# http://nmg.clever.net/wew/ * 11.4 Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) This project brings together 66 household surveys from 25 countries (surveys from four other countries are under negotiation) into a common database to make studies of international economic comparisons easier. For instance, it includes Current Population Surveys from the U.S., French Surveys of Income, and a Hungarian Income Study. The average survey has approximately 9,000 households with more than 20,000 members. To maintain confidentiality and restrictions on use, the data remains on the host computer in Luxembourg and researchers run jobs remotely on that system through electronic mail. Users must first register to use the database. They also have a database (Institutional Database, IDB) of nearly 100 annual macro indicators on all OECD countries. This database also contains rules on taxes and transfers in each country to make international comparisons possible. This dataset is available on floppy disks. The datasets are well documented, and workshops and newsletters help the researcher to use this complex database. Much of this material is on their ftp site. * # http://lissy.ceps.lu/index.htm # ftp://post.ceps.lu # Information: Tim Smeeding, Overall Project Director , or Inge O'Connor, Administrative Assistant (U.S.) , or Caroline de Tombeur, Administrative Assistant (Europe) . 11.5 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) You can read extensive information on the the OECD's activities, publications, and their data products here. There are some summary statistics and graphs in the "Statistics" area of "Activities." Particularly noteworthy is the entry "Short-term Economic Statistics" which has graphs of a number of macroeconomic variables for all OECD countries. News releases and newsletters can be found in the "News and Events" area. # http://www.oecd.org * 11.6 International Monetary Fund (IMF) At this site, you can read about the IMF (including its annual report and extensive material on its structure), their fact sheets on a number of topics, press releases, news briefs, speeches from the managing director, and details from their publications catalog. Among data, they offer the "IMF Memorandum," which offers a variety of * current statistical information. This includes currency values of SDR * and selected exchange rates (in a very handy format); these are * updated twice a day. Among publications, they offer the "IMF Survey," * and the full text of IMF Working Papers and Papers on Policy Analysis * and Assessment. Finally, their "Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board" is available here. To quote, "The Special Standard and its associated bulletin board respond to the need for comprehensive and timely economic and financial data-with equal and ready access for all users-generated by increased global integration and the associated substantial expansion of financial flows." For many countries, it lists where most any sort of macro data can be obtained (including on the Internet) from countries that participate in this program. For just the U.S., this is a very useful resources as it says who generates various series and how they are collected. # http://www.imf.org 11.7 World Bank The World Bank offers a wide variety of material on their operations. It includes information on current events (such as press releases and issues of the World Bank News), country and project information. In this section, the Public Information Center offers Staff Appraisal Reports (SARs), Country Economic and Sector Work (CESW) reports, Sectoral Policy Papers, Environmental Data Sheets, National Environmental Action Plans (EAPs), evaluation reports from the Operations Evaluation Department Project Information Documents, IFC Environmental Documents, IDA10 Reviews, and Global Environmental Facility Project Documents). There is also sectoral information, which includes the Vice Presidency for Financial and Private Sector Development (FPD), the Vice Presidency for Human Resources Development and Operations Policy (HRO) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). Another section is devoted to information on World Bank Publications (including ordering information). There is also substantial information on the research projects of the bank. These include the Economic Growth Project (described elsewhere in this guide), and the Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) which offers some on-line data from this project and information on how to obtain it off-line. There is also the Commodity Policy and Analysis Unit, which maintains an on-line version of the "Pink Sheet" on commodity prices, and the Information Bank on African Development Studies (IBADS), which has a number of newsletters and other material. There is also material from the International Trade Division, the Electronic Media Center, the CGIAR Secretariat, and the Economic Development Institute (EDI). One can find email address of Bank employees by sending mail to services@worldbank.org with "Directory Whois Lastname" or "Directory Whois FirstName Lastname" in the body of the email. Working with CIESIN (the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network) the World Bank's Social Indicators of Development and Social Trends in Developing Economies (TIDE) have been made available. They are described separately, as is their World Growth Project, which has a substantial amount of international data. # http://www.worldbank.org/ 11.8 World Bank Social Indicators of Development The World Bank and CIESIN (Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network) have placed this material (along with Social Trends in Developing Economies) on the Internet as part of an experiment. This searchable data set spans 170 different economies with as many as 94 indicators covering a very wide variety of health, demographic, and economic information. Its annual data ranges from 1965 to 1994. The search mechanism makes very nice use of the web. The only vaguely tricky part is finding the entry to it on their