About ESDS International

ESDS International disseminates and supports both aggregate and survey international datasets for UK FE and HE. The service is jointly run by Mimas at Manchester and the UK Data Archive at Essex and provides:

• free web-based access to regularly updated international aggregate (macro) datasets
• help for users in locating and acquiring international survey (micro) data from other archives
• a dedicated help desk
• comprehensive support materials for macro datasets and teaching and learning resources
• introductory courses to raise awareness of international datasets and their research potential and an annual conference on issues relating to international data research.

On the international agenda...

Financial Earthquakes Shake Euro-zone

The recent recession, and the financial crisis that led to it, has led to sharp increases in government debt across Europe. This in turn has triggered a series of shocks in the sovereign debt markets across the Euro-zone, particularly in Greece, Spain and Portugal

Countries inside the euro-zone cannot devalue their currency or increase the money supply through quantitative easing when under pressure. This makes the high-debt Euro-zone countries particularly vulnerable to credit runs, especially where the underlying economy is seen as fundamentally weak. In April, Greece's credit rating was downgraded to the first levels of 'junk' status. Borrowing from the capital markets became unaffordable and the country was forced into a €110 billion bail-out by the EU and IMF conditional on the implementation of a series of harsh and unpopular spending cuts.

Greece should have defaulted on its loans argued Joseph Stiglitz in a talk in June at the University of Manchester. "The capital markets have very short memories" the Nobel prize-winning economist observed.

Data source: Data source: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2010 release

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