Economic Information for Eastern European Countries

Among the many Haver data bases where information on Eastern European economies can be found are: EMERGECW, EUROSTAT, OECDMEI, OECDNAQ, IFS, EIUDEEUR and EIUIEEUR.

EMERGECW contains data from the official country source.

EUROSTAT contains data on those eastern European countries that belong to the Euro Area: Slovakia and Slovenia and those in the European Union: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. The data sometimes differ from the official sources as the European Commission attempts to "harmonize" that is use a common definition for a particular series or concept for all countries that may vary from the national definition of a particular country. For example, the harmonized rate of unemployment in EUROSTAT was 8.2% in Poland in June while the official rate in EMERGECW was 10.9%.

OECDMEI (OECD Main Economic Indicators), OECDNAQ (OECD National Accounts Quarterly) and IFS (International Monetary Fund Data) were the forerunners of the Eurostat and Country sourced data. In general the data for a particular country found in these data bases are the similar to those in EMERGECW and EUROSTAT. There are, however, differences. Data may be available monthly in some cases and only quarterly in others. Indexes in one data base may have a different base in another data base. As noted above the unemployment rates in EUROSTAT and in EMERGECW are significantly different. The OECDMEI unemployment rate is the same as the Eurostat unemployment rate and the unadjusted IFS unemployment rate is equal to the unadjusted unemployment rate in the EMERGECW data base. In the latter data base, seasonally adjusted data are available. As an example of the similarities and differences among the data bases, the attached chart shows the unadjusted IFS unemployment rate compared with the seasonally adjusted rate from the EMERGECW data base and the seasonally adjusted EUROSTAT and OECDMEI unemployment rates, which are identical. The data are shown quarterly since the unemployment rate in OECDMEI is only available on a quarterly basis..EIUDEEUR and EIUIEEUR data bases contains a wealth of specialized data from the Economist Intelligence Unit, including forecasts of selected economic indicators.