page. # http://www.ciesin.org/IC/wbank/sid-home.html 11.9 World Bank Social Trends in Developing Economies (TIDE) The World Bank and CIESIN (Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network) have placed this material (along with Social Indicators of Development) on the Internet as part of an experiment. This database contains brief reports on the World Bank's borrowing countries. Data is from other World Bank publications, such as the World Tables and World Debt Tables, or the IMF's International Financial Statistics and Balance of Payments Statistics. To access this database, look for the entry to search it via the web interface. To read the entire report for a given country, select the country, set the Topic to "No Specific Topic" (the default) and leave the Free Text Search area empty (again, the default). # http://www.ciesin.org/IC/wbank/tde-home.html 11.10 Economic Growth Research (World Bank) This project, sponsored by the Macroeconomics and Growth Division of the Policy Research Department of the World Bank, and the International Center for Economic Growth (San Francisco) examines "the relationship between national policies and economic growth." It offers two basic resources: abstracts and especially data from articles, including a special issue of the Journal of Monetary Economics (Dec. 1993) on this subject), and abstracts on World Bank working papers on the same subject. # http://www.worldbank.org/html/prdmg/grthweb/growth_t.htm 11.11 World Bank's Technet: Think Tank Electronic Conferences In cooperation with Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), the World Bank is offering this set of electronic conferences devoted to the role of science and technology in development. Each conference will last about a month, will have a specific topic, and will involve some ten to twenty experts from a variety of backgrounds. # http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/technet/ 11.12 World Bank Living Standards Measurement (LSMS) This section of the World Banks studies poverty in developing countries. The information here includes an overview of LSMS survey and datasets, specific information from several surveys, (including some data), reports that use the data, and information for managers of new surveys. # http://www.worldbank.org/html/prdph/lsms/lsmshome.html 11.13 BizEd Net - CSO Data (U.K.) BizEd (Business Education) Net is designed for students and faculty members, and others interested in obtaining data. They currently offer the Penn World Tables, and perhaps more importantly, some data from the Office for National Statistics of the U.K. This includes some selected monthly data, as well as some national accounts data. Plans are for this site to rapidly expand. # http://bizednet.bris.ac.uk:8080/home.htm 11.14 World Bank Latin America and Caribbean Region Technical Department This site contains a wide variety of information on this region. One can read and retrieve a number of papers and reports in both English and Spanish. This includes a monthly feature paper by a senior economist on a topic of current interest. Most papers are available in both ASCII and Adobe Acrobat pdf formats. # http://www.worldbank.org/html/lat/ 11.15 Asian Development Bank This site describes all aspects of this bank's work. This not only included information about themselves, but also includes business opportunities, news releases, extensive information on their projects, and their work with law and development. There is also extensive material on their publications. # http://www.asiandevbank.org 11.16 Eurostat This organization, which covers economic activity for the European Union, currently offers press releases and information about itself at this site. In the future, they plan to offer more data from the E.U. # http://europa.eu.int/eurostat.html 11.17 Inter-American Development Bank This sites describes many aspects of the bank's work. 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. # http://www.iadb.org/ 11.18 Penn World Tables at the EPAS Computing Facility at the University of Toronto This organization, which for a fee also makes available the Canadian CANSIM database, demonstrates how the web can make it very easy to retrieve economic data across the Internet. With a "forms" capable web browser, you can very easily select and retrieve individual or multiple series from this database, or even can plot them interactively. One hopes that others who offer economic data on the Internet will soon follow their lead. # http://datacentre.epas.utoronto.ca:5680/pwt/pwt.html + 11.19 United Nations Statistics Division/DESIPA + + This section of the U.N. collects various statistical information. + Perhaps of greatest interest is data from the Monthly Bulletin of + Statistics, which is now available on-line for a fee (currently $295 + for academic users). Data includes national accounts, labour force, + prices, industry, energy, construction, interest rates, international + economic relations, transport, and population. However, it is not + clear how detailed the data is. + + # http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/index.html 11.20 The International Trade Centre UNCTAD/GATT (ITC) This organization, jointly operated by the UN and GATT, deals with international trade (particularly with developing and transitional countries). Besides details information on their mission and programs, they offer considerable data on-line (and even more is available on their CD-ROM products). Their COMTRADE database is "by far the most comprehensive source of trade statistics as it covers over 100 reporting countries with time series starting from 1963 (SITC1), 1978 (SITC2) or 1988 (SITC3 correlated to HS codes)." This data is available on a CD-ROM product. In addition, a subset of this data is available on-line. To quote, it has "only total imports or exports by countries for all product groups (3 digits level) of the Standard International Trade Classification Revision 3." # http://www.unicc.org/itc/Welcome.html 11.21 UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) This site has a