Finding Data at the Marshall Library - Jasper's Xmas tips number 9

 Looking for data for your own independent project, dissertation or research? At Marshall Library we subscribe to a variety of Macroeconomic, Microeconomic and Financial datasets. We also curate lists of free to access data. We also have bookable Live Financial Bloomberg and EIKON data terminals at the Marshall Library.

Here is a list of datasets, split by Microeconomic, Macroeconomics, Finance and Statistics on the Marshall Library website: https://www.marshall.econ.cam.ac.uk/onlineresources/economic-data

You will also find a link to Data sources for replication studies from this page.

If you know what dataset you are looking and want to know if it is free to access for members of Cambridge University go to our A-Z list here: https://www.marshall.econ.cam.ac.uk/z-datasets-list We have over 60 subscribed and free-to-access datasets on this list. The left hand column lists the datasets or sites by name in alphabetical order. The middle column tells you about the database or dataset and the right hand column tells you whether access is unrestricted or if you need to set up an account/register/contact Cambridge Judge Business School etc.

If you know you would like to use the Bloomberg or EIKON terminal please book using our booking form here: https://www.marshall.econ.cam.ac.uk/contactus/eikon-bloomberg-booking-form
Please describe the type of data you are looking for - name, time series, frequency, date range etc. 

International Data from the UK Data Service

This week I attended a UK Data Service International Data User Group meeting in London. It was interesting to be reminded that, alongside many Microeconomics Data sets such as Household Panel data, the UKDS also hosts hundreds of  International economic and data sets from
International Energy Agency (IEA), World Bank, OECD, United Nations (UN), Human Rights Atlas and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Key datasets include World Energy Balances, World Development Indicators, Balance of Payments Statistics, Direction of Trade Statistics, International Financial Statistics, World Economic Outlook, Main Economic Indicators, Quarterly National Accounts, and the Human Rights Atlas. Datasets also cover statistics on science, environment, education, health, and in depth regional statistics.

To get started on their UK.Stat interface and find out how to access international time series data you can watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtZpbBZO04Y

To access the UKDS.Stat database go to stats.ukdataservice.ac.uk
Once you have called up some data you can alter the time period and subject by clicking within the spreadsheet - click where the red circles indicate to bring up a box where you can amend the data.

Data can be downloaded into Excel format or a .csv file so you can save it for your project or research. You can also visualise the data into charts or maps

Please note that some of the data e.g. IEA - International Energy Agency you would need to register to access. If you click on this section or any subsections of this data you will see this message

Access to this dataset is restricted.

The database you have tried to access is only available for users in UK Higher Education/Further Education institutions.
If you have already signed up, please login

If you click on Login at this point you will be taken to a login page like this

If you type University of Cambridge in or choose it from the list and click continue you will go through to the usual Raven login page - where you can login with your CRSid. From there you will be taken to the IEA Special Licence page where you have to read and agree with their access terms and conditions Once you have agreed you will be able to access the data and alter the time series etc. as shown above.

I usually get asked to go along to User Group meetings once a year, along with the Data Librarian from Oxford and other Library staff from organisations such as SOAS and LSE where using data is important. This resource is currently funded and therefore free at the point of use for us -unlike some other data sets which cost a lot for access. Please make use of the data - it is great to have access to it from a one-stop shop like this. Please do let me know if you have any feedback on accessing the data so that I can feed it into the next User Group meeting. International Labour Organisation (ILO) data will also be added soon.