LibGuides: UGS 303: Global Development / Gerring: Statistics

Numbers are very seductive

"Statistics borrow from mathematics an air of precision and certainty but also call on human judgment and so are subject to bias and imprecision." From Making Sense of Statistics

Don't think of numbers as dry facts. They need to be evaluated for credibility just like anything else.

Who collected this data and for what purpose?
Did someone pay to have this data collected?
What factors might have impacted the data and its interpretation thereof?

Polling the Nations
Includes 80 countries. Not all surveys are up to date for every country.
MarketLine Advantage
$$$$ research. Pretty indepth. This is very exclusive content that most people don't have access to. Use the Country Profiles search.
World Development Indicators (WDI)
Use the World Development Indicators database or International Debt Statistics to start (plenty more to investigate!). Make sure your pop ups are enabled.
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