substantial amount of material on issues concerning sustainable development. # gopher://gopher.un.org/11/esc/cn17 11.22 Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN This organization's mission is well described by its title. Perhaps most useful to economists is their extensive collection of agricultural, fisheries, forestry, economics, and nutrition data from around the world. See the entry for WAICENT, the World Agricultural Information Center. The agricultural section alone has data from 1961 covering 1500 items in more than 200 countries. Besides data, there are a number of items of additional interest and links to other sites. # http://www.fao.org/ 11.23 PACIFIC Exchange Rate Service Retrieval Interface This offering, run by Werner Antweiler the Policy Analysis Division, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia (and named PACIFIC for Policy Analysis Computing & and Information Faciltiy in Computing) offers two types of exchange rate data: current and historical. In both cases daily data is available, and from many countries (48 countries are updated daily, and nearly 200 are updated at least weekly; not all countries have historical data). The data comes from Xenon Laboratories. # http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/ 11.24 Manchester Information Datasets and Associated Services (MIDAS) This site, formerly the Manchester Computing Centre - National Dataset Service offers a variety of services for U.K., and perhaps other, users. In particular, it offers the National Dataset Service that has, or will soon have, many datasets of interest to economists. Datasets for registered users include the IMF's International Finance Statistics (with 24,000 time series from 196 countries), Balance of Payments Statistics (52,000 time series from 140 countries), Direction of Trade Statistics (61,000 time series from 160 countries), and Government Finance Statistics Yearbook (36,000 time series from 135 countries); the 1991 U.K. Census in various forms; the General Household Survey; the National Labour Force Survey; the Family Expenditure Survey; the British Household Panel Study; the Central Statistical Office (CSO) Macro-Economic Time Series Data Bank (with 12,000 time series); the OECD's Main Economic Indicators (with more than 2500 time series). Some of this data is from the ESRC Data Archive at the University of Essex. It does not appear that non-U.K. users can register for this service. # http://midas.ac.uk/ # gopher://midas.ac.uk:70/1/ # ftp://midas.ac.uk 11.25 ESRC Data Archive This UK archive, funded by the University of Essex and the Economic and Social Research Council, is the largest such archive in the United Kingdom. It holds nearly 4,000 social science computer datasets, both historical and contemporary, that are in some way related to the U.K. (about the U.K., conducted by U.K. investigators, or of interest to U.K. users). For economists, datasets of particular interest include the CSO Macroeconomic Databank, the Family Expenditure Survey, and the Labour Force Survey. In addition, some of datasets contain multi-country surveys, so other countries are frequently included. Thus, this archive is of interest even to non-U.K. economists. Since the datasets are held under agreement with the depositors, one must contact the archive for information on how to obtain the data, some of which is available on-line (other formats include CD-ROMs and tapes, diskette, and DAT) To search ESRC's holdings, one can easily search their database, BIRON, via telnet. If an item of interest is found, further information on how to obtain the data can be found via email. # telnet://biron:norib@biron.essex.ac.uk # email: archive@essex.ac.uk 11.26 Statistics Canada Currently, Statistics Canada, the Canadian national statistical agency, provides information from their daily report, the Daily, on this site. It also contains information on ordering their publications, lists of offices, their classification systems, subscription information on their listserv, and ordering information on their CD-ROM database, CANSIM (which has some 520,000 time series on Canada). The last two weeks of material from the Daily is on the gopher and web servers. The web interface is particularly nice with well designed hypertext and integrated graphics. The last year of the Daily is kept on the ftp site which can be searched with either the gopher or web interfaces. Another section of this guide deals with Statistics Canada CANSIM, a fee-based collection of Canadian statistical data. # http://www.statcan.ca/ # gopher://talon.statcan.ca:70/1/ # ftp://talon.statcan.ca # Information: Michael Thoen 11.27 Statistics Canada CANSIM This extremely extensive database (it has some 550,000 time series and occupies about a gigabyte of disk space) covers a very wide variety of social and economic data in Canada. Unfortunately, the data is not freely available, although customers can retrieve the data over the Internet through an agreement with the University of Toronto. For academic users, the database costs $995, though discounts are possible in some situations. # Information: Bill Graham, Statistics Canada or Chris Leowski, University of Toronto 11.28 Canadian Industry Overviews This site offers detailed cross sectional and some time series views of some 230 Canadian industries, wih an emphasis on "production, international trade, and detailed sector level performance." In the near future, information on some 400 service industries will be added. The amount of detail is impressive, you can find out the total salaries and wages in the fish products industry rose 4.64% in 1988-89. # http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_ecnmy/sio/homepage.html 11.29 Ministry of Finance (Mexico) While the data at this site is not very lengthy (it generally covers just the last few years), it is rather broad. In addition, various reports and documents on the Mexican economy are available as well. # http://www.shcp.gob.mx/ 11.30 Scottish Economic History Database, 1550 - 1780 This database, funded by the by British Economic