February 2009

ASK THE EXPERT SUBMISSION – FORENSIC INSIGHT

Question

I’m trying to find some sites that provide solid economic data. Unfortunately, they’re tough to locate. Do you know of any online resources that provide this type of information?

Response

We’ve found several sites that offer useful data. In the following lists a secondary source is one that compiles information from one or more primary sources.

Primary Sources

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors - http://www.federalreserve.gov Offers many statistical releases of historical and economic data; it regularly offers reports which monitor interest rates, industrial production, capacity and utilization indexes for virtually all industries on a monthly basis.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - http://www.bls.gov/ Offers producer and consumer price indexes as well as employment information

U.S. Department of Commerce - http://www.commerce.gov/ Responsible for collecting data on the U.S. economy, the Department of Commerce is a treasure trove of economic information. It is home to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (http://www.bea.gov/) which promulgates the well known National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs); these monitor the monetary value of production output and are the source of GDP estimates. The Department of Commerce also includes the U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/), which releases all sorts of economic data, from manufacturing shipment and inventory information to housing statistics.

Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval EDGAR of SEC Filings - http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml All companies, foreign and domestic, are required to file registration statements, periodic reports, and other forms electronically through EDGAR. Anyone can access and download this information for free.

United Nations Statistics Division - http://unstats.un.org Offers economic, demographic, social, environmental and energy statistics by country.

Secondary Sources

Economagic - http://economagic.com/ Provides free economic time series data in a variety of mediums. This website allows free access to wizards for simple manipulation of data into charts and graphs. The data is compiled from a number of sources, mostly government sites.

Numbrary - http://numbrary.com/ Self described as "A free online service dedicated to finding, using and sharing numbers on the web," Numbrary is an easy to use, searchable collection of pertinent economic data that provides economic time series data from many useful sources. It provides fast, free access to its source data and allows for exportation of data into spreadsheet format.