Context

The Federal Reserve sets interest rates to promote conditions that achieve the mandate set by the Congress — high employment, low and stable inflation, sustainable economic growth, and moderate long-term interest rates. Interest rates set by the Fed directly influence the cost of borrowing money. Lower interest rates encourage more people to obtain a mortgage for a new home or to borrow money for an automobile or for home improvement. Lower rates encourage businesses to borrow funds to invest in expansion such as purchasing new equipment, updating plants, or hiring more workers. Higher interest rates restrain such borrowing by consumers and businesses.

Content

This dataset includes data on the economic conditions in the United States on a monthly basis since 1954. The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions trade federal funds (balances held at Federal Reserve Banks) with each other overnight. The rate that the borrowing institution pays to the lending institution is determined between the two banks; the weighted average rate for all of these types of negotiations is called the effective federal funds rate. The effective federal funds rate is determined by the market but is influenced by the Federal Reserve through open market operations to reach the federal funds rate target. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to determine the federal funds target rate; the target rate transitioned to a target range with an upper and lower limit in December 2008. The real gross domestic product is calculated as the seasonally adjusted quarterly rate of change in the gross domestic product based on chained 2009 dollars. The unemployment rate represents the number of unemployed as a seasonally adjusted percentage of the labor force. The inflation rate reflects the monthly change in the Consumer Price Index of products excluding food and energy.

Acknowledgements

The interest rate data was published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' economic data portal. The gross domestic product data was provided by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis; the unemployment and consumer price index data was provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Inspiration

How does economic growth, unemployment, and inflation impact the Federal Reserve's interest rates decisions? How has the interest rate policy changed over time? Can you predict the Federal Reserve's next decision? Will the target range set in March 2017 be increased, decreased, or remain the same?

The interest rate set by the Federal Reserve is a crucial tool for promoting economic conditions that meet the mandate established by the United States Congress, which includes high employment, low and stable inflation, sustainable economic growth, and the moderation of long-term interest rates. The interest rates determined by the Fed directly influence the cost of credit, making financing either more accessible or more restrictive. When interest rates are low, there is a greater incentive for consumers to purchase homes through mortgages, finance automobiles, or undertake home renovations. Additionally, businesses are encouraged to invest in expanding their operations, whether by purchasing new equipment, modernizing facilities, or hiring more workers. Conversely, higher interest rates tend to curb such activity, discouraging borrowing and slowing economic expansion.

The dataset analyzed contains information on the economic conditions in the United States on a monthly basis since 1954, including the federal funds rate, which represents the percentage at which financial institutions trade reserves held at the Federal Reserve with each other in the interbank market overnight. This rate is determined by the market but is directly influenced by the Federal Reserve through open market operations to reach the established target. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets eight times a year to determine the federal funds rate target, which has been defined within a range with upper and lower limits since December 2008.

Furthermore, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is calculated based on the seasonally adjusted quarterly rate of change in the economy, using chained 2009 dollars as a reference. The unemployment rate represents the seasonally adjusted percentage of the labor force that is unemployed. Meanwhile, the inflation rate is determined by the monthly change in the Consumer Price Index, excluding food and energy prices for a more stable analysis of core inflation.

The interest rate data was sourced from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' economic data portal, while GDP information was provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, and unemployment and inflation data were made available by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The analysis of this data helps to understand how economic growth, the unemployment rate, and inflation influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decisions. Additionally, it allows for a study of the evolution of interest rate policies over time and raises the question of how predictable the Fed’s future decisions may be. Based on observed trends, it is possible to speculate whether the target range set in March 2017 will be maintained, lowered, or increased, considering the prevailing economic context and the challenges faced in conducting U.S. monetary policy.

The benchmark interest rate in Sweden was last recorded at 1.75 percent. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Sweden Interest Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

The benchmark interest rate In the Euro Area was last recorded at 2.15 percent. This dataset provides - Euro Area Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

U.S. Economic and Financial Dataset

Dataset Description

This dataset combines historical U.S. economic and financial indicators, spanning the last 50 years, to facilitate time series analysis and uncover patterns in macroeconomic trends. It is designed for exploring relationships between interest rates, inflation, economic growth, stock market performance, and industrial production.

Key Features

• Frequency: Monthly
• Time Period: Last 50 years from Nov-24
• Sources:
  • Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)
  • Yahoo Finance

Dataset Feature Description

1. Interest Rate (Interest_Rate):

   • The effective federal funds rate, representing the interest rate at which depository institutions trade federal funds overnight.

2. Inflation (Inflation):

   • The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, an indicator of inflation trends.

3. GDP (GDP):

   • Real GDP measures the inflation-adjusted value of goods and services produced in the U.S.

4. Unemployment Rate (Unemployment):

   • The percentage of the labor force that is unemployed and actively seeking work.

5. Stock Market Performance (S&P500):

   • Monthly average of the adjusted close price, representing stock market trends.

