Using the Nasdaq Data Link API for Economic Data
This document is a comprehensive guide to using the Nasdaq Data Link API to access our economic data. The mechanism for accessing economic data via our API is no different from the mechanism for accessing all data on Nasdaq Data Link. The purpose of this help page is mainly to explain the specific publishers and nomenclature for economic data.
For further information on the Nasdaq Data Link data API, read our general API reference. You can also access Nasdaq Data Link data directly from within the analysis tool of your choice — Stata, SAS, R, Python, Matlab, Maple, EViews and more — using our free tools. Nasdaq Data Link is the easiest way to find and download current and historical economic data.
To start using the Nasdaq Data Link API:
- Sign up for a free API key
- Find the data you need: use the list below or use our search page.
- Start making calls: use our API reference page to learn the syntax.
Free Unlimited API for Economic Data
Nasdaq Data Link provides a free, unlimited and unrestricted API for global economic data, including macroeconomic, demographic and social statistics.
Nasdaq Data Link unifies free data from the World Bank, UN, Eurostat, ADB, BEA, BLS, FRED and many more data publishers, in a single easy-to-use and powerful economic data API. Nasdaq Data Link also offers premium economic databases from specialist data vendors, guaranteed to be accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date, via the same API.
Our API offers access to thousands of economic indicators for every country in the world. Data publishers include regional and multinational organizations, central banks, government statistical departments, research agencies and think tanks. Indicators cover growth, inflation, employment, domestic and international trade, industry, agriculture, services, capital markets, government finances, aid, education, gender, health, poverty, disease, mortality, population, and much more. All these datasets are accessible via a single uniform API, documented on this page.
Basic Economic Data API Usage
International and regional statistical organizations often collect data for the same indicator across multiple countries, suitably harmonized and synchronized. For such economic indicators that exist across countries, the Time-Series Code generally follows one of these two formats:
{PUBLISHER}/{COUNTRY}_{INDICATOR}
or
{PUBLISHER}/{INDICATOR}_{COUNTRY}
where {PUBLISHER} identifies the data publisher, {COUNTRY} is the ISO 3-letter code of the country, and {INDICATOR} is a publisher-specific code for the indicator in question. The country code and the indicator code are separated by an underscore.
For example, the ISO 3-letter code for China is “CHN”. The publisher named “WORLDBANK” has data for total population under the indicator code “SP_POP_TOTL”. Hence the full Nasdaq Data Link Code for the Population of China as published by the World Bank is WORLDBANK/CHN_SP_POP_TOTL.
Here is a list of all ISO 3-letter country codes.
Central banks and government agencies typically publish single-country economic statistics, hence the above nomenclature pattern does not apply to them.
Example API Call
For quick learners, here is an example of a Nasdaq Data Link API call for economic data:
The above call gets the government bill rate (column 2) from the dataset titled “Interest Rates – Canada”, published by the UN, sorted in ascending date order, from the start of 1980 to the end of 1990, annual observations, in CSV format.
Many more transformations and manipulations of the data are available; see our full API reference for more details.
Data Publishers
Nasdaq Data Link covers data from over 500 different publishers, many of whom provide economic statistics. For economic data, these publishers generally fall into 6 categories:
- International Organizations. This includes the UN, World Bank, IMF, WHO, FAO, WTO, ILO and similar institutions.
- Regional Organizations. This includes the OECD, ADB, Eurostat, ECB and others.
- Central Banks. Nasdaq Data Link has data from about 30 different central banks. The most comprehensive central bank databases are published by the Bundesbank, BOE, BCB and the Federal Reserve.
- Government Agencies. The US government publishes a huge amount of data, via the DOE, BEA, BLS, USDA, CENSUS and other agencies. Other countries with excellent statistical agencies include Canada, Brazil, France, UK, Australia and Germany,
- There are a number of excellent cross-country surveys, including LIS, Penn, GGDC / Maddison, Brinkhoff and EPI.
- Premium Publishers. These are specialist economic data providers who provide high-quality harmonized cross-country data for a fee.
Individual economic data publishers are described in detail below.
Note that most international and regional organizations do not collect or measure primary economic data themselves; they merely collate data that was originally published by central banks and single-country statistical agencies. This leads to certain limitations that are explained at the end of this guide.
International Organizations
World Bank
The World Bank has one of the most comprehensive (and best-documented) collections of international economic and statistical data. All economic datasets published by the World Bank can be found on the WORLDBANK page and follow the code format WORLDBANK/{COUNTRY}_{INDICATOR}.
The World Bank’s data is organized into 22 databases corresponding to specific areas of coverage. For a list of available databases and their descriptions, please refer to the WORLDBANK documentation page.
IMF
The International Monetary Fund publishes several different databases, covering global economic and financial statistics. However, not all of these databases are freely available. Nasdaq Data Link’s IMF database contains the subset of IMF data that is freely available under the publisher name ODA. This subset includes most major economic indicators in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) database.
All of the ODA datasets follow the code format ODA/{COUNTRY}_{INDICATOR}. For a list of all available indicators, please refer to the IMF documentation page.
United Nations
The United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) collects data from a number of primary and secondary sources and publishes it in harmonized format. UNSD’s data coverage is vast and comprehensive, and includes economic, societal, demographic, and environmental data. Datasets from UNSD on Nasdaq Data Link are listed under publisher name UNDATA, and they all follow the code format UNDATA/{INDICATOR}_{COUNTRY}.
