Country-year Data Research Articles

Nations’ share of innovative entrepreneurs: financial systems to the rescue in difficult institutional settings

With much of the literature declaring little role for financial systems in boosting a nation's share of innovative entrepreneurs, this study argues that financial systems play an important role when other parts of the national business systems —skills and government— are weak. This argument is supported by an analysis of a panel data set comprising 283 country-year data over five years. Overall, this research contributes to a stream of research about the context for entrepreneurial aspirations or entrepreneurship quality. The study empirically confirms an idea seldom tested: the interplay required between systems components, such as institutions, to increase national innovative capacity.

Addressing fiscal uncertainty: Proposing policy pathways for enhancing economic growth and fertility rates in South Korea

This study investigates the critical role of fiscal uncertainty in driving economic growth in South Korea and explores the potential implications for the nation's long-standing low fertility challenge. Utilizing country-year data and advanced measures disaggregating economic policy uncertainty into dimensions like fiscal, monetary, and trade uncertainty, the analysis reveals a strong negative association between fiscal uncertainty and GDP growth rates over the past three decades. Periods of heightened fiscal volatility, characterized by unpredictable government spending, tax policies, and overall economic instability, consistently preceded declines in economic growth. Moreover, the findings indicate that fiscal uncertainty moderates the relationship between economic expansion and fertility rates. While GDP growth generally improves conditions favorable for childbearing by raising living standards, the positive impact on fertility diminishes as fiscal uncertainty increases. Strikingly, at sufficiently high levels of uncertainty, economic growth fails to boost fertility rates, underscoring the crucial role of fiscal stability in reaping the full benefits of growth. These insights highlight the importance of reducing fiscal uncertainty through strategies like implementing tax and spending "calendarization" systems and adopting long-term policy planning horizons. By promoting fiscal predictability and fostering an environment conducive to sustained economic expansion, policymakers can indirectly create conditions that support higher fertility rates by alleviating household aversion to uncertainty. While focused on economic factors, this research acknowledges the multifaceted nature of fertility decisions and calls for a holistic policy approach combined with further causal investigations using micro-level data and experimental designs. Ultimately, prioritizing fiscal stability and addressing fiscal uncertainty present a critical pathway towards stimulating economic growth and potentially revitalizing fertility rates in South Korea and similar developed nations confronting demographic challenges.

The effect of crude oil price changes on civil conflict intensity in rentier states

While existing literature has considered the relationship between oil and conflict, most of the studies have failed to consider mechanisms that might mediate the effect of the fluctuating market price of oil on conflict. We theorize that the military capacity of the state is a key mediating mechanism for understanding the relationship between shifting oil market prices and conflict intensity. We argue that states which rely upon oil sales to fund a large portion of government spending will have a more difficult time maintaining conflict-reducing state capacity during times in which oil prices are below previously prevailing averages for extended lengths of time. Using country-year data in 67 conflict states from 1989–2019, we find that low average oil prices are associated with lower military spending which in turn is associated with higher rates of battle fatalities in existing civil conflicts.

Are stunted child – overweight mother pairs a real defined entity or a statistical artifact?

In a methodological contribution, Dieffenbach & Stein (DS) (The Journal of Nutrition, 142(4), 771–773.) concluded that the double burden of malnutrition (DBM), represented by stunted child – overweight mother pairs (SCOM), is a statistical artifact, meaning that SCOM does not describe a unique phenomenon because the observed rates of SCOM across a number of countries were not strongly different from the product of observed rates of maternal overweight (OM) and child stunting (SC), which DS referred to as the expected rate of SCOM. However, a growing literature continues to use SCOM as an indicator of the DBM. This study shows that the analysis by DS is not sufficient to conclude that SCOM can be explained by the co-occurrence of OM and SC due to chance alone because the analysis by DS was conducted at the country level, but applied to SCOM, which is a household-level variable. Using Demographic and Health Surveys data from 202 country-year data sets, we do not confirm important implicit assumptions that are required for the claim by DS to be supported. We also outline that comparing the expected to the observed rate of SCOM is primarily informative when putting it in relation to factors that influence the supply and demand of food consumed by households. When considering these factors, we find further evidence that it is misleading to consider SCOM as a statistical artifact, as the difference between the observed and the expected rate of SCOM significantly differs by household wealth. Recognizing that SCOM is a distinct phenomenon is important for policymakers who develop double-duty strategies that address malnutrition, and for researchers who need useful indicators to study the determinants of malnutrition at the household level.

