Davidson Data Center and Network for Transition Economies

这笔赠款建立了戴维森数据中心和网络，这是一个中心和国际机构网络，以广泛提供关于转型经济（从中央计划转向市场制度）的微观和宏观经济数据。与转型和新兴市场领域的主要机构讨论并制定了DDCN。提供对这些数据的访问很重要，原因有很多。这些经济体的数据除了提供关于转型经济中前所未有的改革进程的宝贵资料外，还可以更好地检验基本经济理论，因为成熟的市场经济很少在关键变量方面显示出相当大的变化，而且转型经济提供了分析市场经济中长期确立的现象出现的机会。基于这些数据的研究也将产生相当大的政策影响。转型经济体占世界人口的三分之一以上，更好地了解公共政策如何能够改善这些经济体的运作，将对穷人的福利产生巨大影响。此外，转型经济体的重大改革迄今主要是根据发达经济体的经验进行的，有时这些改革产生了不良后果。DDCN将在若干方面对研究生教育以及学术和非学术研究产生重大的有益影响。第一，它将通过大大降低这种研究的费用和与这种研究有关的风险来促进对转型期经济的研究。第二，它将增加已经在研究转型经济体的研究人员之间的合作，帮助消除收集数据时浪费的重复工作。第三，DDCN将对研究生有特别大的好处，他们中的许多人依靠容易获得的数据来成功完成他们的论文研究。

This grant establishes the Davidson Data Center and Network (DDCN), a center and an international network of institutions to make widely available micro and macroeconomic data on transition economies (those moving from central planning to a market system). The DDCN has been discussed and formulated with the leading institutions in the field of transition and emerging markets. Providing access to these data is important for many reasons. In addition to providing valuable information on the unprecedented process of reform in transition economies, data from these economies allow better tests of basic economic theories since mature market economies rarely display sizable variation in key variables and since transition economies provide opportunities to analyze the emergence of phenomena that have been long established in market economies. Research based on these data will also have considerable policy impact. The transition economies comprise over one-third of the world's population and a better understanding of how public policy can improve the functioning of these economies will have a tremendous impact on the welfare of the poor. Moreover, major reforms in transition economies have so far been made largely on the basis of the experience of advanced economies, and at times they have generated undesirable outcomes. The DDCN will have a significant beneficial impact on graduate education and academic as well as non-academic research in several respects. First, it will promote research on transition economies by significantly lowering both the costs of and the risks associated with such research. Second, it will increase collaboration among researchers already studying the transition economies, helping to eliminate wasteful duplication of effort in collecting data. Third, the DDCN will have a particularly great benefit for graduate students, many of whom depend on readily obtainable data for the success of their dissertation research.