Sources for macroindicators
Our project stresses the importance of exposure to contextual conditions in forming and changing values, attitudes and behaviors. Therefore one needs to control for such contextual influences. While we needed various information about World societies, we end up by compiling a list from where such information can be retrieved. We provide part of the list below, with the hope that might be useful for other researchers as well. If you are aware of other similar resources, please do not hesitate to let us know.
CIRI Human Rights
http://www.humanrightsdata.org/index.asp
Indicators: personal security, empowerment, women rights, independence of judiciary etc.
Period: 1981-present (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide (not all indicators)
Free to download.
Banks Cross-National Time-Series (CNTS) Data Archive
http://www.databanksinternational.com/
Indicators: domestic conflict events, computer usage, telegraph usage, electoral data, vehicle usage, industrial data, military data, mail usage, phone data, school enrollment, economic output.
Period: 1918-present (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide (not all indicators)
Costs: 550 USD -> academic, single user license.
Ethnologue.com
Indicators: spoken language, language diversity
Coverage: worldwide
Period: present days
Free, but one needs to compile the dataset by oneself.
US Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php
Indicators: population by age (one year cohorts)
Coverage: worldwide
Period: past 40+ year
Free, easy to generate tables online.
The QoG (Quality of Government) Institute
http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/data/
Indicators: a collection of various indicators, most of them related to governance, gathered from various sources
Coverage: worldwide
Period: past 40+ year
Free dataset in Excel, Stata, and SPSS format.
INSCR Data Page (Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research)
http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/inscr.htm
Indicators: a collection of various indicators, most of them related to governance, gathered from various sources and with a longitudinal prospect
Coverage: worldwide
Period: past 100+ year
Free of charge.
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
http://aceproject.org/about-en
Indicators: rather qualitative information on elections. One can easily revert it to quantitative indicators on characteristic of elections such as need for registration, age of voting, permission to vote from abroad, vote counting etc.
Coverage: worldwide
Period: current days; no historical data is included. (the project was launched in 2008)
Free of charge.
IDEA.int
(International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance)
http://www.idea.int/resources/databases.cfm
Indicators: various data on voting.
Period: 1900s-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide (not all indicators)
Free to download.
IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union)
http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/parlinesearch.asp
Indicators: data on elections, parliamentary composition, women representation, etc.
Period: 1900s-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide (not all indicators)
Free to download, but not always in a database format (one should organize data by oneself).
United Nations Statistics Division
(UNSD Statistical Databases)
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/databases.htm
Indicators: demographics (they produce a Demographic Yearbook), economic output, housing, disabled, health, water access, gender-related etc.
Period: 1948-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide (not all indicators)
Free to download, but not always in a database format (one should organize data by oneself from unfriendly excel tables that should be downloaded separately).
EUROSTAT
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database
Indicators: demographic, social, economic, administrative etc.
Period: 1950s-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: all EU member states, EU associates, EU candidates. Regional statistics are also provided for some of the most recent indicators (‘regional’ means regions within countries).
Free to download, in various formats, both for specific indicators (that one can select and produce online tables before downloading), and as ‘bulk download’.
World Development Indicators (WDI) - The World Bank
http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators
Indicators: demographic, social, economic, gender, health, crime, education, etc.
Period: 1960-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide.
Free to download: huge Excel file, from which is easy to extract what you need. Online tables can also be generated before saving them on your computer.
UNDATA (United Nations Data)
Indicators: demographic, social, economic, gender, health, crime, education, etc.
Period: 1960-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide.
Free to download: online tables should be generated before saving them as Excel files.
(this is another source for UN data. It does not include all content from other sources - WHO, UNSD, etc. - but, as compared to UNSD for instance, it has much better download options - it even allows you to include the iso code for the country)
ARDA (Association of Religion Data Archives)
http://www.thearda.com/Archive/CrossNational.asp
Indicators: various indicators related to religion and religiosity, including population structure by denomination, religious freedom indexes, government funding to religious sector, etc.
Period: 1945-present. (not all indicators)
Coverage: worldwide.
Free to download: SPSS and Stata files are provided.
MIPEX: Migrant Integration Policy Index
Indicators: various indicators related to integration of immigrants.
Period: 2007, 2010.
Coverage: Europe (mainly EU), Canada, US.
Free to download: Excel files are provided.
https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/
Indicators: various indicators describing manifestos of political parties.
Period: 1945-to date (differs from country to country).
Coverage: Europe & OECD countries (only democracies).
Free to download: Stata, SPSS and Excel files are provided.
OECD - Your Better Life Index
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org
Indicators: various indicators allowing the user to compare well-being across countries. It is based on 11 topics the OECD has identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
Period: 2013-
Coverage: OECD countries
Free to download: Excel files
WISP - World Index of Social Situation
http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/restes/WSS09.html
Indicators: various indicators covering education, health status, women status etc.
Period: 1970-2009
Coverage: 169 in 2009.
Free to download: .pdf file.
World Database of Happiness
http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl
Indicators: various indicators measuring subjective well-being.
Period: it depends on the country
Coverage: world
Free to download: html (can be copied into Excel)
World Marriage Data
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WMD2012/MainFrame.html
Indicators: population by marital status..
Period: 1970, 1985, 1995, 2005, 2012
Coverage: world (212 countries).
Free to download: .xls.
Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES)
Indicators: party positioning on various issues, based on expert estimations.
Period: multiple waves - 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014
Coverage: Europe. Initially Western Europe, but more recent waves extended to 24 EU countries, plus separate surveys in the Balkans.
Free to download: .dta, .csv.
Worldwide Governance Indicators (WDI)
http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WMD2012/MainFrame.html
Indicators: governance indicators, gathered by the World Bank.
Period: 1996-2012
Coverage: 215 countries.
Free to download: .xls.
OECD Indicators of Employment Protection
http://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/oecdindicatorsofemploymentprotection.htm
Indicators: four aggregate indicators on employment legislation.
Period: 1985-present
Coverage: 47 countries (OECD+emerging economies).
Free to download: .xls.
V-Dem
https://v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-6/
Indicators: various indicators on democracy (mare than 350 variables).
Period: 1900-present
Coverage: 173 countries.
Free to download: SPSS, Stata, .csv.