Numbers for Development, IDB

Economics

OVERVIEW

Numbers for Development (N4D) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is a rich and unique databank focusing on Latin American and Caribbean countries. The data, at granular level, are not always available in other sources. The N4D reports on social-economic indicators including the most popular ones such as Current Account Balance and GDP per capita, and less common ones: Dollarization, Domestic Public Debt, the Poverty Wage, and Percent Participation in Pension and Social Security, to name a few. Such indicators reflect different dimensions of the social-economic development of 26 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The database also allows for interactively viewing the data, generating graphs, and taking snapshots. *

*This description is a paraphrased version of the description on the Numbers for Development website.

Available data file formats

Excel and CSV

Accessibility

This is an open data source that is for public use.

HOW TO RETRIEVE DATA BY EXAMPLE

Scenario

Suppose you want to explore Chile’s relationship to its top five exporting partners over time. In this case, the indicator you are looking for is something like the percentage of the total export of Chile to its top five partners. You would like to obtain the data in an Excel file.

Step-by-step

Locate the data source. Go to . In the lower-left corner of the screen, there are two filters, SELECT COUNTRY and FIND INDICATOR.

Screenshot of the Numbers for Development main page. There are two filters in the lower-left corner of the screenshot.

Select the right country and find the right indicator. From the drop-down menu of SELECT COUNTRY, select Chile. From the drop-down menu of FIND INDICATOR, select Global Integration. Then from SELECT A TOPIC, choose Exports. Next, from INDICATORS GROUP, select % of Exports (Partners). Finally, from SELECT AN INDICATOR, select % of Exports to the Top Five Partners. This matches exactly the topic of your interest. Now, the data of the indicator of your selection for all countries would show up on the bottom of the webpage. You need to re-select Chile to show its data by clicking on the box in front of Chile.

Screenshot of the filters page. There are five filters from left to right. One filter would show up once its previous filter is selected. A line graph (% of Exports to the Top Five Partners) is generated below when all five filters are chosen.

Download your data. In the top of the screen, a Line view of the data for Chile shows up once you re-select Chile. Five newest available data points of the indicator are displayed by default setting. But you can change this setting on the right of the Line view. Moving the circle under TIME PERIOD to the left would allow you to see earlier data. RANGE DISPLAY shows that the frequency of the time series is ANNUAL. For some indicators, QUARTERLY and MONTHLY are also available. Under DATA DOWNLOAD, EXCEL is chosen by default (you can change it to CSV if you like). On its right, select ALL (PAGE is also available if you wish to only download the indicator displayed on the Line view). Then, you click on GET DATA and choose YES on the pop-up to download your data in the right form. **
**Though the data are available to download, note that the downloaded data are the indicator for all countries available. If you want to get the data for Chile only, you need to further manipulate the downloaded data, such as simply deleting other countries in Excel.

Screenshot of the download page. On the right of the chart, there options are available. From top to bottom are TIME PERIOD, RANGE DISPLAY, and DATA DOWNLOAD. A pop-up bar would show up once selections of DATA DOWNLOAD are made.

Be sure to consult with the source website on how to properly cite your data. For this scenario, the citation in APA format would look something like:

Inter-American Development Bank. Numbers for Development. https://data.iadb.org/ (Accessed on 18 November 2019)