This and the next several chapters provide sources for economic data. This chapter focuses on general sources for economic data, that is, sources with a wide-ranging interest in many aspects of the functioning of the economy. Because these sources tend to take a broad view of the economy, they are typically best for macroeconomic data such as gross domestic product, employment and unemployment rates, and rates of inflation; note, however, that the most detailed data sources specifically for macroeconomic accounts are in chapter 13. Subsequent chapters cover sources that collect and disseminate specific types of economic data, such as data on firms, commodities, or trade. Users interested in microeconomic data are more likely to find a useful source in one of these subsequent chapters.
Major Sources: United States
FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
One of the most comprehensive economic data sources, bringing together data from multiple federal agencies as well as from private and international sources, is produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This database is universally known as FRED, short for Federal Reserve Economic Data (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/). FRED contains time-series data sets, typically including data up to the previous year or quarter. Much of the data, including components of the Consumer Price Index, per-capita personal income, and unemployment statistics, are available for small geographic areas. With a total of 72,000 time series available, some with one hundred years or more of data, and easy downloading to Excel, FRED is never a bad place to start when looking for economic data for the United States.
Major Sources: World
Many of the best sources for global economic data are also good general data sources. The international organizations with an interest in economic issues, such as the World Bank and the various regional UN Economic and Social Commissions, also have an interest in development more generally. Thus, they also gather and disseminate data on health, education, and many other topics beyond the purely economic. Because of this, many of the general sources listed in chapter 2 are good bets for international macroeconomic data. The following databases, which are covered in more depth in chapter 2, are some of the best places to start:
UNdata (http://data.un.org). This site contains economic data on a wide range of topics from various sources, including gross domestic product (GDP) and related indicators from the National Accounts Official Country Data produced by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), financial data from the International Monetary Fund’s International Financial Statistics database, manufacturing data from the INDSTAT database produced by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and trade data from the UNSD’s Commodity Trade Statistics Database, among others.
World Bank Data (http://data.worldbank.org). This site includes data on poverty, income distribution, public finance, countries’ financial sectors, and countries’ business climates.
Inter-American Development Bank. The IDB maintains the Latin American and Caribbean Macro Watch Data Tool (www.iadb.org/Research/LatinMacroWatch/lmw.cfm), which contains well over one hundred common macroeconomic indicators for twenty-six countries. Most are time series with data from 1990 to present.
Asian Development Bank. The ADB publishes time series for several hundred macroeconomic indicators, 1988 to present, for its forty-eight member states in its Statistical Database System (https://sdbs.adb.org/sdbs/index.jsp).
Eurostat (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/eurostat/home). This site provides several hundred macroeconomic indicators for members of and membership candidates for the European Union. Some of the time series are long, with some data available as far back as the late 1940s.
Minor Sources
ALFRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
FRASER (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
In addition to FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis produces two databases that can be invaluable to patrons with an interest in economic history: ALFRED (Archival Federal Reserve Economic Data, http://alfred.stlouisfed.org) and FRASER (Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research, http://fraser.stlouisfed.org). ALFRED is useful for patrons who want to replicate previous economic analyses. It lets the user choose a date in history—as far back as 1927 for some data series—and download a data set as it existed on that date, ignoring any subsequent revisions of the data. This service is available for more than 65,000 data series. FRASER contains PDFs of government publications related in some way to the economy, dating from the founding of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 1789. Some of these PDFs contain useful statistics and tables that are not otherwise readily available online, although, of course, to analyze the data one must first type it into a spreadsheet or other software.
Real-Time Data Research Center (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia)
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is not the only such bank to produce useful data resources. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia publishes several data sets in its Real-Time Data Research Center (www.philadelphiafed.org/research-and-data/real-time-center/), which contains up-to-date data about the state of the economy and professional economists’ predictions about the direction of the economy. Data sets in the former category include the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Business Conditions Index, which provides a relative measure of the strength of the economy. Examples of the latter category include the semiannual Livingston Survey and the quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters. Historical data about the past predictions used in creating certain official Federal Reserve reports, namely, the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress and the Greenbook, are also available.
Other Federal Reserve Banks
All of the Federal Reserve Banks (in addition to the ones listed above, Boston, New York, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco) gather and disseminate data about the economies of their regions. Although the specific data gathered varies by region, common types of data include monthly surveys of manufacturers or other businesses in the region and state-level indices of economic indicators. A map of the regions, with links to all Federal Reserve Bank websites, is available at http://federalreserveeducation.org.