hb -
FYI from an email -
"Sources for Statistical Data
by Harry Browne
My recent article "The Clinton Legends Will Live
On in the Bush Presidency" prompted some readers
to ask for the sources of the statistics I used.
In addition, it occurs to me that you might like
to know where on the Internet you can get
statistical information whenever you might want
it. So this brief article will try to provide some
pointers.
The figures given in my article were all taken
from various issues of "Economic Indicators," a
monthly publication of the Joint Economic
Committee of Congress. I've had a subscription to
it for many years -- and so I have issues
containing data going back into the 1950s.
The publication is now online. You can go directly
to the Table of Contents at:
www.access.gpo.gov/congress/eibrowse/broecind.html
This is the most comprehensive summary I know of
for monthly economic statistics. It includes
tables on economic growth, national income,
corporate profits, employment, wage rates,
business activity, inflation, the money supply,
interest rates, stock indices, the federal budget,
and international trade. The tables show monthly,
quarterly, and annual figures for recent years.
You're given a choice of seeing the tables in text
format or Adobe Acrobat PDF format. For most
people, text will be better. For one thing, it
makes it possible to select material and copy it
to the computer clipboard for use in a spreadsheet
or elsewhere.
Unfortunately, online you can access only recent
issues, starting with January 1998. And the
typical table in an issue goes back only to 1990,
with a few beginning at 1984. So older data aren't
available there.
However, the Federal Reserve's website, which I'll
come to in a moment, has longer-term data for some
of the indicators.
The data on government "surpluses" and debt given
in the article are in Economic Indicators on page
32. You can access them directly using the link:
frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
?dbname=economic_indicators&docid=32no00.txt
(This is the November 2000 issue, which is the one
I used for the article.)
[Please note that this link and several that follow
require that you copy and paste the second line into
your browser.]
The fictitious surpluses are shown in the third
numeric column, while the actual debt is shown in
the next to last column. (The disparity between
the last two columns occurs because the "Gross
Federal Debt" includes debt held by Social
Security and the Federal Reserve System, which
must be repaid at some point, and which incurs
interest expense in the federal budget.)
Incidentally, I misspoke in the article when I
said the first supposed surplus was for the fiscal
year 1999. It actually was 1998, but the mistake
didn't affect any point made in the article.
Federal welfare spending is on page 33 in the
column "Income Security." You can go directly to
that page with this link:
frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
?dbname=economic_indicators&docid=33no00.txt
Growth rates for the economy are taken from the
figures for Real Gross Domestic Product on page 2.
You can go directly to that page with this link:
frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
?dbname=economic_indicators&docid=02no00.txt
However, this table goes back only to 1990. My
data goes back much further, and is taken from
various government sources. Please understand,
however, that all estimates of economic national
activity are comparable to wild guesses.
The Federal Reserve's website has a great deal of
data covering interest rates, currency prices,
industrial activity, and the money supply. Some of
these time series go back to the time of Moses.
The Table of Contents is at:
www.federalreserve.gov/releases/
Specifically, average monthly rates on T-bills
(mentioned in my article), for example, are at:
www.federalreserve.gov/releases/H15/data/m/tbsm1y.txt
These figures don't match exactly the ones in
Economic Indicators and in my article, but they
are close enough to make the same point.
For heavy-duty researchers, there are sources of
long-term data. I'll mention two of them here.
A basic source of longer-term data is the annual
"Statistical Abstract of the United States,"
published yearly by the U.S. Census Bureau. It
contains hundreds of tables going back 10-50
years.
The latest issue is the 1999 edition, which
Amazon.com says is now out of print. The 2000
edition will be published on March 15, 2001, and
Amazon is taking orders now (the price is $40).
The book is described at:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573110639/ref=sim
_books/104-6788558-8463166
A CD-ROM version of the 1999 issue is available
for $25 from Amazon. (The 2000 edition probably
won't be available until July 2001.) The CD-ROM
version is superior to the hard copy in that it
has continuous annual data going back several
decades -- while the hard copy has gaps so that
each table can fit on a single book page. The
CD-ROM provides all the tables in spreadsheet
format so that it's easy to use them in a
spreadsheet program. The ordering details are at:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1893472124/qid=980
475530/sr=1-9/ref=sc_b_9/104-6788558-8463166
A valuable source of long-term data is the
2-volume book "Historical Statistics of the United
States, Colonial Times to 1970." This was
published by the Bureau of the Census in 1975, as
a historical supplement to the yearly Statistical
Abstracts. It contains hundreds and hundreds of
statistical tables, some of them going back to the
18th century -- taking up over a thousand large
book pages.
The set eventually went out of print, but I notice
that Amazon now offers it for $79 for 4-6 week
delivery. The web page showing it is at:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0160004608/qid=980
474658/sr=1-3/ref=sc_b_3/104-6788558-8463166
A new wrinkle is that this set is now available on
CD-ROM for $210. I intend to buy a copy as soon as
I get a job, as it will make it easy to work with
the data. You can see the description at:
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521585414/qid=980
475120/sr=1-2/ref=sc_b_2/104-6788558-8463166
If you're familiar with other websites that have
extensive economic data available, I'd appreciate
knowing about them."
Regards, Don |
