1.2 Data Sources
The intention of this book is to provide up-to-date data with each iteration. The book also places a very high importance of data credibility and only information from reputable sources are used. The focus is on objective and unbiased data from the original source. The following presents some of those data sources.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO): The CBO is associated with the legislative branch and publishes reports on a plethora of budgetary topics such as the CBO Long Term Budget Analysis or the cost of the Coast Guard’s Polar Security Cutter. Of course, the long-term budget analysis is of great interest to stakeholders since it quantifies federal revenues and expenditures given current policies and macroeconomic projections. Those projections may not always be accurate but can serve a guidance for policy making. For example, in the 2002 CBO Projections (January 2002) The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2003-2012, the projected debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP in 2012 was estimated to be 7.4%, which was 69.4% in reality (Source). Significant discrepancy between projection and reality can occur due to policy changes and unforeseen shocks such as tax cuts, homeland security, 2001 economic downturn, 2008 great recession, stimulus spending (all in the 2000’s), or COVID-19.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB): Many data series associated with the federal budget are obtained from the White House’s OMB.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED): A data source extensively used throughout this book is the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) of the St. Louis Fed. The above mentioned data series regarding the debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP is obtained from FRED.
An additional data source for U.S. data is the U.S. Census Bureau.
International organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide data for all countries on important economic indicators. For example, data on general government gross debt as a percentage of GDP is provided by the IMF. The OECD compares the tax revenue as a percent of GDP among member nations.
For the European Union (EU), the main data source is EUROSTAT. The following are two examples: