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Behavioural Insights

Resources to support students from the UBC Continuing Studies Behavioural Insights (BI)

Key Data Sources

Canada

National Level

Economic and financial data

This federal government provides detailed information on Canadian and US trade with over 200 countries

Political Science

This database contains voting information down to the district level for federal, provincial, and territorial elections. Federal election coverage from 1874 to 2011.

Public Opinion

CORA provides access to public opinion survey data collected by major survey research firms in Canada since 1970. Note: this page has instructions on how to access CORA data in ODESI.

The Ipsos Canadian Public Affairs Dataverse is a repository of over 60 Ipsos Canada surveys from 2004 to 2015 that shed light on Canadian elections, culture, politics, and society. All data is open access.

Provincial level

Links to provincial and municipal open data programs across Canada.

The government of British Columbia's data portal. It includes both open and restricted data, and includes a variety of geospatial data. If there is a data set appears restricted, contact us to see if the library can obtain access.

BCStats is the official statistics branch of the provincial government, analogous to Statistics Canada but on a provincial level. This is the place to start for provincial research.

Local data

  • Metro Vancouver open data

Not all local governments within Metro Vancouver have an open data policy. Those that do are listed below.

Historical data

The Canada Year Book Historical Collection 1867 to 1967: historical text, tables and maps on Canadian society, events, and the economy: population, industry, trade, immigration, labour, transportation, government, etc.

Electronic reproduction of an 1876 publication which includes 343 tables from 98 Censuses taken between 1665 and 1871. Includes data on social and economic conditions in Atlantic Canada, New France, Lower Canada, Upper Canada, and Western Canada.

Authoritative statistical and demographic statistics from 1867 to the mid-1970s. Over 1000 tables, plus detailed notes and other information.

United States

General

All of the following data sources are open access unless otherwise noted.

More than just US decennial censuses, the Census Bureau collects financial, economic and trade data. Includes microdata.
 

Data covering a wide variety of subjects, from agriculture to zoology. Many agencies feed their data through this portal, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
 

An ongoing survey which replaces the long form US census. Includes microdata
 

Financial data

US and international time series financial data.


Health

Health statistics and data on a large variety of health topics

Browse health data and statistics by topic, build custom tables, and find CDC publications and reports.

Labour

Access to the major economic indicators for the U.S.: labor force statistics, the American Time Use Survey, prices and living conditions, compensation, productivity and technology, regional data, inflation rates, pay and benefits.

Nationally representative surveys that follow the same sample of individuals from specific birth cohorts over time. The surveys collect data on labor market activity, schooling, fertility, program participation, health, and more.

Social

Collects information on how people living in the United States spend their time. Estimates show the kinds of activities people do and the time spent doing them by sex, age, educational attainment, labor force status, and other characteristics, as well as by weekday and weekend day.

Contains a standard 'core' of demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions, plus topics of special interest.

Historical

Source for US statistical indicators from colonial times to the present.

Global

General

Selected statistics from the entire UN system. Summary tables cover agriculture, population, industry, national accounts, energy, health, human development, trade, refugees, education, employment, and technology.

Multiple data sets, including World Development Indicators. Many financial, economic, natural resource and social data sets.

Labour

Database contains statistics for over 200 countries/territories. Included are yearly statistics of employment, unemployment, hours of work, wages, labour cost, consumer price indices, occupational injuries, strikes and lockouts, monthly statistics of employment, unemployment, hours of work, wages, consumer price indices.

Data available up until 2008. For data from 2009 onward, visit ILOSTAT.

Provides annual labour market statistics for over 100 indicators and nearly 230 countries, areas, and territories. The Yearly indicators dataset contains standardized indicators for purposes of greater comparability across countries. The Short term indicators dataset contains monthly, quarterly and half-year data and is updated on a monthly basis.
For pre-2009 data, visit LABORSTA.


Trade

Detailed trade statistics from 170 countries: imports, exports, trading partners, and commodities from 1962 onwards.

Financial

Multiple financial data sets including international financial statistics, trade data sets, balance of payments and government finance statistics

Climate

Climate data from many sources and of multiple types
 

Country level data

Statistical information on European Union member countries

 

Registries and Lists