GetMacroData

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EViews Esther
EViews Developer
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Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 7:57 am

GetMacroData

Postby EViews Esther » Wed Feb 02, 2011 9:15 am

This thread is about the GetMacroData add-in that provides an easy way to download US macro data into EViews from the FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) database.

Even though the top 20 popular series are currently available, you can add more series by editing the program. As an example, suppose that you want to download 1-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate from the FRED database (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/popularseries).

When you open the program GetMacroData.prg, you will see the following three lines:

Code: Select all

%labels = """CPI Urban"" ""Industrial Production Index"" ""GDP"" ""Real GDP"" ""Real GDP (1 Decimal)"" ""Real GDP (3 Decimal)"" ""Effective Fed. Funds Rate"" ""Civilian Unemployment Rate"" ""Consumer Sentiment"" ""M2 Money Stock"" ""M1 Multiplier"" ""M1 Money Stock"" ""Adjusted Monetary Base"" ""10-year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate"" ""Total Nonfarm Payrolls"" ""Housing Starts"" ""Bank Prime Loan Rate"" ""Personal Saving Rate"" ""Total Population"" ""Producer Price Index"""

%codes = "CPIAUCSL INDPRO GDP GDPCA GDPC1 GDPC96 FEDFUNDS UNRATE UMCSENT M2 MULT M1 BASE DGS10 PAYEMS HOUST MPRIME PSAVERT POP PPIACO"

%freqs = "M M Q A Q Q M M M W BM W BM D5 M M M M M M"

By filling the last element of %labels, %codes, and %freqs with 1-year CMT Rate (description), GS1 (FRED series code), and M (frequency), respectively, one can download the 1-YR CMT series (i.e. "GS1").

Code: Select all

%labels = """CPI Urban"" ""Industrial Production Index"" ""GDP"" ""Real GDP"" ""Real GDP (1 Decimal)"" ""Real GDP (3 Decimal)"" ""Effective Fed. Funds Rate"" ""Civilian Unemployment Rate"" ""Consumer Sentiment"" ""M2 Money Stock"" ""M1 Multiplier"" ""M1 Money Stock"" ""Adjusted Monetary Base"" ""10-year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate"" ""Total Nonfarm Payrolls"" ""Housing Starts"" ""Bank Prime Loan Rate"" ""Personal Saving Rate"" ""Total Population"" ""Producer Price Index"" ""1-YR CMT Rate"""

%codes = "CPIAUCSL INDPRO GDP GDPCA GDPC1 GDPC96 FEDFUNDS UNRATE UMCSENT M2 MULT M1 BASE DGS10 PAYEMS HOUST MPRIME PSAVERT POP PPIACO GS1"

%freqs = "M M Q A Q Q M M M W BM W BM D5 M M M M M M M"

*Note that "1-YR CMT Rate", "GS1", and "M" should be in the same order as each other.

[Change log]
    2010/02/07 Added a new data-importing option, Create new page
    (Note: The existing methods are Create new workfile and Importing into existing page).

KarinL
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2011 8:45 am

Re: GetMacroData

Postby KarinL » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:18 am

Hey. I find this add-in very useful for directly downloading specific data series. The documentation mentions that if data is copyrighted, download wouldn't work. It mentions Moodys corporate bond yield as an example.
I was wondering how to find (before trying out) which series are copyrighted? I didn't find a note on the FRED page.

In what way can I use this add-in to update my time series? Say I already have a time series for industrial production in a workfile and would like to update it to the current observations. Any suggestions?

KarinL
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2011 8:45 am

Re: GetMacroData

Postby KarinL » Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:24 am

and

How involed would it be to upgrade the add-in so that one could also choose the unit of the time series? e.g. considering again industrial production, one is mostly interested in the (compounded) change
and not in the index itself.

EViews Gareth
Fe ddaethom, fe welon, fe amcangyfrifon
Posts: 13305
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:38 pm

Re: GetMacroData

Postby EViews Gareth » Fri Jul 29, 2011 7:49 am

This add-in is really just a nice front-end on top of the inbuilt FRED database features of EViews 7. For things such as automatic updating series, more powerful queries, etc..., you're far better off using the FRED database. There's an outline in the user-guide.
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