The World Bank is not a primary data collection agency for most areas other than living standards surveys and debt. As a major user of socioeconomic data, however, the World Bank places particular emphasis on data documentation to inform users of data in economic analysis and policymaking. The tables in this section provide information on the sources, treatment, and currentness of the principal demographic, economic, and environmental indicators in the World Development Indicators.
Differences in the methods and conventions used by the primary data collectors—usually national statistical agencies, central banks, and customs services—may give rise to significant discrepancies over time both among and within countries. Delays in reporting data and the use of old surveys as the base for current estimates may severely compromise the quality of national data.
Although data quality is improving in some countries, many developing countries lack the resources to train and maintain the skilled staff and obtain the equipment needed to measure and report demographic, economic, and environmental trends in an accurate and timely way. The World Bank recognizes the need for reliable data to measure living standards, track and evaluate economic trends, and plan and monitor development projects. Thus, in concert with bilateral and other multilateral agencies, it has funded and participated in technical assistance projects to improve statistical organization and basic data methods, collection, and dissemination.
The World Bank is working at several levels to meet the challenge of improving the quality of the data that it collates and disseminates. At the country level the Bank is carrying out technical assistance, training, and survey activities—with a view to strengthening national capacity—in the following areas:
• Poverty assessments in most borrower member countries.
• Living standards measurement and other household and farm surveys with country partner statistical agencies.
• National accounts and inflation.
• Price and expenditure surveys for the International Comparison Programme.
• Statistical improvement projects in the economies of the former Soviet Union.
• External debt management.
• Environmental and economic accounting.
At the institutional level the World Bank undertook a major renewal program, forming a new unit, the Development Data Group, to concentrate on collecting, enhancing the quality of, and disseminating development indicators. New initiatives include:
Improving documentation of data collected by the World Bank. Enhancing dialogue with primary data producers in the field and improving data partnerships within the Bank and with other agencies that are major data producers. Upgrading systems and technology to improve data collection and management and to disseminate data to a broader audience through CD-ROMs and the Internet. Strengthening partnerships with other multilateral agencies to improve coordination of statistical capacity building activities in developing countries.
Notes on metadata for macroeconomic indicators
• Fiscal year end is the date of the end of the fiscal year for the central government. Fiscal years for other levels of government and the reporting years for statistical surveys may differ, but if a country is designated as a fiscal year reporter in the following column, the date shown is the end of its national accounts reporting period.
• Reporting period for national accounts and balance of payments data is designated as either calendar year basis, (CY) or fiscal year (FY). Most economies report their national accounts and balance of payments data using calendar years, but a limited number use fiscal years, which straddle two calendar years. In the World Development Indicators fiscal year data are assigned to the calendar year that contains the larger share of the fiscal year: if a country’s fiscal year ends before June 30, the data are shown in the earlier year of the fiscal period; if the fiscal year ends on or after June 30, the data are shown in the second year of the period. Note that Saudi Arabia follows a lunar year whose starting and ending dates change with respect to the solar year. Because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports most balance of payments data on a calendar year basis, balance of payments data for fiscal year reporters in the World Development Indicators are based on fiscal year estimates provided by World Bank operational staff. These estimates may differ from IMF data but allow consistent comparisons between national accounts and balance of payments data.
• Base year is the year used as the base period for constant price calculations in the country’s national accounts. Price indexes derived from national accounts aggregates, such as the GDP deflator, express the price level relative to prices in the base year. Constant price data reported in the World Bank are partially rebased to a common 1987 base year. See the notes to table 4.1 for further discussion.
• SNA price valuation shows whether value added in the national accounts is reported at basic or producers’ prices (VAB) or at purchasers’ prices (VAP). Purchasers’ prices include the value of taxes levied on value added and collected from consumers and thus tend to overstate the actual value added in production. See the notes to table 4.2 for further discussion of national accounts valuation.
• Alternative conversion factor identifies the countries and years for which a World Bank–estimated conversion factor has been used in place of the official (IFS line rf) exchange rate. See Statistical methods for further discussion of the use of alternative conversion factors.
• PPP survey year refers to the latest available survey year for the International Comparison Programme’s estimates of purchasing power parities (PPPs). See the notes to tables 4.14 and 5.5 for further details.
• Balance of Payments Manual in use refers to the classification system used for compiling and reporting data on balance of payments items in tables 4.21 and 4.22. BPM4 refers to the fourth edition of the IMF’s Balance of Payments Manual (1977), and BPM5 to the fifth edition (1993). Since 1995 the IMF has adjusted all balance of payments data to BPM5 conventions, but some countries continue to report using the older system.
• System of trade refers to the general trade system (G) or the special trade system (S). For imports under the general trade system, both goods entering directly for domestic consumption and goods entered into customs storage are recorded, at the time of their first arrival, as imports; under the special trade system, goods are recorded as imports when declared for domestic consumption whether at time of entry or on withdrawal from customs storage. Exports under the general system comprise outward-moving goods: (a) national goods wholly or partly produced in the country; (b) foreign goods, neither transformed nor declared for domestic consumption in the country, that move outward from customs storage; and (c) nationalized goods that have been declared from domestic consumption and move outward without having been transformed. Under the special system of trade, exports comprise categories (a) and (c). In some compilations categories (b) and (c) are classified as re-exports. Direct transit trade, consisting of goods entering or leaving for transport purposes only, is excluded from both import and export statistics. See the notes to tables 4.8 and 4.9 for further discussion.
• Government finance accounting concept describes the accounting basis for reporting central government financial data. For most countries government finance data have been consolidated (C) into one set of accounts capturing all fiscal activities of the central government. Budgetary central government accounts (B) exclude central government units. See the notes to table 4.16 for further details.
Notes on data sources and years
• Latest population census shows the most recent year in which a census was conducted.
• Latest household or demographic survey gives information on the surveys used in compiling household and demographic data presented in section 2. PAPCHILD is the Pan Arab Project for Child Development; DHS is Demographic and Health Survey; WFS is World Fertility Study; LSMS is Living Standards Measurement Study; SDA is Social Dimensions of Adjustment; CDC is Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and SHEHEA is Survey of Household Expenditure and Household Economic Activities.
• Vital registration complete identifies countries judged to have complete registries of vital statistics (k) by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Statistical Division, and reported in Population and Vital Statistics Reports. Countries with complete vital statistics registries may have more accurate and more timely demographic indicators.
• Latest agricultural census shows the most recent year in which an agricultural census was conducted and reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization. • Latest industrial data refer to the most recent year for which manufacturing value added data at the three-digit level of the International Standard Industrial Classification (rev. 2 or rev. 3) are available in the UNIDO database.
• Water withdrawal survey refers to the most recent year for which data have been compiled from a variety of sources. See the notes to table 3.3 for more information.
• Latest surveys of scientists and engineers engaged in R&D and expenditures on R&D refer to the most recent year for which data are available from a data collection effort by UNESCO in science and technology and research and development (R&D). See the notes to table 5.13 for more information.