Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive- reliable?

[RefurbedScientist]

Hey all,

Sorry this is a really specific question and applies only to the social science types out there.

Is anyone familiar with the Banks' Cross-National Time-Series Data Archive (CNTS)? Details are here: http://www.nsd.uib.no/macrodataguide/set.html?id=10&sub=1

I'm looking to find relationships between country-level economic and political characteristics (e.g. gov't expenditure per capita) and different political event counts.

Has anyone worked with this or know of its reputation? The data have been compiled from other sources, so it's all second- or third-hand collected, leaving me a little dubious about its reliability, especially given its scope over time and nations.

Thanks so much,

SG

[calamaria]

Yes, SG. Banks's data set has widely been used particularly by political scientists and some sociologists. As long as you note that some nation-level covariates came from Bank's data set in your paper, I guess nobody would tackle about it.

Polity Database is also popular, and there are couple of other database you may use.

Have a fun with your research!

[RefurbedScientist]

Hey thanks Calamaria. That's reassuring. I'll also definitely check out Polity.