The UNDATA database is made up of 15 component databases, each covering a different subject area. For a list of all available databases and their Time-Series Codes, please refer to the UNDATA documentation page.
More Global Data
Nasdaq Data Link has data from several other international and regional organizations, listed below. Visit each organization’s documentation page to see its respective dataset nomenclature conventions on Quandl.
| Organization | Description | Documentation |
| Food and Agriculture Organization | Data on farming, fisheries, livestock, agricultural infrastructure, hunger, environment and sustainability | FAO |
| World Trade Organization | Comprehensive international trade statistics | WTO |
| Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development | Comprehensive economic and social statistics for developed nations | OECD |
Country Statistics
In addition to cross-country statistics published by multi-national organizations, most countries in the world collect and publish their own domestic data. Single-country data is usually more “granular” than cross-country data (more frequent observations, more indicators surveyed) but cannot easily be compared or harmonized.
Single-country data is usually published by central banks and by national statistical agencies. Here are some of the central bank databases available on Nasdaq Data Link:
| Country | Bank | Documentation | Comment |
| USA | St Louis Fed | FRED | Huge collection of U.S. and international economic data |
| England | Bank of England | BOE | Includes excellent foreign exchange data collection |
| Germany | Bundesbank | BUNDESBANK | German and European time-series economic data |
| Brazil | Central Bank of Brazil | BCB | Brazilian and global data including commodities |
| France | Bank of France | BOF | Banking activities of French banks with non-residents |
| Japan | Bank of Japan | BOJ | Japanese macroeconomic data |
| China | People’s Bank of China | PBCHINA | Chinese macroeconomic data |
Some of the above central banks — notably FRED, BCB, BOE and Bundesbank — publish a great deal of international data in addition to domestic indicators.
Here are some of the national statistical agency databases available on Nasdaq Data Link:
| Country | Agency | Documentation |
| France | National Institute of Statistics France | INSEE |
| Australia | Australian Bureau of Statistics | AUSBS |
| UK | UK Office of National Statistics | UKONS |
The United States government publishes an enormous quantity of data via the Federal Reserve system and via various government agencies:
| Agency | Documentation |
| Federal Reserve Bank | FED |
| FRED Economic Data | FRED |
| FRB New York | FRBNY |
| FRB Kansas City | FRKC |
| FRB Philadelphia | FRBP |
| Bureau of Economic Analysis | BEA |
| Department of Energy | EIA |
| Department of Agriculture | USDAFAS |
Visit any of the “documentation” pages listed above, to see data coverage details and nomenclature rules for each publisher.
Research Agencies
A number of think tanks and research agencies publish specialized cross-country and multi-national statistics. Some of the best known are:
| Organization | Documentation | Comment |
| Penn World Tables | PENN | GDP, income and prices |
| Luxembourg Income Study | LIS | Growth, income, poverty and equality |
| Groningen Growth Survey | GGDC | Growth since AD0 via Angus Maddison |
| Brinkhoff Population Data | CITYPOP | Population for 14,000 cities |
Flaws in Free Data
Free data from international organizations suffers from a few limitations.
First, the data is by definition “secondary”; it is aggregated from a multitude of sources (individual central banks, statistical agencies, surveys, governments and so on). This almost always introduces transcription and translation errors. The very best aggregators (e.g., UNSD) have robust processes in place to minimize these errors, nonetheless many mistakes do persist.
Second, data obtained from international organizations has limited or no transparency to the original publisher. This makes it difficult to confirm numbers as well as methodology. Complete transparency is the best way to avoid data-pipeline errors, but this option is not always available.
Third, multinational aggregators collect and publish data annually at best. This is true even when their respective primary sources publish data monthly or quarterly. As a result, the aggregated data is often outdated or stale.
Fourth, despite the annual frequency limit, the “updating time” can be very slow. For example, the IMF’s flagship WEO survey for a given calendar year is only released in October of the following year. This may be too late for many time-sensitive or predictive applications.
Fifth, the quality of documentation for public data sources varies hugely. Some publishers provide excellent documentation; many others do not.
Premium Data
To avoid the limitations detailed above, we now provide a professional grade economic database to our users. The Trading Economics (SGE) database collects 8,000+ harmonized macroeconomic indicators for over 200 countries, going back up to 100 years. The data is collected from over 1,000 sources, including central banks, statistical agencies, and research institutions.
The datasets in this premium economic database are collected directly from their primary publishers, with complete transparency to source. The data is as granular as possible, with monthly observations in most cases, and quarterly when monthly is not available. The data is updated immediately after the publisher updates, based on a pre-defined economic calendar. The data is comprehensive, perfectly organized and documented, and goes back decades.
Each dataset in the SGE database has a Time-Series Code of the format SGE/{ISO}{INDICATOR}, where ISO is a 3-letter country code and `{INDICATOR} is a harmonized indicator code. The indicators include GDP, population, inflation, unemployment, government budget, and many other macroeconomic indicators.
To see a list of all available indicators, country ISO codes, and Time-Series Code examples, please visit the SGE documentation page.
If you’re interested in subscribing to this premium economic database on Nasdaq Data Link, please visit this page.
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