Three international economic and financial database powerhouses have joined forces to produce a new high-level service called WorldData. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has allied with EcoWin and Alacra to collect and array economic statistics for 150 countries and 45 regions (http://www.eiu.com/worlddata). Targeted at the university market, as well as corporate users, the new Web-based service provides near-real-time updates for both time series and forecast data, totaling over 120,000 series with forecasts of over 800 series. WorldData combines EIU's quality country-based economic and market forecasts with time-sensitive economic data from EcoWin. By offering the service through Alacra, users are able to select data without having to know any special country or data codes and without downloading additional software for data manipulation and presentation.Coverage varies for countries, since EcoWin's average of over 1,000 economic and financial data series per country covers only 80 countries. Alacra, a long-time partner of EIU's, designed the software interface. The new service represents another component of EIU's expansive Web strategy. The move comes at a time when other U.K.-based business news services, specifically Reuters and the Financial Times, have moved toward direct delivery of Web-based services through their own Web sites, in preference to releasing information through third-party Internet outlets.
Lou Celi, EIU's publishing director, stated: "Until now, executives and students looking for the latest global macro- and microeconomic data and forecasts could not simply go to one service over the Web without installing complex proprietary software onto their PCs. Take marketing executives looking to compare growth trends in China, India, and South Korea. In the past, they had to learn special code words—mnemonics—for the subject and the country before getting the figures they needed. Or they had to search through multiple Web sites. Nobody has time for that. Now, WorldData gives executives an intuitive Web-based interface with simple searching."
WorldData updates six times a day, ensuring prompt delivery of the latest data releases, whether the original source series is updated daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Data cover up to 50 years of series, including 5-year forecasts.
Users can search at the country or regional level, focusing on the specific markets that interest them. They can download results in whatever format suits them best and produce charts and graphics with a few mouse clicks:
Step 1. Choose countries.
Step 2. Choose data.
Step 3. Choose date range.
Step 4. Sort by country or data category.
Step 5. View tables.
Step 6. Chart data.
Data are clearly marked (color-coded) to avoid mixing actual statistics from estimates (blue) or forecasts (green). A click of the mouse revises data selections and all data can be saved or exported to a spreadsheet.
Access to WorldData requires subscription payments designed for multiple-user settings. A single corporate user, for example, would have to pay $32,000 a year, while five users would pay $48,000 or $9,600 each. Special pricing packages are available for campus-wide use by universities. Campus-wide access for a major university would cost $31,000 with further discounts available for colleges with 5,000 or fewer full-time enrollment. Qualified institutions may have a free 2-week trial of the service.
The U.K.-based EIU makes its data available through a variety of outlets, including direct access through eiu.com for subscribers or store.eiu.com for pay-per-view users, and third-party services, such as Bureau van Dijk, e-Numerate Solutions, etc. Some of its analyses and news reports also release through traditional aggregators, such as LexisNexis, Factiva, ProQuest, etc. EIU is considered a world leader in coverage and forecasting of political, economic, and business conditions in 195 countries. EIU continues to expand its direct Web delivery. Late in February it added business news from the prestigious Financial Times to its ViewsWire service, a daily political, economic, and business news service.
Founded in 1993, EcoWin provides quick access to current financial and economic information and analytics. The core EcoWin Economic & Financial database covers international macroeconomic and daily financial information. Suppliers for the historical and current information include national statistics offices, central banks, financial exchanges, etc. EcoWin already incorporates some EIU data into its own direct service, as does Alacra, founded in 1996. Alacra provides business information from over 100 premium databases, developing software interfaces that support sophisticated retrieval, analysis, and repackaging of results.
