The econdash package centralizes US economic and financial data on a dashboard. The data is predominately from government sources like the Federal Reserve Economic Data (“FRED”). The purpose was to provide a quick overview of key performance indicators that are commonly relied upon by economists to describe the state of the economy.
Dashboards are used in many contexts to display data. A survey of economic dashboards reveal a diversity in user interfaces, content and usability. The econdash package attempts to mimic the best features of available dashboards, simplifying the visualizations, minimizing the use of text, and promptly updating the data. The goal is for engaged citizens to quickly understand the state of the U.S. economy.
Dashboards
In designing the dashboard, a number of initiatives were reviewed. Given the prevalence of dashboards, many institutions view their use as important in informing and shaping public opinion. Some examples are included below:
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Selecting individual economic metrics for a dashboard reflects the values of a society. The challenges of measuring an economy’s success by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are and continue to be noted. The WEF is reviewing different economic measures because of international concerns over sustainable development and changing economies. The WEF stated that:
Despite extensive efforts to anchor alternative measures of economic performance, GDP growth today remains a core economic policy objective and is still often treated as both a necessary and sufficient marker of success. Yet targeting a recovery and future trajectory of GDP growth alone will not be sufficient to advance the holistic economic and societal reset that is needed today.
An accelerated international convergence on a dashboard of core metrics to steer consistent, forward-looking economic and social policy and business decisions will be critical.
The WEF report, Platform for Shaping the Future of the New Economy and Society: Dashboard for a New Economy Towards a New Compass for the Post-COVID Recovery, urged the adoption of new metrics.
Installation
You can install the released version of econdash from CRAN with:
install.packages("econdash")Acknowledgements:
The following R packages proved invaluable and the author is grateful for their creation:
golemusethisshinydashboardPluspkgdown
Code of Conduct
Please note that the econdash project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.
