About this Resource

Obtaining information about databanks and standards is often important in making cross national comparisons.Such information is obtainable at several levels, available in external manuals, or attached to the database, series, indicator or individual data point.

Data series obtained from the UK Data Service contain some metadata within tables and reports that often give an immediate check on comparability.

The IMF run a program to make direct cross national comparisons of metadata - see next section.

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.