Dr. Ka-fu Wong
ECON1003
Analysis of Economic Data
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 1
Data corner
GOALS
1. Illustrate a collection of useful and interesting
data web sites.
l
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 2
HK Census and Statistics Department
 Press Releases on Statistical Data
(http://www.info.gov.hk/censtatd/eng/press/index2.html)
 Population
 Labour
 National Income and Balance of Payments Statistics
 External Trade
 External Direct Investment Statistics of Hong Kong
 Industrial Production
 Building, Construction and Real Estate
 Statistics on Vessels, Port Cargo and Containers
 Price Index
 Commerce
A brief commentary of the data is given.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 3
HK Census and Statistics Department
 Frequently Asked Statistics
(http://www.info.gov.hk/censtatd/eng/hkstat/index1.html)
 Population and Vital Events
Short series of data
 Labour and Employment
available in Excel
 Wages and Payroll
format.
 National Income
Refer to various
 Balance of Payments Account
issues of Monthly
 Consumer Price Indices
Digest of Statistics
 External Trade
or Annual Digest of
 Transport
Statistics for longer
 Commerce and Industry
historical data.
 Building and Construction
 Money and Finance
 Other Economic and Business Statistics
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 4
HK Monetary Authority
Monthly Statistical Bulletin
(http://www.info.gov.hk/hkma/eng/statistics/msb/index.htm)
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Financial statistics summary
Money
Banking
Money markets and debt instruments
Exchange Fund Bills and Notes
Exchange rates and interest rates
Monetary market operation
Exchange Fund and foreign currency reserves assets
Data available in Excel format.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 5
The Big Brother is watching us!
The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
 Introduction
 Geography
 People
 Government
 Economy
 Communications
 Transportation
 Military
 Transnational Issues
On China:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 6
Historical International Stock indices
on-line
 http://www.forecasts.org/data/index.htm
Stock index data
International Stock Indices-Monthly
 Nikkei 225 Japan
 DAX Germany
 Hang Seng Hong Kong
 FTSE 100 United Kingdom
 TSE 300 Canada
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 7
Datastream
 A database which provides international financial,
economic, stock market and company data.
 Includes coverage of equities, stock market and bond
indices, economic statistics, foreign exchange rates,
interest rates, fixed income instruments and derivatives.
 Data may be downloaded and exported and can be used
to create graphics, reports and spread sheets.
 Available at : HKU main Library, Standalone PCFormat
 Location: Borrow from Reference Counter, Main Library
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 8
International Financial Statistics
(published by International Monetary Fund)
 The International Finance Statistics (IFS) contains
approximately 24,000 time series for 196 countries and
geographical areas. These time series cover the following
sections as detailed in the IMF International Finanance
Statistics Yearbook  Exchange Rates
 Fund Accounts
 International Liquidity
 International Banking
 Money and Banking
 Interest Rates
 Prices, Wages, Production and Employment
 International Transactions
 Government Finance
 National Accounts and Population
 Available at HKU in the Network CD system, via Winframe.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 9
Global development finance
(published by the World Bank)
 Provides complete and up-to-date data and analysis on
the external debt and international capital flows of
developing countries.
 Includes: country group aggregate data and World
Bank analysis, from v.1 of Global Development Finance,
and the country time series data, plus pipeline
projections for 136 World Bank borrowers from v.2.
 Available at : HKU main Library
 Location: Borrow from Reference Counter, Main Library
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 10
The World Development Indicators
(published by the World Bank)
 The World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World
Bank's premier annual compilation of data about
development. WDI 2002 includes approx. 800
indicators in 87 tables, organized in six sections: World
View, People, Environment, Economy, States and
Markets, and Global Links. The tables cover 152
economies and 14 country groups-with basic indicators
for a further 55 economies.
 Available at : HKU main Library
 Location: Borrow from Reference Counter, Main Library
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 11
Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development
 http://www.oecd.org/
http://www.oecdwash.org/DATA/online.htm
 Available online in pdf format.
Gross Domestic Product
Composite Leading Indicators
Standardized Unemployment Rates
Population
Purchasing Power Parities
Short-Term Economic Statistics
 Available in CD-ROM in HKU library.
