世界宏观数据库链接总结（Markus Eberhardt）

Innovation, Patents and R&D[color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Innovation and Development Around the World (1960-2000) by Daniel Lederman and Laura Saenz at the World Bank offers data on 'innovativ activities' from the 1960s onwards.

$$ The OECD maintains [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]OECD.stat which has statistics on R&D, patents and other science & technology topics. Provision is limited to the OECD member states, the BRICS and a small number of other countries.

UNESCO provides statistics on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]R&D expenditure and personnel in their Data Centre, although it seems this data does not stretch further back than 1996.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) publishes the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]World Intellectual Property Indicators which includes for instance data for "Patent applications by patent office (1883-2008)" (read: country) which can be downloaded as excel or CSV file. Similarly of great interest should be "Patent grants by patent office (1883-2008)" and other statistics on 'Patents in Force' and 'Patent Intensity'. WIPO also has further resources on trademarks and plant varieties(!) among others. A second resource for patent data is the European Patent Office (EPO) which has a number of [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]free databases on its website. [Thanks to [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Christian Helmers for these links]

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) also offers [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]WIPO Lex, a "one-stop search facility for national laws and treaties on intellectual property (IP) of WIPO, WTO and UN Members".

Diego Comin and Bart Hobijn constructed the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Historical Cross-Country Technology Adoption (HCCTA) dataset, available at NBER. This data allows for the analysis of the adoption patterns of some of the major technologies introduced in the past 250 years across the World's leading industrialized economies. This comes as an excel file with macros included, but if you prefer to play around with full data you can download the ASCII version.

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 [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) are provided by IPRI. These are agricultural R&D indicators for developing countries only, with varying time-series coverage (earliest time around 1970, most recent up to around 2002). The data is split by institutional category (Higher Education, Private, Public Sector, NFP, government agencies) and provides numbers on researchers and R&D expenditure on agriculture.

For data covering agriculture R&D in developed countries check out the 'Science & Technology' section of the UNESCO[color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]database.

Political Economy (i): law, institutions and governanceThe Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) have compiled [color=#089c9 !important]The Macro Data Guide, "An International Social Science Resource" covering many sources with data arranged by country or topic. It seems that coverage is particular strong on topics of political science, including elections, parties, etc (but that's just my perception). For each dataset there is very useful background information on coverage, time span, topics, documentation and when the dataset was last accessed. Definitely a good starting point for any macro data search.


New tools in comparative political economy: [color=#089c9 !important]The Database of Political Institutions(1975-2006), based on the 2001 dataset created by Thorsten Beck, George Clarke, Alberto Groff, Philip Keefer, and Patrick Walsh for the World Bank. This is now available in an [color=#089c9 !important]updated version to 2010 (Stata 10 file). [thanks to Sarah Brierley who tweets from Accra [color=#089c9 !important]@sabrierley]

[color=#089c9 !important]Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions (1800-2006). The Polity IV Project is run by Monty G. Marshall and Keith Jaggers (Principal Investigators), Ted Robert Gurr (Founder). Currently covers 162 countries, although not all for the entire period, obviously. Related to this, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch at Essex University provides [color=#089c9 !important]links to the POLITY IV project, the modified P4 and P4D data, and older versions of the Polity data.

The [color=#089c9 !important]Economic Freedom of the World database (2007) is compiled by the Fraser Institute. This contains data (from 1970 onwards) on government size, legal structures, property rights, freedom to trade, etc. for around 120 countries.

Hard to comprehend, really, but I seem to have so far missed out on linking to two of the most frequently used resources when it comes to 'freedom in the world'. [color=#089c9 !important]Freedom in the World Comparative and Historical Data by Freedom House provides country-level scores for political rights and civil liberties from 1973 onwards, plus a dataset on electoral democracy which they started collecting in the late 80s. All are available free for download, unlike the Political Risk Services Group's[color=#089c9 !important]International Country Risk Guide (ICRG), which is $425. You should also have a look at the links provided by Freedom House in the 'Resources' tab. [Thanks to [color=#089c9 !important]Nalan Basturk at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam for pointing this out]

A dataset on [color=#089c9 !important]electoral systems developed by Ugo Panizza and others at the Inter-American Development Bank provides indicators for the degree to which individual politicians can further their careers by appealing to narrow geographic constituencies on the one hand, or party constituencies on the other. The data covers 183 countries and runs from 1978 to 2001 (unbalanced panel). Excel and Stata files, as well as a working paper describing the data and highlighting its potential use in research exploring the connections between electoral systems and economic outcomes, are available for download.

