Guide to OECD Main Economic Indicators
INTRODUCTION
Updated monthly, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s Main Economic Indicators (MEI) presents annual, quarterly and monthly data for a wide range of short-term economic indicators for OECD Member countries and for a number of Non-Member countries from 1955 onwards.
The OECD organises the MEI database using a hierarchical four-level subject system of increasing detail, for example:
- Production/Commodity Output/Crude Steel/Total
Some series are defined just by three levels or fewer, for example:
- Interest rates/90-day rates/Interbank rate
Main topics
The topics listed below correspond to the first OECD subject level:
- Leading Indicators (indicators that run 6-12 months ahead of GNP cycle)
- National Accounts
- National Income
- Production
- Business Tendency Surveys
- Consumer Surveys
- Manufacturing (deliveries, stocks and orders)
- Construction
- Domestic Demand
- Employment
- Unemployment
- Other Labour Market Indicators
- Labour Compensation
- Producer Prices
- Wholesale Prices
- Consumer Prices
- Other Prices
- Monetary Aggregates and their Components
- Domestic Credit and Debt
- Interest Rates
- Security Issues
- Share Prices
- Currency Conversions
- External Finance
- International Trade
- Balance of Payments
See the OECD's comprehensive list of indicators which includes:
- Part 1: Indicators by subject
- Part 2: Indicators for OECD Member countries
- Part 3: Indicators for OECD non-member countries
sources and definitions
OECD provides a Sources and Definitions page which gives explanations on sources and definitions used by each member country and the OECD to compile the main economic indicators. They provide the latest information on each series and also indicate to what extent cross-country comparisons can be made.
To use their pages, first select a country from the drop-down list, then a subject.
The methodological information is presented by country then topic, subdivided, where appropriate, into the following four categories:
- Definition: provides a brief description of the concept and definition used
- Coverage: refers to geographical coverage, statistical population, etc
- Collection: describes how data are collected by the compiling agency
- Calculation: briefly describes calculation methods applied
If you are using the data to compare countries, the OECD recommends you use the seasonally adjusted figures where available.
Access OECD data
Access to the OECD MEI via UKDS.Stat is freely available to all.
Effective July 15th 2015, the UK Data Service made access to OECD online statistics databases free to all users. Please refer to the OECD’s Terms and Conditions, including information on ‘What can you do with OECD published content (data, text and multimedia products).
User RESOURCES
The OECD produces the following documentation about the database:
- each month the OECD releases the latest edition of the main Economic Indicators dataset. With each new release, the OECD includes a set of notes on new series, deleted series and new definitions used within the dataset. If the OECD changes a definition, it will propagate the new definition back through all the previous data values in that series. Hence each database remains consistent within itself (although there may be differences between different editions). New, revised and suppressed series are available by MEI release and by Country in the Current and Historical DB notes
- the OECD's MEI Original Release Data and Revisions Database provides access to originally published data and revisions analysis studies for key economic variables
- the MEI Publication inventory provides a comprehensive list of the series
- MEI Sources and Definitions provides a brief summary outline of current national practices for each country for which data are published in MEI. They are updated in real time
- methodology information: Linking indices; Seasonal adjustment; Change to the range of countries included in zone estimates; detailed methodological information updated with a delay of one month is available from the OECD website
- MEI Feature Articles
- methodological information compiled by IMF and Eurostat