and Social Research Council, has data on crop yields, demographic data, price series, wage series, and weather statistics for the above mentioned dates. Detailed information on this dataset is on-line here, and is also in AJS Gibson and TC Smout, "Scottish food, wages and prices, 1550 - 1780," Cambridge University Press, 1994. They ask that any users report use of this database to further the financial support for it, and that users cite its use. # http://www.ex.ac.uk/~ajgibson/scotdata/scot_database_home.html 11.31 H.M. Treasury (U.K.) While this site does not contain data, it does contain a large amount of information on the workings of H.M. Treasury. Of particular interest to economists are the entries "Budget Documentation" (with extensive documentation on the budget), "Economic Briefing" (which includes various reports), "Monthly Monetary Meetings," and "Reports of the Panel of Independent Forecasters." There is also a large amount of information about the Treasury itself. Two mailing lists (one on press releases, the other on new Internet offering by the H.M. Treasury) are described in the section titled "C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods." They plan to offer expanded services in the future. # http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/ # ftp://ftp.hm-treasury.gov.uk # Information: info@hm-treasury.gov.uk # Suggestions: editor@hm-treasury.gov.uk 11.32 Praedicta - Israeli Economic Data This company specializes in a wide range of data on Israel; in all, more than 50,000 series are available. Of interest to economists is their economic data, which includes demographic information, national accounts, balance of payments, foreign trade, finance and taxes, price indices and exchange rates, the labor market, and many other areas. It is a fee-based service. # http://www.praedicta.com + 11.33 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics + + Besides a listing of the CBS' publications, dates of press releases, + and information about itself, this site offers a substantial amount of + on-line information. This includes data from the "Monthly Bulletin of + Statistics" (available in several formats) which has 18 different + categories from climate to public order (most of the categories are + economic, such as national accounts, balance of payments, foreign + trade, finance, prices, labor and wages, industry, etc.). In addition, + there is a very useful search engine. + + # http://www.cbs.gov.il/engindex.htm 11.34 The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) This private organization offers information on their forecasting activities (they produce a number of publications) and general economic studies. They also offer a substantial amount of data, including international data and thousands of time series on the Finnish economy, but one must register to use it. # http://www.etla.fi 11.35 Summary Information on the Dutch Economy at Rabobank This site, run by the large Dutch bank Rabobank, offers some current summary information on the Dutch economy. It also offers information on Rabobank itself. # http://rabobank.info.nl/engels/default.htm 11.36 Central Bank of Turkey This site offers a wealth of economic information on Turkey. Data includes Outstanding External Debt, Daily Exchange Rates, Interest Rates on Deposits, Treasury Wholesale Prices, Treasury Istanbul Wage Earners Index, SIS Wholesale Prices Index, SIS Consumer price Index, Consolidated Budget, Balance of payments, Weekly Monetary Aggregates, GNP at Fixed Prices, and SIS Monthly Industrial Production. Most of the information is via telnet, and the interface is a bit tricky to learn. Each time you use the system, use the logon of "tcmb". The first time you will be asked for some information, and then given a user code. It should be used for subsequent visits (again, given after logging on with "tcmb"). # gopher://tcmb580.tcmb.gov.tr # telnet://tcmb:tcmb580.tcmb.gov.tr 11.37 Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Business & Economy Data Besides various sorts of business and summary economic information, this site offers a substantial amount of economic data on the Turkish economy. See the entry titled "Basic Economic Indicators," which has information both from the last few year and from 1923. Data is arranged into sections on population, demographic statistics, health, education and welfare, education and culture, justice, social security and social aid, agriculture, mining, power, manufacturing industry, construction, transportation and communication, tourism, domestic trade and services, foreign trade, prices and indices, money, finance, and national accounts. Each section contains from a few to as many as 20 or more tables. # http://www.mfa.gov.tr/GRUPC/GRUPC.HTM 11.38 India Economic Survey 1996 and Budget This site has information on the 1996 budget of India, and the Economic Survery, 1996. # http://alfa.nic.in/indiabudget/ + 11.39 Bundesbank + + The central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany offers extensive + information about itself at this site. Perhaps of greatest interest + are the press releases (which includes speeches), monthly reports, and + publications. They offer considerable detail on the workings of the + bank, and the German and European economies. + + # http://www.bundesbank.de/index_e.html + 11.40 Statistik Regional (German Regional Statistics) + + This site provides extracts from the "Statistik regional" dataset + published by the federal and regional statistics offices of Germany. + It covers population, health, education, employment agriculture and + forestry, industry, construction, tourism, transport social services, + financial statistics and taxes, national accounting, environmental + data and election results. It has the complete coverage of themes of + the full version but the level of diaggregation is not as deep. (As I + do not read German, Thomas Krichel kindly wrote this for me.) + + # http://www.brandenburg.de/statreg/ + 11.41 German Federal Statistical Office + + This site offers information about itself (including