Download Complex Economic Statistics at Your Fingertips

TAKING IN THE SITES / By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Complex Economic Statistics at Your Fingertips
Should you wake up in the middle of the night wondering whether Americans or
Norwegians have a bigger per-capita gross domestic product, there is no need to lose
sleep. You can find the answer, quickly and free, on the World Wide Web.
A rapidly proliferating number of Web sites are filled with economic statistics on
everything from the latest official estimate of inflation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
to details of the Turkish budget.
Other sites let you manipulate data. There are easy-to-use sites, for example, that adjust
dollars for inflation.
Economic Web sites can be valuable to businesses that are trying to decide on new
investments or marketing, to students, and to anyone who needs answers to questions
such as how many Americans use wheelchairs (answer: 1.4 million) or what percentage
of residents of every county are children between the ages of 5 and 17.
Perhaps the most comprehensive site is Resources for Economics on the Internet, created
by Bill Goffe, a University of Southern Mississippi economist, who has found enough
links to fill 24 screens.
Most of these sites are easy to use, even by those who never took Economics 101 and do
not care what price elasticity means.
You can find out how much the federal government spends per capita in every county,
which turns up some curious figures. For example, House Speaker Newt Gingrich
represents two Georgia counties where federal spending is more than $7,000 per person,
while federal per-capita spending is less than half that level in two Missouri counties
represented by Richard Gephardt, the House's Democratic minority leader.
The White House Economic Statistics Briefing Room has pages of color charts, some of
them backed up by tables on income, crude oil, farm prices and household wealth. But
the site's creators have a curious lack of consistency about chronology. You can trace
poverty rates back to 1959 and median household income data back to 1970, but
disposable personal income data is available only to January 1995.
At the site maintained by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, which posts comparative statistics from 25 advanced nations, you can
answer the question about whether Americans or Norwegians are better off. The answer,
as of the last time the Web site was updated, is both. Norwegians are 26 percent better off
than Americans based on currency-exchange rates. On the other hand, in terms of
purchasing power, Norwegians have only 85 percent as much as Americans.
Ever wonder what would happen if gasoline prices doubled, Pentagon spending was cut
by a third or a flat 27 percent income tax was adopted? You can find out using Fair
Model, a model of the U.S. economy created by Ray Fair, a Yale University professor.
The model is relatively easy. Social studies students use it during their nine weeks of
economics instruction at Palatine High School outside Chicago, for example. Advanced
students manipulate the model on their own, while lower-level students sit around as their
teacher, Robert Gilbert, punches in their proposed changes to fiscal and monetary
policies.
"Instead of hearing a lot of theory, my students actually put their hands on the valves of
the economy," Mr. Gilbert said. "And it turns out to be a great tool for building self
esteem because I have them work with a 20-year period; they just don't know what the
period was because I remove the years, and their decisions usually produce better results
than the actual results of what presidents and the Congress did."
There are even sites with a touch of whimsy, like Ken White's coin flipping page, where
with the stroke of a key you can demonstrate what happens if you flip 100 dimes (heads
American, tails Canadian).
And one site is filled with jokes about the dismal science created by Pasi Petteri
Kuoppamki, a research fellow at the Finnish Ministry of Trade and Industry, with a U.S.
mirror site for faster downloading.
Among its jokes is this one, edited to its essence from the shaggy-dog version on the
Web:
A man comes upon a shepherd and his flock, and proposes a wager.
"I will bet you $100, against one of your sheep, that I can tell you the exact number in
this flock," the man says.
The shepherd accepts.
"973," says the man.
The shepherd, astonished at the accuracy, says "I'm a man of my word; take an animal."
The man picks one up and begins to walk away.
"Wait," cries the shepherd, "Let me have a chance to get even. Double or nothing that I
can guess your exact occupation."
"Sure," the man replies.
"You are an economist for a government think tank," says the shepherd.
"Amazing!" responds the man, "How did you deduce that?"
"Well," says the shepherd, "if you will first put down my dog ..."
Related Sites
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Fedstats
Federal Reserve
Census Bureau
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Business Cycle Indicators
Economics of Networks
Fair Model
Economist Jokes
Internal Revenue Service
Bill Goffe's Resources for Economics
Consumer Price Index (CPI) Conversion Factors to Convert to
1996 Dollars
Cost-of-Living Calculator
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Detailed Exchange Rate Data from Olsen and Associates
White House Economic Statistics Briefing Room
Congressional Budget Office Economic Reports
Federal Budget
Federal Funds Report (Federal Spending at State and County
Levels)
Treasury
What you need to know about economics
Economic Report of the President
Marketplace (NPR)
Growth Theory
Extended Penn World Tables