Economic Data freely available online

Compiled by John Sloman, Economics Network
Last updated 11^th January 2010

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 page along with pointers. (Note that some free datasets that require registration are also listed below.)

The data links are organised in four sections:

1. UK sites for data
2. International sites for data
3. Market data
4. Portal sites with links to other sites

UK sites for data

The following three sites are the main ones for accessing free data (mainly macroeconomic) on the UK economy. The sites also contain some international data.

1. National Statistics

National Statistics data sets are freely available. By visiting a part of the site called 'Time Series Data' (at the URL below), you can access all the tables from all the main publications, such as Economic & Labour Market Review (ELMR) (formerly Economic Trends and Labour Market Trends) the Blue Book, the Pink Book, Financial Statistics, etc.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/TSDIntro.asp

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:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/tsdnavidata.asp

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:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/tsdhelp.asp

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 & Labour Market Review, Scottish Economic Statistics, Financial Statistics, Family Spending, Social Trends, Regional Trends, Agriculture in the United Kingdom, the Annual Abstract and the Monthly Digest of Statistics. The available PDF documents can be found on the 'Virtual Bookshelf' part of the site at:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/OnlineProducts/default.asp

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.

New releases can be downloaded from:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ReleaseCalendar/currentreleases.asp

Latest economic indicators can be downloaded from:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/instantfigures.asp

2. Bank of England Statistical Interactive Database

The statistics area of the Bank's site contains a range of monetary and financial data:

www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/about/index.htm

This includes the monthly publication, Bankstats, available as a PDF document or as separate tables in Excel files:

www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/ms/current/index.htm

There is also a large range of banking, monetary and financial statistics in the Statistical Interactive Database. There are two easy ways of accessing the statistics in the database. The first is by category of table using the following link:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/mfsd/iadb/BankStats.asp?Travel=NIx

First you click on a category (e.g. Money and lending); then select a series (e.g. Monthly growth rates of M4 and M4 Lending) by clicking on the "+" sign to open up the options and then again with the selected option; then check the relevant series and click on 'show data' at the bottom of the screen; then select the date range and then the format in which to view the table (HTML, Excel, XML or CSV).

The second method is to use the A to Z listing using the following link:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/mfsd/iadb/AtoZ.asp?Travel=NIx

First you choose which of four alphabetical lists to use. Then select a country or subject (e.g. M4); then a particular series (e.g. LPMAUYM); then, after clicking on 'show data' at 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.

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 Budget sections are particularly useful.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/

In the Economic Data and Tools section you will find Latest Economic Indicators.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/data_index.htm

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 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.

 

International sites for data

The following sites give access to international data. Some of the data are for individual countries; some are for groups of countries.

4. 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:

http://www.ecb.int/stats/html/index.en.html

The Monthly Bulletin and Annual Report are particularly useful.

http://www.ecb.int/pub/mb/html/index.en.html

http://www.ecb.int/pub/annual/html/index.en.html

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:

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/index_en.htm

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

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/ameco/index_en.htm

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.

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/economic/european_economy/forecasts_en.htm

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:

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/economic/european_economy/index_en.htm

First click on the year and then, at the bottom, 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).

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/surveys/index_en.htm

You can also access longer time series. You can download these as 8 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:

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/db_indicators/surveys/time_series/index_en.htm

6. 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 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.

http://www.oecd.org/statsportal/0,2639,en_2825_293564_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

OECD Economic Outlook

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 63 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.

The latest Statistical Annex files can be downloaded from:

http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,2340,en_2825_32066506_2483901_1_1_1_1,00.html

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 individually accessed from:

http://www.oecd.org/site/0,3407,en_21571361_34374092_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

From the above page, click on "Access It! FREE 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:

http://www.oecd.org/std/mei#statistics

Also publicly available data can be downloaded from:

http://stats.oecd.org/mei/

7. 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. Although much of the data on the site is available only by subscription, by clicking on 'Data' on the left-hand panel of the following, you can access a range of free statistics, both by country and by topic:

http://www.worldbank.org/data/

The World Bank also publishes its annual World Development Report. The reports contain a 'selected indicators' appendix with a range of development data for all countries of the world. You can download the reports for each year from the following:

http://www.worldbank.org/wdr/

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.

