Economics, one scoop at a time | The Economist
►http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/11/historical-data?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/economicsoncescoopattime
Nov 28th 2012, 21:26 by M.C.K. | WASHINGTON
THE Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis provides a valuable public good for observers of the American economic scene: the St. Louis Federal Reserve Economic Database, affectionately known by many as “FRED”. FRED aggregates data collected by others, which saves a lot of time. Moreover, FRED provides intuitive web-based tools for manipulating and sharing visualisations of its data. This is not news. However, many may not know that FRED recently expanded its data offerings to include a wealth of historical information. I was recently exploring this section of the website when I discovered what might be my favourite data series: American ice cream production.
This chart shows the annual change in ice cream output between 1918 and 1942: