MINI CASE 17.1
The Office of National Statistics provides a free service that allows you access to more than 40000 economic and socio-economic time series. You can just follow the 'Data' link from www.ons.gov.uk.
The following example from the 'Data' link is given below:
Data (datasets and reference tables)
A dataset is a multi-dimensional, interactive table that can be customized to produce graphs, maps and tables based on your own choice of criteria. Reference tables are tables which are associated with ONS publications and made available by themselves. Reference tables cannot be customized, but they can be downloaded.
Search datasets and reference tables
Reference tables
Reference tables are tables which are associated with ONS publications. By clicking this link you will receive a list of all the reference tables we have, and then from here you can filter the results to find what you want. Once you find a table of interest you can download it in a variety of formats.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also provides a free service that allows access to a large number of time series via the website stats.oecd.org. The following example is from the home page of this site.
Welcome to OECD. Stat Extracts
Four ways to access the data:
OECD. Stat includes data and metadata for OECD countries and selected non-member economies.
Easy access:
? By keyword using 'search' (e.g. GDP, Health, unemployment, income, population, labour, education, trade, finance, prices, Economic Outlook, Government Debt, Health expenditure...).
? By theme in the left-hand menu or open Frequently requested data.
? By accessing your saved queries under 'Manage queries'.
? By country via the selection of key indicators in Country statistical profiles 2010.
Source: Office of National Statistics: www.ons.gov.uk licensed under the Open Government Licence v.1.0.
OECD website: http://stats.oecd.org © OECD. All rights reserved.