Economics   Tags: economics, guides, statistics  

ECON 496 Senior Seminar

Business / Management

How to Find Government Information

Statistics Guide by Topics

Economics Department

Thesis Collection

EconLit provides provides access to more than 550 academic/scholarly peer reviewed journals of Economics and related fields, as well as thousands of "working papers".

Economics & Statistical Resources

To create spreadsheets, often times you will need to download data using the CSV format option, then saving it to an interim file via NOTEPAD, and then using EXCEL to open the comma delimited document, before you can re-save the downloaded data into the XLS format.

Bureau of Economic Analysis - an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce

The BEA compiles four major types of statistics: National economic accounts provide a quantitative view of the production, distribution, and use of the Nation's output; one of the most widely known measures is gross domestic product (GDP). BEA also prepares estimates of the Nation's tangible wealth and input-output tables that show how industries interact. Regional economic accounts provide estimates, analyses, and projections of personal income, population, and employment for regions, States, metropolitan areas, and counties. BEA also prepares estimates of gross state product. International economic accounts encompass the international transactions accounts (balance of payments) and the estimates of U.S. direct investment abroad and foreign direct investment in the United States."  Industry economic accounts contain input-out tables, showing how industries interact with the economy, and each other.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (U.S. Department of Labor, DC)

Bureau of Labor Statistics is the arm of the United States Government that compiles some of the most widely followed statistical measures of the American economy. Some of the BLS's most prominent economic indicators that are available from this resource include the CPI: Consumer Price Index, the PPI: Producer Price Index, the National Unemployment rate, the Industry Labor Productivity Index, and International Labor Statistics. This collection of statistical reports is compiled and distributed by the BLS, on their own computers in Washington DC. This user friendly collection includes a variety of help screens for producing customized reports from their time series data files.

EPI's DataZone (Economic Policy Institute)

DataZone contains US historical economic data fousing on Wage & Compensation trends; Family Earnings trends, the Consumer Price Index; National Employment statistics, and Employment Statistics by Census Divisions.

Federal Reserve Board of Governors - Statististical Releases & Historical Data

Offers a core collection of recently compiled national level statistics on banking & economics, including: Bank assets, Business finance, Foreign exchange rates, Industrial activity, Interest rates, Money stock/supply and Loan delinquencies.

FRED® - Federal Reserve Economic Data - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

An excellent source for over 26,000 time series financial or macro-economic data, readily downloadable into Excel spreadsheets! Although the name and format appear to be similar to the statistical data provided by the Federal Reserve Board, this compilation provides access to much more detail, and further back in time. Some statistical series in FRED® start more than 60 years ago.  The majority of items in FRED are state level statistics, many of which are also available either by County or Metropolitan Statistical Area.

ALFRED® - ArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Data - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

This is the archival component of FRED® where you can retrieve vintage of data that were available on specific dates in history. Currently, vintage data are available for 341 series in 6 FRED® categories. As of Feburary 2006, the earliest vintage available is 1996-01-17.

FRASER - Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

This contains scanned images (in Adobe® Acrobat® PDF format) of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents compiled by the Federal Reserve System / Federal Reserve Board. Some of the items available from FRASER include "All Bank Statistics Report" (1896-1955); "Banking and Monetary Statistics" (1941-1970); "Business Conditions Digest" (1968-1989); "Business Statistics - supplement to the Survey of Current Business" (1932-1965); "Economic Indicators" (1948-2005); "Economic Report of the President" (1950-1995); "Survey of Current Business" (1925-1982); and "Productivity and Costs" (1985-2003).

IES (International Economic Statistics) Database - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

An online directory pointing you towards sources of statistical informaiton of 100+ countries, and 200+ official goverment agencies from around the world. Each entry in the IES database includes countries covered, name of the statistics included, the agency that compiles it, the earliest year covered, and the different formats for extracting the data. Each entry also has a URL connecting you to the ultimate online source.

Liber8 - Economic Information Portal for Librarians & Students - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Connects students with recent research & the latest economic indicators used by the FRS, broken down into three major sections: International, National and Regional. Also provides links to glossary of ecnomic terms used by the Federal Reserve, as well as an online directory of economic research published by various units of the FRS.

Penn World Trade Database: - University of Pennsylvania's Center for International Comparisons

Provides purchasing power parity and national income accounts converted to international prices for 168 countries for some or all of the years 1950-2000. The European Union or the OECD provide more detailed purchasing power and real product estimates for their countries and the World Bank. Makes current price estimates for most PWT countries at the GDP level.

Total Economy - Groningen Growth & Development Centre at the University of Groningen

Data from over 100 countries, starting as early as 1950. Primary focus is on: Real Gross Domestic Product; GDP per capita; GDP per person engaged; GDP per hour; Population; Emplyoment; and Annual working hours. Although this data is distributed by the GGDC, it is produced jointly by the Conference Board and the GGDC.

60 Industry Database - Groningen Growth & Development Centre at the University of Groningen

Data on industrial performance during the years 1973-2003 for Taiwan and OECD member countries. Contains country level aggregate data, as well as for specific industry groups. Although some specific industry groups are not detailed, they are included within each country's total results for each year.

Industry Growth Accounting Database - Groningen Growth & Development Centre at the University of Groningen

Data sets since 1980 focusing on labor skills; ICT & non-ICT capital services; as well as estimates of output & labor input for 7 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, and USA.

Congressional Budget Office - U.S. Congress

"The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was created by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. CBO's mission is to provide the Congress with objective, timely, nonpartisan analyses needed for economic and budget decisions and with the information and estimates required for the Congressional budget process."

National Bureau of Economic Research

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a private non-profit sponsor of research and conferences in economics and finance founded in 1920 and devoted to objective quantitative analysis of the American Economy.

History of Economic Thought

Developed by graduate students at the New School for Social Research's Department of Economics. The primary feature is an alphabetical listing of over 500 economists linked to brief biographies and bibliographies of their notable works.

EconWPA = Economic Working Papers Archive (Washington University in St. Louis)

This web site provides abstracts and full text of working papers in all areas of economics, including management-related topics. Organized by the JEL classification categories, this service is "devoted to giving interactive access to the electronic working papers that have been posted."

Economic Reporting Review (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)

FAIR is a national media watch dog group. ERR provides weekly analysis of economic matters that were published in the New York Times or in the Washington Post. Since its founding in 1999, all of the analysis in ERR has been authored by only one economist. However, this site can provide an alternative perspective in analyzing national economic matters.

Internet Resources for International Economics & Business (Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania)

This web site offers connections to a large number of Internet resources, clustered by major categories: International Trade; Int. Finance; Int. Development; Int. Trade Law; Int. Business; Int. Accounting; and Int. Marketing. The web connections are listed, without any annotations.