Gateways and search engines

A huge and ever-increasing quantity of data is posted online by the U.S. federal government and other sources. You can search for items not listed below using

• Fedstats, a gateway operated by the Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy.
• GPO Access, operated by the Government Printing Office.
• Economic Statistics Briefing Room, maintained by the White House, which gives the latest statistics and links to agencies that produce the data.
• Resources for Economists on the Internet, sponsored by the American Economic Association and edited by Bill Goffe.
• NBER list of current economic data releases

U.S. federal government data sources

Administration (executive branch)

The Executive Office of the President includes

• The Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the federal budget.
• The Council of Economic Advisors, which produces the annual Economic Report of the President, whose "APPENDIX B" contains over 100 tables of data. These appendix tables are probably the best single source of annual U.S. macroeconomic data. (The Report is also available through the Government Printing Office)

The Department of Agriculture offers statistics collected by its Economic Research Service.

The Department of Commerce includes two important statistical agencies.

• The Bureau of Economic Analysis produces the National Income and Product Accounts (GDP, etc.). Its hardcopy monthly, the Survey of Current Business (formerly Business Conditions Digest) is now available in electronic form.
• The Census Bureau produces a huge range of statistics, mostly for the United States but also for foreign countries. Many of its publications may be downloaded in pdf format. Particularly useful are
  • the annual Statistical Abstract of the United States, which can be downloaded by chapter in pdf format, or by table in spreadsheet format.
  • the occasional State and Metropolitan Area Data Book.
  • a page of links to individual state data centers.
  • access tools for detailed Census data sets.

The Department of Education publishes statistics through its National Center for Education Statistics.

The Department of Energy publishes statistics through its Energy Information Administration.

The Department of Health and Human Services offers data on welfare programs and health care. Its Center for Disease Control operates the National Center for Health Statistics.

The Department of Justice has two subdivisions of special interest to economists:

• the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and
• the Antitrust Division, which enforces laws promoting competition and prohibiting monopolization.

The Department of Labor includes the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which collects data on employment and unemployment, earnings, and prices (including the CPI). The Bureau's U.S. Economy at a Glance page is a handy summary of recent inflation and unemployment, with links to charts, press releases, and more detailed data.

The Treasury Department includes the Internal Revenue Service, which offers tax statistics. Also available are data on the public debt.

Congress (legislative branch)

The Congress consists of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, each of which has many committees that develop legislation (the status of which may be tracked through the Library of Congress's "Thomas" web resource). However, two committees include members of both houses.

• The Joint Committee on Taxation develops tax legislation.
• The Joint Economic Committee develops legislation on various economic issues. The web site includes press releases and studies (which tend to reflect the views of the party in power).

Reporting to the Congress are several Congressional agencies, including the following.

• The Congressional Budget Office provides objective, nonpartisan analysis of the budget. It also produces macroeconomic projections or forecasts (used to predict tax revenues) which sometimes differ from the Administration's forecasts.
• The enormous Library of Congress has an online catalog.
• The Government Accountability Office studies the effectiveness of government programs.

Independent federal agencies

The Central Intelligence Agency publishes an annual almanac-like World Factbook, containing current information, including maps and data, on 250 countries.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation publishes data on the banking system.

The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It consists of a Board of Governors in Washington D.C., and 12 District Banks. The Board of Governors site includes

• membership and meeting schedule of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which sets U.S. monetary policy.
• the FOMC's briefing book on current economic conditions, known as the Beige Book.
• the Board Chair's semiannual Monetary Policy Reports to Congress.
• current data on the money supply, interest rates, banking, etc.

Among the 12 Federal Reserve District Banks, several have useful web sites.

• The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis maintains an easy-to-use data bank of U.S. macroeconomic data, called FRED. FRED even includes some important data not produced by the federal government, such as indexes of consumer confidence and help-wanted advertising.
• The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, charged with executing monetary policy through "open market operations" because it is located in the nation's largest financial center, maintains data on the federal funds interest rate, open market operations, and foreign exchange rates.

The Federal Trade Commission enforces laws against consumer fraud. Its Bureau of Competition works with the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice to enforce antitrust laws. Its Bureau of Economics does research in support of both functions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission regulates markets for stocks, bonds, and other securities. Its EDGAR searchable database provides information submitted to the SEC by all publicly-traded corporations.

International organization data sources

The European Central Bank publishes aggregate macroeconomic data for the euro area. However, the statistics are not broken down by country.

The International Monetary Fund, set up under the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, lends money to any country having temporary balance-of-payments difficulties. Its periodical International Financial Statistics, a standard reference for macroeconomic data, is available in hardcopy form in many libraries, but I have not yet found it on the Web. However, the IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO) database does offer some downloadable macroeconomic data--about 30 years of historical data and several years of IMF forecasts.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development an organization of developed countries, offers limited on-line national accounts data. The International Energy Agency, connected with OECD, offers current and recent price and quantity data by country on petroleum and other forms of energy.

The United Nations offers data on individual countries through its Country at a Glance page. The United Nations Statistical Yearbook, available in hardcopy at Cowles Library, offers comparative macroeconomic data, but I have not yet found it (for free) on the Web.

The World Bank, set up under the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, lends money to developing countries at favorable terms. Its web site offers current macroeconomic data on most countries of the world, though not in cross-country tabular form.

Government data sources in other countries

Statistics Canada offers a variety of Canadian economic and social data, but for historical data you must pay.

The U.S. Census Bureau maintains a page of links to statistical agencies in other countries. So does the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the United Nations.

Nongovernment data sources

Economagic offers a large quantity of U.S. and other macroeconomic data series. A commerical site, it supports itself primarily through (annoying) advertising.

EH.NET Economic History Services, operated by a consortium of organizations of economic historians, offers data collected by economic historians. A remarkable page entitled How Much Is That? offers estimates of US GDP back to 1790, UK GDP back to the 1300, and other very long time series on interest rates, exchange rates, and inflation.

The Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, operated by the University of Minnesota, posts international and U.S. Census microdata.

The National Bureau of Economic Research is a private nonpartisan organization supporting economic research related to public policy questions. A committee of the NBER officially dates the peaks and troughs of U.S. business cycles starting in 1857. The NBER site includes an index to research papers by its associated economists (which you must pay for), and data files contributed by them (which are free). It also includes a collection of pre-World War II macroeconomic data for the United States.

The Penn World Tables, maintained at the University of Pennsylvania, are a database of macroeconomic data for most countries of the world for the last few decades. The unique feature of this database is that the data have been converted to U.S. dollars using purchasing power parity exchange rates, not the usual market exchange rates, so they provide a more accurate measure of living standards. These data were first created by Alan Heston and Robert Summers and have subsequently been analyzed in many, many academic papers.