Federal Reserve Economic Data

The FRED Blog has looked at the speed of Internet adoption in a few countries: the U.S., China, Korea, Germany, and India. Today, we use World Bank data to widen our view and map Internet use rates around the world. Then we connect those rates to countries’ per capita GDPs.

Our first GeoFRED map identifies the number of Internet users per 100 people in each country. In countries colored blue, over 80% of the population uses the Internet: Liechtenstein is at the top, with a ratio of 99.55%. In countries colored red, under 20% of the population uses the Internet: Eritrea is at the bottom, with a ratio of 1.31%.

Our second map shows inflation-adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) per person. In countries colored blue, GDP per person (at 2010 prices) is more than $28,000 per year: Monaco, where the figure is above $186,000, is at the top. In countries colored red, GDP per person is less than $1,600: Burundi, where the figure is $214, is at the bottom.

Consider the examples of Austria, Belgium, Finland, and Germany, which have Internet use rates of 84% to 88% and per capita GDPs of $48,000 to $50,000. Now consider that Cambodia, Honduras, India, and Sudan have Internet use rates of 31% to 32% and per capita GDPs of $1,000 to $2,000.

Comparing the maps reveals the close correspondence between Internet use rates in the population and GDP per capita. Access to the Internet requires investment in physical capital, so its positive correlation with prosperity is pretty much expected. The scatterplot below also illustrates this overall relationship (read from left to right and from bottom to top) between the two variables for the 184 nations and territories during 2017:

To account for their large range of variation, the values of constant GDP per capita are plotted in logarithms. Each dot represents a country and the general shape of the dot cloud indicates a positive relationship between income levels and Internet use: On average, the richer the country, the larger the fraction of its population that is online.

By the way, more countries and territories report their Internet use than their GDP per capita. The production of economic information, much like the provision of internet services, requires investment.

How these maps were created: The original post referenced interactive maps from our now discontinued GeoFRED site. The revised post provides replacement maps from FRED’s new mapping tool. To create FRED maps, go to the data series page in question and look for the green “VIEW MAP” button at the top right of the graph. See this post for instructions to edit a FRED map. Only series with a green map button can be mapped.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

The FRED Blog makes every attempt to offer right-off-the-vine FRED data, from the prices paid by consumers for strawberries, grapes, and bananas to the prices received by producers for apples and oranges. And today’s graph harvests a similar set of data with a focus on freshness.

The graph shows the proportion of consumer expenditures on fresh fruit (in orange) and fresh vegetables (in green) relative to their processed counterparts.

Consumers steadily spend almost twice as much on fresh vegetables as they do on the processed kind—a pattern that has been nearly constant between 1984 and 2019.

The appetite for fresh fruit has steadily grown since 2001: Between 1984 and 2001, consumers spent almost one and a half times more on fresh fruit than they spent on processed fruit. At the turn of the decade, that proportion started to increase and, as of 2019, stood at almost three times as much.

Consider the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s resources when planning your diet. Don’t forget to eat your fruits and vegetables, but also be sure to add a hearty serving of fresh FRED data. We hear it’s high in fiber.

How this graph was created: Search for and select “Expenditures: Fresh Fruits: All Consumer Units.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Edit Line 1” tab to customize the data by searching for and selecting “Expenditures: Processed Fruits: All Consumer Units.” Next, create a custom formula to combine the series by typing in a/b and clicking “Apply.” For the second line, repeat the same steps with the series “Expenditures: Fresh Vegetables: All Consumer Units” and “Expenditures: Processed Vegetables: All Consumer Units.” To change the line colors, use the choices in the “Format” tab.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

Every April, the FRED Blog dons its party hat and celebrates FRED’s birthday. This year, FRED turns the big 3-0. In lieu of a cake with candles, we present…what else? A data graph!

The scatter plot graph above shows the number of data series (in thousands) accessible through the FRED website and the number of persons visiting the website (in millions) for every year between 2009 and 2020. We’re sorry we can’t show you data all the way back to 1991, when FRED was born. The source of the data on website visitors is Google Analytics and Google didn’t even exist back then.

The graph tells a story of remarkable growth. In just the past 11 years, FRED has added roughly 756,000 series to its database and attracted more than 8 million new users to its website. The public appetite for data is strong, so here’s our toast to the next 30 years of FRED: May the correlation between data series and website visits remain positive and close to one!

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo, Maria Arias, and Keith Taylor.