Dataset description and subject overview

The OECD produces annual, quarterly and monthly data for around 3,800 economic indicators. The variables cover national accounts, industrial production, employment, prices, business trends and trade for the 30 member countries of the OECD and 10 non-member countries. The dataset also includes the OECD's leading indicators (key variables that signal changes in the business cycle).

The OECD defines each variable separately for each country. Nevertheless, the data are considered sufficiently similar to enable comparisons between countries, especially for relative values and rates of change.

The OECD organises the MEI database using a hierarchical four level subject system of increasing detail, for example:

• Production / Commodity Output / Crude Steel / Total

Some series are defined just by three levels or fewer, for example:

• Interest rates / 90 day rates / Interbank rate

The topics listed below correspond to the first OECD subject level.

• Leading Indicators (indicators that run 6-12 months ahead of GNP cycle)
• National Accounts
• National Income
• Production
• Business Tendency Surveys
• Consumer Surveys
• Manufacturing
• Construction
• Domestic Demand
• Employment
• Unemployment
• Other Labour Market Indicators
• Labour Compensation
• Producer Prices
• Consumer Price Index
• Other Prices
• Monetary Aggregates and their Components
• Domestic Credit and Debt
• Interest Rates
• Security Issues
• Share Prices
• Currency Conversions
• External Finance
• Foreign Trade
• Balance of Payments
• Capital and Financial Accounts
• Financial Accounts
• Net Errors and Omissions
• World Trade

Sources and Definitions

OECD provides a Sources and Definitions page which gives explanations on sources and definitions used by each member country and the OECD to compile the main economic indicators. They provide the latest information on each series and also indicate to what extent cross-country comparisons can be made.

To use their pages, first select a country from the drop down list, then a subject.

The methodological information is presented by country then topic, subdivided, where appropriate, into the following four categories:

• Definition:  provides a brief description of the concept and definition used.
• Coverage:  refers to geographical coverage, statistical population, etc.
• Collection:  describes how data are collected by the compiling agency.
• Calculation:  briefly describes calculation methods applied."

If you are using the data to compare countries, the OECD recommends you use the seasonally adjusted figures where available

• MEI: Sources and Definitions: http://stats.oecd.org/mei/

User Documentation

The OECD produces the following documentation about the database:

• Each month the OECD releases the latest edition of the main Economic Indicators dataset. With each new release, the OECD includes a set of notes on new series, deleted series and new definitions used within the dataset.  If the OECD changes a definition, it will propagate the new definition back through all the previous data values in that series.  Hence each database remains consistent within itself (although there may be differences between different editions). New, revised and suppressed series are available by MEI release and by Country in the Current and Historical DB notes.
• The MEI Publication inventory provides a comprehensive list of the series
• MEI Sources and Definitions  provides a brief summary outline of current national practices for each country for which data are published in MEI. They are updated in real time.
• The OECD Glossary contains a comprehensive set of target definitions of the main variables collected by the Organisation for use in its statistical and analytical output, including those used in MEI. In addition, the Glossary contains definitions of key terminology and concepts used in OECD publications. Finally, the Glossary contains commonly used acronyms.
• MEI Explanatory notes
• Methodology information: Linking indices; Seasonal adjustment; Change to the range of countries included in zone estimates; detailed methodological information updated with a delay of one month is available from the OECD web site.
• For the definitive list of all abbreviations used in the OECD MEI series names available through Beyond 20/20 WDS, see appendices of the OECD document Main Economic Indicators CD-ROM User Guide - MEI on Beyond 20/20.

Nb. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader software to read this document as it is in pdf format. You can download it free of charge from the Adobe website.

The OECD MEI hosted by ESDS International documentation are delivered by Beyond 20/20 WDS:

• About Beyond 20/20
• Accessing OECD Main Economic Indicators via Beyond 20/20 WDS

Accessing the OECD MEI Statistics

To access the ESDS International macro-economic datasets you must be a user from a UK higher or further education institution. We cannot provide data to users outside of this community due to the data re-distribution license agreements we have with our data providers. If you are a member of a UK higher or further education institution access to the macro-economic datasets is provided free of charge.

Access to data requires ESDS registration and uses the federated access management authentication system. Registration is a simple online process - go to the How to Register web page at www.esds.ac.uk/aandp/access/access.asp to begin the process.

Once you have registered with ESDS and attempt to access one of the macro-economic datasets, you will automatically be prompted to agree to additional dataset specific conditions if they apply.

Countries in the OECD MEI

The 30 member countries of the OECD are:

Australia (AUS), Austria (AUT), Belgium (BEL), Canada (CAN), Czech Republic (CZE), Denmark (DNK), Finland (FIN), France (FRA), Germany (Unified DEU, Western Germany DEW), Greece (GRC), Hungary (HUN), Iceland (ISL), Ireland (IRL), Italy (ITA), Japan (JPN), Korea (KOR), Luxembourg (LUX), Netherlands (NLD), New Zealand (NZL), Norway (NOR), Mexico (MEX), Poland (POL), Portugal (PRT), Slovak Republic (SVK), Spain (ESP), Sweden (SWE), Switzerland (CHE), Turkey (TUR), United Kingdom (GBR), United States (USA).

The OECD Main Economic Indicators also contains data for the following non-member countries:

Brazil (BRA), China (CHN), India (IND), Indonesia (IDN), Russian Federation (RUS), South Africa (ZAF).

Note: The country codes in brackets are the used in Beyond 20/20 WDS as the first three characters of a series name.

The following Area Totals and Codes are also used in OECD MEI available via Beyond 20/20 WDS:

OTO: OECD-Total
OTF: OECD-Total (former)
OTL: OECD-Total excl. high inflation
OTI: OECD-Total excl. high inflation (former)
OEU: OECD-Europe
OEF: OECD-Europe (former)
OEL: OECD-Europe excl. high inflation
OEI: OECD-Europe excl. high inflation (former)
G7M: Major Seven
E15: Relates to the former EU of 15 countries
EMU: Data supplied by the relevant European authorities
EUZ: Euro area (OECD zone Methodology - i.e. OECD compiled data for Euro area)
EUU: European Union (27 countries)
WLD: WORLD
NOC: Non-OECD
SDR: Special Drawing Right

There is an updated list of member countries, non-member countries included in the data and the area totals used in the OECD Main Economic Indicators at:

• OECD Main Economic Indicators - Presented Countries

Note: there is no G8 group in the OECD database, although data for the G7 and the Russian Federation exist separately.

Periodicity and Time Range

The OECD MEI are released monthly and run from January 1960 to the current month.

The OECD MEI at ESDS International is updated once a month. See the latest update page for further information.