Economics

Economic Forecasting

ECO/ 372

June 09, 2012

Economic Forecasting

There are several resources that may be used to gather historical economic data, as well as economic data. Some of these sources are American FactFinder, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau Economic Programs, and FRASER.

American FactFinder is “the U.S. Census Bureau’s online tool for accessing population, economic, geographic and housing information” (Harvard Law School, 2013, P.1). This tool allows users to search, and map data from Economic Census and Annual Economic Surveys (Harvard Law School, 2013, P.1).

Bureau of Economic Analysis, from the U.S. Department of Commerce, provides regional, national and international statistics. The statistics provided are GDP, international trade, and foreign direct investment (Harvard Law School, 2013).

The Census Bureau Economic Programs serves as the top source of data about the economy of the U.S. (Harvard Law School, 2013). It allows access to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Economic Census, Economic indicators, and other economic programs by geography, sector, topic and frequency” (Harvard Law School, 2013, P.1).

FRASER stands for Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (Harvard Law School, 2013). FRASER is produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and contains over 40,000 pages of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents (Harvard Law School, 2013). FRASER is made up of an archive of economic statistical publications and an automated system that retrieves both images and data (Harvard Law School, 2013).

Each one of the reputable resources would be valuable because they show how employment and the unemployment would affect the economy and how to produce more jobs. There are many areas that can be found on different websites that would help each of the categories of unemployment, resources, benefits, and inflation. This information is useful because it can give the citizens an...