Fulvio Castellacci and Jose Miguel Natera have created a balanced panel dataset for cross-country analyses of national systems, growth and development ([color=#089c9 !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=#089c9 !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 Quality of Government Institute at the University of Gothenburg publishes the [color=#089c9 !important]QoG Dataset in Stata, SPSS and csv format. "The aim of the QoG Social Policy Dataset is to promote cross-national comparative research on social policy output and its correlates, with a special focus on the connection between social policy and quality of government (QoG). To accomplish this we have compiled a number of freely available data sources, including aggregated public opinion data." There are three versions: (1) a cross-section with global coverage (2002); and two panels for 40 countries either annual (1946-2009) or 5-yearly (1970-2005). The topics covered are Social policy, Tax system, structural conditions for social policy, Public opinion, Political indicators and Quality of government.

Geert Bekaert and Campbell R. Harvey at Duke have compiled a [color=#089c9 !important]country risk database which provides 'A Chronology of Important Financial, Economic and Political Events in Emerging Markets' for 55 countries. The data is presented on country-specific websites so you'll have a little copying and pasting to do before you can analyse the data. [Thanks to my former PhD colleague [color=#089c9 !important]Bob Rijkers, now at the World Bank, for the link].


Tatu Vanhanen and the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) offer the [color=#089c9 !important]Polyarchy dataset, which covers 187 countries over the period 1810 to 2000. This contains the Vanhanen Index of Democracy and the data on which this index is based.

The Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) [color=#089c9 !important]Human Rights Dataset, hosted by SUNY Binghampton, contains standards-based quantitative information on government respect for 15 internationally recognized human rights for 195 countries, annually from 1981-2009. The data describe a wide variety of government human rights practices (15) including torture, workers' rights, and women’s rights over a 29-year period. This dataset is featured in the World Bank WDR 2011 (and is conveniently included in its dedicated [color=#089c9 !important]Excel file).

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.

The World Bank has a new dataset on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Worldwide governance indicators, with data available 1996-2008. They define governance as having six dimensions, Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption, and provide indicators for each of these in up to 212 countries. This data is described in a [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]paper by Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi (2009).

The World Bank has now consolidated thet data on 'actionable' governance indicators in a single web portal, the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]AGI data portal. Actionable governance indicators are narrowly defined and disaggregated indicators that focus on relatively specific aspects of governance and could provide guidance on the design of reforms and monitoring of impacts. This means it provides links to over 1,000 indicator taken from sources such as AfroBarometer, the Doing Business surveys or the Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders. [via Gunilla Pettersson's [color=#089c9 !important]developmentdata.org]

Staffan I. Lindberg at University of Florida provides the  [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Elections and Democracy in Africa (1989-2003) dataset. This includes variables providing information about the voter turnout, whether the incumbant accepted the election and other interesting pol-econ data, described in detail [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]here. I got this link off Masa Kudamasu's blog.

Law, Debt, Informal Economy and Labour Regulation data: Andrei Shleifer's [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]website provides links to a number of datasets he has compiled and used with various co-authors. This includes 'Private Credit in 129 Countries' (JFE 2007, with S. Djankov and C. McLiesh), with data from 1978-2002 and data on the 'unofficial economy' (primarily cross-section data).

The [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Multi-Dimensional Representation of Political Systems (MIRPS) dataset is also made available at the Norwegian Centre for the Study of Civil War within the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).

Data on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Ethnic Composition of the population from the 1940s is available from the Norwegian Centre for the Study of Civil War within the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).

Hein Goemans at University of Rochester provides access to the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Archigos database on state leaders and their political 'fate' (1875 - 2004). This database is a collaborative effort with Giacomo Chiozza (Vanderbilt) and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch (Essex University) and contains information on leaders' gender, birth- and death-date, previous times in office and their post-exit fate.

The [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]List of Independent States in ascii format and tentative list of microstates that fall short of the 250,000 threshold are also made available by Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. The former is from 1816 to 2006.

