Selected Resources for ECON 221 (Empirical Methods in Economics)
Spring 2006
Emory's Electronic Data Center
General Social Science Data Resources
U.S./Domestic Data Sources
International Data Sources
CD-ROM/Non-Web Databases
Emory's Electronic Data Center (217 Woodruff Library)
http://einstein.library.emory.edu - The Data Center home page
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/links.shtml - The Data Freeway, a thematically-organized collection of links to on-line data sources
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/help_index.shtml - Help Pages for databases and data management
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/citation_guide.html - Guide for citation of electronic data sources
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/contact.shtml - Data Center contact information and hours
GENERAL SOCIAL SCIENCE DATA RESOURCES
ICPSR (Inter-University
Consortium for Political and Social Research)
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/
The ICPSR is the largest collection of Social Science Data in the world. Topics included in the archive
include: economics, government, health care, crime, education, etc. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory. The Data Center
also maintains an archive of ready-to-use ICPSR datasets which are accessible via the search engine on the Data
Center home page.
Fedstats
http://www.fedstats.gov/
A good starting place for statistics collected by United States government
agencies.
Lexis-Nexis Statistical
Lexis-Nexis Statistical, which is available via Databases at Emory, allows patrons to
search for statistics from the U.S. government and other sources and download them directly into Microsoft
Excel.
U.S./DOMESTIC DATA SOURCES
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
http://www.bea.gov/
The BEA is an excellent source for economic data at both the national and subnational (state/local) level.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
http://www.bls.gov
The BLS contains much data on employment, wages, and prices, at both the national and sub-national levels. Be
warned that the website is not always easy to navigate.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED II)
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/
FRED II includes time-series data for variables such as GDP, interest rates, exchange rates, consumer prices, and
banking. Most of the data are from the 1950's onwards, though some series extend back prior to WWII.
Yahoo Finance
http://finance.yahoo.com/
A convenient source of market data. The site also offers historical quotes
that may be useful for time series studies.
INTERNATIONAL DATA SOURCES
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Direction of Trade Statistics
http://sal.library.emory.edu/dots/dots.shtml
Also available as ICPSR Study 7628. DOTS provides bilateral trade flow data for the post-war era. The data in their
entirety are also available for download here, with files for both annual data from 1948-1997 and quarterly data from 1973-1997.
IMF International Financial Statistics
http://www.imfstatistics.org/imf/imfbrowser.aspx?branch=ROOT
The IFS is a standard source of statistics on various aspects of international
and domestic finance. Please note that this site is restricted to the
Emory community. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory. There is also a
CD-ROM version of the IFS available in the Data Center.
Penn World Tables
PWT is a good starting point for basic world economic data
during the period 1950-2004. The most recent version of the PWT is available
at http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/.
An older version with coverage from 1950-1992 (and some variables not
yet available in the newest version) can be found at
http://datacentre.chass.utoronto.ca/pwt/.
Political Risk Services (PRS) Group Data
http://einstein.library.emory.edu/Risk-Data.html
The Data Center's holdings include data resources from the
PRS Group and other sources that measure
"risk" in the form of political (in)stability and institutional quality (e.g. levels of corruption).
SourceOECD (Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development)
http://new.sourceoecd.org
SourceOECD is an online service
that provides full-text access to OECD studies, periodicals, and statistics
from 1998 forward. Included are annuals, outlooks, policy reviews, conference
proceedings, analytical reports, guidelines, working papers, all periodicals,
and 27 statistical databases. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory.
Statistical Data Locator, NTU Singapore
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/lib/stat/stateuaf.htm
A data archive with links to national and international economic data.
United Nations Commodity Statistics Trade Database (Comtrade)
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/comtrade/
The UN's Comtrade database is a good source for commodity-specific bilateral trade data. Users can create their
own extracts of data for both value and quantity of trade using different industrial classification codes and
download those extracts for later use. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory.
World Development Indicators (World Bank)
http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/
The World Development Indicators Website provides
convenient access to over 800 indicators on over 200 countries. Data is
generally available from 1960 forward. This resource is also available via
Databases at Emory and on CD-ROM in the
Data Center.
CD-ROM/NON-WEB DATABASES
Datastream Advance
Datastream Advance is a very good source for data on exchange rates, interest rates, prices, stocks, and various
macroeconomic data. It is available on workstations in both the EDC and the Goizueta Business Library.
State Personal Income, 1929-2000
This CD was produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and
contains much time-series data on income and employment and transfer payments at the state level. Please note
that the data on the CD are not compatible with the data available at the BEA website.
World Bank Africa Database (WBAD)
The WBAD is similar to the World Development Indicators, but with a more intensive focus on
African countries. The WBAD contains over 1100 indicators, with time-series coverage extending back to 1965
depending on the country and variable.
World Trade Analyzer
The WTA contains data on bilateral trade flows from 1980 to 1999 in specific products down to the 4-digit SITC
code. The WTA is available on the machines in the Electronic Data Center as well as in the Goizueta business
library. A more recent version of the WTA covers the years 1987-2004 and includes data on post-communist
countries in Eastern Europe. Both versions are available in the Data Center.
A complete list of the Data Center's non-web databases is available here. The databases are accessible via the Data Center's public workstations.
Home | Analyze Data Online | Help Resources | Contacts & Hours | Emory General Libraries