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Brief Description of Data in the SHRUG⚓︎

First and foremost, the SHRUG is a set of consistent location keys that allow Indian government data to be synchronized across space from 1990 to the present. This makes it possible to study socioeconomic change at a much higher geographic resolution (in over 500,000 villages and 8000 towns) than most prior work. We aggregate data to multiple levels. First, we aggregate to the legislative constituency, allowing analysis of links between politics and economics. Second, we aggregate to Population Census subdistrict and district, allowing links to other common administrative and survey datasets. It is easy for researchers to link their data to the SHRUG, and we hope that others will contribute to growing this resource.

SHRUG v2.0 currently contains data from many different sources, including but not limited to:

  • The Population Censuses of 1991, 2001, and 2011 describe essential demographic characteristics (Primary Census Abstract) and local amenities (Town/Village Directories).

  • The Economic Censuses of 1990, 1998, 2005, and 2013, which are full enumerations of all non-farm establishments, including informal firms, service sector firms, and publicly-owned firms.

  • The Socioeconomic and Caste Census, an enumeration of assets and additional characteristics for all households in India.

  • Administrative data from government programs, like the national rural road program PMGSY.

  • Remote sensing data on a wide variety of characteristics, including night lights, forest cover, vegetation index, pollution, rainfall, and temperature.

  • Legislative assembly election results, which are linked to constituency-level data on all of the above.

  • Data from politician affidavits, including criminal charges, assets, liabilities, and other characteristics.

  • Data on bank branches in rural and urban areas from the RBI.

For a complete list of SHRUG data, see the SHRUG metadata section of this website, or view the download table on the SHRUG website.