Sourcing country analysis – a guide to Library sources

For those researching a country, you will find that country information tends to take two forms: 

• Analysis – country reports are descriptive reports covering most areas of interest on a country. They contain an analysis of the business environment and include information on political, environmental, social, technological and risk factors. These are the best place to start your research. 
• Datasets – raw data, e.g. GDP, inflation figures, etc.. These are generally downloadable to Excel.

In this post, we focus on sources for country analysis. For sources of data, please see the links at the bottom.

SOM Library’s best sources for country analysis are:

• FitchConnect 
• Passport

FitchConnect

Under the heading of BMI, FitchConnect contains in-depth country risk reports for over 200 countries. Content includes SWOT analysis, economic outlook, political outlook and 10 year forecasts.

• Use the Global Search box at the top right of the page and type the country you are researching.
• Select your country from the ‘Entities’ column in the dropdown results menu. (Please note that countries will always have the tag ‘Sovereigns’ under the country name).

• You will arrive on the country’s ‘Summary’ tab. From here open the ‘Country Risk’ tab.
• Use the ‘Reports’ sub-tab to access the Country Risk reports amongst others.
• Click on any report from this list to open full-text.

Passport

Passport provides PEST analyses and Economy, Finance and Trade reports for individual countries. To access these, first select ‘Economies’ from the menu bar at the top of the Passport homepage, then focus on the ‘Explore analysis’ box on the left.

From here, select ‘Economy, Finance and Trade’ > ‘Country Report’ > ‘Economy, Finance and Trade’ (again) > then select your country of interest and click on ‘Go’ to view reports available.

Download and print options are displayed at the top left of the screen.

If country coverage is patchy…

The two journal databases listed below can be useful if you have not found enough analysis in our country resources. Both include some country profiles. Select this as your ‘publication type’ on the advanced search screen.

• ProQuest One Business
• EBSCO Business Source Complete

You may also be interested in…

Sources of macroeconomic data:

• Sourcing industry and economic data in FitchConnect
• Finding economic data on Passport
• Introducing… the UK Data Service

Other sources of macroeconomic data and analysis:

• Introducing… Bloomberg Trade Flows
• How can I find out about country stability and risk?

If you have any questions about sourcing country information – either data or analysis – please contact the SOM Library.

Feature image from Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/photos/earth-internet-globalisation-2254769/