LibGuides: International Relations & Global Studies: Statistics

Finding Statistical Information: Databases and Websites

IMF eLibrary
Includes GDP, population, macroeconomic & financial data as well as working papers. Supports CSV downloads and APIs.
International Debt Statistics
Unlimited users.
Updated annually. Provides a comprehensive view of prospects from the global economy along with the implications for developing countries' external finance. Presents detailed data for 128 countries that report public and publicly guaranteed debt under the World Bank Debtor Reporting System. You can access the data through the dataBank, as an ebook, or in Excel or CSV formats.
OECD iLibrary
Includes quarterly and yearly data. Supports CSV file downloads.

Stat Compiler
The DHS Program STATcompiler allows users to make custom tables based on thousands of demographic and health indicators across more than 90 countries. Customize tables to view indicators by background characteristics, over time, and across countries.

Statista
Unlimited users.
Statista provides statistical data from thousands of institutions and sources. It provides access to data from market and opinion research institutions, as well as from business organizations and government agencies.
Statista includes data on more than 85,000 topics from 18,000 sources. About 20 percent of the total data in Statista comes from sources available free online, such as the World Bank and the U.S. Census, but the data also includes numerous exclusive sources which include industry, marketing, and trade groups. Much of the data is related to marketing, demographic, government and industry information, and is international in scope.
While historical and time series data are not a focus of Statista, the metadata about each table provides all the necessary information to go to the table’s source, where historical information may be available.

United Nations Data
Includes statistical data on population, education, labor, gender, health and more.
UN Statistical Yearbook Series
Includes data going back to the 1930s for some countries. Includes CSV files (after 2013) and PDFs for earlier material.
World Bank Microdata Library
Good for survey data about population, housing, agriculture. Includes sample surveys from households and business establishments.

World Bank Publications
Unlimited users.
Updated daily. An online collection of more than 130,000 World Bank documents and publications. Browsing or searching provides access to the documents in both text and downloadable PDF format.
The World Bank is one of the United Nations' specialized agencies, and is made up of 187 member countries.

World Development Indicators
Includes data on poverty, education, social justice, human rights and more. Supports CSV file downloads

Getting Started with Statistics

As you start to search for statistics, think about how and why the data behind the statistics might have been gathered, including by whom. Ask questions such as

What is the time period? Is this historical or more recent data?
What is the geographic region covered by the data? Is local, regional, national level data?
Who created the data and why? Was is a governmental project? a think tank? a community-based project?

Think also about the research method used in gathering the data as well as the methods you might like to use with it. Can you download the data (Excel, CSV), manipulate and/or visualize it (charts, graphs), does it include geospatial data (for GIS)?