Tag: finance

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Perspectives on the upcoming G20 meeting in Toronto

As you are no doubt aware, Toronto is playing host to the upcoming G20 summit June 26th and 27th.  It’s a good time, therefore, to take a look at some information sites and other resources related to the group.  Here are just a few – there are many many more out there.

  • The Government of Canada has a website devoted to the G20 and its meeting in Toronto.  On this site you can find government news, videos, Ministers’ statements, and a calendar of events.
  • The University of Toronto, through its Munk School of Global Affairs, has a G20 Information Centre with extensive links to news features; Ministers’ statements and communiques; G20 Official Documents, factsheets and newsdesk publications; and links to both U of T and external research reports.
  • OECD and the G20 is a topic page on the OECD website which provides information and links to relevant OECD reports, video clips, working papers and OECD leaders’ statements.
  • The World Bank has a blog devoted to the G20.  The posts are substantive and include World Bank or other high quality data sources where relevant.  Recent post topics include:  auto sales, poverty, protectionism, and good governance.
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News

Rise and Fall of the GDP

Read the article Rise and Fall of the  GDP in the New York Times Magazine.  The author Jon Gertner  attended a presentation on the Canadian Index of Well-Being presented by Alex Michalos,  a former chancellor at the University of Northern British Columbia.

The presentation on the Canadian Index of Well Being is available here.  Michalos’ interesting approach discusses how the success of a country depends on collaborations with international organizations such as Stats Canada, OECD etc.

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Report: SEC Investigation into Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme

The US Securities & Exchange Commission has just released its public version of its full Investigation of Failure of the SEC to Uncover Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme.  At present it’s sitting on the Commission’s homepage and the report’s URL indicates that it’s a “news” file.  It’s unclear, therefore, if this is a stable URL.  Only the executive summary is currently available from GPO Access, though it’s likely to wind up there eventually.

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IMF Financial Soundness Indicators

The International Monetary Fund recently launched a database of “financial sector soundness” indicators, or FSIs, for member countries who choose to participate. The aim is to provide users with a means of judging the soundness of financial institutions as well as national economies.

The IMF’s list of core FSIs focuses on areas such as debt – both household and national; liquidity of assets; loans; assets; equity and real estate prices.

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New look for U Michigan’s Document Center

The venerable University of Michigan Document Center website has just been relaunched with  an attractive redesign.   You can now search as well as browse topics and results lists feature a very helpful “filter by subtopic” feature.   All urls and rss feed addresses have been changed so you’ll want to update those if you link to/rely on them.

Speaking of the rss feed: a recent post features the excellent website maintained by FRASER – the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

  • “Provides monetary and banking statistics, 1896-1970, and can be used in conjunction with FRED to provide economic time series for the 20th Century
  • Web site also provides digitized version of early 20th Century Commerce Department documents, including Business Statistics, Survey of Current Business, Economic Indicators, and Economic Reports of the President.”
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OECD Statistical Narratives

The OECD has just launched a new page that it is calling “Statistical Narratives.” The aim of this page is to feature select statistical tables – usually from a topical subject – and present them with a brief explanatory article.  The result?  A sort of news feature mashed up with supporting data.  The articles are readable and go a long way to providing context for the statistics.  OECD hopes that the page will “build knowledge from statistics, as well as give users a sense of what statistics are available from the OECD.”

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All about Europe

The wonderful librarians  at Intute found two new online documents – both covering the EU.

1) Financial Management in the European Union is a report that was published by the UK House of Commons Public Accounts Committee  with the aim of assessing “the financial management and performance of the EU.  It covers efficiency, anti-fraud measures in EU accounting and future reforms required.”

Excerpts from the Conclusions and Recommendations:

  • “There remains an unacceptably high level of error in some key budget areas and consequently, for the fourteenth successive year, the European Court of Auditors has not provided a positive overall Statement of Assurance on the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions.”
  • “In 2005, we highlighted the inherent complexity of some European programmes as a major factor leading to error, but this complexity persists, as do the resultant errors.”
  • “Ongoing problems with controls over Cohesion policy expenditure are, in effect, condemning the European Union accounts to qualification for many years to come.”

Yikes! There’s loads more so if you are interested in accountability, public spending, fraud and the EU you know where to go!

2) ESF Demography Report 2008. This is a free report that is published by the European Commission every two years.  “The 2008 version reports on the aging society and changing family and households in EU countries….(and focuses on) fertility rates, life expectancy, migration, marriage and composition of households.”

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Print Resource Subscription Database

New Database Trial

We’ve been lucky enough to get a 30 day trial to the IMF e-library which “contains publications from recent years as well as statistical resources: Balance of Payments, Direction of Trade, Government Finance Statistics, and International Financial Statistics.”  The trial expires July 22nd.  Please check it out and fill out the feedback form to let us know what you think.

Meanwhile, the IMF’s International Statistics are available via cd-rom at call no.: HG1 .I55 CD-ROM.  Note, this cd is mounted on the Data Services website and is limited to current UBC students, faculty & staff members.

You can also check out the print copies of the International Financial Statistics Yearbook at call no.: HG1 .I552

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US Budget 2010

GPO Access has just posted the official PDF version of the 2010 Budget of the United States Government on its site.  The Budget “is a collection of documents that contains the budget message of the President, information about the President’s budget proposals for a given fiscal year, and other budgetary publications that have been issued throughout the fiscal year.”  The budget document is browsable by chapter and also includes some statistical tables in excel  spreadsheet format.

FYI, budgets from 1996 onwards are also available on site.

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