Sources of Data
There is a tremendous amount of data available to economists. The list of links presented below is not exhaustive, but it is a good start. We organize the sources into four topics: U.S. Economy, Firm Level Data, Individual Level Data and International Data. In the case of the U.S. Economy we further break down some of the categories into primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources collect the data themselves. Secondary sources present data collected by others. Secondary sources are not necessarily inferior to primary sources. The advantage of primary sources is that they contain the most recent and the most accurate data. In addition, they tend to provide useful information on how the data is collected. The advantage of secondary sources is that they normally put together information from more than one primary source, thus eliminating the need to search from more than one primary source.
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U.S. Economy, Primary Sources: |
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| Bureau of Labor Statistics | contains information on prices, wages, employment, etc. |
| Bureau of Economic Analysis | contains information on GDP, aggregate investment, consumption, exports, imports, etc. |
| Federal Reserve | includes information on interest rates, exchange rates, industrial production, banking, etc. |
| Bureau of Census | includes information on nearly everything of particular interest may be economic programs including economic census and American Fact Finder. |
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U.S. Economy, Secondary Sources: |
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| Statistical Abstract of the United States | is an excellent collection of domestic data on the economy, health, crime, elections, etc. Recent editions are available online. Past editions are available as hard copy in the library. |
| DRI | contains macroeconomic data from a number of sources including those cited above. The database can be accessed through E-views. |
| Fred II | is a comprehensive macroeconomic and financial database maintained by the St. Louis Fed. |
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Firm Level Data: |
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| Mergent Online | has current and historical accounting data for U.S. as well as foreign companies. |
| Yahoo! Finance | has historical stock prices, recent accounting data and analyst estimates. |
| SEC's EDGAR | contains company filings including quarterly and annual reports. |
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Individual or Household Level Data: |
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| Current Population Survey (CPS) | is a monthly survey of 50,000 households. Contains data on earnings, education levels, marital status, plus supplemental information on topics such as schooling, fertility, immigration, and income. DataFerrett is downloadable software which can help you extract variables from CPS. CPS data are also available from NBER Data. |
| Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) | follows the same families since 1968. Collects data on economic, health and social behavior. |
| National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) | contains various surveys of individuals regarding their economic, health and social behavior. This site helps you extract variables from NLS. |
| Current Expenditure Survey | provides information on the buying habits of American consumers, including data on their expenditures, income, and other characteristics. |
| American Time Use Survey (ATUS) | measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, commuting, and socializing. |
| Health and Retirement Study (HRS) | a source of longitudinal, cross-sectional data for researchers and policymakers who study aging. Use the RAND HRS, which is a cleaned and easy-to-use version of the HRS data. |
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Other: |
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| Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) | is the world's largest archive of computerized social science data. |
| CIESIN | has data regarding human interactions in global environmental change. |
| NBER Data | a variety of data compiled by the National Bureau of Economic Research |
| Resources for Economists (RFE) | is a list of all kinds of data. |