Microproduct data guidebeginner

IMF World Economic Outlook

Comparable national growth, inflation, labor, fiscal, trade, and forecast indicators for building international outlook and revision tools.

Start the guide Open official source

At a glance

Difficulty
Beginner — comfortable for a first prototype
Size
Small · ≤0.1 GB
Formats
JSON, XLSX
Access
API or Download
API key
Not required
Provider
International Monetary Fund
Updates
Occasional
Data terms
IMF website and data terms and conditions

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

The World Economic Outlook provides comparable historical estimates and projections for countries and groups. Start with real GDP growth, three countries, and a short period. Projected years are not observations, and releases revise both forecasts and historical estimates.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An internet connection
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Check the current WEO release date and indicator definition.
  2. 2.Request one indicator for three countries and a bounded year range.
  3. 3.Label historical and projected periods and retain the release name with the data.
Open official source
3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import pandas as pd
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/api/v1/NGDP_RPCH/USA/DEU/JPN",
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
values = response.json()["values"]["NGDP_RPCH"]
growth = pd.DataFrame(values).sort_index()
print(growth.tail(10))
4

Test a useful signal

Compare three country growth outlooks

Compare recent and projected real GDP growth for the United States, Germany, and Japan.

  1. 01Record the WEO release and retrieve only the real GDP growth indicator for three countries.
  2. 02Mark which years are estimates or projections before comparing paths.
  3. 03Explain how forecast uncertainty, revisions, missing values, and country definitions limit conclusions.

Dataset details

International Monetary Fund is an intergovernmental source. Last verified 2026-08-13. Temporal coverage: 1980-present with projections for approximately five years.

Theme

Markets & Economics

Domains

International EconomicsMacroeconomics

Data types

Time SeriesForecast Data

Tasks

Country ComparisonForecast AnalysisEconomic Monitoring

Geography

Global

Formats

JSONXLSX

Provider

International Monetary Fund

Data terms

IMF website and data terms and conditions