6. Industrial Production (Ind_Prod):

   • A measure of real output in the industrial sector, including manufacturing, mining, and utilities.

Dataset Statistics

1. Total Entries: 599
2. Columns: 6
3. Memory usage: 37.54 kB
4. Data types: float64

Feature Overview

• Columns:
  • Interest_Rate: Monthly Federal Funds Rate (%)
  • Inflation: CPI (All Urban Consumers, Index)
  • GDP: Real GDP (Billions of Chained 2012 Dollars)
  • Unemployment: Unemployment Rate (%)
  • Ind_Prod: Industrial Production Index (2017=100)
  • S&P500: Monthly Average of S&P 500 Adjusted Close Prices

Executive Summary

This project explores the interconnected dynamics of key macroeconomic indicators and financial market trends over the past 50 years, leveraging data from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) and Yahoo Finance. The dataset integrates critical variables such as the Federal Funds Rate, Inflation (CPI), Real GDP, Unemployment Rate, Industrial Production, and the S&P 500 Index, providing a holistic view of the U.S. economy and financial markets.

The analysis focuses on uncovering relationships between these variables through time-series visualization, correlation analysis, and trend decomposition. Key findings are included in the Insights section. This project serves as a robust resource for understanding long-term economic trends, policy impacts, and market behavior. It is particularly valuable for students, researchers, policymakers, and financial analysts seeking to connect macroeconomic theory with real-world data.

Potential Use Cases

• Economic Analysis: Examine relationships between interest rates, inflation, GDP, and unemployment.
• Stock Market Prediction: Study how macroeconomic indicators influence stock market trends.
• Time Series Modeling: Perform ARIMA, VAR, or other models to forecast economic trends.
• Cyclic Pattern Analysis: Identify how economic shocks and recoveries impact key indicators.

Snap of Power Analysis

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1b40e0ca-7d2e-4fbc-8cfd-df3f09e4fdb8">

To ensure sufficient power, the dataset covers last 50 years of monthly data i.e., around 600 entries.

Key Insights derived through EDA, time-series visualization, correlation analysis, and trend decomposition

• Interest Rate and Inflation Dynamics: The interest Rate and inflation exhibit an inverse relationship, especially during periods of aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve.
• Economic Growth and Market Performance: GDP growth and the S&P 500 Index show a positive correlation, reflecting how market performance often aligns with overall economic health.
• Labor Market and Industrial Output: Unemployment and industrial production demonstrate a strong inverse relationship. Higher industrial output is typically associated with lower unemployment
• Market Behavior During Economic Shocks: The S&P 500 experienced sharp declines during significant crises, such as the 2008 financial crash and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. These events also triggered increased unemployment and contractions in GDP, highlighting the interplay between markets and the broader economy.
• Correlation Highlights: S&P 500 and GDP have a strong positive correlation. Interest rates negatively correlate with GDP and inflation, reflecting monetary policy impacts. Unemployment is negatively correlated with industrial production but positively correlated with interest rates.

Link to GitHub Repo

https:/...

The benchmark interest rate in Brazil was last recorded at 15 percent. This dataset provides - Brazil Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Dataset Description

This dataset contains the actual and predicted federal funds target rate for the United States from 1990 to 2023. The federal funds target rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend their excess reserves to each other overnight. It is set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and is a key tool used by the Federal Reserve to influence the economy.

The dataset includes the following five columns:

Release Date: The date on which the data was released by the Federal Reserve. Time: The time of day at which the data was released. Actual: The actual federal funds target rate. Predicted: The predicted federal funds target rate. Forecast: The forecast federal funds target rate.

Data Usage

This dataset can be used for a variety of purposes, including: - Analyzing trends in the federal funds target rate over time. - Forecasting the future path of the federal funds target rate. - Assessing the effectiveness of monetary policy. - Data Quality

The data for this dataset is of high quality. The Federal Reserve is a reputable source of data and the data is updated regularly.

Data Limitations

The data for this dataset is limited to the United States. Additionally, the data does not include information on the factors that influenced the Federal Open Market Committee's decision to set the federal funds target rate.

The benchmark interest rate in Peru was last recorded at 4.25 percent. This dataset provides - Peru Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The benchmark interest rate in Bulgaria was last recorded at 1.81 percent. This dataset provides - Bulgaria Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The benchmark interest rate in Philippines was last recorded at 4.75 percent. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Philippines Interest Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Replication data based on 17 waves of survey in England.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates in the United States averaged 6.40 percent in the week ending November 21 of 2025. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States MBA 30-Yr Mortgage Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

