Macro data:
Bangladesh Bank: The data webpage of the central bank of Bangladesh. A good source for macroeconomic data. The main topics of data available are monetary and financial statistics, banking, financial inclusion and digital finance, agent banking, FDI, private sector external debt, the balance of payment, export, and import.
Bangladesh Open Data: The open data website by the government of Bangladesh. The data topics are agriculture, health, infrastructure, finance, education, transport, technology, society, local government, environment, economy, and business.
Micro data:
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) - Data Catalog Application: A microdata catalog by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The data are from 1. agricultural census, 2. census of manufacturing industries, 3. economy census, 4. handloom census, 5. mosque census, 6. population census, 7. agriculture input survey, 8. annual establishments survey, 9. food for work programme, 10. fertility survey, 11. foreign trade statistics, 12. labour force survey, 13. nutrition survey, 14. poverty monitoring survey, 15. sample vital registration system, and 16. survey of farm forestry. Several datasets are open-access data (but the links were broken at the time of testing).
Type: Household & firm data, Access: Application required / Downloadable without registration, Cost: UnknownThe World Bank Microdata Library: The World Bank website has many interesting datasets including surveys used for impact evaluation of programs. Most of them require an application before the data can be downloaded.
Bangladesh Climate Change Adaptation Survey (BCCAS): Datasets on how farming households adjusted for climate change. Two rounds of surveys were conducted. 800 households were surveyed in the 1st round in 2010-11 and 97.34% of the original households were surveyed in the 2nd round in 2022. The surveys contain information on demographic characteristics, social capital, land tenure, crop and livestock management, input use, extension, incidence of climatic shocks in the last five years and adaptation options. The datasets are hosted by Harvard Dataverse. Link to round 1 data. Link to round 2 data.
Type: Household data, Access: Downloadable without registration, Cost: FreeLow-income Area Gender, Inclusion, and Poverty Survey: The survey is designed to collect data on poverty, economic empowerment, and livelihoods of households in slum and non-slum poor neighborhoods in Dhaka and Chattogram. Household-level data include household roster, housing, consumption, and services. Individual-level data include employment, childcare, time use, access to capital and finance, attitudes toward work and earnings, safety perception, aspiration and mental health status, and etc.
Type: Household and individual-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeEarly Years Preschool Program Impact Evaluation: The purpose of the study is to evaluate the benefits relative to the costs of an additional year of pre-primary education on child development. The study is a randomized control trial (RCT) where the randomization occurred at the school level. The baseline survey in 2017 gathers information on the children and their home environments. The midline and endline surveys in 2018 and 2019 collect data to determine the effects of the intervention on home learning environment.
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeInformal Firms Survey 2010: The survey collects information on the firm and the owner and covers 1,724 enterprises. Firm data include the process of formalization, the use of different business practices, the types of information technology used by the firm, and the distances between the firm and the trade license office and the VAT office. Owner data include demographics, education, and owner characteristics which might affect the size of business.
Type: Firm and individual-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeCGAP Smallholder Household Survey 2016, Building the Evidence Base on The Agricultural and Financial Lives of Smallholder Households: The study aims to generate a clearer picture and segments of the smallholder households and attempt to understand demand for financial services and financial needs. Type: Household and individual-level, Access: Application required, Cost: Free
Building Parental Capacity to Help Child Development: A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Save the Children Early Childhood Stimulation Program in Bangladesh: The study measures the impacts of the low-cost early stimulation program that delivers messages on how to interact and play with young children to mothers and caregivers. The main outcomes interested include child development outcomes, anthropometric measures, and parenting stimulation. The questionnaires include a household survey, anthropometric measures, BSID–III test, service provider survey, administrator survey, and non-compliance survey.
Type: Household and service provider-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeNGOs in Bangladesh: Activities, Resources, and Governance 2003: The data are based on a survey on nationally represented NGOs in Bangladesh. Data on basic characteristics, activities, the establishment of the NGO, staff and volunteers, capital and equipment, cash flow, funding, sub-contracting, networks and umbrella organizations, self-assessment and relationship with local government, governance structure, and leadership were collected. The data are hosted by the World Bank.
Type: Firm data, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeUrban Informal Settlements Survey 2016: The main objective of the survey is to collect consumption data from urban slum households. Data include household information, housing, water and sanitation, and consumption (food consumption, non-food expenditure, and inventory of consumer durable goods).
