The Data Hunt

I'm hoping by now most of you have found your data for the research project problems. If not, you are probably falling behind. I do know several of you have asked for assistance finding the data. Isn't data gathering hard? Yes, it is one of the biggest problems in research (not just economic research but all empirical research). Fortunately for us (and the problems we are looking at on the "research project") the government has a lot of data. So maybe its not all in the same place. (Why would we expect it to be?)

So here are your starting points: I'm not going to give you too much detail because you need to "enjoy" the problem that is finding and formatting the data.

For the first problem you need GDP figures and Money Supply figures.

GDP figures can be found at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (we've visited this site before). www.bea.gov. Within a few clicks you will be able to find a link where it will spit out into an excel file nominal and real GDP. (Remember, they will use terminology like "current dollar" GDP and the "chained-dollar 2005" GDP. Current dollar is nominal. Chained-dollar is real. If you're lucky to get this far, you'll see you have more data than you need. Just copy the annual figures and the year and put them in your main excel worksheet.

For money supply figures you have to go to FRED. FRED is the Federal Reserve Economic Data site, run by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/

You will need to click around but you can find M1 and M2 monies. In fact, if you play around enough, you can find that you can get annualized averages for these. (Which could work better than end of year values. That substitution is fine.)

You may also note that FRED has GDP, price level, and unemployment information as well. I haven't spent much time in those areas of the FRED site but you may find all your data right there, including data for the second problem.

Now, the place I will initially suggest for finding the unemployment rates and inflation rates is at the Bureau of Labor statistics (BLS). You can get inflation rates based on the CPI and also the unemployment rates. Just click on the "dinosaur" next to the data you're looking for. You can play around there to find the data you need. Remember, if you download the CPI, you will have to calculate the percentage change from the previous period. Excel can do that for you also.

When you print out the data to attach to the back of your paper, you should have, basically, two Excel worksheets: One for problem 1, one for problem 2. If you format it right, you should be able to get each table on its own page. Ideally a 2 page appendix is desire.

If you haven't started, get crackin'. If you have started, I hope you are having fun, or at least understanding the frustrations of research. This project, in part, aims to get you to appreciate the data collection problem of research. It's what we do. If you're to learn economics, you may as well learn about our research frustrations.

Warning: This paper is due on Monday the 13th. I will be OUT OF TOWN the weekend before its due. (Just for those concerned: Its not a health-related out-of-town trek but a mental-health-related out-of-town trek. I'll be in Las Vegas and not likely interested in answering data questions that weekend. Or any questions. If you're having trouble at that point, you should pray that the weather keeps me stranded in Vegas (something I actually wouldn't mind).)

Peace out, data scouts!