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Compiled by John Sloman, Economics Network Last updated 31th October 2011 Here are some links that you may find useful for accessing statistics and other information. Datasets that require you to pay or register are on a separate pagealong with pointers. (Note that some free datasets that require registration are also listed below.) Printing out this page If you print out this page, the URLs will appear alongside each individual link. Contents
1. National Statistics 2. Bank of England Statistical Interactive Database 3. The Treasury 4. European Central Bank Statistics
5. European Economy 6. OECD Statistics Portal (including OECD Economic Outlook) 7. World Bank data sets 8. IMF data sets 9. WTO international trade statistics 10. UNCTAD statistics 11. Bank for International Settlements 12. NationMaster 13. Gapminder 14. CIA World Factbook 15. Index Mundi 16. FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data 17. EconStats from EconomyWatch 18. Find the Best 19. Yahoo Finance 20. Telegraph shares and markets 21. Index Mundi commodities 22. Energy Information Administration 23. The London Metal Exchange 24. The UK government's Debt Management Office 25. BBC Market Data 26. UK house prices 27. International property prices (BIS) 28. worldwide-tax.com 29. Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) 30. OFFSTATS 31. Economagic 32. RFE Data Links 33. Development Gateway Foundation
C. Market data
1. National Statistics
For those familiar with the old National Statistics site, the new site, launched on 27 August 2011, may seem hard to navigate. ONS has recognised these difficulties and
has now improved the site navigation and the format of the datasets and introduced redirects from old links. There have been some significant improvements to the site. For example, most of the content can now be downloaded as Excel files. The following provides some guidance on where you can find data from the huge range of resources available. In addition to the Home Page, there are three main sections to the site: Browse by theme, Publications and Data. On the Home Page, you can find the latest statistical releases, a range of headline statistics and links to related sites. Home Page In the Browse by Theme section, you can select topics at three levels. At the top level there are 11 topics from which to choose, including Economy and Labour Market. At the next level there are several sub-headings within each broad topic. Thus in "Economy" you can find topics such as Price indices and inflation andNational Income, Expenditure and Output. Then within each topic you can choose between Summaries (normally viewable online, with tables and graphs downloadable in Excel and/or the whole summary downloadable as a PDF), Publications (either viewable online or downloadable as a PDF), Data (normally downloadable in Excel and often available in separate datasets), and Guidance and Methodology. In all cases the publications are sorted chronologically, with latest first. Browse by Theme In the Publications section, all publications are listed in chronological order, latest first. Most are downloadable as PDFs. Given that there are some 8000 publications, you will probably want to filter them first. You can do this by theme (the 11 top-level themes referred to above), by release date, by geographical coverage: national, regional or local. You can also sort by publication type: book, journal, article, report, statistical publication or release. You may still end up with a lot of choices, and so if you know the name of the publication you want, you would probably be better to use the search box at the top of the screen but even this can still produce a great number of hits. For example, if you search 'Blue Book' you get over 400 hits. At this point you may well want to use some of the filters, such as 'by release date', and/or sort by type of publication. Publications In the Data section there are three ways of finding data. The first is to use the search box, where you can use publication title, dataset name or date. You can also search by the unique four digit code for a dataset, but unfortunately this only brings up the publications where you can find the dataset, not the dataset itself. You can also find data by listing reference tables or datasets and sorting them by date or alphabetically
and filtering them theme, date, coverage or geographical breakdown. Reference tables are from publications and can be downloaded as Excel files. Datasets can also be downloaded in Excel, CSV or other formats. You can also select individual series from large datasets by choosing 'Select series from this dataset' from the green panel at the top right of the screen. You can also download series into Navidata 3.1, the ONS's own software that can be downloaded free of charge. Data (datasets and reference tables) The latest statistical stories from the ONS are available as a webcast on YouTube at: Office for National Statistics, onsstats's Channel
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the bottom of the screen, select the date range and the format to view the table. Again the available format are HTML, Excel, XML and CSV.
