This WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources is an Internet directory of over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language sources of information and analysis in many international and global studies topics. Sites are carefully selected for their long-term value, favoring those with cost-free, authoritative information and analysis online.

Blogs, Academic, and Research Institutes

United States and Canadian Governments

Business and  Commercial

International Organizations

Blogs, Academic, and Research Institute Resources

Insightful Blogs and Free Newsletters and News Sources about International Business and Economics-- International Business Times, IMF Blog, World Bank, Vox.eu

• Atlas of Economic Complexity-- From the Growth Lab at Harvard University, "an award-winning data visualization tool that allows people to explore global trade flows across markets, track these dynamics over time and discover new growth opportunities for every country."

• Fraser Institute-- Independent Canadian research and educational organization with the mission "to measure, study, and communicate the impact of competitive markets and government intervention on the welfare of individuals." Sponsors the Economic Freedom of the World project, which conducts and posts detailed comparative studies on economic freedom around the world, with both global and country-specific analysis and rankings.

• globalEDGE-- From the International Business Center at Michigan State University, "a knowledge web-portal that connects international business professionals worldwide to a wealth of information, insights, and learning resources on global business activities" by countries, U.S. states, industries, and trade blocs with "statistics, indices, trade information, maps, interactive rankings, and resources pages." The Global Resource Directory "offers a rich collection of thousands of international business- and trade-related resources." There is an international business glossary. The Online Course Modules, "interactive educational tools for use in the classroom or in executive training,,..focus on issues pertinent to international business and include a case study or anecdotes, a glossary of terms, quiz questions, and a list of references when applicable."

• Global Integrity-- "Generates, synthesizes, and disseminates credible, comprehensive and timely information on governance and corruption trends around the world... Our information is meant to serve simultaneously as a roadmap for engaged citizens, a reform checklist for policymakers, and a guide to the business climate for investors." Posts much insightful data and analysis. Note especially the Global Integrity Report.

• Group of 7 and Group of 20 Information Centres-- From the Global Governance Program at the University of Toronto, background information, all documentation arising from summit meetings, available documentation from ministerial and other meetings, and scholarly articles and bibliographies about the G7 and G 20 processes.

• Index of Economic Freedom-- "A practical reference guide to the world's economies. It includes country-by-country analyses and the most up-to-date data available on foreign investment codes, taxes, tariffs, banking regulations, monetary policy, black markets, and more," from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank aiming to spread the ideas of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Co-published with The Wall Street Journal.

• Institute for Management Development-- One of the world's leading global business schools, located in Lausanne, Switzerland, working to help executives and companies find new and innovative ways to sustain global competitiveness. Note the online information from their widely-quoted World Competitiveness Yearbook, "the world’s most renowned and comprehensive annual report on the competitiveness of nations, ranking and analyzing how a nation’s environment creates and sustains the competitiveness of enterprises."

• International Trade Resources-- Excellent and very useful "Subject Tracer™ Information Blog, part of Marcus P. Zillman's Virtual Private Library™. "It is designed to monitor international trade resources on the World Wide Web and listed below."

• Peterson Institute for International Economics-- A highly-regarded, private, nonprofit, nonpartisan American research institution devoted to the study of international economic policy, especially in anticipating emerging issues and offering "practical ideas, presented in user-friendly formats, to inform and shape public debate." Many working papers, policy briefs, speeches, testimonies, and so forth are online.

• Transparency International-- Transparency International is the "leading global non-governmental organisation devoted to combating corruption." Their many corruption surveys, indexes, and reports rank "the home countries of the payers of international bribes" and rank "countries in terms of the degree to which they are perceived to be the homes of bribe-takers-- public officials who abuse their office for personal gain."

United States and Canadian Government Resources

NOTE: Also check the relevant links in the United States Government Information Sources section of this Web site.

• Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce-- Data, articles, and surveys on exports, imports, and capital flows to and from the U.S., and its position in the world economy.

• Country Information-- From Export Development Canada, international business-related analytical profiles for most countries. Also visit their Knowledge Centre, for in-depth analyses, free publications, and a library of trade resources.

• Customs and Border Protection-- "The single unified border agency of the United States." Information on the agency's border control and customs functions, with official statements, import, export, border security, and international travel information, regulations, statistics, and forms. Note the Customs Rulings Online Search System, a database of CBP rulings, plus trade-related links.

• Department of Agriculture Agency Reports-- Part of a News Release section to access and search current and past reports of the Economic Research Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, National Agricultural Statistics Service, and World Agricultural Outlook Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)-- From the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, abundant data and high-quality, original analytical working papers and publications on multiple aspects of economies worldwide, easily searchable. Also note IDEAS, "the largest bibliographic database dedicated to Economics and available freely on the Internet," with millions of research items, most available for free download through a thorough search system. "Includes bibliographic metadata from over 2,000 participating archives, including all the major publishers and research outlets."

