FRED recently added 1,502 series of producer price index (PPI) data. PPIs, which are reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), measure the average change over time in sale prices received by domestic producers of goods and services. In other words, PPIs measure price changes from the perspective of the seller.

FRED’s latest data additions expand overall coverage of commodity and industry prices to 12,283 individual series, offering detailed information about a broad swath of economic activity.

As a sample, we built the above FRED graph using the commodity prices of three types of bivalve mollusks: oysters (solid blue line), sea scallops (dash-dot green line), and mussels (dashed orange line). Between January 2016 and the time of this writing, the data show more marked price volatility for sea scallops than for oysters, while the price of mussels appears relatively stable.

The fluctuating prices of a clambake with these ingredients may reflect demand and supply shocks singular to each succulent seafood.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Producer Price Index by Commodity: Processed Foods and Feeds: Oysters.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab. Search for and add “Producer Price Index by Commodity: Processed Foods and Feeds: Sea Scallops.” Repeat the last step to add “Producer Price Index by Commodity: Processed Foods and Feeds: Mussels” to the graph.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Previous FRED Blog posts have discussed how to measure economic and financial uncertainty. Some measures are based on news coverage from a large set of U.S. newspapers, and others are calculated using the prices of financial derivatives. Today, we measure interest rate uncertainty based on daily financial data.

Our FRED graph above shows the past five years of daily values of the Kansas City Fed’s measure of policy rate uncertainty (KC PRU). The authors describe the index as “the uncertainty around one-year-ahead interest rates.” Higher index values imply that investors trading financial derivatives hold more disparate expectations about future financial conditions. In other words, when the index rises, the range of possible future financial outcomes is broadening, signaling increased uncertainty.

Data are available since April 1, 1989, and could be used to study how investors react to news about monetary policy: Federal Open Market Committee announcements, changes in Fed communication strategies, and many other financial market events.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Kansas City Fed’s Measure of Policy Rate Uncertainty” and start the sample period on 2020-06-01.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Tariffs and trade policy have been in the news for months, so today we’re looking at how tariffs have changed over time and the role they play in generating revenue.

Our FRED graph above displays two series:

• The effective import tariff rate (dark-blue solid line, left axis) is the average tax rate the government imposes on imported goods.
• Tariff revenue as a percentage of GDP (light-blue dotted line, right axis) is how much the government collects in tariffs compared with the size of the overall economy.

The effective tariff rate has generally been falling since 1960, continuing a longer trend that began around the 1930s. The percentage of tariff revenue has been falling since about 1990.

Both rates jumped noticeably in 2018 during the first trade war, more or less doubling by 2022. Despite this increase, tariffs still make up only a small part of federal revenue: about 0.3% of GDP per year, far too small to close the gap in the federal deficit, which has been close to 7% of GDP annually in recent years.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Federal government current tax receipts: Taxes on production and imports: Customs duties.” Click “Edit Graph,” use “Customize data” to search for “Current payments to the rest of the world: Imports of goods,” and click “Add.” Input the formula a/b*100 and click “Apply.” Next, click “Add Line,” search for and select “Federal government current tax receipts: Taxes on production and imports: Customs duties,” and click “Add Data Series.” Use “Customize data” to search for “Gross Domestic Product,” and click “Add.” Input the formula a/b*100 and click “Apply.” In the “Format” tab, click “Customize” for Line 2 and change “Y-Axis position” to “Right.”

Suggested by Maximiliano Dvorkin and Melanie LeTourneau.