O'Reilly & Murphy's State Capacity Index

Data source: O'Reilly and Murphy

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.

Dataset type
Time-Series
Dataset level
Country
Last updated by source
2022-05-25

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

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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’, an ...

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Comprehensive State Capacity is measured using the first principal component of the six measures: 'particularistic or public goods’, ‘rigorous and impartial public administration’, ‘educational equali ...

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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 ...

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