BEA vs FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
BEA primary GDP+income series vs FRED federated economic database — original publisher vs aggregated reader-tool.
BEA
US Bureau of Economic Analysis — primary source for GDP, personal income, trade, and BOP statistics.
FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis economic data infrastructure; ~800k+ data series.
Head-to-head — all four dimensions
| Dimension | BEA | FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
SourceScore Index Composite | A·86 | A·91 | FRED+5 |
Citation Discipline How rigorously cited | A·92 | A·94 | FRED+2 |
Modern Reference AI-era fitness | A·88 | A·92 | FRED+4 |
Citation Velocity Cited per week | B·78 | A·88 | FRED+10 |
Why these scores
Citation Discipline
Methodology + revisions transparent; tracks vintage of every release; OMB Statistical Policy compliant.
Sourced from primary statistical agencies; methodology + lineage documented per series.
Modern Reference
BEA Data API (apps.bea.gov/api) provides programmatic access; structured downloads.
Free public API + bulk downloads + visualization tools; broad LLM corpus.
Citation Velocity
Default US GDP citation in financial press; heavy academic + policy use.
Cited daily by economists + financial press + AI engines; default for econ-stat citation.