Federal Reserve Economic Data

Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) is a database maintained by the Research division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that has more than 421,000 economic time series from 81 sources. The data can be viewed in graphical and text form or downloaded for import to a database or spreadsheet, and viewed on mobile devices. They cover banking, business/fiscal, consumer price indexes, employment and population, exchange rates, gross domestic product, interest rates, monetary aggregates, producer price indexes, reserves and monetary base, U.S. trade and international transactions, and U.S. financial data. The time series are compiled by the Federal Reserve and collected from government agencies such as the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The economic data published on FRED are widely reported in the media and play a key role in financial markets. In a 2012 Business Insider article titled "The Most Amazing Economics Website in the World", Joe Weisenthal quoted Paul Krugman as saying: "I think just about everyone doing short-order research — trying to make sense of economic issues in more or less real time — has become a FRED fanatic."

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data is also accessible via other data services:

ALFRED (Archival Federal Reserve Economic Data) lets users retrieve vintage versions of economic data that were available on specific dates in history. The ALFRED web site states that “In general, economic data for past observation periods are revised as more accurate estimates become available. As a result, previous vintages of data can be superseded and may no longer be available from various data sources." It also says that "Vintage or real-time economic data allows academics to reproduce others’ research, build more accurate forecasting models and analyze economic policy decisions using the data available at the time.”

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