EGC Library and Data Archive

Library Resources

The work of researchers at the Economic Growth Center is facilitated by the resources of Yale's Social Science Library and Information Services. The Economic Growth Center Collection which is housed at SSLIS, focuses on materials relating to statistics, economics, and planning in over 100 developing countries and includes over 3,900 serially issued government publications and other publications from research institutions and intergovernmental organizations. Also available through the Social Science Library and Information Services is the Social Science Data Archive (SSDA) which is a collection used for statistical analysis of survey and numeric data. The collection contains data distributed by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the U.S. Government, the International Monetary Fund, Standard & Poor's Compustat Services, the Center for Research on Security Prices, and other data collecting groups. Finally, a new Social Science Library Economics Homepage includes links to economics journals at Yale, descriptions of economic data sources, links to economic data on the Internet, a list of working papers at the Social Science Library, and links to full-text economics working papers on the web.

Data Archive

NSSO/ASI Data
The Economic Growth Center has purchased a number of datasets for use exclusively by EGC faculty and students.  These files include unit-level data from the household/establishment surveys carried out by India’s National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) and from India’s Annual Survey of Industries (ASI).  These data are not in the public domain and access to them is limited to members of the EGC.  For permission to use the data and information about accessing the files, please contact Dorothy Plympton.

At regular intervals, the NSSO undertakes nation-wide household surveys of consumer expenditure and employment. It also carries out a number of other surveys such as surveys of unorganized manufacturing, debt and investment, and informal non-agricultural enterprises. The EGC’s collection includes unit-level data from NSSO surveys starting in 1983.  Details of the collection are available.

The ASI is an annual survey of registered factories across India. It is the only nationally representative survey of the factory sector (a “factory” is a manufacturing establishment that meets a minimum employment criterion). ASI unit-level data are available for 1982-83, 1987-88, 1993-94 and 1999-2000.

ICRISAT Data
The EGC also has data from two surveys conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

The first database contains survey results from a study of villages in the semi-arid tropics of India.  This study was begun in May of 1975.  Six villages in three districts, two in the state of Maharashtra and one in the state of Andhra Pradesh, were selected, and within these villages a total of forty households were surveyed (10 landless labor households and 30 cultivator households representing small, medium, and large farmers).  In 1980, another four villages were added to the sample; again with forty households in each village being surveyed.  Two of these villages were in the district of Sabarkanta in the state of Gujarat and two were in the district of Raisen in the state of Madhya Pradesh. 

The second database is a farm-level study of production and marketing behavior conducted by ICRISAT between May 1981 and December 1985 in the three primary agro-climatic zones in Burkina Faso.  A sample of 150 farming households located in six villages was surveyed as part of the study.

The ICRISAT databases are available to interested researchers both at Yale and at other institutions.  More information can be obtained by contacting Dorothy Plympton.