Data Sources & Use
Data Sources & Use
All data in this folder come from public U.S. and Texas government sources and are in the public domain. The processed datasets and build code may be freely used, shared, and adapted for teaching and research. Please credit the original agencies below.
Sources
| Source | Used for | Access |
|---|---|---|
Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts — open data portal (data.texas.gov) | Sales-tax allocation by city (vfba-b57j); city–county sales-tax rate (53pa-m7sm); quarterly taxable sales & business outlets (7z4d-yf2c) | Socrata CSV/JSON API, no key |
| U.S. Census Bureau — 2022 Census of Governments, Survey of Local Government Finances, Individual Unit File | Population, property/total taxes, long- and short-term debt outstanding | Public-use ZIP, no key |
| U.S. OMB / Census Bureau — Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) delineation, 2023 | Metropolitan / Micropolitan classification of counties | Public XLSX, no key |
| U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — CPI-U, U.S. city average, all items, annual averages | Constant-2024-dollar (real) columns | Published annual averages |
Reproducibility
The datasets are fully regenerated by the scripts in ../scripts:
pip install pandas requests openpyxl
cd scripts
python3 build_panel.py # primary annual panel
python3 build_dataset.py # 2022 cross-section (with debt)
python3 validate.py # 19 integrity checks (run from Datasets/)
Each build script downloads its source files to _raw/ on first run (no API key required) and writes CSV + XLSX outputs. See CODEBOOK.md for variable definitions, summary statistics, and known limitations.
Notes / limitations
- City finances come from the 2022 Census of Governments (a full enumeration; non-census years only sample ~140 Texas cities).
- City-name matching between Comptroller and Census reconciles ~97% of cities; ~35 mostly very small cities are absent from the Census finance frame or are duplicate-named places.
- No fund-balance variable exists in any free source.
population_2022_refin the panel is a fixed 2022 reference (free annual city population requires the Census API).