FRED LESSONS

Cecchetti and Schoenholtz 4e systematically integrates the use of economic and financial data from FRED, the online database provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. FRED offers more than 200,000 time series from 60-plus sources, including data on about 200 countries.

Tutorials designed for Cecchetti & Schoenholtz 4e

• FRED Tutorial #1: Real GDP Demo
• FRED Tutorial #2: Credit Spread
• FRED Tutorial #3: Taylor Rule
• FRED Tutorial #4: Scatter Plot
• FRED Tutorial #5: Investment and the Term Structure
• FRED Tutorial #6: Finding and Saving Data in FRED

Tools on the FRED website

• How Do I Get to FRED Graph? shows three ways to begin editing a graph.
• Changing the Graph Type shows how to select Line, Bar, Pie, or Scatter plots. 
• Adding a Data Series shows how to introduce another indicator or formula into an existing graph.
• Changing the Observation Period of a Data Series shows how to alter the observation date range.
• Changing the Frequency of a Data Series shows how to shift between frequency options (ranging from daily through annual) and to select aggregation options (e.g. average, sum, end of period).
• Using Percent Change and Other Data Transformations shows how to modify the Units of an indicator. The options include Index, Change, Change from Year Ago, Percent Change, and Percent Change from Year Ago.
• Changing the Size of the Graph shows how to resize a graph.
• Changing Background and Text Colors shows how to alter the background text colors.
• Changing Fonts and Text Size shows the various options for fonts.
• Changing Line and Mark Styles shows how to alter data point markers and the format of a line.
• Saving and Applying Custom Graph Settings show how to save the settings that you prefer so that you can quickly apply them to new graphs that you create. (You must be logged in to your own FRED account.)
• Saving a Graph shows how to save a graph that you created so that you can easily recall and update it.
• Creating Your Own Data Transformations shows how to create your own algebraic formula for combining indicators on one line.
• Downloading Data from the Graph shows how to download to an Excel file for further data analysis.