The Relationships Between National Intellectual Capital and Foreign Direct Investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has a significant influence on economic development, productivity and competitiveness in host countries. Policymakers are eager to attract FDI. With the importance of the knowledge economy, intellectual capital becomes a critical determinant of FDI location choice. Thus, the study tries to understand the relationships between national intellectual capital (NIC) and FDI in host countries and to compare the differences between developed countries and developing countries. The study hypothesizes that each component of NIC (human capital, market capital, process capital, renewal capital and financial capital) is positively related to FDI. Moreover, in developed countries, human capital and renewal capital has more influence on FDI while in developing countries, market capital and process capital have more influence on FDI.
 The study uses data from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Taiwan Intellectual Capital Research Center (TICRC). Because of data availability, the sample needs to be both included in the database of UNCTAD and TICRC during 2001 to 2018. The final sample consists of 59 countries which extends over the five continents. The study proceeds by using panel data, pooling 56 countries for the period from 2001 to 2019 after the Hausman test to determine whether there are fixed effects or random effects. A generalized least square (GLS) model is used to test the hypotheses with country-year data for FDI analysis.
 The results confirm that each dimension of NIC is positively related to inward FDI, indicating to the importance of NIC to attract inward FDI. In addition, national market capital, national process capital and national renewal capital have more influence on inward FDI in developing countries than in developed countries. Conclusions and practical suggestions are also provided.

Adjudicating Competing Theories: Does Civilian Control Over the Military Decrease Conflict?

What explains variation in the propensity for conflict involvement and initiation among states? In the study of international security, a debate remains between those who argue stronger civilian control of the military lowers the likelihood of interstate conflict, and those who argue that states with stronger civilian control over the military will be more conflict-prone. This article adjudicates between these competing theories through the use of a newly published measure of civilian control over the military. The theory is tested via Poisson regression using a large-N country-year data set. Ultimately, the results support theories of military restraint, showing that states with stronger civilian control over the military are more conflict-prone than states with weaker civilian control of the military. The article contributes to our understanding of war and interstate conflict and the study of civil–military relations by showing that increased civilian control increases the likelihood of interstate conflict.

Study on indirect economic impacts and their causes of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake

In terms of events that undermine economic growth, the impact of natural disasters is huge and inevitable. Taking the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake as the research object, and based on the country-year data for 181 counties in Sichuan Province from 1999 to 2018, this paper uses the dynamic difference-in-difference method to investigate the indirect impact of this event on the economy. The main findings are as follows: Even though the central government has introduced reconstruction policies and invested a lot of reconstruction funds, in 2018, the per capita income in the extremely and relatively severe disaster areas was still significantly lower than the counterfactual by 21.96% and 7.61%, respectively. There is heterogeneity in the long-term indirect impacts in areas with different disaster levels, and the economies of the extremely severe disaster areas may form a "poverty trap," while the economies of the relatively severe disaster areas are still in a slow recovery state. It was further found that the assistance of central government’s reconstruction funds and the increase in local government expenditure are the reasons for the rapid economic recovery in the short term, and the insufficient level of total demand caused by the investment and consumption is the main reasons for the negative indirect impact on the economy in the disaster areas.

Clusters of people with type 2 diabetes in the general population: unsupervised machine learning approach using national surveys in Latin America and the Caribbean

IntroductionWe aimed to identify clusters of people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and to assess whether the frequency of these clusters was consistent across selected countries in Latin America...

Marketplace of indicators: inconsistencies between country trends of measures of the rule of law

ABSTRACT Social scientists can choose from among multiple quality of governance indicators which use different conceptualizations of governance and its components, rely on different data sources, and employ different aggregation and scaling techniques. Despite all differences, these indicators are commonly found to be strongly correlated, which makes the choice of indicator for a given analysis seem inconsequential. We focus on rule of law indicators to demonstrate that correlations among them are indeed high when comparing across countries or using pooled country-year data sets, but are surprisingly low – sometimes even negative – within countries. Given the increased interest of researchers in longitudinal analyses with country time series, low agreement between country time trends in the rule of law is concerning. We illustrate the problem with an analysis of the effect of rule of law on popular support for democracy, which leads to opposite conclusions depending on which measure of rule of law is used.

