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This study examines how demand for public goods shaped state-building in historical China. The dataset is a grid-cell–by-century panel dataset covering historical China from roughly the 2nd century BCE to the 19th century CE. Each observation is a ~1,000 km² grid cell (id_grid) in a given century (id_century). It combines multiple measures of state capacity (e.g., administrative center density, tax revenue, length of roads, number of post stations), potential drivers of state building (e.g., proximity to foreign-war frontline, proximity to the Yellow River, population density, distance to capital, and trade routes), and measures of local institutions (e.g., lineages, Buddhist temples, and ethnic-minority leadership). The dataset enables a quantitative analysis of the evolution of the state-locality relationship over time.

Please read the collection notes below; there are many points to be aware of for this collection prior to analysis.

This collection of historical election data contains state files that list county-level returns for over 90 percent of all elections to the offices of president, governor, United States senator, and United States representative from 1824 through 1968. The data files include returns for all parties and candidates (as well as write-in and scattering votes if available for individual states), and for special elections as well as regularly-scheduled contests. Over 1,000 individual party names and many additional unaffiliated candidates are included.

The Reichstag Biographical and Roll-Call Data includes coded biographical data for each deputy (Abgeordneter) for each session of the Reichstag during the defined voting period. It also includes a record of the vote of each deputy for every roll-call vote recorded in the official Reichstag stenographic record (Stengraphische Berichte). Biographical data was collected from the official handbooks of each session.

There are 9 datasets for the 9 Reichstag sessions that were held between 1867 and 1890. In addition to voting record, deputy demographic information includes political affiliation, religion, year of birth and death, education, and military service.