Economics Research Guide: Data & Statistics

U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis. Access to National Accounts, Industry & Wealth, International and Regional Accounts data - some data sets go back as far as 1929.

U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Includes prices, employment and unemployment, earnings and wages, and other aspects of the labor force.

U.S. Census Bureau. Created from the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD), a confidential database available to researchers throughout the network of Census Research Data Centers. Unique in that its source data are longitudinal in nature and permit tracking establishments and firms over time. The public use files are created in an effort to make these data accessible to a broad range of data users. Provides annual statistics by firm age and size. Annual files are also provided at the state level, for Standard Industrial Classification sectors and for the economy as a whole.

CBO regularly publishes budget and economic data to accompany some of its key reports.

Provides researchers, media, and the public with easily accessible, up-to-date, and comprehensive historical data on the American labor force. It is compiled from Economic Policy Institute analysis of government data sources. Use it to research wages, inequality, and other economic indicators over time and among demographic groups.

Annual report containing texts of the President's economic report, summarizing the Administration's economic policy, and of the Council of Economic Advisers report, reviewing in detail the progress of the economy and the Administration's proposals and programs. An extensive appendix contains many long time series of statistics.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Monthly report presenting monthly, quarterly, and annual data for national economic indicators. Contains approximately 45 tables accompanied by illustrative charts. Economic Indicators, supplement 1980 presents historical data and descriptive material on the sources, uses, and limitations of the data series. It is issued every 10 years.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Time series are either monthly or quarterly and include data on banking, consumer price index, employment, exchange rates and interest rates.

Statistical series on subjects ranging from population and land area to production figures for crops and manufactured products. Coverage begins with the colonial and pre-Federal period and goes up to 2000. Detailed documentation provides brief histories of the statistical series and source materials.

The NBER Public Use Data Archive is an eclectic mix of public-use economic, demographic, and enterprise data obtained over the years to satisfy the specific requests of NBER-affiliated researchers for particular projects.

Summary statistics on the social, political and economic organization of the United States. Compiled from publications and records of various government and private agencies, it is designed to serve both as a convenient reference volume and as a guide to other statistical sources. Emphasis is on national data but many tables include statistics on states, regions and foreign countries. Tables generally cover a period of 10 to 20 years, although some begin around 1800.

U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis. Monthly. One of the most important sources for current U.S. business statistics. Covers general business indicators, prices, domestic and foreign trade, labor force, employment and earnings, finance and the major industries. Special reports appear at intervals on national income and product accounts, international transactions, personal income and international investment both here and abroad.

AMECO is the annual macro-economic database of the European Commission's Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs. The database is used for analysis and reports produced by the directorate general.

BIS statistics, compiled in cooperation with central banks and other national authorities, are designed to inform the analysis of financial stability, international monetary spillovers and global liquidity.

DBnomics gives access to over 21,000 datasets from 62 data agencies around the world.

EU KLEMS is an industry level, growth and productivity research project. EU KLEMS stands for EU level analysis of capital (K), labour (L), energy (E), materials (M) and service (S) inputs.

Official data of the European Union. National and regional economic and social indicators for the European Community and its member states.

From the International Monetary Fund (IMF); approximately 32,000 time series covering more than 200 countries and areas. Dates Covered: 1948-present.

Useful for a wide variety of macroeconomic and social statistics on a wide variety of countries. Tends not to go back far in time but good for quick look ups and sourcing is always provided.

Very long-term historical cross-country time series data.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Monthly and quarterly long-term data for each country on national product, production, labor and wages, interest rates, balance of payments, etc.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD.Stat enables users to search for and extract data from across OECD's many databases.

PWT version 10.01 is a database with information on relative levels of income, output, input and productivity, covering 183 countries between 1950 and 2019.

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Among the many publications of the UN Statistics Division are yearbooks on: Construction, Energy, Industrial Statistics, International Trade, National Accounts and Demography.

United Nations. The world's most comprehensive global trade data platform

United Nations (UN) Trade & Development. Statistical data on international merchandise and service trade, economic trends, foreign direct investment, external financing sources including remittances, population and labor force, commodities, and maritime transport for individual countries and for economic and trade groupings.

United Nations Industrial Development Organization. International statistics on the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors. Industrial data obtained from official sources and presented according to harmonized definitions and classifications.

The United Nations annually collects national accounts data from Member States using a questionnaire based on the SNA framework to obtain official national accounts data from Member States

International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysis and projections of economic developments at the global level, in major country groups (classified by region, stage of development, etc.), and in many individual countries. Focuses on major economic policy issues as well as on the analysis of economic developments and prospects. Usually prepared twice a year.

The World Economics and Politics (WEP) Dataverse offers a collection of data amassed from nearly 100 of the most commonly used data sources related to the field of comparative and international political economy. From one central website, users can conveniently create customized datasets from a selection of country-year and dyad-year variables. Users can choose from more than 1,800 variables and 200 countries. Selected data will automatically be compiled into one downloadable file, eliminating the need to merge data from across various sources

CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis: monthly world trade volume data.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research.

Aims to provide open and convenient access to the most extensive available database on the historical evolution of the world distribution of income and wealth, both within countries and between countries.