Presentation for the GoDigs METRO SIG (http://libguides.metro.org/content.php?pid=126208) on 10/24/13

1. Introducing Data to
Students: Federal Reserve
Economic Data (FRED)
and Luxembourg Income
Study (LIS)
Frans Albarillo
Business, Sociology, and Linguistics Librarian
Brooklyn College, CUNY
falbarillo@brooklyn.cuny.edu

2. Outline
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) and
Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)
 my role in providing data services to patrons
 functionality and features of web resources
 implications of the federal government's Open Data
Policy with these resources
 Big Data and big data

3. Data Audience at Brooklyn
College
 Economics and Sociology (undergraduate and
graduate )
 Management and Finance (undergraduate)
Note: my formal graduate training is in Linguistics

4. http://research.stlouisfed.org/

5. Definition of 'Federal Reserve Bank Of St. Louis'
The Federal Reserve Bank responsible for the eighth district.
It is located in St. Louis, MO. Its territory includes parts of the
states of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and
Tennessee, as well as the entire state of Arkansas.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
maintains a database called Federal
Reserve Economic Data
http://research.stlouisfed.org/
Source: ―Federal Reserve Bank Of St. Louis Definition | Investopedia.‖ 2013.
Accessed October 22. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/federal-reservebank-of-stlouis.asp.

6. What is time series data?
Data Source
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
U.S. Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Department of Commerce: Bureau of Economic Analysis
World Bank
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
U.S. Department of Commerce: Census Bureau
Eurostat
University of Pennsylvania
University of Groningen
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
National Bureau of Economic Research
International Monetary Fund
Federal Housing Finance Agency
Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council
U.S. Department of Energy: Energy Information Administration
U.S. Department of Labor: Employment and Training Administration
Bankrate, Inc.
BofA Merrill Lynch
S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC
British Bankers' Association
CredAbility Nonprofit Credit Counseling & Education
Haver Analytics
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Dow Jones & Company
National Association of Realtors
Time Series
61,218
21,626
14,166
10,442
7,257
7,224
6,316
5,890
4,542
4,300
3,036
538
520
372
284
221
198
192
184
150
134
120
102
51
41
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. ―Sources of Economic Data.‖ Accessed October 21, 2013.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/sources?pageID=1.

8. Notes

12. The Effects of Open Data
Policy on FRED

14. http://www.lisdatacenter.org/

15. LIS Highlights
 What is microdata?
 largest available database of income microdata
 harmonized microdata that enable high-quality, cross-national,
comparative research
 data from 40 countries, 220 datasets in 8 cross-sections (waves)
 29 years old
 poverty measurement and analysis
 gender gaps in employment, earnings, occupations, and income
 user registration to access microdata, key figures (public)
Source: Gornick, Janet, Berglind Ragnarsdóttir, and Sarah Kostecki. ―LIS: Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.‖
In Understanding Research Infrastructures in the Social Sciences. Zurich: Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences, 2013.
LIS Technical Paper Number 5: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/techwps/5.pdf

16. Audience

17. Access to Microdata – LISSY
registered users only

18. SPSS CPS Wave 6 Data

19. Access to Microdata – Web Tabulator
registered users only

21. Restrictions on Income Microdata

22. Data Journey
Country X survey
LIS variable
template
LIS database
This can take 3-6 months of manual coding of the data to the LIS template
(disaggregates the data)
Example from harmonization guidelines: Household head can be main income
earner, person most knowledgeable about the budgetary situation of the household,
eldest person, person responsible for the dwelling contract, or simply self defined
by the respondents, etc.

23. Data

25. Are these resources
big data or Big Data?

26. ―Big Data is a shorthand label that typically means
applying the tools of artificial intelligence, like
machine learning, to vast new troves of data
beyond that captured in standard databases. The
new data sources include Web-browsing data
trails, social network communications, sensor
data and surveillance data.‖
Source: Lohr, Steve. 2012. ―The Age of Big Data.‖ The New York Times, February 11,
sec. Sunday Review. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datasimpact-in-the-world.html.

27. ―Link these communicating sensors to computing
intelligence and you see the rise of what is called the
Internet of Things or the Industrial Internet. Improved
access to information is also fueling the Big Data trend. For
example, government data—employment figures and
other information—has been steadily migrating onto
the Web. In 2009, Washington opened the data doors
further by starting Data.gov, a Web site that makes all
kinds of government data accessible to the public.‖
Source: Lohr, Steve. 2012. ―The Age of Big Data.‖ The New York Times, February 11,
sec. Sunday Review. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datasimpact-in-the-world.html.

28. ―Data is not only becoming more available but also
more understandable to computers.
Most of the Big Data surge is data in the wild—unruly
stuff like words, images and video on the Web and
those streams of sensor data. It is called
unstructured data and is not typically grist for
traditional databases.‖
Source: Lohr, Steve. 2012. ―The Age of Big Data.‖ The New York Times, February 11,
sec. Sunday Review. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datasimpact-in-the-world.html.

29. Big Data or big data—whatever it is, I think
it’s an opportunity for librarians to address
issues of authority, source, access,
technology, privacy, and ethics.

30. Thank you for listening
Falbarillo@brooklyn.cuny.edu
My thanks to Keith G. Taylor, II, Data Desk Coordinator at FRED
keith.g.taylor@stls.frb.org and Janet Gornick, Director of Luxembourg
Income Study and Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the
CUNY Graduate Center