Research Guides: Economics Research Guide: ECON 3450

Economic Indicators for your Country Brief, Annotated Bibliography, Research Paper, and Presentation

Economic indicators are economic statistics about a country, which includes a variety of things, like:

Gross domestic product
Consumer price index
Labor force
Unemployment rate
Housing
Stock market prices
Industrial production
Poverty
Education
Food production
Health care
Earnings
Retail sales
Manufacturing
Trade
Life expectancy

This is not a comprehensive list, but just some ideas to get you started.

Websites with Information on your Country

BBC News Country Profiles
Profiles provide a guide to history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, and background on key institutions.
They also include audio and video clips from BBC archives.
CIA World Factbook
The Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
Freedom House
Watchdog organization that follows worldwide issues of freedom and democracy; in-depth updates on recent changes to a country's global freedom, internet freedom, and democracy.
UNdata Country Profiles
From the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), select a country to find the latest economic indicators, social indicators, environment, and trade statistics.
UNICEF Country Statistics
Economic and social statistics on the countries and territories of the world, with particular reference to children’s well-being, are published annually in the organization’s flagship publication, The State of the World’s Children, which includes tables combining statistics for all countries. The same data are available for individual countries through the links below.
World Bank Open Data
The World Bank's Open Data initiative is intended to provide all users with access to World Bank data. The data catalog is a listing of available World Bank datasets, including databases, pre-formatted tables, reports, and other resources.

Scholarly Databases and Custom Google Searches

Scholarly Databases for academic/peer reviewed articles:

PAIS Index
A finding aid to publications about public policy and social issues from 120 countries
Database chronicling global public policy and social issues. Indexes periodicals, books, hearings, reports, gray literature, government publications, Internet resources, and other publications from 120 countries. Coverage begins in 1915.
Academic Search Premier
A multidisciplinary database that is a good starting point for many topics.
Covers 1975 to the present.

Basic Search Strategies Tutorial
10-minute self-paced course on how to effectively search library databases for relevant resources on your topic.

Custom Google Searches:

Harvard Kennedy School's Think Tank Search
Searches the websites of institutions that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity. These sites are affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, and non-governmental organizations.
Intergovernmental Organization Search Engine
Limits your search to intergovernmental sites
Non-governmental Organization Search Engine
Searches across NGO websites. Sites were chosen based on their consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and also collated from University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, Duke University Libraries' NGO Research Guide, and the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (WANGO).

News

Access World News
A comprehensive collection of reliable international news sources covering a wide array of topics and issues.

The Economist
Online access to international economic news via the library website. Access through Gale and then search for your country or indicators for recent news.

New York Times: 1980-current
Access to the New York Times newspaper (from 1980-present) using the ProQuest search system.
Wall Street Journal: 1984-current
Full text access via ProQuest Newspapers

Annotated Bibliographies

Guide to writing an Annotated Bibliography (PDF)
Not sure what should be included in your annotations? Check out this short guide.
APA Reference Examples
No need to memorize all the rules of APA - instead, just find an example and follow its format.