Resources for Data Scholarship in Business & Economics

The Annual Survey of Jails, formerly titled National Survey of Jails, is the only data collection effort that provides an annual source of data on local jails and jail inmates

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), is the primary source for criminal justice statistics in the United States.

The Compendium of National Juvenile Justice Data Sets is an online resource for researchers that is intended as an aid to investigations of juvenile offending, victimization, and contact with the juvenile justice system.

ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S.. Government sources of crime.

Aggregates statistics from many sources and includes demographics, employment, business patterns, crime, building permits, housing affordability, and city finance.

Click on type of offense, then "Browse By" Offense Types and geographic units through tables.

Data include Consumer Spending, Consumer Spending by State, Real Consumer Spending by State, Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, Excluding Food and Energy.

Complaints that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sends to companies for response are published in the Consumer Complaint Database after the company responds, confirming a commercial relationship with the consumer, or after 15 days, whichever comes first. 2012- present

Online survey data in the United States
Years Available: 2012-2022
10 years’ (40 quarters) of online survey data in the United States. Unaided product and outlet capture allows read of much smaller brands and retailers. Data in this file is for years 2012-2022. Primary, quantitative survey data allows collection of comprehensive KPIs not available through POS data, receipt data, or other sources. How to Access Dewey

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is typically a triennial cross-sectional survey of U.S. families. The survey data includes information on families’ balance sheets, pensions, income, and demographic characteristics, covering the years 1962-2022. For access to SCF restricted information, please visit ResearchDataGov and the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDC).

US consumer, automotive, & property data
Regions Available: US
Total Consumer Insights, Consumer Panel - Hundreds of attributes on individuals and households with topics including geographic, demographic, household, and real estate data.
Total Consumer Insights, Property - $84B+ data points on residential and commercial structures .Total Consumer Insights, Auto Ownership - Leverages licensed auto data to detail household car attributes and ownership. How to Access Dewey

Presidential general elections (by state 1824+; by county 1920+)
Presidential primary (by state, years vary widely)

Election data spanning federal, state, and local levels is encompassed, ranging from states, districts, counties, and precincts, covering the period from 1976 to 2020 (depending on the dataset)

Tables, graphs, and maps for presidential general (1789-present); primary (1992+) by state;
County data table is only available to members.

ICPSR's holdings of historical election data cover the years 1788-1990 and consist of several discrete datasets that contain county- and state-level returns for all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative.

Includes general, primary, and special elections to federal, gubernatorial, and state legislative office (by county and precinct, generally 2000–present). The project is still in process, but many states have data available, especially for recent general elections

Voter Turnout Data: national and state level turnout rates and early voting statistics for selected states and jurisdictions, along with voting statistics for selected demographics.
Precinct-level Election Result Shapefiles

County-level returns for general elections to the presidency, data in Stata, SAS, and SPSS formats.

The U.S. Census Bureau through the Current Population Survey collects data on reported voter registration and voter turnout. The reports provide statistical data by turnout, age, race and origin.

Comprehensive turnout statistics for general and primary elections for presidential, congressional, and state gubernatorial races. Extensive tables provide state level figures (including partisan turnout) grouped by office or election type in 20 year chunks. Data in Excel or .csv.

Established in 1999 at the University of California-Santa Barbara, this repository provides nearly 100,000 current and historical executive branch documents on American Presidents from 1789 to 2008. Documents include:Public Papers of the Presidents, States of the Union Addresses and Messages, Inaugural Addresses, Saturday Radio Addresses, Fireside Chats, Signing Statements, Press Briefings, Statements of Administration Policy, Party, Veto Messages, Addresses to Congress, Addresses to the Nation, Address to the U.N., Addresses to Foreign Legislatures.

Transcripts of Presidential and Vice Presidential debates, 1960 and every four years beginning 1976.

Includes information for petroleum and other liquids, natural gas, electricity, coal, renewable and alternative fuels.

EPA environmental dataset gateway.

WDI Online is the premiere data source on the global economy. It contains statistical data for over 800 development indicators and time series data from 1960-2007 for 227 economies. Data includes social, economic, financial, natural resources, and environmental indicators. Data selection screens are intuitive and easy to use. Results can be scaled, charted, and mapped.

Provides global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants by country in some cases back to 1970.

Including Environment Statistics Database, Greenhouse Gas Inventory Data, World Meteorological Organization Standard Normals on country level from 1990s.

Data and statistics on climate, forest, waste, and water from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

CDP's open data portal provides climate change and sustainability data from more than 1,200 city, state and regional governments.

Open-Meteo, an open-source project using national weather data, provides free weather APIs for non-commercial use. These include forecasts, historical weather since 1940, climate models, marine forecasts, air quality data, and more.