How and how much does expert error matter? Implications for quantitative peace research

Expert-coded datasets provide scholars with otherwise unavailable data on important concepts. However, expert coders vary in their reliability and scale perception, potentially resulting in substantial measurement error. These concerns are acute in expert coding of key concepts for peace research. Here I examine (1) the implications of these concerns for applied statistical analyses, and (2) the degree to which different modeling strategies ameliorate them. Specifically, I simulate expert-coded country-year data with different forms of error and then regress civil conflict onset on these data, using five different modeling strategies. Three of these strategies involve regressing conflict onset on point estimate aggregations of the simulated data: the mean and median over expert codings, and the posterior median from a latent variable model. The remaining two strategies incorporate measurement error from the latent variable model into the regression process by using multiple imputation and a structural equation model. Analyses indicate that expert-coded data are relatively robust: across simulations, almost all modeling strategies yield regression results roughly in line with the assumed true relationship between the expert-coded concept and outcome. However, the introduction of measurement error to expert-coded data generally results in attenuation of the estimated relationship between the concept and conflict onset. The level of attenuation varies across modeling strategies: a structural equation model is the most consistently robust estimation technique, while the median over expert codings and multiple imputation are the least robust.

USA aid policy and induced abortion in sub-Saharan Africa: an analysis of the Mexico City Policy

The Mexico City Policy, first announced by US President Ronald Reagan and since lifted and reinstated by presidents along partisan lines, prohibits US foreign assistance to any organisation that performs or provides counselling on abortion. Many organisations affected by this policy are also providers of modern contraception. If the policy reduces these organisations' ability to supply modern contraceptives, it could have the unintended consequence of increasing abortion rates. We empirically examined patterns of modern contraception use, pregnancies, and abortion among women in 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa in response to the reinstatement and subsequent repeal of the Mexico City Policy across three presidential administrations (William Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama). We combine individual-level data on pregnancies and abortions from 743 691 women, country-year data on modern contraception use, and annual data on development assistance for family planning and reproductive health in a difference-in-difference framework to examine relative changes in use of modern contraception, pregnancy, and abortion in response to the policy. We found that when the Mexico City Policy was in effect (2001-08), abortion rates rose among women in countries highly exposed to the policy by 4·8 abortions per 10 000 woman-years (95% CI 1·5 to 8·1, p=0·0041) relative to women in low-exposure countries and relative to periods when the policy was rescinded in 1995-2000 and 2009-14, a rise of approximately 40%. We found a symmetric reduction in use of modern contraception by 3·15 percentage points (relative decrease of 13·5%; 95% CI -4·9 to -1·4; p=0·0006) and increase in pregnancies by 3·2 percentage points (relative increase of 12%; 95% CI 1·6 to 4·8; p<0·0001) while the policy was enacted. Our findings suggest that curbing US assistance to family planning organisations, especially those that consider abortion as a method of family planning, increases abortion prevalence in sub-Saharan African countries most affected by the policy. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Stanford Earth Dean's Fellowship.

How (wo)men rebel

Previous studies find a strong relationship between armed conflict and gender equality, but only compare armed conflict to no armed conflict onset. However, opposition movements use different means to challenge governments, such as nonviolent or armed strategies. This study explores this variation and poses the question: How does the level of gender equality affect the onset of nonviolent campaigns and armed conflicts? It makes two contributions. First, I quantitatively test the impact of gender equality on different forms of conflict onset, and second, I propose a comprehensive gendered mobilization argument based on strategic choice theory. Nonviolent campaigns rely on mass participation, and the nonviolent conflict literature claims that they are open to a wider array of participants, including women, compared to armed conflicts. I argue that gender norms affect movements’ expectations of mobilization (mass or limited) as well as conflict norms (nonviolent or violent) in society, and subsequently, the choice of conflict strategy. I hypothesize that higher levels of gender equality, measured by fertility rate and female-to-male primary school enrolment ratio, increase the likelihood of nonviolent campaign onset, compared to both armed and no campaign onset. This study analyses country-year data from the UCDP and NAVCO datasets between 1961 and 2006 and finds that increases in gender equality are, on average, associated with an increased likelihood of nonviolent conflict onset.

The international political economy data resource

Quantitative scholars in international relations often draw repeatedly on the same sources of country-year data across a diverse range of projects. The International Political Economy Data Resource seeks to provide a public good to the field by standardizing and merging together 951 variables from 78 core International Political Economy data sources into a single dataset, increasing efficiency and reducing the risk of data management errors. Easier access to data encourages researchers to perform more robustness checks in their own work and replicate others’ published results more often. It also and makes it easier for teachers of quantitative research methods to assign realistic exercises to their students. This resource will be updated and expanded annually. The full resource is available via the Harvard Dataverse Network, with versions also available via the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University and NewGene.

