IMF Data Mapper
Adapted from an assignment for international economics at @au_sis. The data in this post is from exports out of the IMF Data Mapper ®.
There is an overwhelming volume of data available in the IMF Data Mapper. I was not sure where to start, so I started looking for indicators of how the global economic landscape has changed since the financial crisis. PIMCO coined the phrase the “new normal” to describe how the economic world has changed.
The Rich (States) and the Rest
Economic Inequality between rich states and the rest is falling since the financial crisis. The difference in Nominal GDP between advanced economies and emerging markets/developing economies peaked in 2007 and has been steadily declining since with IMF projections of continued declines. interactive chart
Net Debt
Advanced economies significantly increased their net debts measured as percentage of GDP in the five years following the start of the financial crisis. Emerging and developing economies did not see large increases in net debt in the same period. interactive chart
Incomplete Employment Data
The availability and quality of data across countries varies considerably. The IMF Data Mapper only makes advanced economies available in the chart for unemployment rate. The chart from 1980 to present tracks with the U.S. business cycle including the spike in unemployment after the financial crisis and then the gradual decline. Three trends that are absent from this number that quantifies “the number of unemployed persons as a percentage of the total labor force”, are the increase in female labor participation that was still on the rise in the beginning of the measured period, the sharp decline in general labor participation and expansion of part-time employment following the financial crisis. interactive chart
The IMF Data Mapper is a great tool overall and the ease of the export function from the charts makes it easy to pull data for further analysis.
