Trust begins with showing the seams.

World Bank, World Development Indicators

The global snapshot uses the World Development Indicators cataloged dataset through the World Bank v2 Indicators API, WDI source 2. No API key is required. Requests cover 2014 through 2025 and keep the reporting period attached to every observation. Each indicator also records the series source organization returned by the API; source organizations and methods differ by indicator.

License

World Development Indicators dataset: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Attribution

World Bank, World Development Indicators

Changes made

A selected subset is cached; null and nonnumeric rows are omitted; absolute and percentage changes between adjacent periods are calculated by World Economy.

Refresh policy

Manual ingestion during the build; no scheduled production job is active.

Rate limit

No numeric limit published in the reviewed API documentation.

Revisions

Recent values may be revised. The response does not provide vintage flags for individual observations, so revision status remains “not provided.”

World Economy is independent. The World Bank and upstream source organizations do not sponsor, certify, or endorse this product.

The Atlas of Economic Complexity

The trade explorer uses a dated subset from the Atlas published by Growth Lab at Harvard University. The source combines United Nations trade reports with a process that reconciles exporter and importer records and harmonizes product classifications over time. Most observations update annually and reporting can take twelve to eighteen months to reach sufficient coverage.

Coverage

Five country profiles with annual totals, Economic Complexity Index values, leading goods categories, and major declared trading partners.

Classification

Goods are grouped using two digit Harmonized System 1992 chapters. Services are excluded from the composition tiles.

Changes made

World Economy stores a local subset, shortens category labels, ranks values, excludes unknown partner aggregates, and creates original accessible visualizations.

Refresh policy

Manual snapshot refresh after reviewing publisher updates. Visitor requests never call Harvard's service.

Usage

The Atlas encourages reuse and adaptation with citation. Individual dataset citation requirements remain controlling.

Independence

World Economy is independent and is not sponsored, certified, or endorsed by Harvard University or the Growth Lab.

Trade values are current United States dollars and may change because of quantities, prices, exchange rates, or later publisher revisions. The charts cannot prove why a trade pattern changed or whether it benefits every person or industry.

One contract for web and iOS

The ingestion step converts upstream rows into versioned JSON snapshots. The web API and bundled app fallbacks consume those reviewed files. Calculations such as absolute and percentage change happen once during ingestion.

1. 1Fetch selected series for approved geographies
2. 2Remove only null or nonnumeric observations
3. 3Sort periods and calculate comparable adjacent period changes
4. 4Attach source, retrieval, adjustment, observation type, and freshness fields
5. 5Expose the reviewed snapshots to clients

BLS, Census, and context records remain separate

The United States monthly data foundation uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics Public Data API and retains BLS series IDs, retrieval time, missing periods, footnotes, and the required disclaimer after retrieval. Locally calculated monthly and twelve month rates are labeled as calculations. The frozen June 2026 CPI basket example links to its matching archived BLS release rather than a moving latest release page.

The local explorer uses the Census Bureau 2024 American Community Survey summary files for one year. Direct estimates include their published 90% margins of error. The displayed unemployment rate is calculated from labor force and unemployed estimates and does not claim a calculated ratio margin of error.

Context dates from NBER, WHO, EIA, and the Federal Reserve are original short summaries with direct links. They are not republished datasets, do not establish causation, and do not imply affiliation or endorsement. Each publisher's terms remain separate.

Missing stays missing; the last reviewed snapshot stays visible

4 of 80 country and indicator combinations returned no comparable observation. They remain unavailable rather than falling back to a different definition.

Annual observations more than two reporting years behind the snapshot year are labeled older. A successful retrieval does not make an older reporting period current.

Each sync builds a complete temporary snapshot and replaces the committed file only after every required source request and structural check succeeds. During a publisher, network, or build outage, the website and app continue to serve the last reviewed snapshot with its original retrieval and reporting dates. That fallback preserves availability but can delay publisher corrections and new releases. The iOS app uses its last valid cache and then its bundled snapshot when refresh fails.

Read the correction and incident policy →

No account required

The service does not implement authentication, newsletters, push notifications, or learning profiles on the server. Browser and app learning preferences stay on the device. Optional website purchases are restricted to adults and processed through Stripe. Only adult checkout start and completed purchase events are retained for delivery, support, fraud prevention, accounting, and reliability. The browser analytics beacon, product view logging, and free sample logging are disabled.

Hosting and security providers still process basic request metadata to deliver the website and app API. The dedicated privacy notice explains those requests, payments, browser storage, retention, children's privacy, and visitor rights.

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Context without conclusions for sale

The product provides general educational information, not individualized financial or investment advice, and it does not provide forecasts or trading signals. It does not label economic movements universally good or bad and does not infer the cause of the latest movement without evidence.

No sponsor, affiliate, or donor is active. Advertising is disabled. Any future commercial relationship must be labeled and may not influence data selection or interpretation. Primary public information and core education remain outside a general paywall.

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