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Economics Research Guide

Welcome! This guide will point you to research resources for a variety of economics related topics.

Econ3338 Intro Econometrics : Data Sources

Click on the tabs below to find the type of data that you need.  There is some overlap between categories, so don't be surprised to see the same source repeated in several places.   For further research assistance, please contact Dr. Joyline Makani.

CANADA

Canadian statistics including statistical time series from the CANSIM database.

Provided through the University of Toronto. Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences Facility, (CHASS), CANSIM stands for the Canadian Socio-economic Information Management System. Provides access to current and historical data series collected in a wide variety of subjects by Statistics Canada and other governmental agencies. Updated weekly.

The Canadian Census Analyzer allows users to download data from the Canadian census at many different levels of geography.

INTERNATIONAL

Provides access to the World Development Indicators (WDI), Global Development Finance (GDF), Africa Development Indicators (ADI), Education Statistics (EdStats), Gender Statistics (GenderStats), Health Nutrition & Population Statistics (HNP) and Global Economic Monitor (GEM) databases.

  • UNData (a data access system to UN databases)

Access to over 60 million data points covering a wide range of themes including Agriculture, Crime, Education, Employment, Energy, Environment, Health, HIV/AIDS, Human Development, Industry, Information & Communication Technology, National Accounts, Population, Refugees, Tourism, Trade, as well as the Millennium Development Goals indicators.

Global statistical information compiled and disseminated by the UN Statistics Division

Public use data archive from the NBER or are otherwise associated with the NBER research program.

Maintains up to date links to economic data releases from many sources.

Provides comparative statistical data by country, and includes thousands of directory contact details with click-through web links and a comprehensive listing of more than 2,000 international organizations.

Presents a wealth of statistical information on different aspects of human development.

Access to macroeconomic and financial data. IFS contains approximately 32,000 time series covering more than 200 countries and areas.

A database of more than 61,000 economic time series from 47 sources maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

A comprehensive collection of vital statistics for more than 200 countries highlighting the environmental, social, and economic trends that shape our world.

Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union situated in Luxembourg. Its task is to provide the European Union with statistics at European level that enable comparisons between countries and regions.

Contains data for EU-27, the euro area, EU Member States, candidate countries and other OECD countries. Also see Eurostat above.

Offers free statistical tables on a wide array of topics in; for example the Social Expenditure Database offers program level data back to 1980.

Browse by databases to access country statistics, global city statistics, market data analytics, as well as financial deals data, including mergers & acquisitions.

From the Data menu click on the Data Tool and select "All Viewswire" in Step 1, to access data on industries, markets and demographics, at the country, region and aggregate level, with forecasts out to 2030.

Corporate financial research, investment analysis, Reuters market news, real-time global market data and authoritative content from industry-leading sources. Please note: Only compatible with Internet Explorer 8 or lower.

Global financial and macroeconomic data platform covering equities, stock market indices, currencies, company fundamentals, fixed income securities and key economic indicators for 175 countries and 60 markets. Equity data from IPO to present is updated daily. Macroeconomic time series are monthly, quarterly and annual, with up to 50 years' coverage Available only in the Killam Library Learning Commons. Location: J.J. Stewart Room.

  • Bloomberg

CANADA

  • Data Liberation Initiative (DLI)

The Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) is a subscription plan providing unlimited access to Statistics Canada Public Use Microdata files (PUMFs), databases and geographic files to students and faculty at participating institutions in accordance with their Conditions of Use. Easy access to the DLI files for Dalhousie researchers is provided through the SDA @ CHASS interface.

Click on "All products" to find data for a specific survey in the DLI collection, or search in Nesstar's or Beyond 20/20 Web server's interfaces.

Dalhousie does not subscribe to Odesi, but you can use it to do a variable search for Statistics Canada microdata available in the DLI collection.

SDA is a data delivery and analysis system. SDA@CHASS provides access to: Canadian microdata (mainly survey data available from Statistics Canada DLI); aggregate census data; plus a few other collections of data. Users can analyze datasets online, download data, or consult relevant documentation. For help view Accessing SDA@CHASS (video),Video showing how to download a microdata dataset from Statistics Canada in the SDA interface. OR Using SDA@CHASS to View Data (video) How to create online cross-tabs from Statistics Canada microdata using SDA@CHASS.

INTERNATIONAL

From the University of Michigan - ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. Contains original codebooks and descriptions of methodology, offers multiple file format downloads, and links data to relevant scholarly research.

An annual or biannual survey of China's urban and rural households designed to gather longitudinal data on social trends and the changing relationship between social structure and quality of life in China.

Comparative, international survey of socio-cultural and political change, undertaken by social scientists and coordinated, since 1981 by the World Values Survey Association (Stockholm).

"The UK's largest collection of digital research data in the social sciences and humanities".

"Provides a national service for the collection and preservation of digital research data and to make these data available for secondary analysis by academic researchers and other users".

Survey datasets organized by survey and identified by the name of the survey. Also included with each each dataset are links to the reports released from that data.

A systematic data collection useful for systematic studies of the origins of conflict, conflict dynamics and conflict resolution.

Global financial and macroeconomic data platform covering equities, stock market indices, currencies, company fundamentals, fixed income securities and key economic indicators for 175 countries and 60 markets. Equity data from IPO to present is updated daily. Available only in the Killam Library Learning Commons. Location: J.J. Stewart Room.

 

Provided for free by Wilfrid Laurier University, in collaboration with the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL), nationally significant polling data, donated by market research firm Ipsos Canada. The data includes a range of opinion polls and surveys on topics such as national and provincial politics, real estate buying habits, and Canadian heritage.

Citing Data/Statistical Sources

It is important to cite not only the literature consulted but also the data or statistics used. The elements of a data/statistics citation include:

  • Author(s)/Creator
  • Title
  • Year of publication: The date when the statistics/dataset was published or released (rather than the collection or coverage date)
  • Publisher: the data center/repository
  • Any applicable identifier (including edition or version)
  • Availability and access: URL or other location information for the data/statistics

The following links provide you with useful guides to citing statistical data. Use these along with the citation style guide recommended by your instructor.