Skip to Main Content

Economics: Development

Economic Development

The UC Berkeley Libraries also have detailed web guides to government information sources, including a guide to International Economic Organizations such as the World Bank, IMF, OECD and WTO, as well as guides to the United Nations and European Union.

Millennium Development Goals Logo
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN (Public Domain, CC0 1.0) by United Nations.

Databases and Search Engines

Africa-Wide Information. A comprehensive database covering journals, newspapers, books and more on all aspects of Africa including politics, history, and economics.

AgEcon Search. Free open access repository of scholarly literature in agricultural and applied economics, from the Univertsity of Minnesota.

Econlit. Most comprehensive database to scholarly journal articles in economics. Also lists books and dissertations, and articles within collective works.

Eldis. Online information service providing access to research on international development issues. 

IDEAS. Free database on economics with full-text working papers, books, book chapters, and articles from peer-reviewed journals.

Middle East and Central Asian Studies. Journal and newspaper articles, books and research on the culture and politics of the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.

PAIS International. Indexes information related to public policy, politics, economics, and international affairs.

ProQuest Social Sciences. An interdisciplinary metasearch through the the social sciences indexes on ProQuest. Includes EconLit, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), PAIS, Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts and more.

RedALyC: Red de Revistas Cientificas de America Latina y El Caribe. Spanish language e-journals covering all aspects of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences and with a focus on materials published in and about Spanish speaking nations. 

SciELO: Scientific Electronic Library Online. Collection of open access scholarly online journals in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities in the Global South, particularly Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Social Science Research Network.  Research network devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research.See especially the economics research network.

Women's Studies International. Content on women's studies, women's issues, gender-focused books and book chapters, journal and magazine articles, and reports world-wide.

Digital Collections

Economic Growth Center Digital Library. Mexican state statistical abstracts and Nigerian commodity price statistical volumes from Yale University's Economic Growth Center Library.

Eldis. Online information service providing free access to relevant, up-to-date and diverse research on international development issues. The database includes summaries and links to full-text research and policy documents from thousands of publishers.

IMF ​Elibrary.  Library of IMF publications and statistics, including Key IMF statistical titles and the Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions 

Institute for Development Studies Digital Library.  Full-text copies of developing country research curated by IDS made available online to a global audience

OECD. Publications and data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including country studies and datasets. Includes data on trade, telecommunications, foreign aid, migration, and other categories.

World Bank Open Knowledge Repository.  World Bank’s open access repository for research. Includes annual reports, books, flagship publications, and articles published in the World Bank Economic Review and World Bank Research Observer.

World Bank Project Documents (Documents and Reports). Main information source for World Bank projects.  Full-text of World Bank project reports. 

Selected Data Sources

Africa Development Indicators.  World Bank data on Africa covering 53 countries from 1961 to present.

AID Data. Project level data from around the world, articles from peer reviewed journals, and "aid data raw" which allows researchers to subset data by donor, recipient, and purpose for multiple years.

Center for Global Development Dataverse. Addresses policies & practices of countries and institutions to reduce global poverty and inequality.

China’s Overseas Development Finance Database. Record of Chinese overseas development finance from 2008-2019, including the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative. From Boston University. 

FAOSTAT. Extensive data on agriculture, food supply, food security, prices, commodities, forest products, and fisheries from the FAO.

Foreign Assistance.gov. Data about the U.S. government's foreign assistance funding. Data is viewable by country, sector, and year and can be queried.

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Data on a variety of agricultural and resource topics, including  hunger and poverty, social capital, livestock and more.

International Household Survey Network. Catalog of survey data sets from international organizations working in development (World Bank, UN Statistics Division, UNICEF and others). 

International Trade Center Market Analysis Tools. UC Berkeley subscribes, register to access additional detailed data from the Trade Map and the Investment Map and more. 

Human Development Report Data. Statistics from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Human Development Index.

OECD Data Explorer. Primary source for global official development assistance (government aid) data.

Opportunity Insights.  Research and policy institute focused on improving economic opportunity and economic mobility - uses "the power of big data to document both the decline of the American Dream and potential solutions to revive it."

Replication Data Wiki. Derves as a database of empirical studies, the availability of replication material for them and of replication studies.

UNCTADStat. From the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development. See also the World Investment Directory, with FDI data by country.

UN Data. Wide range of economic, social, cultural, and demographic indicators: population, environment, health, economics, technology, trade, refugees, and more.

UNIDO Statistics Data PortalInternational data on industries and mining with data on establishments, employees, wages, output, and female employees by industry (4-digit level of the ISIC) from 1990; and at the 2 digit ISIC for countries back to 1963.

World Bank Data Catalog. Comprehensive catalog of international economic, financial, and socio-economic data from the World Bank.

World Development Indicators. Time series data from 1960 for 207 countries in the areas of population, labor, education, economics, the environment and more.

World Income Inequality Database. From UNU: not to be confused with the source below. Information for countries on income inequalities at both cross-country and time series levels over the period 1950-2018, with a focus on the period since 1980.

World Inequality Database. Provide access to available data historical evolution of the world distribution of income and wealth, within countries and between countries.