MBA 6410
Global Macroeconomic Conditions
Dr. Doris Geide-Stevenson
Macroeconomic Data and Resources
1. Magazines and News
WEB sites of some leading economics and business newspapers and magazines are
listed below. Each one of these sites offers selected articles form current and
past issues that provide a wealth of macroeconomic information on industrial
countries and emerging markets.
The Economist
The WEB site of the Economist offers only a few articles of each issue and an
archive of selected articles in past issues of them magazine. Still, the site is a
partial free alternative to subscribing to the paper edition.
The Wall Street Journal
You need to pay a fee to subscribe on a regular basis. The on-line edition of the
WSJ contains all current articles and an searchable archive of the last two weeks
of the WSJ and Dow Jones services.
The Financial Times
The on-line web site of the Financial Times offers you a view of the current
articles and links to parts of archived articles. Business source premier (one of the
databases accessible through WSU library databases) will give you full-text access
to any Financial Times article you would want to read in its entirety.
You can also use the WSU library databases to find articles in those publications.
Use of these databases is free of additional charges.
2. Macroeconomic Data - U.S.
The Dismal Scientist
The Dismal Scientist covers over 65 economic releases from over 15 countries.
This site gives a good overview of the latest economic data releases and comments
on the significance of the data for macroeconomic performance in the U.S.
(mostly) and some other countries. This site is very user friendly since it helps to
make sense of the data releases.
FreeLunch.com
FreeLunch is the web's most accessible FREE database of economic, industry,
financial, and demographic data with over 1,000,000 time series available
for download (at least that is what this site claims).
Economagic
This site has historical time series for an enormous number of U.S. economic
indicators. An added advantage of this page is that all the tables are already put
together for you on-line and in many cases graphs are available in various formats.
The site is compiled at the University of Alabama School of Business. The material
is well put together and lists full sources for each table. The entire page is so rich
with information that recommending one area over another is somewhat of a
disservice. You can browse the data by source, or run searches. Searching draws on
more sources than you will find presented in the browse
feature.
The Conference Board - Business Cycle Indicators
The Conference Board is a private research organization that won the bid to
publish the leading economic indicators (LEI) a widely watched index that is used
to forecast economic activity in the U.S. The website contains information about
this index and a good discussion of the recent trend in U.S. macroeconomic
performance.
FRED - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
One of the largest data collections of the U.S. macroeconomy.
Federal Reserve Banks:
Each one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks and the Board of Governors of the Fed
has a WEB site offering a wealth of information, analysis and data on US monetary
policy. Particularly useful and rich in content are the New York Fed site, and the
Board of Governors site.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
For a more complete listing of U.S. data sources, including consensus forecasts,
see Resources for Economists on the Internet.
3. MACROECONOMIC FORECASTING SERVICES
Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum
This service (led by Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley and a
leading Wall Street economist) offers a daily view on macroeconomic affairs and
events around the world. This is the best daily source of information and
commentary on current macroeconomic conditions in US, Europe, Japan, Canada and
selected developing countries. On each business day, a number of issues are
discussed. Back issues are available as well. An excellent source of analysis and
information on macroeconomic conditions and policies in industrial and emerging
markets.
Consensus forecasts
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Survey of Professional Forecasters - free Philadelphia Fed Survey | details...This is the
only survey available free of charge.
Blue Chip Economic Indicators - well-known consensus forecasts | details...
Consensus Economics - U.S. and international consensus forecasts | details...
Tradesports.com - markets in economic releases | details...
Dismal.com
4. WORLD AND INTERNATIONAL DATA
The World Bank Group
The World Bank site offers a wide variety of material on their operations. It
includes information on current events ,country and project information. There is
also substantial information on the research projects of the bank. An excellent
site for information on emerging markets and their macroeconomic conditions.
International Monetary Fund
The IMF gopher site provide information on the role and functions of the IMF, the
leading
international organization dealing with macroeconomic reform and lending to
developing countries facing macroeconomic difficulties. You can find information on
IMF Staff Country Reports, IMF Working Papers and Papers on Policy Analysis and
Assessment, Press
Releases/Briefings/Conferences, News Briefs, Speeches by the Managing Director,
the IMF Survey and some selected macro data.
Inter-American Development Bank
This sites describes many aspects of the bank's work, a international lending
institution for Latin America. It also has extensive information on their projects,
press releases, information on their press releases, some information on business
opportunities, information on their private sector projects, and information on the
Inter-American Investment Corporation. They also have fairly extensive summary
statistical data on their member countries. A good source of information on Latin
American countries.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
This OECD is based in Paris and is the "club" of industrialized countries. Among
other functions, the OECD collects a large set of macroeconomic data for the
member countries and prepares regular reports and studies of their
macroeconomic conditions and policies. The site provide information on the
activities of the OECD. You can find on this site some data on the latest economic
indicators of the member countries and a catalogue of the publications of the
OECD.
Asian Development Bank
This site describes all aspects of this bank's work. This not only includes
information about the bank, but also includes news releases, extensive information
on its projects, and its work with law and development. There is also extensive
material on the bank's publications.
Again, Resources for Economists links you to a vast number of international data
sources. You can now find data from most industrialized countries statistical
offices - often in English.
5. FINANCE AND FINANCIAL MARKETS
Bloomberg.com
Bloomberg is one of the leading suppliers of financial market information. In this
offering, you can read about a number of current financial market events. While
this site offers less than their fee-based service (Bloomberg Terminal), it does
supply a substantial amount of information: news, summary information on markets
around the world, etc.
Yahoo Finance
Allows you to track domestic and international financial information over time,
create a personalized portfolio and follow the news (with back issues) on a
particular company, country or stock/bond index.
CNN Financial News
This site provides up-to-date information on financial markets - it is a good tool to
follow interest rates over the course of a day.
OANDA.com
Introduces itself as "The currency site", the #1 source of foreign exchange services and online
tools. OANDA provides currency conversion information and services to travelers, investors and
businesses worldwide.
Forexnews.com
Forexnews.com was created in January 1999 as a service mark of MG Media Ltd.,
part of the MG Group. Forexnews.com reflects MG's commitment to enhancing
public knowledge about the foreign exchange markets. The site offers the latest
insights and analysis in currency markets, freely available to traders and
researchers alike.
Pacific Exchange Rate Service
This service provides access to current and historic daily exchange rates through
an on-line database retrieval and plotting system. 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. Analyses and trend projections of the Canadian
Dollar, the U.S. Dollar, and the Euro are available as well. This site is dedicated to
the support of academic research and teaching in the area of exchange rate
economics.
6. Economics Blogs
This site http://seekingalpha.com/article/3070 contains an alphabetical list of
blogs devoted to economics and finance issues.