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A Guide To Free Economics And Business Data On The Web
This guide to data sources on the web has been kindly written by John Sloman, the Director of the Economics Network. There are further links to these and many other data sources on the Economics Network Web site.
Here are some links that you may find useful for accessing statistics and other information.
- National Statistics
National Statistics (formerly ONS) data sets are now freely available. By visiting a part of the site called 'Time Series Data' (follow the link below), you can access all the tables from the publications we all know: Economic Trends (Monthly and Annual Supplement), the Blue Book, the Pink Book, Financial Statistics etc.
Time series data
On entering the site you are given two main options. The first is to 'Access Individual Series'. If you opt for this, a panel will be displayed. Having selected the publication (e.g. Economic Trends), you then have to select the table; then the series; and then the time period. This will involve clicking on 'Go' several times.
The second option is to download an entire release (e.g. of Economic Trends). If you opt for this, then you have a choice of downloading it in a simple zipped text file. This is not easy to use. The alternative is to download it into Navidata 3.1. This software makes it easy to transform or graph series. You can use it to compose tables from a number of different series. Download the software from:
Navidata 3.1
Once you have Navidata® 3.1 on your PC, your downloaded series can be unzipped into the Navidata folder. You then use Navidata to construct the tables or graphs that you want.
A step-by-step guide on using Time Series Data is at:
Help in using Time Series Data
If you know the four-digit code for a series (which you will find at the top of each column in the paper publications) or in the lists from each publication in the panel in Time Series Data, you can call up the series by going into 'Advanced Search' and entering the code in the 'Search For' box and selecting 'Time Series (using ID)' in the 'Scope of Search' box. This then lists the publications in which the series occurs (with links to the series).
Other well-known publications are available as complete PDF documents, many with links included that allow you to download an Excel file of the data. Series in PDF include: the Blue Book, the Pink Book, Economic Trends (monthly), Labour Market Trends, Scottish Economic Statistics, New Earnings Survey, Family Spending, Social Trends, Regional Trends, Agriculture in the United Kingdom, the Annual Abstract and the Monthly Digest of Statistics (but not Financial Statistics or Economic Trends Annual Supplement). The available PDF documents can be found on the 'Virtual Bookshelf' part of the site at:
Virtual Bookshelf
New releases can be downloaded from:
New Releases
Latest economic indicators can be downloaded from:
Latest Indicators
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Bank of England Monetary and Financial Statistics
The Bank of England publishes a large range of banking, monetary and financial statistics. Most of the series download as Excel files. An index to the various series is given at the following link:
Statistical Interactive Database
- 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 Budget sections are particularly useful.
HM Treasury
In the Economic data and tools section you will find Latest Economic Indicators:
Latest economic indicators
Apart from giving you recent data releases, it also contains the Pocket Data Bank. This is a very useful monthly publication that downloads as an Excel workbook file, with 28 tables in separate spreadsheets. It contains time-series data for a range of national and international indicators, going back, in most cases, to 1980.
- European Central Bank Statistics
On the ECB site you will find a statistical section containing a number of series. The index can be accessed via the following link:
ECB statistics
The Monthly Bulletin and Annual Report are particularly useful:
Monthly bulletin
- European Economy
The European Economy supplements, which you may be familiar with 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:
European economy supplements
6-monthly forecasts
You can also get the 6-monthly forecasts for the EU15 countries, plus the USA and Japan. To download the document (in PDF) you will need to click in the tiny 'en' box. Apart from containing a comprehensive verbal economic report (plus tables) of the EU as a whole and each of the 15 countries, there is a comprehensive
statistical annex with 61 tables of time series data, plus forecasts for the next two years.
Six monthly forecasts
Annual review
The EU Economy Annual Review can also be accessed from this site. This contains a massive statistical annex, containing 96 tables, with data for each of the EU15 countries, the EU15 and Euro countries as a whole and the USA and Japan. It can be accessed at:
Annual review
European Economy Statistical Annex
The Statistical Annex of the Annual Review is updated six-monthly and this appendix on its own can be downloaded as a PDF file from the following:
Statistical Annex
When you have selected the latest six-monthly release, again click (or right click to save) in the 'en' box.