http://www.esds.ac.uk/international/access/access.asp

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. See:

http://tinyurl.com/pthvuo

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.

http://financialdatalink.sharepointsite.net/default.aspx

8. IMF data sets

Country reports for all countries of the world can be found via the following link:

http://www.imf.org/external/country/

Three particularly useful publications are the World Economic Outlook, Global Financial Stability Report and Annual Report. 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).

http://www.imf.org/external/pubind.htm

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 using you university/college username and password (you will have to register first: details are given on the site):

http://www.esds.ac.uk/international/access/access.asp

9. WTO international trade statistics

The resources section of the WTO site contains trade statistics by country, by region and by sector. There are two main parts to the site. The first is a searchable database for various time series data. These include data on merchandise and commercial services trade at:

http://stat.wto.org/StatisticalProgram/WSDBStatProgramHome.aspx?Language=E

From this part of the site you can also access trade profiles of individual countries at:

http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFHome.aspx?Language=E

and tariff profiles at:

http://stat.wto.org/TariffProfile/WSDBTariffPFHome.aspx?Language=E

The second main part of the site contains annual trade statistics, which you can download as PDF or Excel files. See:

http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/its2009_e/its09_toc_e.htm 

10. UNCTAD statistics

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) site has an online statistical database. Some parts of this require subscription, but you can access customisable international trade, finance, commodity price and various other international statistics free of charge:

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1888&lang=1

The database includes a Handbook of Statistics at:

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1890&lang=1

The Handbook of Statistics can also be downloaded as PDF files from:

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/webflyer.asp?docid=10193&intItemID=1397&lang=1&mode=downloads 

You can also access customisable foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics at:

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=3199&lang=1

and download the World Investment Report in PDF files at:

http://www.unctad.org/Templates/webflyer.asp?docid=11904&intItemID=5037&lang=1&mode=downloads

The above report contains many tables on global and regional FDI, cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and transnational corporations (TNCs).

Annexes A and B to the World Investment Report contain a range of additional FDI, M&A and TNC statistics. See:

http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/wir2009annexes_en.pdf

11. 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.

http://www.nationmaster.com/

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.

12. 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.

http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/index.php

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:

http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/downloads/instruction.pdf

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 at:

http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/four_big.php

The site also has a range of videos which examine specific data at:

http://www.gapminder.org/videos/

13. CIA World Factbook

If you don't mind that this information comes courtesy of the CIA, this is a very useful site, giving a host of economic and other data, country-by-country. Simply select a country from the drop-down menu.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

14. Index Mundi

World Factbook country data can also be found on Index Mundi (see also site 19 below). Note that the Index Mundi site is not affiliated, in any way, with the US Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.indexmundi.com

The Index Mundi site has a powerful graphing feature which you can use for the following:

• World maps showing colour-coded information and data tables by country for a range of indicators:

http://www.indexmundi.com/map.aspx

• Bar charts with figures for ranking countries for a range of indicators:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/rank.html

• Times series charts and tables that allow you to compare up to four countries using up to ten indicators:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/

• Correlation scatter charts (plus table) that allow you to compare two indicators for all countries for a selected year:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/correlate.html

15. FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data

Economic data for the whole of the USA, updated daily from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred/

16. EconStats from EconomyWatch

The site consists of core macroeconomic indicators taken from the IMF's World Economic Outlook and various other. You can search data in three ways: by country, by indicator and by year (including forecasts). There are plans for the future to include World Bank, national government and other data sources.

http://www.economywatch.com/economic-statistics/

The EconomyWatch site also includes country briefings at:

http://www.economywatch.com/#economy

and economic news at:

http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-news/

Another part of the site contains data on world industries. It covers all the major industries and classification systems, together with key industry data.

http://www.economywatch.com/world-industries/

Market data

The following sites provide data on UK and international markets for individual commodities, shares or products.

17. Yahoo Finance

The following link is to the home page, from which you can access the various sections of the site, including equity (share) markets, currency markets and commodity markets.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/

On the investing part of the site you can access equity and other financial markets.