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreePoverty and Groundwater Salinity Survey 2016: The aim of the survey is to assess the relationship between groundwater salinity and health outcomes among women and children as well as the coping and adaptation mechanisms for households in coastal areas. Data include Household characteristics, age, sex, education, hypertension, pregnancy complications, employment, assets, land, livestock, utilities, remittances, water and sanitation, farming, and reasons for migration.
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeImpact Evaluation of the Integrated Agricultural Productivity Project (IAPP): To improve food security and sustain economic growth, the Government of Bangladesh sponsored research to improve crop varieties and promoted the adoption of crop varieties and production practices through IAPP. The impact evaluation of IAPP was conducted to understand the drivers of technology adoption. The baseline survey was in 2012. There are two midline surveys were in 2013 and 2014. The endline survey was in 2015.
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeCitizen's Experiences of the Legal System 2009: The World Bank helped the Government of Bangladesh reform the country’s judicial system between 2001 and 2008. The survey was conducted to provide a national and regionally representative profile of civil disputes and crimes and their impacts and to map the full range of behaviors through which citizens seek redress for perceived wrongs and their determinants, and to assess perceptions of law enforcement, incidence of crime, accountability and rule of law over time.
Type: Household-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreeIntegrated Pest Management (IPM) 2003: The survey was conducted to collect information on conventional and IPM farming techniques, pesticide use and practices, applicator precautions and damage-averting behavior, health effects and environmental impacts. Data include area or property information, personal general information, IPM/pesticide application, knowledge, protection, health, social feedback, and environment.
Type: Farmer-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreePesticide Use 2003: The survey was conducted to collect information on pesticide use and practices, risk perceptions, knowledge, precautions and damage averting behavior, and health effects.
Type: Farmer-level, Access: Application required, Cost: FreePesticide Traders 2003: The survey was conducted to collect data from pesticide traders. The data collected include 1) the name, location and nature of the shop; 2) trader’s characteristics: age, ownership, nutritional status: weight/height; 3) pesticide log & sales: trade name, chemical name, content quantity, price, best-selling pesticides; 4) traders’ knowledge of pesticides: information and training received on use and safe handling of pesticides; 5) precautions and damage averting behavior; and 6) health effects.
Type: Individual-level, Access: Application required, Cost: Free
Chronic Poverty and Long Term Impact Study in Bangladesh: The datasets were compiled to understand the underlying processes that shape chronic poverty in Bangladesh and the impact of selected interventions. These datasets result from the combination of three studies i.e. (1) The Food for Education (FFE) in 2000 and 2003, (2) The Micronutrients-Gender study in 1996-97, and (3) The Microfinance study in 1997. The data are hosted by Harvard Dataverse. The data from the Food for Education (FFE) study in 2000 and 2003 are also available on Harvard Dataverse.
Type: Household data, Access: Downloadable without registration, Cost: FreeLong-Term Impact of Microcredit Impacts: Two rounds of surveys i.e. the baseline in 1991-92 and the follow-up in 1998-99 were conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and the World Bank to understand the impacts of three major microcredit programs in Bangladesh (Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, and the Rural Development-12 program of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board). Data on household information, education, health, wage employment, self-employment, farming and livestock, non-farming enterprises, food expenses, marriage age and maternity history, credit and savings, transfers and remittances, and ownership of assets are available. Link to round 1 data. Link to round 2 data.
Type: Household data, Access: Registration required, Cost: FreeBangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2011-2012: Nationally representative household survey with data on 6,500 households. Data on (1) plot-level agricultural production and practices, (2) dietary intake of individual household members, and (3) anthropometric measurements of all household members are available. The data are hosted by Harvard Dataverse.
Type: Household data, Access: Downloadable without registration, Cost: FreeImproving Indoor Air Quality for Poor Families: Controlled Experiments 2005-2006: The study attempts to understand the determinants of the level of the indoor level of PM10. Data on kitchen layout, kitchen wall materials, roof materials, and fuels are available.
Type: Household data, Access: Registration required, Cost: FreeReplication Dataset for Why Do People Stay Poor?: The website provides replication data for the paper Why Do People Stay Poor? by Balboni et al. (2021). The dataset is a panel dataset of 6,000 households based on a randomized asset transfer in rural Bangladesh.
Type: Household-level, Acccess: , Cost: FreeAlive & Thrive (A&T) - Bangladesh: A&T is a program with a focus to strengthen systems for maternal, infant, and young child nutrition (MIYCN). The first phase began in Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. The datasets comprise the baseline surveys in 2010 and the endline survey in 2014.
Type: Depends on the dataset, Access: Downloadable without registration, Cost: Free