------------------------------------------------------------------------------- help for worldstat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title

worldstat -- A visualisation of the state of world development

Syntax

worldstat place_name, stat(statistic_name) [options]

options Description ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Options stat(namelist) lists the statistic which the user wishes to visualise. year(#) lists the year which the user wishes to visualise for the statistic in question; genearlly should be between 1960-2010. preserve allows for the dataset in memory to be preserved and restored once worldstat finishes running sname(string) allows for a name to be given to the statistic of interest (for graphical outputs) when the World Bank data code is not the desired name cname adds country names to the map produced as output -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description

worldstat is a module which allows for the current state of world development to be visualised in a computationally simple way. worldstat presents both the geographic and temporal variation in a wide range of macroeconomic and microeconomic statistics retrieved automatically from the World Bank Data Bank. While worldstat includes a number of "in-built" statistics such as GDP, maternal mortality and years of schooling, it is extremely flexible, and can, (thanks to the World Bank's module wbopendata), easily incorporate any of the 5,000+ indicators collated by the World Bank.

The worldstat module is not demanding of computer hard disk space, as all statistics and map files are accessed remotely, and are, by default, not saved to the hard disk. For the full list of indicators which can be accessed, visit http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/all.

Options place_name The region of the world which the the user wishes to visualize. This defines the map which will be produced as output, and average results in the time series are presented aggregated at the level of the region defined in place_name. One of the following options must be specified:

place name Region -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Africa All African countries America All Latin American countries, plus the Caribbea > n Asia All Asian countries Europe All European countries NSAmerica Latin America, North America, and the Carribean Oceania Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and th > e Pacific Islands SAmerica All countries in South America world Every country in the world --------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------

statistic_name The statistic of interest which is to be downloaded from the World Bank Data Bank. This may be one of the following options (where only the short code is required), or any other indicator from the World Bank Data Base. If a short-cut for the indicator of interest is not provided in the following table, the indicator's complete WB Code is required.

Short-cut WB Code Description -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ GDP gdppckd Gross Domestic Product (per capita) MMR SH.STA.MMRT Maternal mortality ratio (modeled e > stimate, per 100,000 live births) EDUP SE.PRM.NENR School enrollment, primary (% net) EDUS SE.SEC.NENR School enrollment, secondary (% net > ) CO2 EN.ATM.CO2E.PC Carbon dioxide emissions p.c. (metr > ic tons) MORT SH.DYN.MORT Mortality rate, under-5 (per 1,000 > live births) LIFE SP.DYN.LE00.FE.IN Life expectancy at birth, female (y > ears) CAB BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS Current account balance (% of GDP) FDI BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD Foreign direct investment, net infl > ows (BoP, current US$) GDP2 NY.GDP.PCAP.KD GDP per capita (constant 2000 US$) INF FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG Inflation, consumer prices (annual > %) ODA DT.ODA.ODAT.PC.ZS Net ODA received per capita (curren > t US$) HIV SH.DYN.AIDS.ZS Prevalence of HIV, total (% of popu > lation ages 15-49) ENER EG.GDP.PUSE.KO.PP GDP per unit of energy use (PPP $) > SLR IC.LGL.CRED.XQ Strength of legal rights index (0=w > eak to 10=strong) AGE SP.POP.DPND.YG Age dependency ratio, young (% of w > orking age population) BIRTH SP.DYN.CBRT.IN Birth rate, crude (per 1,000 people > ) FERT SP.DYN.TFRT.IN Fertility rate, total (births per w > oman) IMM SH.IMM.IDPT Immunization DPT, (% children aged > 12-23 months) -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ note: This is a very small subset of the total Data Bank. The > entire Data Bank is available at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/a > ll.

year(#) Determines the year of interest which will be presented in the geographic graph. If this option is not specified, the year 2010 is assumed. Year must generally fall between 1960 and 2011, and in some cases, World Bank data is not available for each of these year.

sname(string) Gives the name which is to be assigned to graphical output when the long World Bank code is not required. For example, if the user wishes to visualise Gini data, they must enter si.pov.gini as the statistic_name, however they may wish to specify the option sname(Gini) to avoid printing out the more cumbersome full name.

cname Allows for country names to be included as labels on the country maps produced.

Examples

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visualise GDP per capita in African countries

. worldstat Africa, stat(GDP) year(2009) cname

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visualise maternal mortality per capita for the entire world

. worldstat world, stat(FERT)

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References

Azevedo, J.P. (2011) "wbopendata: Stata module to access World Bank databases," Statistical Software Components S457234, Boston College Department of Economics.http://ideas.repec.org/c/boc/bocode/s457234.html

Acknowledgements

I thank J.P. Azevedo and the LAC Team for Statistical Development, who developed the wbopendata module which allows simple access to The World Bank's data from Stata. I also acknowledge Maurizio Pisati who developed the spmap module for the visualisation of spatial data. I thank the Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica of the Government of Chile who supported my research during the writing of this program.

Also see

Online: [G] graph, wbopendata, spmap,

Author

Damian C. Clarke, The University of Oxford. damian.clarke@economics.ox.ac.uk