Federal Reserve Economic Data

FRED has data from multiple sources that can help reveal correlations between macroeconomic indicators and policy variables across major economies. For example, the FRED Blog has discussed international comovements in monetary policy before. Today, we dig deeper into economic comovement by looking at recent research from the Richmond Fed.

Researchers Katherine Anderson, Paul Ho, and Nathan Robino used GDP and inflation data from 27 countries between 1981 and 2023 to study how much the U.S. economy moves in parallel with other countries. They found substantial correlations among all countries: “While the comovement is most striking during the Great Recession and COVID-19 periods, it is also visible during the rest of the sample period.”

FRED graphs can fit up to 12 data series at once, but best practice is to use fewer. Our FRED graph above shows the comovement of U.S. GDP annual growth rates (solid dark blue line) and those of the United Kingdom, Japan, and the 19 countries of the Euro Area (various dashed lines) between 1996 and 2024. Simultaneous severe cross-border economic contractions are noticeable during U.S. recessions (shaded areas in the graph), particularly since 2001.

What could help explain these international economic linkages? The Richmond Fed researchers consider two possible channels of economic communication: international trade linkages and global financial networks.

• International trade could transmit demand shocks in one country to all its trading partners.
• Risky asset prices and the risk aversion of investors could also change direction in multiple countries at once, thus creating a global financial cycle.
• Both commercial trade and financial markets may simultaneously combine to influence economic conditions across the world.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Real Gross Domestic Product for United States.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Add Line” tab. Search for and add “Real Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom (DISCONTINUED).” Repeat the last step to add “Real Gross Domestic Product for Japan” and “Real Gross Domestic Product for Euro Area (19 Countries)” to the graph. Next, use the “Edit Lines” tab to select each of the four graph lines from the dropdown menu and change the units to “Percent Change from Year Ago” and modify the frequency to “Annual.” Lastly, use the “Format” tab to customize each line style.

Suggested by Ethan Hunt and Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

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.