Construction site activity data
Regions Available: US & Canada
BP Ticket, Roll-off - Tracks the movement of open-top construction dumpsters holding construction and demolition debris.
BP Ticket, Works - Tracks machinery rentals such as lifts, booms, lulls and other equipment used in general construction and residential/commercial roofing. How to Access Dewey

Climate risk data
Regions Available: US
ZIP-level climate risk data - Current and modeled heat, precipitation, drought, flooding, and fire risk data for over 33,000 zip codes in the United States. How to Access Dewey

IRENA publishes detailed statistics on renewable energy capacity, power generation and renewable energy balances. This data is collected directly from members using the IRENA Renewable Energy Statistics questionnaire and is also supplemented by desk research where official statistics are not available.

A NOAA Data Search Platform contains data including weather, climate, satellites, fisheries, coasts and oceans.

The portal brings data together in one place with common tools to make CDC’s chronic disease data easier to access and use by both current and new audiences.

CDC WONDER manages nearly 20 collections of public-use data for U.S. births, deaths, cancer diagnoses, tuberculosis cases, vaccinations, environmental exposures, and population estimates, among many other topics. These data collections are available as online databases, which provide public access to ad-hoc queries, summary statistics, maps, charts, and data extracts.

Search all government agencies for health data with easy filter and download.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) offers practical, research-based tools and other resources to help a variety of health care organizations, providers and others make care safer in all health care settings. Key databases provided include the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).

The Rankings are unique in their ability to measure the health of nearly every county in all 50 states, and are complemented by guidance, tools, and resources designed to accelerate community learning and action.

The World Health Organization's portal to data and analyses for monitoring the global health situation.

HSRIC is a research portal of health services research resources providing numerous Internet links to data, funding announcements, reports, podcasts, discussion groups, and more.

The Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED) provides comparable data on health expenditure for more than 190 WHO Member States since 2000 with open access to the public.

Data on the health status of the population including obesity (overweight, obese), suicide and life expectancy, health care financing, health care resources, social protection, health care utilization, the pharmaceutical market, long-term care resources and utilization, non-medical determinants of health, expenditure on health, and demographic and economic references, with coverage being provided for OECD and selected non-OECD countries as far back as 1960.

State Health Facts is a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and provides free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States. In some cases, data are available for counties, territories, and other geographies. State Health Facts is comprised of more than 800 health indicators and provides users with the ability to map, rank, trend, and download data.

The World Health Organization's World Health Statistics reports are collated from publications and databases produced by WHO's technical programmes and regional offices. The core set of indicators was selected on the basis of their relevance to global health, the availability and quality of the data, and the accuracy and comparability of estimates. The statistics for the indicators are derived from an interactive process of data collection, compilation, quality assessment and estimation occurring among WHO's technical programmes and its Member States. During this process, WHO strives to maximize the accessibility, accuracy, comparability and transparency of health statistics.

PLACES provides model-based, population-level analysis and community estimates of health measures to all counties, places (incorporated and census designated places), census tracts, and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) across the United States. Learn more about PLACES.

The Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll and the Census of Governments, Survey of Public Employment & Payroll measure the number of state and local civilian government employees and their gross monthly payroll for March of the survey year.

The BLS is the principal fact-finding agency for the Federal government in the broad fields of labor economics and statistics.

The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly survey of households conducted by the Bureau of Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It provides a comprehensive body of data on the labor force, employment, unemployment and persons not in the labor force.

Statistical resources from the ILO, including ILOSTAT, LABORSTA, Key Indicators of the Labour Market (KILM), Labour Force Surveys, Statistical Information and Monitoring Programme on Child Labour (IPEC-SIMPOC).

The Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program is part of the Center for Economic Studies at the U.S. Census Bureau. The LEHD program produces cost effective, public-use information combining federal, state and Census Bureau data on employers and employees under the Local Employment Dynamics (LED) Partnership.

The O*NET Program is the nation's primary source of occupational information. The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is developed under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA) through a grant to the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) program produces employment and wage estimates annually for approximately 830 occupations. These estimates are available for the nation as a whole, for individual states, and for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas; national occupational estimates for specific industries are also available.
Related Publications: Occupational Outlook Handbook (BLS), Occupational Outlook Handbook - 1949-2010.

The study began in 1968 with a nationally representative sample of over 18,000 individuals living in 5,000 families in the United States. Information on these individuals and their descendants has been collected continuously, including data covering employment, income, wealth, expenditures, health, marriage, childbearing, child development, philanthropy, education, and numerous other topics.

SIPP is a nationally representative longitudinal survey that provides comprehensive information on the dynamics of income, employment, household composition, and government program participation.

The Union Membership and Coverage Database, is an Internet data resource providing private and public sector labor union membership, coverage, and density estimates compiled from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly household survey, using BLS methods. Economy-wide estimates are provided beginning in 1973; estimates by state, detailed industry, and detailed occupation begin in 1983; and estimates by metropolitan area begin in 1986. The Database, constructed by Barry Hirsch (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University) and David Macpherson (Department of Economics, Trinity University), is updated annually.

NYC Open Data makes the wealth of public data generated by various New York City agencies and other City organizations available for public use.

Zoning maps and zoning resolution text, redevelopment and rezoning proposals and plans, neighborhood profiles with statistical reports, Open Data (MapPLUTO, Privately Owned Public Spaces, Inclusionary Housing)

CoreData is the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy's data finding tool. CoreData collects a broad array of data on demographics, neighborhood conditions, transportation, housing stock and other aspects of the New York City real estate market.

