About

Macroeconomic Database

This website provides a macroeconomic database for Australia which includes measures of GDP, its components, prices, and key monetary and labour market statistics over the last fifty years as published and revised in real time. The vintages of data are collated from various sources and accommodate multiple definitional changes, providing a comprehensive description of the macroeconomic environment as experienced by Australian policy- and decision-makers.

For an introductory overview and a background for researchers, see Lee, K., Olekalns, N., Shields, K. and Wang, Z (2011a), University of Melbourne Discussion Paper 1132, The Australian Real-Time Database: An Overview and an Illustration of its Use in Business Cycle Analysis.

Detailed description of data collection methods, data sources and any specific information on the variables are provided in the separate datasets. These are also collated in K. Shields and Z. Wang's (2011b) Australian Real-Time Database: A Users Manual

Fiscal Database

This website also provides a total of twelve variables relating to budget outcomes over time plus nine variables describing the evolving state of the government's debt/wealth. The database goes back to 1901 for key variables up. For an introduction, see Lee, K. J. Morley, K. Shields and M. S. Tan (2018), ‘The Australian Real-Time Fiscal Database: An Overview and an Illustration of its Use in Analysing Planned and Realised Fiscal Policies’, CAMA Working Paper.

Detailed description of data collection methods, data sources and any specific information on the variables are provided in the separate datasets. These are also collated in the following manual: Australian Fiscal Real-Time Database: A Users Manual.

Acknowledgements

Funding from the ARC Discovery project DP0988112 (2009 - 2011) : 'Australian Real-Time Data: Construction, Analysis and Implications for Real-Time Policy Making' and from the ARC Discovery Project DP140103029 (2014 – 2017) : ‘Analysis of Fiscal Policy Responses to Macroeconomic Conditions in Australia and the US using Real Time Data’ is gratefully acknowledged.

We would also like to thank the librarians from the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, the State Library of Victoria and the National Library of Australia for their assistance in locating historical sources of data and relevant microfiche collection. Finally, the staff at the ABS House, Canberra have been helpful at every stage and we would like to thank Malcolm Adamson, Nicola Cross and, in particular, Peter Rossiter, whose diligent archiving of key national accounts series and in depth knowledge of the various changing sources of the data series over time has helped fill many 'missing gaps' in this database.

Contact Us

If you are able to provide any of the missing historical data, please e-mail Professor Kalvinder Shields (k.shields@unimelb.edu.au).