The Quality of Government Institute in Sweden has released a new cross-national and time-series dataset on. Details below

Today, a new version of the QoG standard datasets has been posted on our webpage. In the new version, 15 May 13, we have completely updated the data and added some new features to the codebook.

The Time-Series dataset with global coverage now spans the time period 1946–2012 and the cross-section year in the Cross-Section dataset has been moved from 2002 to 2009 (or the closest year available). Also, we now provide an additional separate dataset containing the year of measurement (YoM) for all the Cross-Section variables.

Each variable in the dataset has been fully revised. Hence, there might be changes made to the data not only for the last years available but to all years, as the original sources have corrected errors in their data in quite a number of cases. Also, we have used a more strict approach to the units of analysis. We no longer include data for some country-years for which we previously provided data (e.g. we no longer have data for the united Germany before the reunification).

Regarding the codebook, for each variable we have added a bar graph showing the coverage in the Time-Series dataset and a map showing the coverage in the Cross-Section dataset.

Due to the complete update we have lost some variables as they are no longer provided by the original sources. However, for the Cross-Section dataset some of the dropped variables are a result of the use of a narrower time-period when composing the Cross-Section dataset. In order to make it more suitable for contemporary analyses, the data included now refers to the year 2009 with a span of +/-3 years.

You will find detailed information about all the changes we have made in the introduction of the codebook which you find, together with the data, on our webpage:

http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/data/datadownloads/qogstandarddata/