About this Resource

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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Aggregated macro data
Macro or aggregated data are data about populations, groups, regions or countries. These are data that have been averaged, totaled or otherwise derived from the individual level data found in the survey datasets.

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Beyond 20/20
Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server (WDS) was the piece of software that allows users to analyze and visualize aggregate data via a web browser.

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ESDS International
ESDS International was a specialist data division of the UK's Economic and Social Data Service. The service has now been replaced by the UK Data Service: ukdataservice.ac.uk

European Central Bank
The ECB is the central bank for Europe's single currency, the euro. The ECB's main task is to maintain the euro's purchasing power and thus price stability in the euro area. The euro area comprises the European Union countries that have introduced the euro as their unit of national currency since 1999.

ESRC
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funds research and training in social and economic issues.

ESS
The European Social Survey (the ESS) is an academically-driven social survey designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of its diverse populations.

Eurostat
Eurostat is a Directorate-General (DG) of the European Commission. Eurostat's key role is to supply statistics to other Directorate-Generals and supply the Commission and other European Institutions with data so they can define, implement and analyse Community policies.

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FOA
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is the specialised UN agency dealing with issues of food supply, security and hunger

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GDP
A region's gross domestic product, or GDP, is one of the several measures of the size of its economy. The GDP of a country is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.

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IEA
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a intergovernmental organization founded in 1974 in the wake of the oil crisis. The IEA was initially dedicated to co-ordinating measures in times of oil supply emergencies. It now acts as a energy policy advisor to its member states as well as an information source on statistics about the international energy markets.

IFS
Published monthly since 1948, International Financial Statistics (IFS) is the International Monetary Fund’s principal statistical publication and is the standard source for all aspects of international and domestic finance. It reports, for most countries, time series data on exchange rates, balance of payments, international liquidity, money and banking, interest rates, prices, production, international transactions, government accounts, national accounts and population.

IGO
Intergovernmental organisation. The World Bank, IMF, OECD and United Nations are all examples of IGOs

ILO
A specialist agency of the UN concerned with a broad spectrum of labour-related activities. The ILO sets international labour standards and produces a range of statistics on the labour market worldwide.

IMF
The International Monetary Fund is an international organization of 184 member countries. It was established to promote international monetary cooperation through a permanent institution which provides the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems.

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JISC
JISC's activities support education and research by promoting innovation in new technologies and by the central support of ICT services.

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longitudinal database
A wide definition of a longitudinal database might be a searchable mass of computerised data providing information about individuals over time.

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meso database
A mesodata database is usually a survey dataset that has been partly aggregated, or aggregated to very small geographic units, or a mixture of survey and aggregate data.

micro data
Survey or micro data are individual level data, for example data about individual people. In a typical survey dataset, each row represents an individual person and each column an attribute such as age, gender or job-type

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OECD
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) is a group of the world's thirty biggest market economies all market economies. Collectively its member countries account for about two thirds of the world's GDP

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panel database
A panel database containing a special form of longitudinal data in which observations are collected on the same sample of respondents over a period of time.

Purchasing power parity
PPP is the method of using the long-run equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize the currencies' purchasing power. It is based on the law of one price, the idea that, in an efficient market, identical goods must have only one price.

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qualitative database
A non-numeric database containing for example text or video. A typical qualitative database would be a collection of interview transcript.

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SAS
SAS is a proprietary software package commonly used for survey and time series analysis in the social sciences

SDR
The SDR (Special Drawing Right) is an artificial "basket" currency used by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) for internal accounting purposes. The SDR is also used by some countries as a peg for their own currency, and is used as an international reserve asset.

SPSS
SPSS is a proprietary software package commonly used for survey analysis in the social sciences

STATA
STATA is a proprietary software package commonly used for survey and time series analysis in the social sciences

Survey data
Survey or micro data are individual level data, for example data about individual people. In a typical survey dataset, each row represents an individual person and each column an attribute such as age, gender or job-type

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UN
Founded in 1945, the United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues.

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WDI
The World Development Indicators (WDI) is a major international databank produced by the World Bank. It contains statistical data for over 700 development indicators. The extensive collection of development data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources and environmental indicators covering the period 1960 - 2005 for over 200 countries and 18 country groups.

World Bank
The World Bank is an international governmental organisation that provides low-interest loans, interest-free credit and grants to developing countries for education, health, infrastructure, communications and other purposes.

The Bank aids countries in developing their statistical infrastructures and helps with the production of national governmental surveys such as household surveys.

The World bank produces several important, widely cited cross-country databanks. These include the World development Indicators, Government Development Finance and the Africa Development Indicators.

The World Bank are made up of two unique development institutions owned by 184 member countries: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

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The University of Manchester; Mimas; ESRC; RDI

Countries and Citizens: Unit 2 Making cross-national comparisons using macro data by Dave Fysh, University of Portsmouth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.