Graziella Bertocchi and Chiara Strozzi at the Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia have constructed the[color=#089c9 !important]Citizenship Laws dataset, which contains information on citizenship laws in 162 countries of the world with reference to the years 1948, 1975, and 2001. "The available information concerns the way in which countries regulate citizenship acquisition at birth, with a distinction among jus soli (i.e., by birthplace), jus sanguinis (i.e., by descent), and mixed regimes. We also collect information about naturalization requirements... The dataset also contains information for the main border changes which have affected the countries in our sample."

The Washington-based Center for Global Development (Roodman, Radelet, Subramanian, Birdsall, Clemens and many others) have a [color=#089c9 !important]link to datasets on their publications website. Highlights include data on 'the fate of young democracies' (since 1960), which offers "underlying reasons for backsliding and reversal in the world’s fledgling democracies".

The African Research Program at Harvard University has [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]data on institutions, violence, and economic variables for Africa.They also provide data which they refer to as 'controls': geographic, climatic, demographic, sociological and international information on African countries from a variety of sources. Most of this data is for 1960-2000 for 47 SSA countries.

The Center for International Development and and Conflict Management at University of Maryland provides the[color=#089c9 !important]Minorities at Risk (MAR) dataset. The MAR project currently maintains data on 284 politically active ethnic groups. The centerpiece of the project is a dataset that tracks groups on political, economic, and cultural dimensions. The project also maintains analytic summaries of group histories, risk assessments, and group chronologies for each group in the dataset. From the same institution comes the [color=#089c9 !important]Minorities at Risk Organizational Behavior (MAROB) dataset, covering 118 ethnopolitical organizations representing 22 MAR groups in 26 countries of the Middle East and North Africa from 1980 to 2004 (in csv or Stata format).

Andrew Rose, an economist at the Haas Business School, UBC, provides decadal data on standard political economy variables from 1960-2000 in decades for up to 208 countries in the files associated with the [color=#089c9 !important]"Size Really Doesn’t Matter: In Search of a National Scale Effect" paper.

Axel Dreher at the University of Goettingen has a couple of datasets on [color=#089c9 !important]World Bank and IMF projects and funding facilitiesfrom 1970 onwards for up to 160 countries.

Data on [color=#089c9 !important]Ethnic Power Relations and Ethnic Conflicts is available from Brian Min's website (a PhD student in PolSci at UCLA). This includes 'Waves of War': Location and 'purpose' of war around the world 1816-2001 (464 wars); 'From Empire to Nation State', which takes fixed geographical territories instead of countries as units of analysis, allowing for the tracing of a territory’s political and economic development before and after independence from 1816 to 2001. This database now has a[color=#089c9 !important]dedicated website.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has a number of extremely detailed [color=#089c9 !important]databases related to military expenditure, arms transfers, arms embargos as well as multilateral peace operations. The arms transfers database, for instance, includes trade registers with information on each deal including, inter alia, the suppliers and recipients, the type and number of weapon systems ordered and delivered, the years of deliveries, and the financial value of the deal. Some of the data can be downloaded as excel files, others as Word rich text format.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) has created [color=#089c9 !important]DataGov, providing governance indicators from key public databases consolidated for all countries in the world. This site has changed quite a bit since I last had a look at it - everything is now in graphs using Flash (I imagine), but there's still the opportunity to download the data to excel [thanks to[color=#089c9 !important]Paul Clist for reminding me].

Political Economy (ii): conflict, legacy of conflict, terrorism and weapons
The World Bank has recently published its annual World Development Report, which this year focuses on [color=#089c9 !important]Conflict, Security and Development. A dedicated [color=#089c9 !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.

The [color=#089c9 !important]Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR) was established to coordinate and integrate information resources produced and used by the Center for Systemic Peace, based in Vienna, Virginia. They provide a wealth of datasets: Forcibly Displaced Populations (1964-2008), Major Episodes of Political Violence, (MEPV, 1946-2008), PITF State Failure Problem Set (1955-2009), High Casualty Terrorist Bombings (1992-2010), Memberships in Conventional Intergovernmental Organizations (1952-1997), Polity IV (1800-2009), Coups d'Etat (1946-2009), State Fragility Index and Matrix Time-Series Data (1995-2009), Crime in India: Riots, Murders, and Dacoity (1954-2006), India Sub-National Problem Set (1960-2004). The INSCR data resources cover all independent countries with a total population of 500,000 people in 2008 (163 countries in 2009). Most of the data are regularly updated and can be downloaded in SPSS and Excel format. [I found out about this resource through a [color=#089c9 !important]paper by Olaf de Groot (DIW) and Anja Shortland (Brunel)]

The Department of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London hosts the Conflict Analysis Resources [color=#089c9 !important]website. This not only comprises a large number of datasets related to the topic (Correlates of War, Termination of Civil War etc.) but also additional resources such as surveys of the literature and active researchers.

