Fitz Gerald, John and Baker, T.J. and Scott, S. and Hayes, L. (1987) Making Economic Time-Series Available to Users of Micro-Computers in Ireland. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, October 1987. [Working Paper]
Abstract
The major raw material used by economists who engage in applied research or analysis is the vast range of economic time-series which are published by many different bodies in all developed countries. The very range of sources and definitions gives rise to many problems before any consideration is given to matters of economic theory. "Datagrubbing" has traditionally taken a major part of the time devoted to any individual research project. With many economists engaging in overlapping areas of research and analysis there has been considerable duplication of effort in the past in developing suitable sets of data. Even if the producers of the raw material, economic time-series, do not see it as their duty to produce consistent data in suitable machine readable formats ( can be read by a computer directly without retyping) covering a reasonable span of years, there is clearly an advantage to economists in cooperating in this onerous task. This article examines the range of economic time-series which are available in computer databases or databanks in Ireland and considers how best these data can be made available to users of micro-computers. Section 2 of the paper sets out the background to the development of these databases and Section 3 describes their current scope and contents. Section 4 discusses the future development of databases. Section 5 examines some technical considerations on how best to access these data and Section 6 presents proposals as to how these data, currently only available on one mainframe computer, could best be made available to users of micro-computers in Ireland.
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