Transcript FRED API
AlFRED Developments Bob Rasche Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis October 2008 AlFRED Inventory • Currently 19,747 Series – Recent Additions • Greenbook Projections (21) starting in 01/78 • CPI series (2) • Real Potential GDP starting 01/91 • Missing Data Policy (incomplete vintages) • e.g. All items CPI SA AlFRED Activity • Jan-Sept 2008 = 5.44 million hits • Jan-Sept 2007 = 1.88 million hits AlFRED Initiatives • H.3 Statistical Release data (will complete backfilling of FRED categories) • Annual Data (as in Economic Report of the President) • International Data from BLS – www.bls.gov//fls/#tables • Stock/Watson Data set – “Bayesian VARs with Large Panels”, Marta Banbura, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, ECARES, Domenico Giannone, European Central Bank, ECARES and CEPR,Lucrezia Reichlin, European Central Bank, ECARES and CEPR • Regional Data (time series and cross sections) AlFRED Enhancements • Data Transformations • Verticals vs. Diagonals AlFRED Enhancements Coming Soon: Web Services FRED API http://api.stlouisfed.org FRED API • The St. Louis Fed has created APIs (application programming interfaces) to allow developers to write programs and build applications that interact with content on its websites. • FRED® API - Users may query our Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED®) and Archival Federal Reserve Economic Data (ALFRED®) databases to retrieve the specific data desired (according to source, release, category and series among other preferences). FRED API • Our API accommodates any programming language that can parse XML and communicate with our servers using HTTP. • XML was designed for programs to parse and follows a strict structure unlike much HTML. • XML allows custom tags and relationships among tags. Example • Download last two vintages for series INDPRO, US Industrial Production Index. • Include on a browser: – http://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/series/observations?series_id=INDPRO& realtime_start=2008-08-15&observation_start=2007-01-01 &output_type=2&file_type=xls& api_key=4642533b82088528c2032d949b51b793 AlFRED Enhancements • Future Developments (your priorities please!) – Sample specific data downloads (will be available with Web Services) – Vintage Specific Excel Tabs – Cross-Section vintages – Panel vintages