A traditional way of thinking about the exchange rate regime and capital account openness has been framed in terms of the 'impossible trinity' or 'trilemma', according to which policymakers can only have two of three possible outcomes: open capital markets, monetary independence and pegged exchange rates. The present paper is a natural extension of Escude (A DSGE Model for a SOE with Systematic Interest and Foreign Exchange Policies in Which Policymakers Exploit the Risk Premium for Stabilization Purposes, 2013), which focuses on interest rate and exchange rate policies, since it introduces the third vertex of the 'trinity' in the form of taxes on private foreign debt. These affect the risk-adjusted uncovered interest parity equation and hence influence the SOE's international financial flows. A useful way to illustrate the range of policy alternatives is to associate them with the faces of an isosceles triangle. Each of three possible government intervention policies taken individually (in the domestic currency bond market, in the foreign currency market, and in the foreign currency bonds market) corresponds to one of the vertices of the triangle, each of the three possible pairs of intervention policies corresponds to one of the three edges of the triangle, and the three simultaneous intervention policies taken jointly correspond to the triangle's interior. This paper shows that this interior, or 'pos sible trinity' is quite generally not only possible but optimal, since the central bank obtains a lower loss when it implements a policy with all three interventions.

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the real interest rate in Brazil. First, we define financialization as the major influence of the financial system on domestic politics. We use the proportion of the stock of federal public debt held by financial market agents as a proxy for financialization. Subsequently, we adopted the VEC methodology to perform cointegration and impulse-response analyses for the period 2007-2017. The results suggest that financialization had a positive effect on the real interest rate level.

The benchmark interest rate in Saudi Arabia was last recorded at 4.50 percent. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - Saudi Arabia Interest Rate - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

This paper models the dynamics of Chinese yuan–denominated long-term interest rate swap yields. It shows that the short-term interest rate exerts a decisive influence on the long-term swap yield after controlling for various macrofinancial variables, such as core inflation, the growth of industrial production, the percent change in the equity price index, and the percentage change in the Chinese yuan exchange rate. The autoregressive distributed lag approach is applied to model the dynamics of the long-term swap yield. The findings reinforce and extend John Maynard Keynes’s conjecture that in advanced countries, as well as emerging market economies such as China, the central bank’s actions have a decisive role in setting the long-term interest rate on government bonds and over-the-counter financial instruments, such as swaps.

The benchmark interest rate in France was last recorded at 4.50 percent. This dataset provides - France Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Historical Prime Rates and Related Significant Events 1956-Present

Understanding Lending and Economic Trends

By Brandon Gadoci [source]

About this dataset

This dataset looks back at the history of lending rates from 1956 to present and investigates the effects of significant historical events on prime lending rate. The data, which was sourced from trusted sources, provides an insight into how major political and economic developments have influenced the cost of borrowing in different countries. By examining which events had an impact on interest rates and by how much, this dataset could prove invaluable for researchers looking to understand historical financial trends or for investors trying to understand past market behaviour. Take a step back in time with this comprehensive collection of lending data – it could be the key to unlocking greater insights into our financial history!

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How to use the dataset

This dataset contains historical prime rates from 1956 to present, as well as significant events that may have affected the prime lending rate. With this data, you can analyze changes in the average majority prime rate charged by banks and any events that may have contributed to this change.

To get started with this dataset, you'll want to make sure you understand the columns it contains: Year: This is the year of the data point. (Integer)
Average Majority Prime Rate Charged By Banks: This is average prime rate charged by banks in the majority of he year for a given time period. (Float)
Significant Events: Significant events that may have impacted or shifted the Prime Lending Rate during a certain period or throughout history. (String)

You can then use this information to begin exploring and comparing periods where there were drastic shifts inside of one year within this data set as it provides an overall view intoprime lending during these different times periods along with what plausible external or internal factors could’ve caused them. To do so, you can use descriptive statistics such a means and medians, along with graphing tools such as line charts and scatter plots to observe any correlations between fluctuations inPrime Lending Rates and Significant Events taking place concurrently at different points in time throughout history over six decades §§ when both economic states seem prosperous or abysmal for comparison purposes so we can identify driving forces behind certain trends inside our data set

Research Ideas

• Create a timeline visualization of major prime rate events in the US to show the influence of various political and economic factors on interest rates.
• Superimpose this data over monthly trends of mortgage and auto loan interest rates to illustrate the impact that movements in the prime lending rate have on consumer borrowing.
• Determine which banks currently offer loans with the lowest prime rates, by tracking historic trends against current market conditions for lenders

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors. Data Source

License

License: Dataset copyright by authors - You are free to: - Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. - Adapt - remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. - You must: - Give appropriate credit - Provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. - ShareAlike - You must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. - Keep intact - all notices that refer to this license, including copyright notices.

Columns

File: historical_prime rate.csv | Column name | Description | |:-------------------------------------------------|:---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Year | Year of the average majority prime rate charged by banks. (Integer) | | Average majority prime rate charged by banks | The average majority prime rate charged by banks in a given year. (Float) | | Significant Events | Significant events that may have had an effect on the prime rate. (String) |

Acknowledgements

If you use this dataset in your research, please cr...

The benchmark interest rate in Egypt was last recorded at 21 percent. This dataset provides - Egypt Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The benchmark interest rate in Mozambique was last recorded at 9.50 percent. This dataset provides - Mozambique Interest Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.