Overview: DATASOURCE Procedure

The DATASOURCE procedure extracts time series and event data from many different kinds of data files distributed by various data vendors and stores them in a SAS data set. Once stored in a SAS data set, the time series and event variables can be processed by other SAS procedures.

The DATASOURCE procedure has statements and options to extract only a subset of time series data from an input data file. It gives you control over the frequency of data to be extracted, time series variables to be selected, cross sections to be included, and time range of data to be output.

The DATASOURCE procedure can create auxiliary data sets containing descriptive information on the time series variables and cross sections. More specifically, the OUTCONT= option names a data set containing information on time series variables, the OUTBY= option names a data set that reports information on cross-sectional variables, and the OUTALL= option names a data set that combines both time series variables and cross-sectional information.

In addition to the auxiliary data sets, two types of primary output data sets are the OUT= and OUTEVENT= data sets. The OUTEVENT= data set contains event variables but excludes periodic time series data. The OUT= data set contains periodic time series data and any event variables referenced in the KEEP statement.

The output variables in the output and auxiliary data sets can be assigned various attributes by the DATASOURCE procedure. These attributes are labels, formats, new names, and lengths. While the first three attributes in this list are used to enhance the output, the length attribute is used to control the memory and disk-space usage of the DATASOURCE procedure.

Data files currently supported by the DATASOURCE procedure include the following:

• U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data files:

  • National Income and Product Accounts

  • National Income and Product Accounts PC format

  • S-pages

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data files:

  • Consumer Price Index Surveys

  • Producer Price Index Survey

  • National Employment, Hours, and Earnings Survey

  • State and Area Employment, Hours, and Earnings Survey

• Standard & Poor’s Compustat Services Financial Database Files:

  • COMPUSTAT Annual

  • COMPUSTAT 48 Quarter

  • COMPUSTAT Full Coverage Annual

  • COMPUSTAT Full Coverage 48 Quarter

• Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) data files:

  • Daily Binary Format Files

  • Monthly Binary Format Files

  • Daily Character Format Files

  • Monthly Character Format Files

• Global Insight, formerly DRI/McGraw-Hill data files:

  • Basic Economics Data (formerly CITIBASE)

  • DRI Data Delivery Service files

  • CITIBASE Data Files

  • DRI Data Delivery Service Time Series

  • PC Format CITIBASE Databases

• FAME Information Services Databases

• Haver Analytics data files

  • United States Economic Indicators

  • Specialized Databases

  • Financial Indicators

  • Industry

  • Industrial Countries

  • Emerging Markets

  • International Organizations

  • Forecasts and As Reported Data

  • United States Regional

• International Monetary Fund’s Economic Information System data files:

  • International Financial Statistics

  • Direction of Trade Statistics

  • Balance of Payment Statistics

  • Government Finance Statistics

• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development:

  • Annual National Accounts

  • Quarterly National Accounts

  • Main Economic Indicators