Business: A Guide to Library Research

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published Country Reports since 1952, covering almost 200 countries. Each report presents detailed statistics alongside expert commentary and forecasting from the EIUs analysts. This database presents the historical reports up to 1995, with all data from the statistical tables fully captured and downloadable in spreadsheet form. This is a unique archive of analysis and explanation of political, economic and commercial developments, together with historical statistical data.

IMF Data contains international financial statistics (IFS), balance of payments statistics (BOPS), direction of trade statistics (DOTS), government finance statistics (GFS) covering more than 200 countries and areas. Data can be exported in Excel, CSV, Tab delimited, and HTML formats.

No sign-in is necessary to view content. If individual users want to download data, please create a personal account.

Contains downloadable data drawn from and updating the 3 volume print reference work International Historical Statistics 1750-2005. IHS covers a wide range of topics including: the economy, trade, population, labor, education, migration and transportation with data spanning 260 years (1750-2010). The data is organized by regions which are presented as: The Americas, Europe, and Asia + Oceania. Tables can be downloaded as PDF or Excel documents.

Information about Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Initial Public Offering (IPO), Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) deals, going back five years for international deals and back to 1997 for deals involving European and American companies.

Users are required to enter "University of Michigan" in the "Enter your organization's name" box to authenticate and use the database.Technical Notes: Use of scripts or automated methods to download data from Zephyr is strictly prohibited. If you require access to a larger dataset, please contact kresge_library@umich.edu. 

Use policy: When using material from this database in reports and presentations, vendor contract requirements require that you include the phrase, "Used with permission of Orbis." This database is for personal use only, meaning that you should never share your log-in credentials for this resource.

Indexes and abstracts federal statistical publications since 1974, business and state government publications since 1980, and international agency publications since 1983. Provides links to full text of 15% of federal publications. . Firefox recommended. Does not work with Safari.

Sources include: U.S. government sources such as the census, Department of Labor statistics, FBI, and National Climatic Data Center; Mediamark Research Inc (MRI) Consumer Survey, EASI Analytic Life Stages, EASI Health Care, Nielsen PRIZM Consumer Buying Power, Nielsen Retail Market Power; and Nielsen Financial CLOUT datasets.

Data can be downloaded for use with other software such as Excel and GIS.

Users need to create their own account with @umich.edu email address in order to be able to save work. If you do not wish to create a personal account, you may log in as a guest.

Ready-made statistical charts, graphs and tables on marketing, demographics, communication, technology, politics, health, leisure and public opinion polls. About 20 percent of the data in Statista comes from government sources like the World Bank and the U.S. Census. The rest comes from industry, marketing, and trade groups. The tables, charts and graphs can be downloaded as images or into Microsoft Powerpoint and Excel.

Monthly publication of the Bureau of Economic Analysis (US Dept of Commerce) on business activity with estimates & analysis of US economic activity. Includes articles on the national, regional and international economic accounts and related topics, a column describing the current business situation and statistical tables highlighting national income and product accounts. Statistical section has tables for approximately 270 series as well as charts for about 130 series.

Back issues from July 1921 to present available at: http://www.bea.gov/scb/date_guide.asp

Provides trade information produced by the U.S. government. Current and cumulative U.S. export and import data for over 18,000 export commodities and 24,000 import commodities. Export and import data is also available by port.