Beautiful U.S. data.
Navigating the wonderful, indespensible Panel Study of Income Dynamics website, I'm reminded yet again of how the U.S., which Canadians consider so right-wing and small-government, actually provides and maintains really top-notch microdata sources -- from the extensive, intelligently presented summary stats in Statistical Abstracts right through to U-Mich's detailed household panel surveys. No wonder so much social sciences scholarship is based on U.S. experience, even among researchers outside the U.S.
One theory I've heard when I broach this subject is that Americans are sufficiently distrustful of government that federal agencies and the institutions that work with them feel the need to be extremely transparent, and make their work publicly available, in a way Statistics Canada just doesn't. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on the privacy issues involved. But in terms of generating social science research on your country, the U.S. public sector's need-to-please, if that's what it is, definitely has national benefits.
One theory I've heard when I broach this subject is that Americans are sufficiently distrustful of government that federal agencies and the institutions that work with them feel the need to be extremely transparent, and make their work publicly available, in a way Statistics Canada just doesn't. I don't claim to be any kind of expert on the privacy issues involved. But in terms of generating social science research on your country, the U.S. public sector's need-to-please, if that's what it is, definitely has national benefits.
1 Comments:
I suspect it's mainly economies of scale. The U.S. also has a top-notch, well-funded University system which probably helps as well.
Statistics Canada used to make all it's analysis freely available but it was moved to a self-financing model under the Liberals which led to the current situation of pay-to-see.
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