Question
What is a global concept alias and how does it help my cross-country retrievals?
Answer
In Data Buffet, time series are identified using mnemonics. Each series has a principal name, the canonical mnemonic, and one or more auxiliary names, called aliases. These may serve to provide forward compatibility (with series we expect to add in the future), backward compatibility (with series created when Data Buffet was smaller), or round-trip clarity (when we leverage the source's identifier).
For select major indicator families, we have identified representative series from individual country catalogs and assigned short aliases held in common across countries and subnational areas, the global concept. This expedites cross-country retrieval, but doesn't guarantee the indicators are strictly comparable -- they may differ in frequency, scale and scope. These are organized in the historical catalog called "Global Concept."
For example, variations on the concept total population:
- POP.IFIN = VSQPOPA.IFIN = Thousands of persons, end-of-year, for Finland
- POP.IGBR = VSQPOPTA.IGBR_X = Single persons, mid-year, for U.K.
- POP.IBDI = IMF99Z__ZFA.IBDI = Millions of persons, end-of-year, for Burundi
- POP.IUSA = POPM.US = Thousands of persons, monthly, for U.S.
And how you might perform a cross-national retrieval:
- POP.I^^^ = wild card expression to retrieve all such available series at the country level
- POP.I^^^_? = wild card to retrieve all subnational series
- POP.? = wild card to retrieve all, regardless of geographic level
Some others:
- Cyclical indicators:
- CIC = Consumer confidence
- PMI = Purchasing managers index
- Financial:
- IRGTLT = Average yield of long-term government bonds
- IRLEND = Monetary policy rate
- Income:
- Industry:
- Real estate:
- HPI = House price index
- HPMTR = Residential construction permits
The full set of global concept aliases will not be available for all countries. The underlying series is subject to change.
Attached to this article is a screengrab of a global concept in action on DataBuffet.com.