»»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿

The Comparative Political Economy Data Base (CPEDB)

The CPEDB began at CLSEW as part of the Changing Workplaces in a Knowledge Economy (CWKE) project. CPEDB was initiated by Dr. D. W. Livingstone and very largely constructed by Dr. Wally Seccombe. Both are Research Associates of CLSEW. The CPEDB is a unique international database intended to aid comparative studies of a dozen advanced capitalist countries on a wide array of subjects. The current countries are: »»ÆÞ¾ãÀÖ²¿, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States. The subject areas are: demography, household/family, class/labour, government finances, elections-democracy, inequality, health, environment, internet, macro-economy, corporate capital. The database now contains annual data on over 700 variables. Some of the variables date back to 1928; most date from the 1950s with annual data for all ending in recent years. These variables have been derived from many databases. Fuller information on the CPEDB files is available at the .

The CPEDB files now include:

  1. CPEDB Summary. (Word file).
  2. Outline of CPEDB. This Excel file copies all the current variable names and labels from the CPEDB SPSS file. It also identifies the variables that have been charted in 5, 6, 7 and 8 below.
  3. CPEDB SPSS file. This is the complete dataset in SPSS format, 747 variables in 12 sections with annual dates from 1928 to 2025, whatever years a dataset (identified in the variable’s label) covers for each of these 12 countries. (Not yet accessible for general use).
  4. CPEDB Variable Definitions obtained from the original websites.
  5. Charts, 1st set, demography, household/family, class/labour.
  6. Charts, 2nd set, government finances, elections-democracy, inequality.
  7. Charts, 3rd set, health, environment, internet, macro-economy, corporate capital.
  8. Select CPEDB Charts with comments DWL and WS. This file will be regularly amended.
  9. In addition, there are daily data files on Covid in Excel and SPSS for 29 variables, comparable between all 12 CPEDB countries from Jan 26, 2020 to Aug 2, 2023. These variables are drawn from the Our World in Data (OWID) website, and are identical in the SPSS and Excel files. (Not yet accessible for general use. These files will be updated if there is sufficient interest from potential users).

All interested scholars are encouraged to review the publicly accessible files at and to contact Seccombe or Livingstone to suggest further development or for early use of the SPSS data files.
 

Contact Us

To learn more about the Comparative Political Economy Database, please email Wally Seccombe at wallys@blackcreekfarm.ca or D.W. Livingstone at dwlivingstone@gmail.com.