Data
(The below list is suggested by Professor Michèle Tertilt)
1. United States
(a) US Census Data
Detailed micro data available every decade between 1850 and 2000. This is cross-section data, not a panel! Easily accessible through the Minnesota Population Center:
Can download ascii files, together with SAS, SPSS, or STATA code that reads in the data and applies labels.
(b) Current Population Survey (CPS)
Detailed micro data available monthly between 1962 and 2003. Basic monthly survey, plus topic supplements. Entire data sets and code books available from NBER's webpage:
http://www.nber.org/data/cps.html
A subset of the data is also available through IPUMS in a much nicer format (data is made compatible across time!):
Note: this is a beta-version, so some errors are possible.
(c) Panel of Income Dynamics (PSID)
Longitudinal survey 1968-present, with focus on income dynamics. Panel of roughly 5,000 to 7,000 families (has grown over time).
Collected by the University of Michigan. Data is free, can download here:
http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/
(d) Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX)
Quarterly data on 7,500 US households focusing on expenditures (in contrast to PSID, which focuses on income), 1984-2002. This is not a panel! Basic tabulations available from the BLS:
http://www.bls.gov/cex/home.htm
There is a public use sample of the actual micro data, which is accessible through the library at Stanford.
(e) US Statistical Abstracts
Anything and everything you want to know about Americans. This is not in a format that can be easily downloaded. But it is a good source to look up unusual data and find out who collects them.
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/
(f) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
Includes the National Survey of Family Growth (see below for details) and many other interesting surveys.
(g) National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)
http://www.bls.gov/nls/home.htm
I am not sure if there is free access through the library.
(h) National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG)
The NSFG gathers information on family life, marriage and divorce, pregnancy, infertility, use of contraception, and men's and women's health. This data has been collected in irregular intervals since 1973. Note that the NSFG is not a panel and the scope of the survey has expanded considerably since then.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/NSFG.htm
(i) American Time Use Survey (ATUS) -- recently under threat to be terminated because of budget cuts.
Detailed data on how Americans spend their time, annual survey since 2003. This is a repeated cross-section, not a panel. Unfortunately, it is a survey of individuals, not households, which makes
the analysis of household dynamics somewhat difficult. Older time use surveys are available for selected years, but not directly comparable to the ATUS.
(j) Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
produces and disseminates economic accounts statistics that provide a picture of economic activity in the United States.
(k) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
principal fact-finding agency for the federal government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics.
(l) Council of Economic Advisers
includes text of the Economic Report of the President, whitepapers, and the monthly Economic Indicators publication.
(m) Fedstats: statistics from federal agencies, available broken down geographically, by agency, or in other forms.
(n) Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED): hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
(p) U.S. Bureau of the Census.
2. Micro Data for other Countries
(a) A special issue of the Review of Economic Dynamics was devoted to analyzing consumption and income inequality in a variety of countries. The data is available from the RED webpage:
http://www.economicdynamics.org/RED-cross-sectional-facts.htm
(b) Census data (roughly second half of 20th century) is available through IPUMS for the following countries: China, Columbia, France, Kenya, Mexico, and Vietnam.
https://international.ipums.org/international/
(c) Most countries have their own national statistical offices, so if you do have a special interest for a particular country, check out the official government website.
(d) Check this out for an overview of time use surveys in other countries (and note that some countries have in fact collected time use data for households, not just individuals)
http://www.timeuse.org/information/studies/
(e) An interesting micro data set from Italy is the “Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW)”. The SHIW began in the 1960s with the aim of gathering data on the incomes and savings of Italian households. Over the years, the scope of the survey has grown and now includes wealth and other aspects of households'economic and financial behaviour such as, for example, which payment methods are used. Information on expenditure is also available, similar to the CEX in the U.S. The sample used in the most recent surveys comprises about 8,000 households (24,000 individuals), distributed over about 300 Italian municipalities.
http://www.bancaditalia.it/statistiche/indcamp/bilfait/docum
3. Data for Developing Countries
(a) Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are available for a variety of African countries. DHS surveys are micro data sets for many countries and many years. A good starting point is the following webpage:
http://www.measuredhs.com/accesssurveys/search/start.cfm
(b) Panel data on HIV/AIDS in Malawi. Four waves are available by now: 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2006. Note that while the data is not representative of the entire country, it is (supposedly) representative of rural Malawi.
http://www.malawi.pop.upenn.edu/Level%203/Malawi/level3 malawi main.html
4. Cross Country Data
(a) World Development Indicators (World Bank)
Cross-country data on many different topics, including basic economic variables, population related variables and some social indicators. Available for free through the library (you may have tobe on campus for this to work). Check it out, easy to use, you can either look at a special variable of interest very easily, or download an entire data extract as excel or ascii file.
Access http://www.worldbank.org/data/ or through the Stanford library.
(b) OECD Gender, Institutions, and Development (GID) data base
http://stats.oecd.org/WBOS/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=GID
Cross-country data on gender issues, such as education by gender, and index of property rights for women, violence against women, and more.
(c) Data on marriage, fertility, gender, etc. is available through the Population Reference Bureau (PRB):
lots of interesting data that is not available through other sources, for example on abortion policy. Good as a reference, but not available in a format that can be read into any other program.
