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 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 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).
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 offers a daily view on
macroeconomic affairs and events around the world. This is a good 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 good source
of analysis and information on macroeconomic conditions and policies in
industrial and emerging markets.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.