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3. The Treasury
The Treasury site is also a very useful source of UK data. The main site can be accessed via the following link. The Economic Data and Tools and the Budgetsections are particularly useful. HM Treasury In the Economic Data and Tools section you will find Latest Economic Indicators. Economic Data and Tools Apart from giving you recent data releases, it also contains the Pocket Data Bank. This is a very useful weekly publication (see Weekly Economic Indicators) that downloads as an Excel Workbook file, with 27 tables in separate spreadsheets. It is also available as a PDF file. It contains time-series data for a range of national and international indicators, going back, in most cases, to 1990. Other data sets include forecasts for the UK economy and statistics on public finance and spending. There is also a separate section on the site for the Budget and Pre-Budget Reports and the Comprehensive Spending Review (use the links in the site's left-hand navigation panel). The full reports, tables and charts can be downloaded. (Use the right-hand navigation panel on the Budget page for a link to the archive of previous Budgets.)
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5. European Economy
The European Economy supplements, also available in hard-copy form, can be downloaded from the Europa portal site. They are contained in the Economic and Financial Affairs Directorate site (ECFIN DG). The home page of the directorate is: Economic and Financial Affairs (ECFIN) Annual Macroeconomic Database (AMECO) AMECO contains a large range of annual time-series data for the 27 EU countries, the EU candidates, the EEA countries and the other OECD countries. There are approximately 700 indicators in the dataset. Many of the indicators go back to 1960 and forecast ahead for two years. The data can be viewed online (using Java) and is accessed from: AMECO 6-monthly forecasts By clicking on the following link, you will arrive at the 6-monthly forecasts for each of the 27 EU countries, the euro area, the 27 EU countries as a whole and also the USA and Japan. Apart from containing a comprehensive verbal economic report (plus tables) of each country and the EU as a whole, there is a comprehensive statistical annex with 62 tables of time series data, plus forecasts for the next two years. Index of Economic Forecasts (Note that, with large PDF files such as this, it is much quicker to save the file first and then to open it in the Adobe Acrobat Reader. To save the file, right click the link and go to Save Target As... and then choose your folder and file name.) European Economy Statistical Annex The Statistical Annex to European Economy is updated six-monthly. It contains 112 tables with macroeconomic data for each of the EU27 countries, the applicant countries (Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia), the euro area (the current 16 and the previous 12), the 15 EU countries that were members prior to 2004 and also the USA and Japan. It can be downloaded as a PDF file from the following: European Economy First click on the year and then on the latest statistical annex. Then either left click on the link to download the PDF file, or right click to save it.
It may be useful to know how to import a table from PDF into Excel. Also, with an Excel file containing many rows or columns, it may be useful to keep the header rows (or columns) of the spreadsheet static while the rest of the figures can be moved with the scroll bar or mouse wheel. Business and Consumer Surveys The European Economy site also contains monthly business and consumer surveys. These come in two separate sets: Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) and Business Climate Indicator (BCI). Business and Consumer Surveys: Recent You can also access longer time series. You can download these as eight sets of zipped Excel files, one for each type of indicator (economic sentiment, industry, services, consumers, retail trade, construction, financial services and investment) or as two complete sets (seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted). The series give monthly data from 1985 and, for some series, quarterly data too. See the Index in the first worksheet of each file for the meaning of the codes used in the tables. The tables give indicators for each of the 27 EU countries, for the euro area and for the EU as a whole. You will find all these at: Business and Consumer Surveys: Time Series
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A useful publication with a range of statistics for the latest year and for the previous 12 years can be found in OECD Factbook. The tables can be accessed individually. OECD Factbook 2010 Go to 'Access the database' at the bottom of the page to access the Factbook online. Main Economic Indicators (MEI) Shorter-term macroeconomic data on each of the OECD countries can be found in the OECD's Main Economic Indicators (MEI). Although the complete publication is available only by subscription, some of the key data can be found at: Statistics related to the MEI Also publicly available data can be downloaded from: Main Economic Indicators: Public Data Stat Extracts This section of the site contains various datasets classified under a number of headings, such as Development, Economic Projections, Labour and National Accounts. You can customise the datasets by series, countries and years. Stat Extracts
