Several of the series for social data came from the WDI CD-ROM. Others come from a wide variety of sources. There are, however, too few social measures in IFs. In particular, there should be more measures of social alienation or anomie. For instance, the UN Development Report has sparse country coverage on prisoners, homicides, drug crimes, alcohol consumption and smoking rate. More complete coverage would allow inter-country comparisons.
Most of the following data were taken from the most recent year of the WDI time series.
AIDRec%. Aid (% of GNP). Net development assistance receipts as a percent of GNP, counting as aid loans with more than a 25% element. Data were taken from 1995 primarily and 1994 WDI time series.
AidDon%. Net official development assistance as a percent of GNP, from the Development Assistance Committee members. Data taken from 1995 WDI table.
Corruption. Scale of corruption in business transactions running from 0 (totally corrupt) to 10 (totally clean). The corruption indicator was taken from the web page http://www1.gwdg.de/~uwvw/rank-96.htm, provided by Transparency International and Goettingen University. Although that source provides data for 1995, it ranked only 41 countries in 1995, versus 54 in 1996. We therefore used 1996. [Note to self: add 1980-85 and 1988-92 to the historic data files; have data in IFs data notebook.]
Ed%GDP. Time series for public educational expenditures as a portion of GDP. WDI.
Ethnic1. Percentage of the population belonging to the largest ethnic group in the country. The source was the web page of the Central Intelligence Agency maintained as their World Factbook.
Ethnic2. Percentage of the population belonging to the second largest ethnic group in the country. The source was the web page of the Central Intelligence Agency maintained as their World Factbook.
FemSchoolPer. Time series for percentage of females attending elementary school. WDI.
FreePol. Political freedom on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free) from the Freedom HouseAnnual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties.
FreeCiv. Civil freedom on a scale from 1 (most free) to 7 (least free) from the Freedom HouseAnnual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties.
Freedom. Total freedom, as the sum of political freedom and civil liberties.
GEM. A gender empowerment measure, from the United Nations, Human Development Report, running from 0 (women have no role) to 1 (women have equal role with men) to potentially higher values. The current data in IFs are from the 1995 volume and build on data from 1992-1994 concerning seats in parliament, women as portion of managers, income earned, etc. Data from 1995 volume were on text table pages 84-85. This report is a biannual and the 1997 edition was not yet available in late 1997.
GovExpend. Government expenditures, total, as a percentage of GNP. Data taken from WDI time series 1995 data primarily and 1994 to fill in the gaps.
GexpDef. Expenditures on defense as a percentage of GNP. Data taken from WDI time series 1995 primarily and 1994 to fill in the gaps. Data from 1994 were used to fill in the gaps. These were updated and replaced later by data from the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA).
Mil%GDP. Time series for military expenditures as a portion of GDP. WDI.
PrimEd. Public spending on primary education as a percent of GDP. Data taken from 1992 primarily.
SeconEd. Public spending on secondary education as a percentage of GDP. Data taken from 1992 primarily.
TertEd. Public spending on tertiary education as a percentage of GDP. Data taken from 1992 primarily.
GexpEd. Sum of primary, secondary, and tertiary columns calculated in Excel.
GexpHI. Total health expenditures as a percentage of GDP, 1990-1995. Used data from WDI time series.
PubHI. Public health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, 1990-1995. Used data from WDI time series.
PriHI. Private health expenditure as a percentage of GDP, 1990-1995. Used data from WDI time series.
NPOW and Prisoners. Data already in data set.
SafWater%. Time series for portion of population with access to safe water. WDI.
Suicide. Taken from WHO, World Health Statistics Annual.