helplines), + extensive press releases, short term economic indicators (GDP and the + like for recent years), basic statistical figures, time series (only + in German at the moment), and book and media store (including on-line + data). + + # http://www.statistik-bund.de/e_home.htm 11.42 Reserve Bank of New Zealand This trend setting central bank offers information about itself, its most recent "Monetary Policy Statement," its forecasts, a summary of recent New Zealand economic policy, some of its "Information Pamphlets," and recent press releases and speeches. Finally, they offer information on bank and bank regulation. # http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/ 11.43 New Zealand Treasury Currently, this site offers material on recent budgets, and a substantial amount of information on general fiscal issues and New Zealand, such as their annual report, an overview of the country's financial and economic framework, some regulatory issues, etc. # http://www.treasury.govt.nz/ 11.44 Australian Bureau of Statistics Besides offering fairly detailed summary information on Australia and its states and territories (in wks format), this server also has information on the ABS, its catalog, and press releases. # http://www.statistics.gov.au/ + 11.45 Bank of Japan + + Besides information about the bank, they offer extensive information + on their publications (including CD-ROMs), a list of dates for press + releases as well as press releases and speeches, current exchange + rates, reports (including the "Quarterly Economic Outlook," the + "Annual Review of Monetary and Economic Developments," the "Monthly + Economic Review," and the "Flow of Funds." Data (including long time + series) includes the money stock, TANKAN Outline ("Short-Term Economic + Survey of Enterprises in Japan"), various price indices and interest + rates, foreign exchange rates, and data from financial institutions. + + # http://www.boj.go.jp/en/index.htm 11.46 Japanese Macro Data This site contains some 20,000 macro series from Nikkei Needs. It has been reformatted into the ASCII format used by the BCI Data Manager. When you first use this site, be sure to read the warnings concerning some oddities in the data and details on how to search for it (the data are located in this database with a WAIS search). # http://econom10.cc.sophia.ac.jp/needs/index.htm 12 FINANCE AND FINANCIAL MARKETS 12.1 Other Sources There are five good places to search for this type of data (I have only placed some of the many resources I've come across here). The first is to turn to the Internet document that specializes in it, the misc.invest FAQ (i.e. the Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) of the Usenet newsgroup misc.invest). Besides detailing the many ways you can obtain financial data on the Internet, it also covers many topics of interest to investors. FINWeb also is an excellent starting point for those looking for financial data and information. The Financial Data Finder at Ohio State provides a very extensive list of financial data sources, both on and off the Internet. Finally, the Wall Street Research Net and Wall Street Directory, and Finance Area by Top Services International provides many links that will be of interest to investors. * 12.2 misc.invest FAQ * # http://www.invest-faq.com/ # ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/investment-faq/general 12.3 FINWeb FINWeb, "The primary objective of FINWeb is to list Internet resources providing substantive information concerning economics and finance-related topics." To this end, resources are broken up into the following categories: electronic publishing (both journals and working papers), databases, other servers in finance and economics, miscellaneous topics, and highly recommended general resources. It is another good place to look for financial market information. # http://www.finweb.com/ 12.4 Financial Data Finder at Ohio State This site provides a number of pointers to financial datasets and other financial information both on and off the Internet. In addition, it lists information about on-line business libraries. # http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu/dept/fin/osudata.htm 12.5 Wall Street Research Net This site is devoted to providing the investor with fundamental information. One can research a company on-line (including Canadian companies), read about the current state of the economy from presses releases and links to the major data generators, read extensive information about different markets, and read the current news. They also offer additional material that may be of interest, including Grant's Interest Rate Observer. # http://www.wsrn.com/ + 12.6 Wall Street Directory + + This directory claims to list nearly 10,000 separate pages organized + separate ways for different uses. + + # http://www.wsdinc.com/ + 12.7 Finance Area by Top Services International + + This site, with something of a European emphasis, is said to list some + 6,000 sites in finance. Major headings include companies, markets, the + EU Market, stocks, valuables, vademecum (for travellers), offshore, + equity, analysis, and miscellaneous. + + # http://www.tsi.it/finanza/index.html * 12.8 Global Financial Data To quote from Brian Taylor, who is the Presidnet of this service: " We offer extensive historical financial data. On our site we provide free over 700 years of inflation data, and 200 years of data on exchange rates, interest rates and the stock market. We also provide long-term data on stock market returns and inflation rates for almost 40 countries. Our database includes data on over 50 countries and includes monthly data back to the 1690s." To quote from their offerings: # The Long-term Monthly Database includes over 500 series of monthly data on stock markets back to 1693, exchange rates back to 1624 and inflation rates back to 1748. Over 50 countries are included in the database. # The United States Interest Rate Database includes 70 series of weekly interest rate data. Data begin in 1835 on a monthly basis and in 1872 on a weekly basis. # The