The World Tables disseminates, with little delay, country estimates used by the Bank in analysis of economic and social trends in developing countries, which emphasizes Bank borrowers. To make the volume a more useful resource, other economies are covered to the extent that they provide internationally comparable measures in readily usable form; these are not subject to detailed scrutiny by Bank staff. Data for high-income OECD economies are based on reports of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). National publications are used for the remaining economies. Such sources, generally specified in the Country Notes, should be consulted by readers wishing to be assured of the most timely and complete reports.
Country time series are also used by the Bank to measure trends in groups of countries, notably for the Bank's World Development Report (WDR), including the World Development Indicators (WDI) section. The World Tables topical pages fill a gap between the country pages and measures for analytical groupings of countries given in the WDR and WDI.
The dataset is available in both print and on magnetic tape or diskettes. Access is available via the World Bank's Public Information Center.
World Tables is available through CIESIN's Gateway.
Additional data sets may be located through CIESIN's Gateway.
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