Pliny Fisk Library: Sources on Foreign Exchange Rates

Princeton University Library
Pliny Fisk Library of Economics & Finance

FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATES: A GUIDE TO SELECTED SOURCES

Electronic Access:
Datastream International.
Online service which provides exchange rates and other economic data. Coverage is international. Dates of coverage vary. Consult the "Indices, Interest and Exchange Rates" volume for details. On the program line type HELP ER? to get a list of codes. To change the currency default use the ~ followed by the code. For help on using exchange rates in Datastream see http://firestone.princeton.edu/econlib/ds/exchange.html.
Available in SSRC and STOKES

Global Insight .
Online service which provides daily data for exchange rates and forward rates.
Available in SSRC and STOKES and may be downloaded on individual workstations (Princeton only)

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Rates:

New York Times. 1851+
Business section (section D). Use the index on the first page. Gives foreign currency in dollars and the dollar in foreign currency for the 2 previous days.
PF (Current 3 months); Microfilm S00664 (for previous)

Financial Times (London). 1929+
Look in the index of the first page of the second section under "Market statistics--Foreign Exchanges." Every day there is an "Exchange Cross Rates" table which gives 17 major currencies in the other 16 exchange rates for the previous business day.
PF (Current 3 months); Microfilm S00930 (for previous)

Wall Street Journal. 1889+
Look in the index under "Foreign Exchange." Daily tables provide "Key Currency Cross Rates" for 10 major countries and "Exchange Rates" for about 50 countries. The latter table provides rates for the two previous days in the U.S. dollar equivalent and the foreign currency per U.S. dollar.
PF (Current 3 months); Microfilm S00654 (for previous)

International Financial Statistics, 1948- .
Monthly publication of the International Monetary Fund. One of the first tables in each issue provides daily exchange rates for every business day of a previous month for major currencies plus SDR and Euro. The rates given are currency units per U.S. dollar. There is a slight time lag. In the "Country" pages more extensive data are given, providing annual figures for the last 7 years, quarterly data for the last 3 years, and monthly data for the last 9 months. Countries included are those which are members of the IMF.
SSRC (Stack 3)
Available electronically through Datastream International and Global Insight.

Foreign Exchange Rates for the Week Ending....
Published by the Federal Reserve System. Each issue provides daily figures for the previous week. Covers about 30 countries. Another statistical release, Foreign Exchange Rates, is published monthly and provides monthly figures for the last 3 months. This release is more up to date than the Federal Reserve Bulletin (HG2401.A5; current issues in PF) which also publishes the monthly data.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/

Long Time Series

International Financial Statistics Yearbook, 1979- .
For each country gives annual exchange rate per U.S. dollar for the last 12 years. Also includes"Real effective exchange rate indexes".
HG3851.I574 (Current edition on (SXF) Ready Reference)

Statistical Abstract of the United States.
Beginning with the 1923 volume includes exchange rates for major currencies (figures begin with 1918). Look in the index under "Foreign Exchange Rates".
(SXF) HA202.U58 (Latest volume on Ready Reference)

Berlin, Howard M. World Monetary Units: An Historical Dictionary, Country by Country .
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006.
Provides brief monetary histories and chronologies for 203 countries and four confederations.
(SXF) HG216.B465 2006

Bidwell, R.L. Currency conversion tables: a hundred years of change.
London: Collings, 1970.
Provides exchange rates for 28 countries to the U.S. dollar and the British pound from 1914 to 1969 in most cases. For some, information is given prior to 1914.
(SXF) HG219.B5

McCusker, John J. Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: A Handbook.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1978.
(SXF) HG219.M33

World Currency Yearbook. 1957-1993.
Provides history and statistics for world currencies. Includes black market rates.

Handbook of Medieval Exchange.
Spufford, Peter.
London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1986.
(SXF) HG3811.S68

MEMDB: Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank
Contains currency data from the Medieval Ages.
http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb/

Currency Converters
There are also many currency coverters on the WEB. Try using the Classic Currency Converter or the Interactive Currency Tables.

Bobray Bordelon
Last updated 9/23/2007