 2005. There is also a discussion of the changes made to previous versions, which addresses some of the problems with the data raised by [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Johnson, Larson, Papageorgiou and Subramanian (2009). Whether analysing the aggregate economy is the right thing to do is a different question...
March 2011: The last UPenn PWT has just been published (after 2012 PWT will be jointly maintained by Robert Feenstra at UC-Davis, and Marcel Timmer and Robert Inklaar at the University of Groningen): [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Penn World Table version 7. The data covers 189 countries and territories for 1950-2009, with 2005 as reference year. The official reference is "Heston, Robert Summers and Bettina Aten, Penn World Table Version 7.0, Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, March 2011."
The World Bank [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]International Comparison Program (ICP) collected data in 100 (developing and emerging) economies, divided into five regions, and then combined these with a Eurostat-OECD PPP program, bringing the total to 146 economies. Like the PWT these are PPP data, and given the same base year (2005) they now can be combined, compared and contrasted. Coverage: gross domestic product (GDP), GDP per capita, household consumption, collective government consumption, and capital formation for all 146 economies. Estimates aer based on national surveys that priced nearly 1,000 products and services. Comparative price levels are also included. Downside: this isn't a panel. 2005 is the first year this exercise was undertaken, 2011 will be the next wave.
The World Bank has recently published its annual World Development Report, which this year focuses on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Conflict, Security and Development. A dedicated [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]website makes the data underlying the analysis in the report easily accessible. The excel spreadsheet covers a total of 211 countries, with maximum coverage over the years 1960-2009. The data is not limited to conflict and political economy issues but also covers geography, colonial history and foreign aid among other topics. All of the data is publicly available (and many datasets are featured here on MEDevEcon), but the unique advantage here is bringing a vast number of conflict-related data from dozens of sources (PRIO, UNHCR, Polity IV, etc.) together in a single spreadsheet (and doing a great job documenting the data and sources.
Fulvio Castellacci and Jose Miguel Natera have created a balanced panel dataset for cross-country analyses of national systems, growth and development ([color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]CANA) hosted by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. The originality of this dataset (which draws on a variety of sources) is in that the gaps in the data have been filled, using a methodology of multiple (and repeated) imputations by two political scientists, Honaker and King (2010). I have not looked at the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Castellaci & Natera paper describing the data construction and robustness checks in detail, but am a priori quite sceptical about imputations: these macro variables are likely to be integrated, so imputations could be rather misleading. On the other hand, missing data is a serious problem for a lot of the dimensions they consider: (1) Innovation and technological capabilities; (2) Education and human capital; (3) Infrastructures; (4) Economic competitiveness; (5) Social capital; (6) Political and institutional factors. There are a total of 41 indicators for 134 countries over the period 1980-2008. The data is in excel format and well-documented. I'd say keep an eye out for reviews and applications of this dataset.
The World Bank has recently reorganised access to the major cross-country panel datasets it produces, all of which are now available (for browsing or download) from a single [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]website. [Gunilla Patterson featured the new site on her excellent[color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]devdata website]
[color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]World Population, GDP and Per Capita GDP, 1-2003 AD compiled by Angus Maddison at the Groningen Growth & Development Centre (GGDC).
Jerry Dwyer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta provides [color=#089c9 !important]data from his 2006 Economic Inquiry article with Scott L. Baier and Robert Tamura. This covers output, physical and human capital for 145 countries over a long time horizon (1831-2000); the data provides between 2 and 17 time-series observations per country, with an average of around 7. Additional variables of particular interest include average age and experience of the workforce, which allow for Mincerian wage equation-type analysis at the macro level. The data is provided in a neat excel file with additional information on variable definition and construction also provided (along with the article).