Datasets

• Globalization and Income Distribution Dataset
• Household Survey Data
• Household Expenditure and Income Data for Transitional Economies--HEIDI Datasets
  
  Please also visit these links:
• Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) Datasets
• Povcal Household Survey Data

Globalization and Income Distribution Dataset
What is the impact of greater trade/GDI and greater direct foreign investment/GDI ratios on income shares of various deciles in poor and rich countries? At low average income level, the share of the poor is less in countries that are more open to trade. As mean income level rises, the situation changes. April 2005. Dataset used in Can we discern the effect of globalization on income distribution? evidence from household budget surveys. Final version published in World Bank Economic Review, No. 1, 2005, pp. 21-44.  Click here for dataset. 

Household Survey Data
All the GINIS you ever wanted!  
Combined  Gini data from Deininger-Squire (suffix DS), WIDER (suffix W), and World Income Distribution (suffix WY) databases; with their key dummies (net/gross, income/expenditure, household/individual). More than 1300 consistent Gini values from 160 countries and covering the period from 1950 to 2005.  Data are in STATA. Click here. 
For explanation of the variables and how the dataset was created click here.

Household survey data used to derive the first "true" world income distribution--version 2 including benchmark years 1988, 1993 and 1998
(in Excel spreadsheet format)

Data Sources (pdf format)

• Source of Information for Listed Countries in 1988
• Source of Information for Listed Countries in 1993
• Source of Information for Listed Countries in 1998

Income distribution statistics from transition economies 1995 onwards!
(To view the above file, you must have Office 97--Excel)

Household Expenditure and Income Data for Transitional Economies--
The Online HEIDE Database
The startling drop in incomes and increase in inequality accompanying the transition to market economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union raise critical questions: Who is most likely to be poor? How well are existing social assistance programs reaching those who most need help? And what kind of programs would be most effective in reducing poverty? As part of a project analyzing poverty and social assistance in the transition economies, a Bank research team created a database of household expenditure and income data from recent surveys - the HEIDE database. (See the book by J. Braithwaite, Ch. Grootaert and B. Milanovic, "Poverty and social assistance in Transition Countries, St. Martin's Press, 1999" and the book by B. Milanovic, Income, inequality, and poverty during the transition from planned to market economy, World Bank, 1998.)

The HEIDE database includes four countries in both Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The entire HEIDE database and data descriptions are available in ZIP format (5430K): click  here to download.Country data and their descriptions can also be individually downloaded:

If you don't have decompression software needed to view the zipped files, visit PK Ware Inc. and download a shareware version of PKZIP for windows.

Data are in STATA 5.0 format. Users can translate the data set into lower versions of STATA, SAS, or SPSS, or other programs using standard transfer software such as DBMS/COPY.

The survey data were cleaned for possible inconsistencies and errors and adjusted for missing data and outliers. The compilation of almost 100 variables with similar definitions for the eight countries allows ready cross-country analysis and comparisons. A consistent syntax is used for the variables to enable researchers to use the same macro routines across countries. (The HEIDE documentation describes the data cleaning proceduresand gives a detailed definition of each variablefor each country.) There are more than 3 million data points.

The variables are divided into six groups:

Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) Datasets
Household data for other regions may be found on the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS)site. This site provides resources for LSMS documents, data sets, research, and tools for managing and using household surveys.