Foreign Interest Rate Database includes over 400 series of monthly foreign interest rate data from 50 countries. Monthly data begin in 1700 and go back to the 1800s for most major economies. Discount rates, interbank rates, money market rates, government bond yields and treasury bond yields are included. # The United States Daily Stock Market Indices Database includes 75 series of daily stock market data. All major United States stock market indices are complete back to their beginning. Daily data begin in 1885. # The Foreign Daily Stock Market Indices Database includes over 200 series of daily stock market data from 45 world stock markets. Daily data begin in 1930. # The United States Stock Market Sector Database includes over 350 series of weekly sector data back to 1918. Monthly data go back to 1871. # The Foreign Stock Market Sector Database includes over 1300 series of monthly sector data for 25 countries. Data begin in the 1920s or earlier for the world's major stock markets. Some of these series, and summary information on the rest, is offered for free, and the rest can be purchased. As appropriate, there are frequent updates. * # http://www.globalfindata.com 12.9 Briefing by Charter Media This organization specializes in intra-day news, data, and analyses of financial markets. Thus, it is similar to Reuters, Telerate, etc., but is freely available. Their stock, dollar, and bond tickers are updated at specific times throughout the day. As needed, they update information on economic data and individual stocks (you can also get quotes on individual stocks and bonds). In addition, they offer information that might influence financial markets such as political stories, and also offer political, market, and economic forecasts. Finally, they offer a market brief and calendar. # http://www.briefing.com 12.10 Bloomberg Personal Bloomberg is one of the leading suppliers of financial market information. In this offering, which adds information to their TV show, 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. # http://www.bloomberg.com 12.11 EDGAR (SEC) This database opened in January of 1994. It covers public filings by U.S. public companies made to the SEC from that data. It covers such things as 10K, 10Q, annual, quarterly reports, and many other items. Previously, this database was available only through Mead Data in either inconvenient locations or at very considerable expense. In an experiment, it was available at no cost over the Internet. The experiment was deemed a success, and now the SEC itself makes the data available. This database only covers filings made from 1994 on, for public consumption, and when made electronically by the filing company. Thus, it does not cover earlier years, current paper fillings, or non-public ones. There are a number of utilities that make using this large database easier. Some help you easily search for material, and another formats EDGAR fillings into WordPerfect format. # http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm # ftp://ftp.sec.gov/edgar 12.12 Martin Wong's and George Holt's Market Report This report briefly describes the day's activities in various financial markets. It includes the day's major activities in financial markets and releases of key economic data, while the latter has an extensive report on many markets (NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, foreign markets, interest rates, foreign exchange, etc.). The latter is also available from the mailing list EINVEST. Current and back issues can be found on the gopher at the Washington University at St. Louis (described in the section titled "MULTIPLE SUBJECT ECONOMIC SITES." # http://turnpike.net/metro/holt/index.html # telnet://guest@a2i.rahul.net/n/Current System Information/Market Report 12.13 Public Domain Financial Data This site allows those with financial data they would like to share to place it at a common site. Thus, some caution might be advised since the data may not be "official." Details about this site can be found in the "README" file. # ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/archives/misc.invest 12.14 Polish Stock Market This site offers data on shares, bonds, financial results, and data from previous sessions. Information on shares is found in the "PGPW - rynek ascji" directory, for bonds in the "WGPW - ryneck obligacji" directory, and for financial results, in the "WGPW - walory" directory. Obviously, the language is Polish. # http://yogi.ippt.gov.pl/gielda/gielda.html 12.15 QuoteCom Data Service This service offers a variety of data on the U.S. financial markets, four London exchanges, five European exchanges, and Canadian exchanges. Data ranges from 15 minute old prices to historical prices. In addition, portfolios can be tracked and trading-oriented business news can be followed. For no charge, one can receive five quotes per day, along with basic balance sheet information from most any sort of financial market. Additional services are fee-based (educational and site licenses are available). For instance, daily data from about 9,000 U.S. stocks since 1988, and daily data from U.S. commodity futures, foreign stocks and commodities contracts for the last few months, are available for a list price of $1.95 list per time series. Output can be retrieved in a number of ways, including email, ftp and the web. All users must register. # http://www.quote.com/ # ftp://ftp.quote.com # email: services@quote.com ("help" in the body of the note) 12.16 Security APL QuoteServer This service offers free quotes of current stock and bond prices (along with some summary information) from the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ. It also has links to EDGAR, lets one look up the ticker symbol of a security, and also offers summary information on the stock market as a whole. In addition, there is a portfolio simulation game. It is designed for non-professional use. This company also offers an extensive array of professional products. # http://www.secapl.com/cgi-bin/qs 12.17 JP Morgan Besides general information on JP Morgan, this site