FRED Data

Overview

The FRED data app pulls data from the St Louis Federal Reserve database (FRED).

Demos and Tutorials

API Key

Users of the FRED Data app must obtain an API key provided by the St Louis Federal Reserve. (see Api Key) The key is free, but requires you to register with the St Louis Federal Reserve.

Once the key has been obtained, it needs to be added to your authentication tokens. Create a new token with

• key = "api_key"
• url = "https://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/"
• type="get"
• value=the api key provided to you by the St. Louis Fed

Retrieving Data

Data in the FRED database is grouped categories and subcategories. To retrieve a dataset, you need to first specify the category that you wish to retrieve. The top level categories are initially listed in the category listbox. When you select a category, the datasets in the category are listed in the dataset listbox. However, many categories have subcategories. To view the subcategories underneath a category, click the down link underneath the caetgory listbox. If there are subcategories, they will be retrieved and listed in the category listbox.

After navigating to a subcategory, you can nvaigate back up to the parent category by clicking the up link.

When you select a dataset in the dataset listbox, the descritpion of the dataset is displayed in the center pane. You view the selected datasets data by clicking the view button. This will pull the data and display it in a table.

If the data is data you wish to add to your workspace, enter a name in the data name textbox (next to the view button) and click the add to staging button. The name of your dataset will appearing in the staging area data listbox.

The staging area is a list of datasets that you wish to pull and merge into a single dataset. That is, each FRED dataset is a time series of a single measure. Often, you will wish to join multiple datasets into a single dataset by matching their dates and adding each as a separate column. The staging area accomplishes this.

Once you have the datasets you want joined together in the staging area, you can add them to your workspace by entering a name in the staging area textarea and then either clicking the add button or the embed button. The add button will add the data to your workspace in a such a manner that if you save and reload the workspace, the datasets will be redownloaeded from FRED, and will inlcude any new records. The embed will embed the data into the workspace so that it will not be re downloaded.