[1] They cover banking, business/fiscal, consumer price indexes, employment and population, exchange rates, gross domestic product, interest rates, monetary aggregates, producer price indexes, reserves and monetary base, U.S. trade and international transactions, and U.S. financial data.
The time series are compiled by the Federal Reserve and many are collected from government agencies such as the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The ALRED website states that “In general, economic data for past observation periods are revised as more accurate estimates become available.
[5] FRASER (The Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research) is a digital archive begun in 2004 to safeguard, preserve and provide easy access to the United States’ economic history—particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System—through digitization of documents related to the U.S. financial system.
[citation needed] The economic data published on FRED are widely reported in the media and play a key role in financial markets.