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The complete set of World Bank World Development Indicators and World Bank Global Development Finance data are available free via the Economic and Social Data Service, which requires you to login through the UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research. You will first need to register. This is free. (Details are given on the site). Then to login, you specify your university or college and then use your university/college username and password. In some universities, you will need to use your Athens username and password instead. Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) (International data section) A useful publication of the World Bank is the Little Green Data Book. This gives key indicators of the environment for each of over 200 countries and for groups of countries organised by region and by income. The Little Green Data Book 2010 Another valuable set of international statistics that can be accessed from the World Bank site is Principal Global Indicators. This gives country-by-country economic and financial data for the Group of 20 (G20) countries. The data can be downloaded as PDF, CSV or Excel files. Principal Global Indicators The World Bank has also developed a 'Visualizer' that can be used to compare two indicators over time in a scatter diagram of up to 210 countries and 18 groups of countries. The indicators are taken from the World Development Indicators database. Each country plot is represented by a 'bubble', the size of which depends on population size. Each axis can be set to a linear or log scale. You can choose the year (from 1960 to the latest available) or set the chart to 'play' which then automatically progresses from the first to the final year. This gives an excellent visual representation of the comparative progress of countries over time. World Bank Visualizer
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using you university/college username and password (you will have to register first: details are given on the site). Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) (International data section)
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The Annexes to the World Investment Report contain a range of additional FDI, M&A and TNC statistics that can be downloaded as 28 Excel files. (Note that the tables appear in reverse order.) Annex Tables
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per type of payment instrument, number and value of securities and derivatives trades and many other indicators: Statistics on payment and settlement systems
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12. NationMaster
This is a compilation of more than five thousand data series, from sources including the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. As well as profiles of individual countries including their maps and flags, you can browse the data by topic including education, economy, crime, mortality or health. The site offers a facility to create correlation reports and scatter-plots on the fly. NationMaster Under FACTS & STATISTICS select a Category (e.g. Economy) and then a series (e.g. Aid as % of GDP). If you select Advanced View you can choose various countries and two series and compare them. Alternatively, use the top navigation bar. For example, you could select Statistics or Countries.
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13. Gapminder
Gapmider allows you to chart three indicators (from a very large selection) over time for most countries simultaneously, with data going back decades, or even centuries for some indicators. The charts allow you to see very easily the differences between countries: hence the title of the site! The following link takes you to Gapminder World. Gapminder World If you click on Chart view from the tab at the top, you can choose which indicator to put on each axis by clicking on each axis in turn and selecting from the drop-down list. Each axis can be shown in linear or log mode. Each country is represented by a bubble, whose colour varies by continent. The size of the bubble gives the third indicator, whose default is the population size, but again you can use a drop-down menu (bottom right) to select this third indicator. The default is all countries, but you can select just one or more countries from a list on the right. The non-selected countries appear in faded colour. You can use a slider to fade them out completely if you prefer. You can also track the path of your selected countries over time if you choose. A guide to this view is given at: Gapminder World Guide You can also watch a video tutorial.
The alternative view is the Map view. Each country bubble is positioned on a world map. The size of the bubble gives one indicator. A second indicator can be shown by colour gradation of the bubbles. Again you can select individual countries. You can also look at gaps within the 'big four' countries/regions: China, India, USA and the EU. Gapminder "Big Four" The site also has a range of videos which examine specific data. Gapminder videos
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World maps by indicator Bar charts with figures for ranking countries for a range of indicators: Country comparison charts Times series charts and tables that allow you to compare up to four countries using up to ten indicators: Historical data graphs Correlation scatter charts (plus table) that allow you to compare two indicators for all countries for a selected year: Correlation charts
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Another part of the site contains data on world industries. It covers all the major industries and classification systems, together with key industry data. World Industry Directory
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C. Market data
The following sites provide data on UK and international markets for individual commodities, shares or products.