Business and consumer surveys
The European Economy site also contains monthly business and consumer confidence surveys. There is also a set of longer time series, which you can download as 7 zipped Excel files, one for each type of indicator (economic sentiment, industry, consumer, construction, retail trade, services, investment). The series give data from 1985, both monthly and quarterly. There is a large range of sentiment indicators in each file. See the Index in the first workbook of each file for the meaning of the codes used in the tables. The tables give indicators for each of the EU countries, for the eurozone and for the EU as a whole. You will find all these at:
Business and consumer surveys
- OECD Statistics Portal (including OECD Economic Outlook)
On this site you will find a whole range of statistics for each of the 30 OECD countries, the EU15, the euro area and the OECD as a whole. The statistics are arranged by topic group, including national Accounts, Finance, Agriculture, Development, International Trade, Labour, Prices, Public Management and Short-term Economic Statistics.
OECD Statistics Portal
From the above page you can also link to the OECD Economic Outlook. This six-monthly publication contains a Statistical Annex with annual macroeconomic data for each of the OECD countries. The data typically cover 20 years with forecasts ahead for the next two years. There are 61 tables in Excel spreadsheets, grouped into workbooks in 8 separate files. They are normally available a few weeks after the publication of the paper version. There is also normally a gap of a few weeks from the time the previous edition is withdrawn to the time the new edition appears. During this period a 'flash file' is available with summary statistics and forecasts for each of the member countries.
The latest Statistical Annex files can be downloaded from:
OECD Economic Outlook
- World Bank data sets
The World Bank site contains a vast database of economic, social and other development statistics for all countries of the world. The following link takes you to the index of all the sections: including Data by Country, Data by Topic and Data Query (from 54 indicators, 5 years and over 200 countries).
Data index
The World Bank also publishes its annual World Development Report. The full text is available from the following link, including all the statistical tables.
World Development Report
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 an Athens password:
Economic and Social Data Service
- IMF data sets
Country reports for all countries of the world can be found on the IMF site:
Country reports
Three particularly useful publications are the World Economic Outlook, Annual Report and International Capital Markets. Each of these has a large statistical annex and can be accessed via the following link (see links in the right-hand column of the screen).
IMF publications
The complete set of IMF Direction of Trade Statistics and IMF International Financial Statistics are available free via the Economic and Social Data Service, which requires an Athens password:
Economic and Social Data Service
- CIA World Factbook
This information comes courtesy of the CIA and this is a very useful site, giving a host of economic and other data, country-by-country. Simply click on the country.
CIA World Factbook
- Economist Country Briefings
For a somewhat less controversial source of country information, this part of The Economist site is excellent. Again, you simply click on a country to get a selection of statistics (under Country Profile), plus briefing articles.
Economist country briefings
- OFFSTATS
This is a New Zealand site with links to a host of statistical sources from around the world.
OFFSTATS
- Economagic
This US site contains a vast range of US, Australian, Canadian, Japanese and ECB data. 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. (By the way, ignore the message that comes up saying 'Message Alert: You have one message waiting for you'. It's just an advert!)
Economagic
- FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data
Economic data for the whole of the US, updated daily from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data
- RFE Data Links
From this complete table of contents for Resources for Economists, there are links to very many online data sources, categorised by region. Categories include US Macro and Regional Data, World and Non-USA Data, Finance and Financial Markets, Journal Data and Program Archives, Economists, Departments and Universities and Forecasting and Consulting.
RFE Data Links
- Davidson Data Center and Network (DDCN)
'DDCN is a centralised clearing house and data archive on transition and emerging market economies. DDCN archives and provides access to socio-economic micro and macro data on these economies.'
Davidson Data Center and Network (DDCN) (Browse by Subject)
Davidson Data Center and Network (DDCN) (Browse by Country)
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