The dataset is used for Paul Romer's "Idea Gaps and Object Gaps in Economic Development", Journal of Monetary Economics 32 (3): 543-73, 1993 and covers 122 countries.
The data collected here come from two sources:
Blomstrom, Lipsey, and Zejan (1992) -- BLZ
Levine and Renelt (1992) -- LR
Levine and Renelt report make use of data from the World Bank (WB), Heston and Summers (1988) (HS), and Barro (1991).
Different authors have used different numerical codes and symbols to order the countries in this kind of data set. The first several columns in the worksheet list some of these. The data in this worksheet are organized following the order used for data reported from the World Development Report for 1991 -- WDR. The sample consists of the countries considered to be developing countries by the World Bank. The observation numbers and symbols used in the data set circulated with the WDR are reported in the first two columns. BLZ give both observation numbers and country codes. These, along with their country names are reported in the next three columns. The next column reports the observation number used by Levine and Renelt.
In replicating the results in the paper, readers should be sure to note that the data point for Singapore is not included in the regression because it has a ratio of equipment imports to GDP that is more than twice as large as the next largest value. See the paper for discussion of this point. This data point is, nevertheless, included in the data spreadsheet.