Comparative Political Economy Database (CPEDB)

Explore Key Data Across Countries and Variables

The Comparative Political Economy Database (CPEDB) provides comprehensive annual data across a wide range of topics, including:

  • Demography
  • Family/Household
  • Class/Labour
  • Government and Electoral Democracy
  • Inequality (Economic, Political, and Gender)
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Internet
  • Macro-Economic and Financial Variables

In its current form, the database includes 727 variables from 12 countries:

  • Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Data Coverage and Sources

Most of CPEDB’s data spans from the 1960s–1980s up to 2019–2022. The variables are derived from a wide array of authoritative databases, including:

  • OECD (Statistics and Family Databases)
  • World Bank
  • ILO (International Labour Organization)
  • IMF (International Monetary Fund)
  • WHO (World Health Organization)
  • WIID (World Income Inequality Database)
  • OWID (Our World in Data)
  • Parlgov (Parliaments and Governments Database)
  • V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy)

Using the CPEDB for Research

To help you get started, Dr. D.W. Livingstone and Wally Seccombe have prepared a curated presentation. This video tutorial includes:

  • A walkthrough of accessing and navigating the database.
  • Insights from select charts covering a slice of the CPEDB’s rich data.
  • A Q&A session addressing common queries.

Click here to watch the tutorial.