Country Concordances
Summary
Country concordance is an important aspect of a data technician's job to maintain the International Futures database. Country concordance refers to the differences between the IFs Country list and another organization's country list and merging them to ensure the IFs country list in IFs system. For example, in some organization "Türkiye" is the name displayed, but for IFs we use the name "Turkey". Therefore IFs data technicians need to change the name to "Turkey" for the system to process it. Below lists the organizations IFs draw their data from and the common changes needed as well as a link to a GitHub repository that contains the corresponding country list.
Proxies
Proxies are used when a certain country does not have data points and estimates are needed. Proxies should be used on a case by case basis and for certain series. Proxies essentially use a similar country to the country being approximated (in terms of population, GDP, etc.) and calculates the scale of what the approximated countries value should be.
An example from IHME's series is Kosovo and Albania. Albania is similar and geographically close to Kosovo making it an ideal for a proxy. For a series that deals with death such as SocietalViolenceDeathsTotal use the following equation:
- Kosovo’s number of deaths = Albania’s number of deaths * (Kosovo’s Population / Albania’s Population)
Disaggregation
A lot of organizations have values for dissolved states such as USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and more. This then leads to gaps in values for the newly formed such as Serbia, Slovakia, Czechia, etc. Therefore, disaggregation is a great tool to fill in these gaps. Below is the disaggregation steps for common groups:
- Czechoslovakia = Slovakia and Czech Republic
- Yugoslav SFR = Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro
- Serbia and Montenegro = Serbia and Montenegro
- Sudan (former) = Sudan and South Sudan
- USSR = Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan
For disaggregation you are adding up the values for the year after the state disbanded, using the data when the state existed, have the values for the new states after the entity disbanded, and then extrapolate (find the percentage of each state in the data from the OG state and then multiply it to get the right amount) data for the new states in the previous years.
- USSR add up the values for 1992 (year it disbanded); have totals for 1961-1991; have the values for 15 states for 1992; extrapolate data for 15 states 1961-1991
- Czechoslovakia add up the values for for 1993 (year it disbanded); have totals for 1961-1992; have the values for 2 states for 1993; extrapolate data for 2 states 1961-1992
- Sudan (former) add up the values for 2012 (year it disbanded); have totals for 1961-2011; have the values for 2 states for 2012; extrapolate data for 2 states 1961-2011
- Yugoslav SFR add up the values for 1992 (year it disbanded); have totals for 1961-1991; have the values for 6 states for 1992; extrapolate for 6 states 1961-1991
- Serbia and Montenegro add up the values for 2006 (year it disbanded); have totals for 1992-2005; have the values for 2 states for 2006; extrapolate data for 2 states 1992-2005
An example of this disaggregation can be found in FAOSTAT Land Use.
Organizations
BGR
In BGR there are German and English versions and usually the latest are in German. Below are the differing versions. As usual the link leads to a full country list.
CIA
This country concordance sheet is for the ethnic group page. The following shows what countries do not have values listed in the page and the differing country names.
Food Agricultural Organization (FAO)
FAO does not have values for Kosovo.
Global Carbon Project GCP
Puerto Rico and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic are not present in dataset.
GNWO Codes: Used in Historical GDP
Numerical values are used instead of IDs and or names. Click the links to head to the GitHub repo or wiki.
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
There are different versions of country lists used by the IHME. For example interpersonal violence has a different country list than others.
International Labor Organization
Grenada, Kiribati, Kosovo, Micronesia, and Seychelles are not present in ILO.
International Monetary Funds (IMF)
IMF World Economics Outlook
Cuba, Korea and Dem. People's Republic do not exist in this database.
IMF Government Financial Statistics
GFS is limited and many countries are missing. View the GitHub repo.
International Telecommunication Union
Korea, Dem. People's Republic, Kosovo, and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic are not present in the database.
Joint Monitoring Programme WHO UNICEF
Kosovo, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and Taiwan are not present in dataset.
OECD
In sheet in "OECD" in excel. There are many missing countries; there are also sheets specific to the table (ie Donor) that might have more countries not included in the base country tab. Make sure to check before pulling.
Transparency International
Belize, Kiribati, Micronesia, Palestine, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Samoa, and Tonga are not present in the dataset.
UIS UNESCO
Kosovo and Taiwan are not present in this dataset. This dataset is also present in IDs and not names.
United Nation Development Programme (UNDP)
World Bank
World Development Indicators
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is not present in this dataset.
For some World Bank indicators, Taiwan, China is present but in WDI is not.
World Health Organization (WHO)
Global Health Observatory (GHO)
Hong Kong, Kosovo, Palestine, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and Taiwan are not present in database.