has information on two general items of interest to financial economists. The first is extensive material on a number of their market indices. These include commodities, currencies, bonds and mortgages. Historical data is available as well. Second is their RiskMetrics program. With the increasing importance of financial fluctuations on firms' earning and balance sheets, JP Morgan is offering a system and data to help manage the resulting volatility. They forecast the market risk in more than 300 financial time series. Currently, this includes items in the bond markets, money markets, swaps, foreign exchange, equity indices, commodities, spread products, and new markets. Their market risk forecast is based upon an exponential moving average of volatility to rapidly capture periods of increased volatility. Not only does it include volatility in a series, it also includes cross correlations of the all series. However, they stress even with this data, sophisticated judgement is still required to correctly access risks. To that end, this data can be integrated with a number of third party risk management products. Each day, machine readable daily volatility and correlations are released, as are monthly figures. To access the web version, one must use a graphical web browser. # http://www.jpmorgan.com # ftp://ftp.jpmorgan.com 12.18 Student Investment Club at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University This site offers a number of links to financial markets, including the German stock market and other European markets. There is also information on capital markets in general. # http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/AG/JWGI/ 12.19 New Zealand Investment Center This site offers summary data on stock prices and other financial market data of New Zealand. There is also some information on New Zealand companies, and some government economic data. # http://www.charm.net/~lordhill/ 12.20 InTechTra's Hong Kong Stocks Reports This site offers daily summary information on the Hong Kong Stock Market, and for a fee, a variety of additional information is available. # http://www.asiawind.com/pub/hksr/ # Information: sllee@infinet.com 12.21 Fidelity Investment Not only does Fidelity offer information about investing, they also offer fairly detailed information on their products. One can even check their performance, including their Lipper rankings. You can also have prospecti mailed to you. In the late summer of 1996, they plan to make it possible for 401(k) and 403(b) holders to change their allocations on-line. # http://www.fid-inv.com/ 12.22 The Vanguard Group, Inc. Like most other investment companies, Vanguard offers a web site with extensive information. This one includes a substantial amount of information for their mutual fund investors such as newsletters, announcements, retirement planning materials, and current fund prices. They have a particularly nice navigation graphic of the entire site. # http://www.vanguard.com/ 12.23 NETworth This free service, funded by the mutual fund industry, offers an amazing amount of information on financial services for individuals, such as material on more than 5,000 mutual funds from Morningstar. It is said to be the best source of data on mutual fund on the Internet. # http://networth.galt.com/ 12.24 Schwab Online Charles Schwab offers a complete set of information on their many and extensive products (including equities, fixed income and mutual funds) at this site. Just about every imaginable detail is covered. # http://www.schwab.com/ 12.25 E*Trade Securities, Inc. E*Trade is another broker that has set up trading on the Internet. In addition, they offer free quotes. # http://www.etrade.com/ 12.26 Lombard Institutional Brokerage, Inc. Lombard is one of a growing number of firms that offer on-line trading. In addition, to registered users (no fees involved), they offer a substantial amount of data: quotes, graphs, and research results. You can also set up an account on-line. # http://www.lombard.com/ 12.27 Banks of the World via the Institute for Finance and Banking at the University of Gottingen This site lists a number of banks that have a presence on the Internet, including those that actually bank on the Internet. It is organized geographically. They also offer a large number of links to financial sources and resources. # http://www.gwdg.de/~ifbg/bank_2.html 12.28 MoneyLine - Real Time Fixed Income Data MoneyLine obtains their data for the fixed income market from GovPX, which is owned by the 38 Primary Dealers in Treasuries and 5 of the 6 brokers who deal with them. Thus, it is the primary source of real time information in the fixed income market. They list bids, offers, and transactions among the primary dealers, and they cover the following markets: "U.S. Treasury bonds, notes, and bills, money market instruments such as CD's, BA's, Fed Funds Rate, the Prime Rate, U.S. Agency bonds, zero coupon bonds and strips." In addition, they also offer "value-added analysis" information (such as bond calculators, spread analysis, etc., and news on these markets. While this is obviously a fee-based service, two-week trial accounts are available, and one can sign up on their web page. The actual interface is through telnet, where screens are automatically updated with the latest information as it occurs. # http://www.moneyline.com 12.29 Market Broadcasting Corporation - Real Time FX, Fixed Income, and Money Market Data MBC provides "virtually all" the data from GovPX, which is the primary provider of real time information in the fixed income market. They also provide information on foreign exchange and the money market, as well as news in these markets from around the world. # http://www.pctrader.com/ 13 ECONOMIC CONSULTING AND FORECASTING SERVICES 13.1 Dr. Ed Yardeni's Economics Network Ed Yardeni is the chief economist of Deutsche Morgan Grenfell/C.J. Lawrence. In his "Chart Rooms," you will find a numerous charts of U.S. macro, financial, and some industrial material. With "Economic Indicators," you will find data from the latest releases