ID Variables

Before merging multiple data sets into one data set we should create common id variables to link the data sets together.

Underdevelopment

countrycode

We can easily gather a wide range of country-level data from many sources (see Importing Data, Advanced). These sources use a number of different country naming schemes, that makes merging difficult. countrycode by Vincent Arel-Bundock helps solve this problem. It makes converting between a number of different country naming schemes very easy.

In general it is good to pick one type of country id scheme for your research project and use countrycode to convert all of the data sets you are going to merge using this id scheme. Once you have loaded the package ?countrycode to see the coding schemes it supports.