(d) The United Nations publish a lot of interesting data through its various subdivisions. There is a lot of duplication, and most of is also available through the WDI, but if there is something you can't find elsewhere, you may want to check those sources out:
i. UN -- Population division
http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm
ii. UNDP - Human development indicators
Human Development Report available on-line:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/
Can download the data from here (pdf or excel):
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
iii. UNSD -- Social Indicators
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/default.htm
good reference, but not available to download, as far as I know. Most of the data is also available on a CD-ROM called “WiStat - Women Indicator Statistics," but not for free, I believe.
iv. UN hard copies
3 interesting UN publications that are not available on-line, but there are hard copies in the libary:
Data sheet on “World Marriage Patterns 2000."
“First Marriage: Patterns and Determinants," 1988.
“Patterns of First Marriage: Timing and Prevalence," 1990.
(The below links are collected by the Institute of Economic Policy, Humboldt University, Berlin)
5. Germany
Campus Statistics, databases for academic use, offered by the German Federal Statistical Office
Datensätze des Stat. Bundesamtes für Studium und Lehre
Bundesbank, statistics
Statistiken
Deutsche Bank Research, DB literature Service for students
DB-Literaturservice für Studenten
DICE, Ifo's Database for Institutional Comparisons in Europe
Institutionen-Datenbank des ifo-Instituts
DIW Statfinder time series of the DIW data-base
Zeitreihen der DIW-Datenbank
Eco5.com: research platform with over 5000 categorised links in economics and finance
Researchportal mit über 5000 kategorisierten Links aus Volkswirtschaft und Finanzen
FEDC data: provided by the Financial and Economic Data Center of the Collaborative Research Center 649 at Humboldt University
Daten des Financial and Economic Data Center des Sonderforschungsbereichs 649 an der Humboldt-Univerisät zu Berlin
Google Scholar: search engine for finding "scholarly literature" faster and better
Suchmaschine, um wissenschaftliche Literatur schneller und besser zu finden
SmartEconomist.com: a database containing reviews of relevant Working Papers in economics, finance and business; the reports are intended to be brief, unbiased and jargon-free, with practical highlights and a detailed review.
Datenbank mit kurzen, jargonfreien und praktischen Reviews aktueller relevanter Working Paper aus den Bereichen Economics, Finance und Business.
Humboldt University Library, CD-Rom databases for internal users only
CD-Rom Datenbanken, nur für interne Nutzer
ifo Database, contains datasets from the ifo Business Survey
enthält Datensätze des ifo Konjunkturtests
MD*Base: Statistical Methodology and Interactive Data Analysis
SOEP Das Sozio-ökonomische Panel
Statistisches Bundesamt Federal Statistical Office Germany
6. International
Resources for Economists on the Internet extensive list of data resources on the net
Extensive Liste von Daten-Ressourcen im Netz
BACH - database, database containing harmonised annual accounts statistics of non-financial enterprises for 11 European countries, Japan and the United States (run by the European Commission)
BACH-Datenbank, Datenbank mit harmonisierten Jahresbilanzstatistiken von Unternehmen (ohne Finanzunternehmen) für 11 europäische Länder, Japan und die USA (von der Europäischen Kommission betrieben)
Banco de Portugal, statistics
Statistiken von der Banco de Portugal
Bank of England, statistics
Statistiken
Banque de France, statistics
Statistiken
Bank of Japan, reports and statistics
Berichte und Statistiken
CEPR data International Macroeconomics, Trade, Labor Economics, Industrial Organization, Public Policy
Internationale Makroökonomik, Handel, Arbeitsmarktökonomik, Industrieökonomik, Politik
ECB data, Monthly Bulletin, Euro area statistics
Monthly Bulletin, Statistiken für den Euro-Raum
Eurostat European Union statistical information service
EU statistischer Informationsservice
EconData, a Source of Economic Time Series Data from INFORUM, at the University of Maryland
Quelle zu ökonomischen Zeitreihendaten von INFORUM, University of Maryland
Economagic.com, Economic Time Series Page
Ökonomische Zeitreihen Seite
FedStats, statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies
Statistiken von mehr als 100 US Bundeseinrichtungen
Federal Reserve Board Releases & Historical Data
Veröffentlichungen und historische Daten
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis US GDP, CPI, PPI, interest rates, reserves
US BIP, Konsumenten- und Produzentenpreisindizes, Zinssätze, Rücklagen
Federal funds rate & discount rate , historical changes 1971 - present, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
historische Änderungen 1971 - heute, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Freelunch.com, free access to over 1,000,000 economic and financial data series
freier Zugang zu mehr als 1.000.000 ökonomischen und Finanzdaten Reihen
IDEAS Database dedicated to Economics and available on the Internet. Over 190'000 items of research can be browsed or searched, and over 100'000 can be downloaded in full text.
IMF data Member Financial Data, Financial Transactions, Exchange Rates
Finanzdaten von Mitgliedern, Finanztransaktionen, Wechselkurse
International Statistical Yearbook 2001 CD-Rom resource with databases of several international institutions and statistical offices (for internal users only)
CD-Rom Resource mit Datenbanken mehrerer internationaler Institutionen und statistischer Ämter (nur für interne Nutzer)
NBER data Macro, Industrial, Individual Data
Macro-, Industrie- und Individualdaten
Sala-i-Martin's Data Sets by Prof. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Columbia University, UPF
von Prof. Xavier Sala-i-Martin, Columbia University, UPF
Social Science Statistical Data University of California, San Diego
Worldbank data country data, data by topic
Länderdaten, Daten nach Themen
WTO data International Trade Data
Internationale Handels-Daten