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These can be charted for a 6 month, 1, 5, 10, 15, or 25 year range. The figures also appear in a table which can be downloaded to Excel. There are also links to recent news articles relevant to the selected commidty. The site also contains country data, which can be found from the site's home page. Index Mundi: home page Details of the charting features of the country data can be found above at site 15.
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Historical data
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Home values Department of Communities and Local Government The following link takes you to a range of tables on the UK housing market and house prices. They are all downloadable as Excel files. Live tables on housing market and house prices
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28. worldwide-tax.com
This site has key data on world taxes, including income tax rates, a tax rates comparison table, a section on business & finance worldwide, a directory of world embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions, a link to general and economic news sites, links to tax news, links to world tax and revenue administrations, a directory of world stock exchanges and links to business oppportunity sites arranged by country. Home page A useful section is: Tax rates around the world This is presented as a table, with the rates for each country with many of the countries clickable to give you more information.
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To gain free access to the datasets linked from ESDS you will need to use your university/college username and password. You will first need to register at: Economic and Social Data Service home page ESDS is in four parts: ESDS International This gives access to a huge range of international macroeconomic data from the World Bank, Eurostat, the IMF, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the ILO, the OECD and UNIDO. It also gives access to various micro datasets, including Eurobarometer Surveys. ESDS International ESDS Government This gives access to UK government surveys, including the Labour Force Survey, the General Household Survey and the Family Expenditure Survey. ESDS Government ESDS Longitudinal This gives access to major UK surveys following individuals over time, such as the British Household Panel Survey and the British Cohort Study (of people born in 1970). ESDS Longitudinal ESDS Qualidata "The service provides access and support for a range of social science qualitative datasets." ESDS Qualidata
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30. OFFSTATS
This is a New Zealand site with links to a host of statistical sources from around the world. Offstats Database You can browse by country, by region of the world and by subject. The subjects include both economic and non-economic ones.
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31. Economagic
This US site contains a vast range of US, Australian, Japanese and ECB data, plus LIBOR data in various currencies. The site allows you to manipulate the data: e.g. convert monthly data to quarterly or annual data; convert levels to rates of change; dump data into Excel spreadsheets; and graph the data. Click on Transform this Series to convert the data. Have a play with it. It's easy to follow the instructions. Browse Data Collections
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Comments
I thought you might be interested in OpenPSI ( http://www.openpsi.org ), a collaboration between the University of Southampton and the UK government, lead by the National Archive, to trial a new form of community provisioned information service. We are exposing UK government data in the Semantic Web standards, RDF. I was discussing recently with Richard Goodwin (Editor in charge of the London Gazette) how researchers in Scotland had a interest in understanding the correlation between current economic conditions, insolvency (personal and corporate) and the local areas social conditions but they are struggling to get the data and perform analysis. The insolvency (personal and corporate) information is published by government in the London Gazette and has been harvested into an online collection that can be queried.
Submitted by
reply Dear sir, I am posting http://www.geognos.com , a site with Geographic Economic and other data of world countries. You can consider including this site in your respectable directory. Thanks & Regards Nick Milon Athens, Greece
Submitted by
reply I recommend web web page 'Formula for Current Account Balance' http://www.buoyanteconomies.com/CAD_Formula.htm as offering great modeling and insight re current account. Also of considerable interest at the same site is: 'Impact of the Floating Exchange Rate System on Employment and Growth' http://www.buoyanteconomies.com/Impact%20of%20floating%20exchange%20rate %20Growth.htm
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