 OECD Main economic indicators (Historical statistics)
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 12
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC)
OPEC production
Quota distribution
as of 1 February
2003.
http://www.opec.org/
Country
Percentage
782,000
3.19
Indonesia
1,270,000
5.18
Iran
3,597,000
14.68
Kuwait
1,966,000
8.02
Libya
1,312,000
5.36
Nigeria
2,018,000
8.24
635,000
2.59
S. Arabia
7,963,000
32.5
UAE
2,138,000
8.73
Venezuela
2,819,000
11.51
24,500,000
100
Algeria
Qatar
Total
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Quota (b/d)
Chap 13- 13
Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC)
Algeria
Indonesia
Iran
Kuwait
Libya
Nigeria
Qatar
S. Arabia
UAE
Venezuela
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 14
Exchange rate data
PACIFIC Exchange Rate Service
http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/
 Historical daily exchange rates may be retrieved or plotted
through an on-line database.
 Also provided is a list of all the currencies of the world with
information on each country's exchange rate regime and
ISO-4217 currency code.
 Note that the default based currency is Canadian dollar.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 15
Mark Six Lottery Results Archive
http://www.hongkongjockeyclub.com/english/marksix/index.htm
 Results  Drawn Result Archive
 Numbers drawn on specific lottery days
 Click on the links, you will find past announcement of
results. The results include
Unit dividends of various prizes of current lottery.
Number of units for each prize
Total investment
Next lottery day
Jackpot for next lottery.
 You can find the history of Mark Six Lottery and how the
unit dividends are determined.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 16
Mutual funds
 Get a list of fund houses:
 Most search engines (such as YAHOO) includes the
following categories:
Finance  mutual funds
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Finance_and_Investment/Mutual_Funds/
http://finance.lycos.com/home/funds/overview.asp
 Or we can simply search for “mutual funds and quotes”
or “list of mutual funds” under GOOGLE.
 Search for, say, “invesco and prices and performance” will
get us to
 http://www.invescofunds.com/Cached/PricesPer/InvShare/DailyPricesInv.asp
 Most fund house will provide the current and historical
prices of their funds, sometimes in downloadable format.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 17
World Trade Organization
 http://www.wto.org/
 http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_e.htm
 International Trade Statistics
 Historical series
 In excel format
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 18
The Heritage Foundation
 The Freedom Index
 http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 19
Bank for International Settlements
 http://www.bis.org
 Cross country statistics about banking, exchange
rate, etc.
 International banking statistics
 Consolidated banking statistics
 Securities statistics
 Derivatives statistics
 Triennial foreign exchange and derivatives
survey 2001
 Joint BIS-IMF-OECD-World Bank Statistics on
External Debt
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 20
Bank of Japan
 http://www.boj.or.jp/en/
 Contains data that are extracted from the Financial and
Economic Statistics Monthly
 Money, Banking and Securities
 Real Economy
 Prices, Public Finance, Balance of Payments, Customs
Clearance, Economic Forecasts and International
Statistics
 In pdf format
 http://www2.boj.or.jp/en/dlong/dlong.htm
 Long term time series data
 Text format
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 21
Mutual funds
 The Investment Company Institute (ICI)
http://www.ici.org/site_map.html
is the national association of the American
investment company industry. Founded in 1940,
its membership includes 8,938 mutual funds, 535
closed-end funds, and six sponsors of unit
investment trusts.
 Most local newspapers (such as SCMP and HK
Economic Times) publish price quotes of mutual
funds.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 22
Concatenating two CPI series of different
base year
 Many indexes will change base year every now and then. An
example is CPI. CPI is re-based every five years using the result
of Household Expenditure Survey (conducted every five years).
 Fortunately, when the base year is changed, the statistics
authority will generally give an overlap of the indexes based on
two base years.
 Example:
 CPI with base year 1994 is 105 for 1995, 110 for 1996 and
120 for 1997.
 CPI with base year 1999 is 98 for 1997, 102 for 1998, 100 for
1999, and 99 for 2000.
 The two series can be concatenated into one because there is
one overlap year: 1997. 120 with base year 1994 is the same
as 98 with base year 1999.
 To create CPI series with base year 1994, we simply need to
multiple all the series with base year of 1999 by 120/98. That
is, 105 for 1995, 110 for 1996, 120 for 1997, 102*120/98 for
1998, 100*120/98 for 1999 and 99*120/98 for 2000, so on.
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 23
Data Corner
- END -
Ka-fu Wong © 2003
Chap 13- 24