About Social Data

Chicago Booth’s IGM Forum asked 42 academic experts whether Greece would be better off defaulting on its debt.

The results are mixed:

48% of the experts believe that the outcome is uncertain. They are unable to predict whether per capita purchasing power would be greater in 10 years by defaulting now, or by continuing to service the debt.

21% agree,

12% disagree with the hypothesis,

and 12% didn’t express an opinion.

Greece seems to be facing serious dilemmas.

A vibrant discussion took place on Friday November 15th at the Lecture Theatre Building of the University of Essex, Colchester with guest speakers Professor Costas Lapavitsas and Professor Robin Blackburn offering their thoughts on the recent Eurozone Crisis and forecasting the expected socio-economic outcomes.

See the video:

Lapavitsas and Blackburn on the Eurozone Crisis

Open Knowledge Foundation in collaboration with country data experts and researchers has published the first ever index on Data Openness. Countries are accessed on the following points:

• Does the data exist?
• Is the data in digital form?
• Publicly Available
• Free
• Online
• Machine Readable
• Bulk Download Option
• Openly Licensed
• Up to Date

Countries are examined for the provision of 10 data themes:

• Transport Timetables
• Government Budget
• Government Spending
• Election Results
• Company Registers
• National Map
• National Statistics
• Legislation
• Postcodes
• Pollutant Emissions

According to the index, the champion in data openness is the UK while the country with most restrictions and data disclosures is Cyprus.

The index, criteria, and data portals based on which the index was compiled can be retrieved on the Open Knowledge Foundation Website

Here is a list of a few Public Spending data on Contracts and Procurement:

Open Ted data store: Anders Pedersen and Joost Cassee have been the EU publication office data on procurement throughout the EU, generating machine readable, ready to process csv data files for contracts with private entities between 2009 and 2013. Transparency at its best.

US Spending.Gov: Excellent website offering data for all sorts of public spending in the US. By selecting ‘contracts’ in the respective tab, you get to access the relevant data on procurement.

TED Europa: A supplement to the aforementioned Open Ted. This official site provides all the relevant information for bidding or searching for contracts awarded throughout the EU.

AusTender: Contracts and Procurements in Australia.

UK Contracts Finder: What is being bought by the government and costs more than 10000 GBP? You may trace it here. The site can be of great assistance to potential sellers willing to enter the highly competitive market of public contracts.

Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES): Rich database of electoral information for 40+ states

Latin American Studies Data: Offers Election data for 18 Latin American countries. Includes Latinobarometro & Public Opinion Project

European Elections Study: Containing data for the E.P elections since 1979

European Representative Democracy Data Archive (ERDDA): Rich data for 29 European democratic governments, 600+ parties (Plus, extensive list of comparative datasets from other researchers)

Party Policy in Modern Democracies: expert surveys for political parties across 49 countries during 2003-2004

Global Elections Database: Election results for 36 countries starting from as early as 1900s

Vetoplayers Data: Produced by Tsebelis for 22 countries providing info for ideological party position etc

Psephos: Rich historical archive with electoral information for 182 countries. Maintained by Adam Carr

Parties and Elections in Europe: Perhaps the most easy to use Electoral Archive that exists

ParlGov: Well structured and updated database on worldwide parties and elections in downloadable csv formats

ElectionResources.org: Electoral database broken down by district. Some in CSV format

Party Organisational Data: Produced for “Data Handbook on Party Organizations in Western Democracies, 1960-90″ – 11 EU countries

EU Profiler (2009): Voters positions and opinions in the European Elections 2009

Parline: Information on electoral, executive, and legislative institutions