Federal Reserve Economic Data

What is FRED? Short for Federal Reserve Economic Data, FRED is an online database consisting of more than 72,000 economic data time series from 54 national, international, public, and private sources. FRED, created and maintained by Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, goes far beyond simply providing data: It combines data with a powerful mix of tools that help the user understand, interact with, display, and disseminate the data. In essence, FRED helps users tell their data stories. The purpose of this article is to guide the potential (or current) FRED user through the various aspects and tools of the database.

As mentioned above, as of the time of this writing, FRED contains more than 55,000 data series from over 40 sources. These are not static figures. The Research Department has a firm commitment to the growth of the database. Since its inception, FRED has contained many of the more popular figures reported by the Board of Governors, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Census—among others. Through time, FRED has expanded its collection to include many more international, national, and regional data series. More recently, it has become clear that data surrounding other topics and geographies must also be included if FRED is to best serve its users. Naturally, care must be taken to add data in a thorough and prudent manner; nevertheless, the data content will continue to grow and evolve.

Certain data, as it travels through time, is subject to revision. Anyone who follows GDP long enough will be familiar with the BEA revising (up or down) their quarterly released figure. The FRED database always contains and displays the most recent revision—or vintage—of the data available. But FRED’s real-time relative, the aforementioned ALFRED (ArchivaL Federal Reserve Economic Database), captures all of these individual revisions to a data series. This means that collectively, FRED and ALFRED data can literally be used as a data time machine, allowing users access to the precise data that their predecessors used. Researchers often attempt to replicate results of previous academic papers or use data to “train” economic models; in these instances, the relevance of these FRED tools becomes clear.

Access to Federal Reserve Economic Data