Business Librarian
Best bets for data
Subscription data
These sources are paid for by JMU. You will need to log in with your e-ID/password and Duo to access them.
- Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Content type(s): Contains U.S. and international publicly-held company data and reports. Datasets can be downloaded as Excel files.
Dates covered: 1993 to present - WRDS This link opens in a new windowContent type(s):Financial datasets from COMPUSTAT (public companies), CRSP (security prices) and CUSIP Master File (financial instruments issuers), and RiskMetrics (corporate governance).
Dates covered: 1925 - present - BizMiner This link opens in a new windowContent type(s): Industry research and data reports on more than 16,000 lines of business in national and local markets.
Dates covered: Most recent 5 years
United States data sources
These are common sources of data freely available online.
- American Economic Association - Data resourcesThis site links to the most useful and popular economics data sources, categorized by data type.
- Bureau of Economic AnalysisGDP and other economic data from the national, regional, and international accounts programs of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
- Data.govThe home of the US Government's open data.
- Federal Reserve Economic DataDownload, graph, and track 498,000 U.S. and international time series from 87 sources.
- U.S. Bureau of the CensusOfficial census data for the United States at the level of states, counties, cities, metropolitan areas and other defined geographic areas.
- Consumer Expenditure Survey (BLS.GOV)High-level data on current buying habits of Americans, by demographics & type of purchase/service.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsFederal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
- ICPSR (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research)Vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, available for download and re-use. These files require the use of statistical software, such as SAS, or, SPSS.
- Pew Research Center datasetsThis non-partisan public opinion polling organization makes its data available to the public for secondary analysis after a period of time.
Virginia data sources
- DataVANon-sensitive, public information about the Commonwealth that is made freely available for public use in an easily readable format.
- Weldon Cooper Center for Public ServiceThe Demographics Research Group at UVA produces the official annual population estimates for Virginia and its localities;
International data sources
- Data | The World BankEconomic and development indicators by country, from 1960 to present. View data by country, topic, indicators or in a data visualizer tool.
- UNDataContains more than 60 million data points cover a wide range of themes including Agriculture, Employment, Energy, Environment, Health, Industry, Information and Communication Technology, Refugees, Trade, etc.
- World Economic OutlookMacroeconomic data by country from the International Monetary Fund. Includes inflation, unemployment, commodity prices, trade data, etc.
- Penn World TablesDownload GDP, GDP per capita, exchange rate and population data for 183 countries, from 1950 to 2019. Data exports available for Excel and Stata.
- FitchConnect This link opens in a new windowContent type(s): In-depth reports providing country risk ratings and macroeconomic forecasts for more than 200 global markets plus industry reports on major sectors and historical macroeconomic and industry data. NOTE: Users must log out of current session (under Settings) before logging in again to start a new session.
Dates covered: Current