The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, at the University of Texas at Austin hosts the [color=#089c9 !important]Social Conflict in Africa Database (SCAD), "a resource for conducting research and analysis on various forms of social and political unrest in Africa. It includes over 6,000 social conflict events across Africa from 1990 to 2009, including riots, strikes, protests, coups, and communal violence." The entire database can be downloaded as Excel CSV file and contains very detailed information on location, actors, duration etc. of the conflict. [I found out about this website via Masa Kudamatsu's[color=#089c9 !important]DEVECONDATA]

Page Fortna at Columbia University has a couple of interesting [color=#089c9 !important]datasets for the analysis of civil war and interstate conflict. 'Peacekeeping and the Peacekept: Data on Peacekeeping in Civil Wars 1989-2004' and 'The Cease-Fires Data Set: The Duration of Peace after Interstate Wars 1946-1994' are provided in Stata format together with some more information on the data. Page's own research papers (on the same site) should also be insightful. [Thanks to Martha Ross at Nottingham for the pointer]

The [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset was compiled by Nils Petter Gleditsch, Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg & Håvard Strand and is available at the World Bank website. The datsaset is available in STATA format. The authors are from the Norwegian Centre for the Study of Civil War and Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, where this dataset can be located in an[color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]extended version (2008) among a number of other datasets on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]conflict.

The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Studies (HIIK) constructed the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]COSIMO database (project leader Frank R. Pfetsch), which records information on political conflicts between 1945 and today. At present, COSIMO 2.0 includes information on far more than 500 conflicts with over 2,500 phases. By the systematic recording of single conflict measures, the new conception enables the detailed description of the conflict development in violent and non-violent phases. In addition, the databank includes extensive information on the structure of state and non-state actors, that are recorded per year. At the moment the 2.0 version is not available online, but you can email the project team. Version 1.3 is available in Excel format for 1945 to 1998.

The Political Instability Task Force (PITF) has compiled [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]annual information on each of four types of political instability events for all countries with a total population of 500,000 or greater, covering the period 1955 to the most current year; these events include ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, genocides and politicides, and adverse regime changes (all of these are contained in separate 'problem sets' for download as excel files). The PITF website is hosted by the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University and the funding comes from the CIA. [Thanks to Masa Kudamatsu's [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]DEVECONDATA blog for listing the link]

The World Bank provides the [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Landmine Contamination, Casualties and Clearance database. which contains country level data on a broad range of issues related to landmines and cluster munitions, including contamination, casualties and clearance, and their associated cost. The data was compiled from two sources: Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor and annual surveys by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS). Coverage is 1999-2009 with annual updates scheduled for October.

Data on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Urban Social Disturbances covering 55 major cities, 23 in Sub-Saharan Africa and 32 in Central- and East Asia, in 49 different countries for the 1960-2006 period are available from the Norwegian Centre for the Study of Civil War within the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO).

Data on [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]Ethnic Power Relations and Ethnic Conflicts is available from Brian Min's website (a PhD student in PolSci at UCLA). This includes 'Waves of War': Location and 'purpose' of war around the world 1816-2001 (464 wars); 'From Empire to Nation State', which takes fixed geographical territories instead of countries as units of analysis, allowing for the tracing of a territory’s political and economic development before and after independence from 1816 to 2001.

The [color=#089c9 !important]Expanded War Database is provided by Kristian Skrede Gleditsch at Essex University. These data contain a revised and expanded list of wars to conform with the list of independent states outlined in Gleditsch & Ward (1999) 'Interstate System Membership: A Revised List of the Independent States since 1816'.

The [color=#089c9 !important]International Crisis Behavior (ICB) database is made available by the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at University of Maryland, covering all international and foreign policy crises for the period 1918-2005. This version includes data on 447 international crises (icb1v8) and 983 crisis actors (icb2v8). The data are stored in SPSS data files (or tab-delimited text files). The same source also provides the Dyadic-Level Crisis Data. This dataset contains information about 882 non-directed crisis dyads identified from the main data collections offered by the ICB Project. The data Set spans the years 1918-2001. A 'crisis dyad' is a pair of states satisfying each of the following three conditions: (1) both are members of the interstate system, (2) at least one of the states satisfies all three of the ICB necessary conditions for crisis involvement, and (3) at least one of the states has directed a hostile action against the other.

