The Global Macro Database (GMD) – A Brief Introduction

Abstract

The Global Macro Database introduced by Müller, Karsten, Chenzi Xu, Mohamed Lehbib, and Ziliang Chen. 2025. The Global Macro Database: A New International Macroeconomic Dataset . Working Paper, Working Paper Series 33714. National Bureau of Economic Research, April is the world’s most comprehensive repository of macroeconomic statistics. Free, open-source, and continuously updated, it harmonizes and incorporates data from 160 sources, of which 33 are international organizations and 127 additional datasets that are sourced from national statistical offices or historical studies, resulting in annual time series for 46 variables across 239 countries since 1086. This article provides a brief description of the database, compares its coverage to other providers, outlines data access options, and discusses existing and potential future applications and improvements.