Electronic Data Center : Data Sources for ECON 231 (Global Trade and Finance)

Selected Resources for ECON 231 (Introduction to Global Trade and Finance)

Emory's Electronic Data Center

General Social Science Data Resources

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.

World Bank Statistical Capacity Building Project
http://go.worldbank.org/6NPVI562M0
The World Bank's Statistical Capacity Building Project "provides resources to help ... develop better statistical capacity that advances the national and international monitoring of development policies and goals." The project is in part an outgrowth of "outcomes-based" approaches to development that place greater emphasis on attemping to actually measure development and the impact of national and international policies intended to promote it. The resources here include various reports on the quality of gathering of data/statistics in individual countries, as well as a database of "statistical capacity indicator" scores.

U.S./DOMESTIC DATA RESOURCES

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 and includes detailed data on economic transactions (trade, investment, and overall balances of payments) between the United States and the rest of the world.

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.

International Trade Administration (ITA)
http://trade.gov/index.asp
The ITA, which is situated within the Department of Commerce, is encharged with promoting access to foreign markets for U.S. exports. Amongst other things, the ITA is a good source for national and state-level data on exports and imports of merchandise goods.

International Trade Commission (ITC)
http://www.usitc.gov/
The ITC is an (ostensibly) independent federal agency that conducts investigations into "unfair" trading practicies (e.g. dumping) in conjunction with the International Trade Administration. The ITC's website includes resources such as Tariff Information Center, which provides access to the tariff schedules for the United States, and the Interactive Tariff and Trade Dataweb, which allows users to query ITC databases on tariffs and trade amounts for specific products.

INTERNATIONAL DATA SOURCES

International Monetary Fund (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.

Joint External Debt Hub (JEDH)
http://devdata.worldbank.org/sdmx/jedh/jedh_home.html
The JEDH is a very detailed site on external debt with time-series data going back to the early 1990's. The database is a joint project of the BIS, the IMF, the OECD, and the World Bank. Users can create subsets of the database and save them into Excel. This site is a replacement for the Joint BIS-IMF-OECD-WB Statistics on External Debt.

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.

UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics
http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=1890&lang=1
UNCTAD's on-line Handbook of Statistics contains much trade-related data, including data on trade in services, diversification of exports and imports, and some data on various tariffs (usually on broad categories of goods). The temporal coverage is somewhat limited, but users can download data into Microsoft Excel. Registration is required (click on "UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics On-line: Database") but is free to the user.

World Bank Trade Research
http://www.worldbank.org/trade/
The World Bank holds several databases on trade and production, trade and services, and tariffs that users can download. Be advised - the address of this site (and of World Bank sites more generally) tends to change frequently and without warning.

World Development Indicators (World Bank)
http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/
The World Development Indicators Website provides convenient access to nearly 600 indicators on over 200 countries. Data is generally available from 1960 forward. This resource is also available via Databases at Emory. There is also a CD version of the WDI available 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.

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Trade Database
The NBER Trade Database contains multiple data sources measuring trade flows and countries' endowments in factors of production. It is available on CD-ROM in the Data Center.

World Bank Global Development Finance (GDF)
The GDF contains annual statistics on stocks and flows of public and private debt owed over 100 countries, with data coverage extending back to 1970 (varying by series) and projections for certain indicators extending up to 2010. A complete list of the indicators available in the GDF is available here. The interface is the same as that for the World Development Indicators.

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.

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