fred-economic-data

# FRED Economic Data Access ## Overview Access comprehensive economic data through FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data), a database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis containing over 800,000 economic time series from over 100 sources. **Key capabilities:** - Query economic time series data (GDP, unemployment, inflation, interest rates) - Search and discover series by keywords, tags, and categories - Access historical data and vintage (revision) data via ALFRED - Retrieve release schedules and data publication dates - Map regional economic data with GeoFRED - Apply data transformations (percent change, log, etc.) ## API Key Setup **Required:** All FRED API requests require an API key. 1. Create an account at https://fredaccount.stlouisfed.org 2. Log in and request an API key through the account portal 3. Set as environment variable: ```bash export FRED_API_KEY="your_32_character_key_here" ``` Or in Python: ```python import os os.environ["FRED_API_KEY"] = "your_key_here" ``` ## Quick Start ### Using the FREDQuery Class ```python from scripts.fred_query import FREDQuery # Initialize with API key fred = FREDQuery(api_key="YOUR_KEY") # or uses FRED_API_KEY env var # Get GDP data gdp = fred.get_series("GDP") print(f"Latest GDP: {gdp['observations'][-1]}") # Get unemployment rate observations unemployment = fred.get_observations("UNRATE", limit=12) for obs in unemployment["observations"]: print(f"{obs['date']}: {obs['value']}%") # Search for infl...