From the web to the streets: internet and protests under authoritarian regimes

ABSTRACTThis article systematically investigates the relationship between internet use and protests in authoritarian states and democracies. It argues that unlike in democracies, internet use has facilitated the occurrence of protests in authoritarian regimes, developing a theoretical rationale for this claim and substantiating it with robust empirical evidence. The article argues that whereas information could already flow relatively freely in democracies, the use of the internet has increased access to information in authoritarian regimes despite authoritarian attempts to control cyberspace. The article suggests this increased access to information positively affects protesting in authoritarian states via four complementary causal pathways: (1) by reducing the communication costs for oppositional movements; (2) by instigating attitudinal change; (3) decreasing the informational uncertainty for potential protesters; and (4) through the mobilizing effect of the spread of dramatic videos and images. These causal pathways are illustrated using anecdotal evidence from the Tunisian revolution (2010–2011). The general claim that internet use has facilitated the occurrence of protests under authoritarian rule is systematically tested in a global quantitative study using country-year data from 1990 to 2013. Internet use increases the expected number of protests in authoritarian states as hypothesized. This effect remains robust across a number of model specifications.

Enforcing order: Territorial reach and maritime piracy

Existing studies of piracy focus attention on the institutional determinants of maritime piracy, but neglect variation in governments’ reach over territory. We argue that the effect of state capacity on piracy is a function of states’ ability to extend authority over the country’s entire territory. We expect that government reach—a function of geographic factors such as the distance between a country’s capital and its coastline—mediates the effect of state capacity on piracy. Weak governments allow for the planning and implementation of attacks and reduce the risk of capture, but particularly so if sufficient distance separates pirates from political authority. An empirical analysis of country-year data on maritime piracy collected by the International Maritime Bureau for the 1995–2013 period shows that capital–coastline distance mediates the effect of institutional fragility on piracy as hypothesized. These results remain robust for alternative operationalizations of state capacity and reach. In addition, the models perform well in terms of predictive power, forecasting piracy quite accurately for 2013. The expectations and evidence presented in this paper help explain why states with intermediate levels of state capacity but low levels of reach—such as Indonesia, Tanzania or Venezuela—struggle with substantial incidence of piracy.

All in the family: Explaining the persistence of female genital cutting in West Africa

Why does female genital cutting (FGC) persist in certain places but has declined elsewhere? We study the persistence of FGC—proxied for by whether survey respondents are in favor of the practice continuing—in West Africa. We use 38 repeated cross-sectional country-year data sets covering 310,613 women aged 15 to 49 in 13 West African countries for the period 1995–2013. The data exhibit sufficient within-household variation to allow controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity between households, which in turn allows determining how much variation is due to factors at the levels of the individual, household, village, and beyond. Our results show that on average, 87% of the variation in FGC persistence can be attributed to household- and individual-level factors, with contributions from those levels of variation ranging from 71% in Nigeria in 2011 to 93% in Burkina Faso in 2006. Our results also suggest that once invariant factors across women aged 15 to 49 in the same household are accounted for, women who report having undergone FGC in West Africa are on average 16 percentage points more likely to be in favor of the practice.

The International Political Economy Data Resource

Quantitative scholars in international relations often draw repeatedly on the same sources of country-year data across a diverse range of projects. The IPE Data Resource seeks to provide a public good to the field by standardizing and merging together 871 variables from 73 core IPE data sources into a single dataset, increasing efficiency and reducing the risk of data management errors. Easier access to data both encourages researchers to perform more robustness checks than they otherwise might and makes it easier for teachers of quantitative research methods to assign realistic exercises to their students. This resource will be updated and expanded bi-annually and is available via the Harvard Dataverse Network.

Power at Sea: A Naval Power Dataset, 1865–2011

Naval power is a crucial element of state power, yet existing naval data sets are limited to a small number of states and ship types. Here we present 147 years of naval data on all the world’s navies from 1865 to 2011. This country-year data set focuses on warships with ship-based weapons capable of using kinetic force to inflict damage on other structures or peoples. After identifying a country’s active naval forces, we create a measure of naval power based on the aggregate tonnage of the active ships. Additionally, we create count variables for ship types such as aircraft carriers or battleships. This article introduces the country-year data, describes variables of interests for use in country-year, dyadic, or systemic studies, and suggests potential questions of interest scholars could explore using the naval power data set.

Disaggregating Torture Allegations: Introducing the Ill-Treatment and Torture (ITT) Country-Year Data

The Ill-Treatment and Torture (ITT) Data Collection Project uses content analysis to measure allegations of government ill-treatment and torture made by Amnesty International (AI) from 1995 to 2005. ITT's country-year (CY) data quantify AI allegations of ill-treatment and torture at the country-year unit of observation and further across different responsible government agents and across different econo-socio-political groups of alleged victims. This paper introduces the Ill-Treatment and Torture country-year data, describes quantitative patterns likely to be of interest to researchers focused on the study of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and human rights, and suggests a number of theoretically motivated questions that can be explored using the ITT country-year data.