O'Reilly & Murphy's State Capacity Index

Data source: O'Reilly and Murphy

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Description:

Colin O'Reilly and Ryan H. Murphy contribute to the literature on state capacity by developing a method that yields to State Capacity Index with far more comprehensive data coverage across time (1789-2021) and countries than has been possible previously.

Unlike narrower measures of fiscal capacity or legal capacity, the index is more comprehensive, using data from the Varieties of Democracy dataset on fiscal capacity, a state's control over its territory, the rule of law, and the provision of public goods used to support markets. Like the previous studies, the results derived from the State Capacity Index demonstrate that the historical prevalence of warfare predicts state capacity.

Last updated by source: 2022-05-25

Dataset type: Time-Series
Dataset level: Country

Citation:

When using this dataset, please cite as:
• O’Reilly, C., & Murphy, R. H. (2022). An index measuring state capacity, 1789–2018. Economica, 89(355), 713–745. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12411



Variables in this dataset:

   O'Reilly & Murphy Baseline State Capacity
QoG Code: sci_base

Comprehensive State Capacity is measured using the first principal component of the four measures: 'particularistic or public goods’, ‘rigorous and impartial public administration’, ‘rule of law’, and ‘state authority over territory’. When calculating this variable, loadings derived from the principal component analysis of the most recent V-Dem data (v12) has been used.

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   O'Reilly & Murphy Comprehensive State Capacity Index
QoG Code: sci_comp

Comprehensive State Capacity is measured using the first principal component of the six measures: 'particularistic or public goods’, ‘rigorous and impartial public administration’, ‘educational equality’, ‘rule of law’, ‘state authority over territory’ and ‘state fiscal source of revenue’. When calculating this variable, loadings derived from the principal component analysis of the most recent V-Dem data (v12) has been used.

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   O'Reilly & Murphy Fiscal State Capacity Index
QoG Code: sci_fisc

O'Reilly & Murphy's Fiscal State Capacity is measured using the first principal component of the five measures: 'particularistic or public goods’, ‘rigorous and impartial public administration’, ‘rule of law’, ‘state authority over territory’ and ‘state fiscal source of revenue’. This variable notes the slight conceptual ambiguity of ‘educational equality’ data included in the Comprehensive State Capacity variable, dropping them and re-running the principal component analysis. When calculating this variable, loadings derived from the principal component analysis of the most recent V-Dem data (v12) has been used.

More about this variable