International Financial Statistics (IFS)

A. Description:

ü International Monetary Fund’s principal statistical publication

ü Standard source of international statistics on all aspects of international and domestic finance. It reports, for most countries of the world, current data needed in the analysis of problems of international payments and of inflation and deflation, i.e., data on exchange rates, international liquidity, money and banking, interest rates, prices, production, international transactions, government accounts, and national accounts. Information is presented in country tables and in tables of area and world aggregates. Also includes various commodity prices based on a particular location (averages turned into indexes).

ü Published monthly since January 1948. Since 1961, supplemented by a yearbook.

ü Contains country tables for most Fund members, as well as for Aruba, the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), the euro area, the Netherlands Antilles, the West African Economic Monetary Union (WAEMU), and some nonsovereign territorial entities for which statistics are provided internationally on a separate basis.

ü Notable Countries not covered: Cuba (except for credit position), Taiwan (except for reserves, imports, exports)

B. Where Found:

ü Paper:

o Yearbook: HG3881.I574 (current volume on SXF Ready Reference)

o Monthly: HG219 .I69 (current issues in SSRC unbound journals)

ü Electronic:

o DRI University Program (complete)

§ Most annual data 1948+

§ Most quarterly and monthly data 1957+

§ Most balance of payments data 1970+

o Datastream (earliest data 1957)

ü Some similar older data can be found in the Statistical Yearbook of the League of Nations (1926-1944) (http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govpub/collections/league/stat.html)

C. Documentation:

ü Preface of yearbook: HG3881.I574 (current volume on SXF Ready Reference)

ü International Financial Statistics. Country Notes HG3881.I5742 (current volume on SXF Ready Reference

o Began publication in May 2003)

o Describes compilation techniques

o Identifies standard sources and provides some explanatory material on each country’s data, including breaks in the series

D. What to watch out for:

Different currencies

Different base years

Inflation

Units of measurement

Devaluations

E. International Financial Statistics versus World Development Indicators

versus EIU Country Data

	IFS	WDI	EIU
Dates	1948+	1960+	1980+
Producer	IMF	World Bank	EIU
Basic Macroeconomic Indicators	Yes	Yes	Yes
Monetary Flows	Yes	Some	Some
Financial Flows	Yes	Some	Some
Social Indicators	No	Yes	Some
Forecasts	No	No	Yes

F. Most requested items:

ü Exchange Rates (ae end of period national currency units per US dollar)

ü Interest Rates

o Discount rate/Bank rate: rate at which central banks lend tobanks

o Money market rate/Interbank rate: rate at which banks lend to each other for short term

o Treasury bill rate: rate at which short-term securities are issued in the market

o Deposit rate: rates offered for savings deposits

o Lending rate: rate bank lends to private sector for short or medium-term loans

o Government Bond Yield: Long term government bond rates

ü Consumer Prices (measures inflation)

ü Employment

ü Unemployment

ü Industrial Production (measure of current economic activity)

ü Exports

ü Imports

ü Balance of Payments

o Current account (nation’s trade in products and services related to other countries for a designated time period)

o Trade Balance

o Capital account (net flow of investment capital)

ü International Investment Position

o Direct Investment abroad (what goes out)

o Direct Investment in Reporting economy (what comes in)

ü Deficit or Surplus

ü Gross Domestic Product (value of all goods and services produced by the economy)

ü Population (use for per capita calculations)

bjb 2/11/04