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/uk_trading.html

For example you can see charts and tables for the FTSE 100. You can also look up individual shares at:

http://uk.finsearch.yahoo.com/uk/index.php?s=uk_sort&nm=Enter%20Company%20or%20Symbol&tp=S&r=*

18. Telegraph shares and markets

This is a well presented and clearly navigable site for finding share and commodity prices and tailoring the data.

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/

For example, you can see what is happening to each of the major stock market indices and all the individual shares in that particular index at:

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/indices/

You can draw time-series charts of any share for periods of 1 day to 10 years. These can be in different formats, such as line charts, candle charts or high-low charts. You can add overlays of moving averages and add charts at the bottom of the screen for a range of other indicators on that share, such as volume and moving average (VOLMA), moving average convergence/divergence (MACD), fast stochastic (Fast Stoch) and rate of change (ROC).

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/charts/

You can show 'heat maps' which rank shares in indices by percentage change at::

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/heatmaps/

You can use the Stock Screener to display particular types of stock, filtered by size, sector and various types of share data at:.

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/stockscreener/

Also you can build your own portfolio at:

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/login/

19. Index Mundi commodities

The Index Mundi site has an extensive set of commodity price data drawn from the IMF at:

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/

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 at:

http://www.indexmundi.com/

Details of the charting features of the country data can be found above at site 14.

20. Energy Information Administration

This is a US government site, but it gives international as well as US data on electricity, coal, gas, nuclear power and oil. See:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/

For individual country analyses, see:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/contents.html

World crude oil prices can be found at:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_wco_k_w.htm

For example, historical prices for Brent crude are at:

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/rbrteM.htm

21. The London Metal Exchange

You can download Excel spreadsheets of prices, stocks and traded volumes for each month of the current year for each metal at:

http://www.lme.co.uk/dataprices_historical.asp

22. The UK government's Debt Management Office

This UK government site has, amongst other things, market data on Gilt markets, Treasury Bill markets and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) market.

http://www.dmo.gov.uk/

23. BBC Market Data

The BBC news site has a section with market data at:

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/fds/hi/business/market_data/overview/

You can find current prices and charts of price movements over the past one, three or twelve months of stock markets, shares, currencies and commodities.

24. UK house prices

There are two excellent sites for time-series data of house prices.

Lloyds Banking Group

The house price index site shows the movements in house prices since 1983 both nationally, by region, by county, by town, by property type and by type of buyer. Data are given monthly, quarterly and annually. Data can be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets from the 'Other Housing Research' section of the site. For example, try clicking on 'Historical House Price Data' at:

http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media1/research/halifax_hpi.asp

Nationwide house prices site

This gives quarterly movements in national house prices since 1952. More detailed series distinguishing type of property, type of buyer and region are given from more recent years (1973, 1983 or 1991). See:

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical.htm

 

Portal sites with links to other sites

These sites provide links to other sites with a range of economic data.

25. Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS)

"The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) is a [UK] national data service providing access and support for an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes."

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:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/aandp/access/login.asp

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. See:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/international/access/access.asp

ESDS Government

This gives access to UK government surveys, including the Labour Force Survey, the General Household Survey and the Family Expenditure Survey. See:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/government/surveys/

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). See:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/longitudinal/access/introduction.asp

ESDS Qualidata

"The service provides access and support for a range of social science qualitative datasets." See:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/qualidata/access/introduction.asp

26. OFFSTATS

This is a New Zealand site with links to a host of statistical sources from around the world.

http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/

You can browse by country, by region of the world and by subject. The subjects include both economic and non-economic ones.

27. 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.

http://www.economagic.com/

28. RFE Data Links

RFE is part of AEAWeb - information for economists provided by the American Economic Association. From the Data page on the Resources for Economists (RFE) part of the site, 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.

http://www.aeaweb.org/RFE/showCat.php?cat_id=2

29. Development Gateway Foundation

This is an online resources portal for development information and knowledge-sharing worldwide. The tools on this website bring together people and organizations around the globe who are working to improve life in developing countries.

http://www.developmentgateway.org

The following gives links to national and international organisations that offer data, or information about data, on their site.

http://www.developmentgateway.org/cg/country-gateways/dataandstatistics.do