From: BEEKMAN@econ.umd.edu
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: EconData/PDG (was network resources for economists)
Date: 21 Jan 93 21:34:43 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland

In article <kbanaian.187.0@bernard.pitzer.claremont.edu> kbanaian@bernard.pitzer.claremont.edu (King Banaian) writes:
>In article <1993Jan19.223407.17427@cheshire.oxy.edu> tamada@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael K. Tamada) writes:
>>In article <C1461B.Ft8@athena.cs.uga.edu> fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James 
>P. H. Fuller) writes:>
>>>     Speaking of net resources of interest to economists, is anyone using
>>>the EconData files on info.umd.edu and the University of Maryland G analysis
>>>software or the public domain PDG subset?  I'd very much like to compare notes
>>>and swap war stories with other users of this particular net.resource.
>>
>>     One minor beef:  I did this about two weeks ago.  The dataset
>>only went up to September 1992.  At about the same time, newspapers
>>were publishing data through December.  So the dataset was not 
>>completely up to date.  Of course, what can one expect with data from
>>the government?

>I found this true as well.  I prefer to get my data in Lotus formats, which 
>both TSP and SHAZAM translate well.  I have had better success using EBB 
>from the Commerce Department.  One of the machines at UMichigan has the EBB 
>available for use, which I reached through GOPHER.  EBB prints in clear text 
>and in .prn files.  I once had to reply in local news to that day's 
>unemployment statistics, and had the press release off EBB within 4 hours.

>King Banaian
>Economics
>Pitzer College


I'm somewhat surprised by the these two postings.  I think that
it's been mentioned more than once that EconData is provided by
INFORUM, a non-profit research group at the University of Maryland. 
INFORUM does not receive funding to provide EconData.  The data
that you'll find on EconData are data that were needed by INFORUM
for their forecasts.  The data are updated as needed and passed
along thereafter.  One hopes that something like EconData (if not
EconData itself) will someday be funded so that up to date
information can be provided.

The Commerce Department's EBB BBS may often provide more up to date
information, but you may notice that these data are often not in
the form of time series and provide very little history.  INFORUM
uses EBB to update some of their banks, but this can be a tedious
process.  The files on the EBB are mainly ascii files of tables
which have come from a recent publication.  The lotus files which
are there are usually just these same ascii files after being
imported.  These are not a very efficient way of storing data. 
This efficiency of storage (especially for large data sets) is an
important issue when the data are to transferred by either modem or
internet connection.  The larger a file, the longer it takes to
send.

Dr. Almon has taken this into consideration in how he designed his
data banks.  The G data banks are very efficient in their storage
of data.  He is also continually looking for the latest and most
efficient file compression software.  He takes a great interest in
shortening file transfer times.  When a bank is updated on EconData
you will often find provided an update bank, so that the user
doesn't have to waste the time to update the download the complete
bank each time he/she needs it.

I also don't find the format of the data on EBB very appealing. 
Although many software can make use of the lotus and ascii files,
I've always found that it takes a lot of editing to get these files
into a form worth using.

Perhaps you may have missed it, but PDG can write the specified
series to a lotus or ascii series from any of the data banks and
without the table headings and other nonsense.  In fact, new
commands have recently been implemented to produce output in rows
as well as columns.

I'm sorry to write such an adamant reply, but I greatly appreciate
the efforts that Dr. Almon has made.  And although I might have
differences with how PDG operates as an econometric package, I am
very impressed by the data storage capabilities.  Also, PDG is far
more than I would ever expect in a FREE package.

Thanks for letting me clear the air,

               Kevin Beekman
Newsgroups: sci.econ