CitiBike releases data on bike rides throughout the city of New York. The data is available to download quarterly.

Bytes of the Big Apple is NYC's delivery mechanism for public land-related datasets. The Department of City Planning is committed to making its public data freely available to developers and to all members of the public.

The Columbia Geospatial Data Repository provides New York City geospatial data on topics including the economy, transportation, education, and more.

Brings together local, state, and federal data in one place, searchable by location or subject.

The State of New York | Open Data is a public platform that provides free access to a wide variety of datasets generated by state agencies, local governments, and other public authorities in New York. The portal includes data on a range of topics, such as health, education, transportation, public safety, the environment, the government & finance, economic development, recreation and etc.

Local data on various geographic levels of China, India and Russian Federation

A portal to datasets from participating cities as well as the federal government, by subject. Available data will vary widely among municipalities.

PLACES provides model-based, population-level analysis and community estimates of health measures to all counties, places (incorporated and census designated places), census tracts, and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) across the United States. Learn more about PLACES.

Sate Data (formerly Data-Planet) Statistical Datasets aggregates datasets sourced from reputable public and private organizations, such as OECD, China Data Online, the United Nations, and the U.S. Census. It covers topics across many subject areas, including education, population and income, industry, commerce, trade, housing and construction.
Some data tables are provided at the metropolitan level.

Browse city data by topic, including demographic, employment, business patterns, FBI crime data, building permits, and etc.

City Economics (under the Databases tab) provides data for over 3,000 cities worldwide, including information on Economy, Households, Demography, and Labor and etc.

Global city level economic statistics available

SimplyAnalytics is a web-based mapping, analytics and data visualization program providing data variables. Users have access to demographics, marketing data, consumer behavior (purchasing and product usage data), market segments, health, and business points for States, Congressional Districts, Counties, Cities/Places, ZIP Codes, Census Tracts and Block Groups.

The American National Election Studies (ANES) produces high quality data on voting, public opinion, and political participation to serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists who want to better understand the theoretical and empirical foundations of national election outcomes.

The European Values Study (started in 1981) is a large-scale, cross-national, and longitudinal survey research program on basic human values. It provides insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, values and opinions of citizens all over Europe. It is a unique research project on how Europeans think about life, family, work, religion, politics and society.

Eurobarometer includes results of surveys and studies by the European Commission, begun in 1973, which address major topics concerning European citizenship: enlargement, social situation, health, culture, information technology, environment, the Euro, defense, etc.

The GSS contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest. Many of the core questions have remained unchanged since 1972 to facilitate time-trend studies as well as replication of earlier findings. Registration required.

A collection of surveys including subjects such as government, citizenship, national identity, social relationships, family, and environment, coordinated cross-nationally.

Latinobarómetro provides access to data from an annual public opinion survey conducted since 1995 in 18 Latin American countries, including Brazil, by Corporación Latinobarómetro, a non-profit NGO based in Santiago, Chile. The site also provides links to annual summary and technical reports.

The Center is an independent opinion research group that studies politics, public policy issues, and attitudes toward the press. It is best known for regular national surveys that measure public attentiveness to major news stories, and for polling that charts trends in values and fundamental political and social attitudes.

Worldwide public opinion surveys that cover subjects ranging from people’s assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day.

The Odum Institute maintains one of the oldest and largest catalog of machine-readable data in the U.S. It has an extensive collection of U.S. Census data, including one of the most complete holdings for 1970 Census files. Other major sources of data include the North Carolina State Data Center, which distributes North Carolina census data; and the National Center for Health Statistics.

Building permit data
Regions Available: US
Years Available: 2010 - present
Permit Data - Structured building permit data for over 20,00 local jurisdictions across the United States. Covers 70% of the top 30 MSAs.
How to Access Dewey

The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS-USA) consists of more than fifty high-precision samples of the American population drawn from fifteen federal censuses and from the American Community Surveys of 2000-2012. These samples, which draw on every surviving census from 1850-2000, and the 2000-2012 ACS samples, collectively constitute our richest source of quantitative information on long-term changes in the American population. However, because different investigators created these samples at different times, they employed a wide variety of record layouts, coding schemes, and documentation. This has complicated efforts to use them to study change over time. The IPUMS assigns uniform codes across all the samples and brings relevant documentation into a coherent form to facilitate analysis of social and economic change.

Scanned copies of historical census forms. The most recent census included is 1940.

The National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) provides easy access to summary tables and time series of population, housing, agriculture, and economic data, along with GIS-compatible boundary files, for years from 1790 through the present and for all levels of U.S. census geography, including states, counties, tracts, and blocks.

The Advance Monthly and Monthly Retail Trade Surveys (MARTS and MRTS), the Annual Retail Trade Survey (ARTS), and the Quarterly E-Commerce Report work together to produce the most comprehensive data available on retail economic activity in the United States.

Geographic products including maps and geospatial data for legal and statistical boundaries.