The Government Finance Database, United States, 1967-2015 (ICPSR 37641)

Version Date: May 11, 2020

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Principal Investigator(s):
Kawika Pierson, Willamette University

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37641.v1

Version V1

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Summary

Quantitative public financial management research is limited by the lack of a common database for empirical analysis. The U.S. Census Bureau distributes government finance data that some scholars have utilized, but the difficult process of collecting, interpreting, and organizing the data has led its adoption to be prohibitive and inconsistent. This study offers a single, coherent resource that contains all of the census data from 1967 through the most recent update, uses easy to understand natural-language variable names, and it will be extended when new data is available. Identical data is posted at: http://willamette.edu/mba/research-impact/public-datasets/index.html.

The six data sets are as follows:

  • DS #1: County Data
  • DS #2: Municipal Data
  • DS #3: School District Data
  • DS #4: Special District Data
  • DS #5: State Data
  • DS #6: Township Data

Citation

Pierson, Kawika. The Government Finance Database, United States, 1967-2015. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-05-11. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37641.v1

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Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1967 -- 2015

Data Collection Notes

  1. For more information on Census classifications, please see the 2006 Classification Manual
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Study Purpose

Widely shared and easy to use databases facilitate quantitative research and render the replication of findings practical and convenient. The U.S. Census Bureau's government financial data requires substantial effort to obtain, interpret, translate, consolidate, and use. This is potentially damaging to the interpretation and application of research in the field. By consolidating the Census Bureau's government financial data into a single, coherent, and comprehensive database, we hope to alleviate these concerns and move quantitative research in public finance progressively forward.

The data has been processed to be user-friendly and convenient for replication. It remains as close to the raw data as possible in order to limit statistician induced measurement error. This presents researchers with a database that is free from abnormalities and can be easily used in the widest range of circumstances. Given the push towards both methodological and theoretical innovation in public administration research, and given the existing diversity the field displays in those areas, this breadth of financial information provided from a single, standardized source has the potential to facilitate a diverse body of inquiry.

Sample

The data collection is a time series of state and local government finance data over a period of 49 years (1967-2015).

Time Method

Time Series: Continuous

Universe

State and local government finance data over a period of 49 years (1967-2015)

Unit(s) of Observation

State and local governments

Data Source

U.S. Census Bureau

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

At a high level, the data for each government are grouped into four large categories: revenue flows, expenditure flows, cash and investment positions, and debt positions. Descriptions of these categories can be found in the data-related publication, The Government Finance Database: A Common Resource for Quantitative Research in Public Financial Analysis.

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Original Release Date

2020-05-11

Version History

2020-05-11 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes