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Professor
Amy Schmidt
Library Liaison
Jeff Waller
Contents
Introduction
Find Data
• Gateways
• Demographic Statistics
• Economic Statistics
• Other Statistics
Find Articles
How to Cite Your Sources
Subject Guide
Economics & Business
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This guide supports the class assignment to use econometric analysis to explain variation in a business, economic, or other variable. It highlights a variety of online sources where you can obtain the data needed to perform the analysis. To aid in the interpretation of your findings, search the online journal databases to review the scholarly literature on your topic.
Both time series and cross-sectional data can increasingly be located on the Internet. Many statistics-oriented websites provide options for opening or saving the data as either a spreadsheet or text file, which can be converted into a form that is useable in SPSS. In some cases, you will have to assemble the needed variables from multiple sources. Keep in mind that you need at least 50 observations. For time-series analysis, this entails five years of monthly data, 13 years of quarterly data, or 50 years of annual data. For cross-sectional analysis, you could examine 50 countries or the 50 states of the United States, among other options.
Gateways
EconData.net
A handy guide to statistical data sources on the Internet, with website links organized by subject (such as Income, Quality of Life, and Occupations) and provider. Only authoritative resources are listed.
FedStats
The U.S. federal government's one-stop search engine for locating government-produced statistics on all subjects. Use the Topic Links to jump to the best resources by topic, or try their excellent search engine for more specific needs.
NBER Data Library
The National Bureau of Economic Research website offers links to downloadable data sets on industry, trade, demographics, and other subjects.
OFFSTATS (Official Statistics on the Web)
An easy-to-use database of links to statistical websites worldwide, organized by country, region, and topic.
Demographic Statistics
American FactFinder
This government site allows the 2000 census data of socioeconomic and demographic variables to be searched by geographic location, zip code, national and state totals, and metropolitan statistical areas. An excellent source of cross-sectional US data.
Census Data by Topic
This Census page provides access to summary tables of population data for commonly researched subjects, such as age, race, income, and education.
Population Reference Bureau
Click on the DataFinder to access the PRB's user-friendly database for obtaining basic demographic and health data on the countries of the world.
State and County Quick Facts
Easy to use website from the US Census Bureau. Provides comparative data for each state and county for 33 categories divided into three groups: Population, Business & Geography. Gather the same variables for all 50 states to perform a cross-sectional analysis by state.
United Nations Demographic Yearbook
This well-known print reference source is now available online back through 1948. For the most recent issues, you can click on the Individual Tables and Notes link to access Excel versions of the data tables. Includes a range of variables related to population, fertility, mortality, and marriage.
Economic Statistics
Economagic: Economic Time Series Page
Provides free, economic time series data, mainly for the US. A great place to look for long historical trends in economic variables.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
This online database maintained by the St. Louis branch of the Fed offers over 3,000 time series of U.S. economic data, generally going back several decades. Although many of the variables relate to banking and monetary economics, you can also find historical data for CPI, unemployment, earnings, and other economic indicators. The data can be viewed in charts or downloaded for analysis. Use the Search box to look for relevant variables.
Free Lunch
An easy-to-use website sponsored by Moody's that offers free economic, financial, and demographic data for viewing and downloading. Free registration is required, but the data series are well-formatted for analysis.
Bureau of Economic Analysis
This government agency produces interactive tables related to GDP, income, and other variables, with breakdowns by region, metropolitan area and industry.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
The BLS is an agency of the US government that produces statistics related to employment, wages, productivity, and inflation (the CPI and PPI). Their website also includes a nice tool (Regional Resources) for viewing state and metro-level statistics.
Economic Indicators
Download spreadsheets containing historic time-series data for the major monthly and quarterly economic indicators (such as housing starts, retail sales, GDP, and construction spending).
Economic Report of the President
This report presents the President's overview and outlook of the US economy. Reports are available for 1995 through the present, but more importantly, you can download Statistical Tables which contain long time series for many macroeconomic variables.
International Trade Statistics
Provided by the World Trade Organization, this website offers comprehensive annual data on trade among the nations of the world, with import and export data for many commodities and products.
LABORSTA
This online database produced by the International Labor Organization (a UN agency) enables you to view and extract time series data on unemployment and price indexes for over 200 countries, dating back through 1969.
World Development Indicators Online
This database contains country-by-country time series data on over 600 economic and social indicators, including macroeconomic variables such as GDP, inflation, interest rate, and savings. The step-by-step data selection procedure enables easy creation and download of data tables for analysis.
Other Statistics
Bureau of Justice Statistics
The BJS collects and publishes statistics on all aspects of crime, drugs, victims, and the justice system in the United States. The front page of this website is easy to use, with links to data on a variety of topics such as sentencing, jails, and victim characteristics.
CDC Wonder
This convenient website offers one-stop access to the Center for Disease Control's vast statistical resources, including the WISQUARS Cause of Death database and data on such topics as cancer, asthma, STDs, and infant mortality.
Historical Statistics of the United States
This comprehensive compendium of statistics provides a quantitative history of the United States, with over 37,000 data series on topics such as health, crime, migration, and the economy. The searchable online version allows you to create customized tables and download data series for processing in a spreadsheet. Data often goes back further in time in this source than in the others, but the most recent few years are generally not available.
National Center for Education Statistics
In addition to publishing the annual Condition of Education and Digest of Education Statistics (both of which are filled with statistics), this agency provides a number of useful online databases and survey results documenting the nation's education system. Examples include the State Profiles (for quick statistics on individual states) and the Nation's Report Card (evaluating student performance nationwide).
National Center for Health Statistics
This branch of the Center for Disease Control oversees many of the US federal government's statistical publications on health issues. Check their FastStats page for basic data by topic or the Data Warehouse for tables and datasets at the national and state level.
Statistical Abstract of the United States
The online edition of the annual Census publication that contains statistics on nearly every topic imaginable, as produced by various government agencies. A great place to look for state-level data that can be used in a cross-sectional analysis. Since this publication has been produced for over 100 years, you could also construct a time series by consulting 50 consecutive editions for a particular variable or variables.
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Empirical articles in scholarly journals often utilize regression analysis to determine what factors contribute to variation in some variable of interest. You can consult the results and conclusions of empirical articles on your topic to help you predict the relationships between your dependent and independent variables. Such articles will also offer theories attempting to account for these relationships.
To look for useful articles, do keyword searching on the names of your variables, and use the Boolean "AND" to add keywords such as "analysis", "relationship", or "econometric". If you find an overabundance of articles, try limiting the search on your variable's name to the Title or Abstract field only, so that the variable is an important concept in the article. Once you run your search, limit your results to scholarly articles by clicking on the Academic Journals link. If there is a Subject Term on the left side of the screen which corresponds to your dependent variable, click on it to narrow the scope to articles focusing on that particular topic.
If there is no link to the full text of an article, click on the  icon to determine whether the journal is available at Geisel Library or in full-text via another electronic database. If the article isn't available, consider clicking on the Interlibrary Loan link to request a PDF copy of the article from another library; the article should be emailed to you within a week.
Business Source Premier
Provides full-text articles and article abstracts for business and economic journals. You may want to search within the following two journals, which your professor has identified as being especially appropriate for this assignment:
Academic Search Premier
A broad index providing abstracts and some full-text of scholarly and popular journals. Check here for journal articles from disciplines other than business and economics.
Databases by Subject
If your topic relates to other fields such as criminal justice, education, or health, use our database list by subject to identify the best journal databases to search.
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See the library's How To Cite Your Sources guide for resources on how to properly cite research materials. Always confirm the style required by your instructor.
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