of statistical material. There is also a "Weekly Economic Analysis," "Weekly Economic Briefing," and "Topical Analyses," which are self explanatory (some material here requires that you be a subscriber to access it). There are also sections on "Money and Fiscal Policies," "Demography," and "Capitalism." Finally, the section titled "Other Internet Resources" has a concise, high quality list of related material on the Internet. To read most of the material here, you will need an Adobe Acrobat pdf viewer (they are easy to install and effortless to use with most browsers). In sum, this is an excellent site for those interested in both macroeconomic data and the analysis of it. # http://www.webcom.com/~yardeni/economic.html + 13.2 WEFA Group + + This company has a staff of more than 200 economists, econometricians, + researchers, database specialists and support staff who maintain + databases, prepare forecasts for more than 90 countries and conduct + specialized client studies. They offer four general types of services: + (i) forecasts with a focus from an industry to the globe, (ii) data - + more than two million time series are available to their customers, + (iii) software for managing these time series in many different ways, + and (iv) consulting for clients. As one would expect, they have a + considerable effort devoted to the U.S. economy, and one can sample + about their work here. + + Their site offers a great variety of information on themselves and + their products. This includes details on their U.S. macro products, + their services for various industries, Latin America, foreign + exchange, decision support and data software, and corporate + information on themselves. In short, they offer a wealth of services + for anyone interested in economic issues and decision support + services. + + WEFA is an outgrowth of Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates, + which was founded in 1963 by Lawrence R. Klein. It merged with Chase + Econometrics in 1987, and in 1994 it was acquired by Bain Capital, and + in 1997 by Primark, a global economic and financial information + company. Pat Rocco kindly contributed to this summary. + + # http://www.wefa.com/ 13.3 Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC Macroeconomic Advisers was founded in 1982 as Laurence H. Meyer & Associates, Ltd. by Laurence Meyer, Joel Prakken and Chris Varvares. Laurence Meyer left the firm June 21, 1996 to assume a seat on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. Macroeconomic Advisers (MA) is a privately owned corporation that specializes in macroeconomic forecasting and policy analysis. MA built, maintains and supports the Washington University Macroeconometric model of the United States Economy (WUMM), the first sophisticated macro model available on personal computers, and now available in our new WUMMSIM for Windows software. At this site they offer a fairly detailed description of their model (including graphs of its response to shocks). They also describe their services, list their press releases and coming events, and offer a special area to their subscribers. This includes a weekly economic commentary, "Fast Facts" (analyses of recent events), and material for updating and using their model. Finally, there is a discussion area. # http://www.macroadvisers.com * 13.4 FAIRMODEL This well known macroeconometric model is now available on the net. Virtually all the features of the stand-alone package are now accessible to any user. This includes the ability to "forecast the economy, do policy analysis, and examine historical episodes." Data and forecasts can be both graphed and put into tables (which can be downloaded). If I'm reading the documentation correctly, the model itself can be downloaded, and thus adapted for your own use. Both Fortran and EViews versions are available. The U.S. version of the model is rather complex (131 equations in all; 101 identities and 31 behavioral equations), it is highly recommended that users read the manual before using it. Extensive documentation (in fact, much material similar to "Testing Macroeconometric Models," Ray Fair, Harvard University Press, 1994) is available. One can also read about the latest forecasts of the model. To use FAIRMODEL, you must have a browser that supports Java and frames. * In addition, the the multicountry (MC) model is available as well. It * covers the U.S. and 32 other countries. In all, there are some 4,000 * variables, not counting the trade share variables (which can be * downloaded). It is thought to be "one of the largest computational * problems that has so far been offered on the Internet." # http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/ + 13.5 Foster Associates + + This 40 year old economic consulting firm provides information and + expertise to the natural gas and electricity industries, and analysis + and forecasts for states, metro areas, and the U.S. economy. + Currently, these reports are freely available. Specifically, the macro + forecast "offers insight into current macroeconomic conditions, + business cycle developments, and long term economic trends and issues. + It surveys both real and financial sectors of the U.S. economy and + provides a quarterly GDP forecast with detailed explanations of + forecast assumptions and risks." This material is frequently updated. + "The State and Metro area editions of the Foster Forecast provide + economic analysis and performance measures for all 50 states and over + 350 metro areas in the U.S., including relative income and wage + levels, employment growth and volatility, and employment, income, and + location quotients by major industry." The state and metro area + information is updated annually. Population, income, and employment + forecasts are available for a fee. Currently only examples from some + areas are avail able. Other areas will be added in the future. (David + Carrier kindly looked over this entry.) + + # http://www.foster-fa.com/ + 13.6 Regional Economic Models (REMI) + + This organization specializes in regional models. They are said to