Researching Developing Countries: A Data Resource Guide for Social Scientists

By Forrest Daniel Wright

Why are some countries rich while others are poor? Why are some well governed while others experience frequent conflict? And how do you measure a country’s true success anyways? Social scientists have attempted to answer these types of questions for decades, and have increasingly turned to data for this task. Researching Developing Countries: A Data Resource Guide for Social Scientists serves as a reference guide for social scientists and students interested in answering these complex questions. The book will also be helpful to librarians serving the social science disciplines. Topics covered in the book include: human development, economics, governance, conflict, demographics, migration and refugees, environment, foreign aid, energy and infrastructure, innovation and entrepreneurship, geography and urban development, and public opinion.

• Covers over 30 countries with emerging markets
• Explores a wide array of topics for each country and their investment opportunities
• Includes a focus on international audiences as the book expands beyond the US market

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Release date: Nov 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9780081002179

Forrest Daniel Wright

Forrest Wright is a Data Manager for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). He has published articles and reviews covering business and educational topics in publications such as the Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship and D-Lib Magazine. He possesses a BA in History from Clark University and a MSLIS from Drexel University. He currently lives in Philadelphia.

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Human Development

Abstract

This chapter provides data resources related to human development. Together, these resources should provide a holistic assessment of a developing country’s inhabitants. The resources cover the areas of education, health, income and poverty, financial accessibility, aging populations, information and technology, and household surveys. The United Nations offers a number of datasets on these topics as users would expect, however a number of other organizations are also represented in the chapter. Users may be familiar with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which most countries of the world have participated in through their conclusion in 2015. When a resource specifically pertains to the MDGs, it is noted in the description.

Keywords

Human development; education; health; income inequality; financial accessibility; crime; drugs; vulnerable populations

General Resources

United Nations

Human Development Indexes

http://hdr.undp.org/en/data

Topics Covered: Life expectancy; health; education; income; income inequality

Description

The UN collects data on human development from a range of sources and produces several annual topical indexes. These indexes cover general human development, gender inequality, gender development, and multidimensional poverty in over 180 countries. The UN develops these indexes by compiling and weighing several human development-related indicators. It should be noted that no one index can fully capture the true state of human development in a particular country. The UN itself admits this and encourages users to use several resources as well as understand the possible shortcomings of development data when researching this topic. The scope and methodology for each index is discussed in greater detail below.

Scope and Methodology

Tables 1–3 in the UN database of the UN’s Human Development site all relate to the UN’s headline Human Development Index (HDI). At its core, the HDI strives to measure a country’s average achievements in three basic areas of human development: living a long and healthy life, having access to knowledge, and having a decent standard of living. Accordingly, the composite indicators of a country’s HDI reflect these three goals, which are all weighed equally in its calculation. The resulting HDI is based on a 0–1 scale, normalized, where 1 equals a perfect HDI score. These indicators include a country’s life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and gross national income (GNI) per capita. Both the life expectancy data and GNI were adjusted in the most recent index year, 2013, to reflect new population data collected by the UN population division, as well as new purchasing power parity (PPP) conversion rates published by the World Bank. The data used for the component indicators of the HDI was collected by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNESA) and UNESCO which compile statistics from national statistical offices and other sources; Barro and Lee’s International Educational Attainment Dataset; and from the World Bank and IMF for GNI data.

Data Source

Human Development Index

Table 1 in the UN database, Human Development Index and Its Components, contains final HDI for 187 countries and additional aggregated regions, as well as data on the HDI’s composite indicators. Users will see that the countries are ranked by their HDI score, and grouped by their development status from very high to low. The data is presented as a table and can be downloaded as an Excel file. Table 2 in the UN database, Human Development Index Trends, provides each country’s HDI score at various time intervals, from 1980 to the present. Users have more visualization options for this trending index, including being able to view the data as a map, or by a range of charts. Additionally, the data can be downloaded in a range of file formats, including CSV, JSON, XML, RDF, or RSS among others.

Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index

Table 3 in the UN database, Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), attempts to evaluate a country’s achievements in the areas of life expectancy, educational attainment, and income like the HDI, but taking into account how these goals are distributed equal among its entire population. This is achieved utilizing a method that discounts each indicator’s average value according to various dimensions of inequality (for a full explanation, see Alkire & Foster: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/designing-inequality-adjusted-human-development-index-ihdi). The IHDI table then contains each country’s original HDI score, its newly calculated IHDI score, and how much inequality has impacted its score as a percentage of loss from the original HDI score. Additionally, the IHDI table contains Coefficient of Human Inequality figures, which represent the average inequality of health, education, and income of a country, as estimated by averaging the dimensions of inequality. Users can view IHDI data as a map, or by a range of charts under visualize. Additionally, the data can be downloaded in a range of file formats, including CSV, JSON, XML, RDF, or RSS among others.

World Bank

World Development Indicators: People

http://wdi.worldbank.org/tables

Topics Covered: Millennium Development Goals; population; education; health; reproductive health; employment; mortality; unemployment; social protection; gender; demographics; poverty; income

Description

The World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI) project transforms economic and human development data from 214 countries into comparable cross-country indicators. The WDI is highly influential in development circles, and the World Bank’s release of its annual WDI report often catches the eyes of policy makers and journalists. The annual WDI report is released in April of each year, while the online database is updated three times a year. The WDI is divided into six segments: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links. Below I will discuss the People section.

Scope and Methodology

As part of its annual WDI project, the World Bank provides human development indicators for over 200 countries within the People section. Specifically, this series of indicators covers the topics of education, health, jobs, social protection, and gender; as well as population, poverty, and prosperity. Many of these indicators are used in measuring the UN’s MDG. Depending on the indicator, the WDI may provide disaggregated socioeconomic and gender variables, such as age, gender, and wealth status. Most indicators range in coverage from approximately 2000 to 2013 or present, though some vary depending on the scope of the indicator and the data availability. The WDI’s most recent release for 2015 includes a new indicator: Shared Prosperity. This indicator measures the income of a country’s bottom 40% of wealth population, and calculates its annualized growth rate from a previous baseline year per