The International Maritime Bureau's (IMB) [color=#089c9 !important]Piracy Reporting Centre (err, PRC) logs incidents of piracy. The data is used by Olaf de Groot (DIW) and Anja Shortland (Brunel) in an aptly entitle paper on 'Gov-arrrgh-nance - Jolly Rogers and Dodgy Rulers' (to be presented at the RES 2011 conference at Royal Hollway next month; link to paper [color=#089c9 !important]here). They write "The IMB provides narratives on all incidents of piracy reported (voluntarily) by captains and ship-owners as well as annual counts of incidents of piracy for each country" and make a number of suggestions/changes as to the way piracy incidents are coded. Data is from 1997 to 2009.

Some folk at the University of Maryland have created the [color=#089c9 !important]Global Terrorism Database (GTD), "an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2008 (with annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 87,000 cases." This includes more than 38,000 bombings, 13,000 assassinations, and 4,000 kidnappings since 1970. Registration required. [This website was first featured on the ever-evolving [color=#089c9 !important]DEVECONDATA by Masa Kudamatsu]

Haverford College in the United States hosts the [color=#089c9 !important]Global Terrorism Resource Database, compiled by Nicholas Lotito (class of 2010), and updated by Katie Drooyan (class of 2011), under the direction of Professor Barak Mendelsohn. Although the bulk of terrorism research findings are presented via traditional literature (e.g. articles, journals, reports, and press releases), this database focuses on other sources. In particular, this database lists sources for raw datasets and databases that combine a significant number of resources (e.g. the US government's Worldwide Incidents Tracking System; the Global Terrorism Database compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland; Al-Qa’ida Attacks: 1994-2007 – RAND Corporation; International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE); University of Oklahoma and the University of Arkansas American Terrorism Database; and many more). The site also hosts the Al-Qaeda Statements Index, a student-created Haverford resource.

The Global Terrorism Database ([color=#089c9 !important]GTD) compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Responses to Terrorism (START) is "an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2010 (with additional annual updates planned for the future) ... [The] GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 98,000 cases. For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and --when identifiable-- the group or individual responsible." You need to register to gain access to the data. [This is used in research by [color=#089c9 !important]Walter Enders (the time-series man) and [color=#089c9 !important]Gary Hoover, both of the University of Alabama, presented at the Chicago AEA and discussed in the AER P&P 102(3), pp.267-272. Hoover, incidentally, has an interesting [color=#089c9 !important]survey of journal editors about plagiarism/research ethics.]

The US State Department publishes reports on an annual basis which provide rich information (plenty an RA could be employed to do grounded research on this) on [color=#089c9 !important]global terrorism: "U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism." The latter go back to 1995, so in total around 15 years of terrorism data are available here.

The African Research Program at Harvard University has [color=#089c9 !important]data on institutions, violence, and economic variables for Africa.They also provide data which they refer to as 'controls': geographic, climatic, demographic, sociological and international information on African countries from a variety of sources. Most of this data is for 1960-2000 for 47 SSA countries.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has a number of extremely detailed [color=#089c9 !important]databases related to military expenditure, arms transfers, arms embargos as well as multilateral peace operations. The arms transfers database, for instance, includes trade registers with information on each deal including, inter alia, the suppliers and recipients, the type and number of weapon systems ordered and delivered, the years of deliveries, and the financial value of the deal. Some of the data can be downloaded as excel files, others as Word rich text format.


Perhaps also check the sources listed under [color=#089c9 !important]Political Economy (i) above.

Drugs and Money Laundering
The U.S. State Department [color=rgb(0, 137, 201) !important]International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) covers both 'Drug and Chemical Control' as well as 'Money laundering and financial crime'. Archived reports go back to 1996 (all the way to 2010). Note that these are reports, not data - if one were willing to pay an RA to go through the material there's an incredible amount of information on these two topics, given that there are reports for each country and the more recent ones are written in a questionnaire style ("Ability to freeze terrorist assets without delay: YES") so could be easily coded. Note that financial crime does not seem to cover anything that went on in, Iceland, at Wall Street or in the City over the past few years...