• Foreign Agricultural Service-- News and analysis about world agricultural trade and policy, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, by countries and commodities, especially as affects the United States. The USDA Economic Research Service overview of U.S. Agricultural Trade has information and data on U.S. agricultural trade with all the countries and regions of the world. Also see the more general USDA section on International Markets and U. S. Trade for much topical information and analysis.

• International Labor Comparisons, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics-- Comparative statistical information on labor conditions and developments outside the United States.

• International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce-- "Provides access to ITA's valuable information and services regarding U.S. international trade policy," with trade topics, data and analysis, and publications useful for international trade generally. The excellent Country Commercial Guides section contains many analytical reports and statistics on a wide range of international business-related information, including country situations and practices. The free trade agreement Tariff Tool allows users to find tariff information and export data on specific industrial goods covered under the FTAs.

• Trade Data Online-- From Industry Canada, the latest trade data for the U.S. and Canada, obtained from Statistics Canada and the U.S. Department of Commerce, by product and industry. "Provides the ability to generate customized reports on Canada's and U.S. trade in goods with over 200 countries."

• TradeStats Express-- From the Office of Trade and Economic Analysis in the International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, information about U.S. imports and exports that can be arranged, compared, and contrasted in many combinations and in a clear format by an advanced search facility.

• U.S. Foreign Trade Statistics-- From the U.S. Census Bureau, the "official source for U.S. export and import statistics and responsible for issuing regulations governing the reporting of all export shipments from the United States" with "import or export statistics, information on export regulations, commodity classifications, or a host of other trade related topics."

• U.S. International Trade Commission-- An independent, quasi-judicial federal agency that provides trade expertise to government, determines the impact of imports on U.S. industries, and directs actions against certain unfair trade practices, such as patent, trademark, and copyright infringement. The very useful Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb allows customized free searches of various types of U.S. trade data by country and product. Also note the many publications free online. The Harmonized Tariff Schedule section "contains the chapter-by-chapter listing of the [U.S.] Harmonized Tariff Schedule and general notes."

• United States Trade Representative-- Responsible for developing and coordinating U.S. international trade, commodity, and direct investment policy, and leading or directing negotiations with other countries on such matters. Many full-text reports and trade agreements available, plus issue, regional, and sector-specific sections, including U.S. trade policy.

Business and Commercial Resources

• Coface North America-- Consulting firm that "helps companies -- of all sizes, in all industries -- minimize the risk of trading on credit. Our three main areas of business are credit insurance, credit reporting and collections services." Posts many general reports and specific country assessments of political and credit risk and business climate.

• "Doing Business" Guides-- From the UHY network of accounting and consulting firms, each guide in PDF "covers country specific business information you need to consider should you wish to pursue business interests there."

• Economist-- The outstanding global news weekly from London. Note the Markets and Data section.

• Euromoney-- Research, surveys, and capital markets league tables from Euromoney's proprietary databases, plus dates of forthcoming industry summits, conferences, and seminars.

• International Chamber of Commerce-- From "the world business organization," information on the organization, its activities, national affiliates, conferences, and international trade and investment generally.

• Journal of Commerce-- World-class international business newspaper.

• Lex Mundi Guides to Doing Business-- "Collection of [detailed] overviews written by Lex Mundi member [law] firms that provide detailed information about each firm’s country, state, or province." Includes the U.S. and Canada.

• Market Watch-- From the Wall Street Journal, thorough coverage of the world's stock markets.

• Open Corporates-- "The largest open database of companies in the world... making transparent, official company data available to all... data that can be trusted, accessed, analysed, and interrogated when and how it's needed." Provides search capability for millions of registered companies and officers around the world.

• Trading Economics-- "Provides its users with accurate information for 196 countries including historical data for more than 20 million economic indicators, exchange rates, stock market indexes, government bond yields and commodity prices. Our data is based on official sources, not third party data providers, and our facts are regularly checked for inconsistencies." Current data is free, but historical data is by subscription.

• Xe Currency Converter-- Check exchange rates among many national currencies, with "the world's trusted currency authority," using mid-market rates, "for informational purposes only." Includes many handy additional features regarding currencies.

• Access2 Markets-- From the Commission of the European Union, market and trade flow data and information by country, sector, or legal agreement area-- "all you need to know about duties, taxes, product rules and requirements for all EU countries and over 120 other markets around the world." Note the Useful Links to related organizations. Also see the European Commission's Trade site for much information on EU trade matters, internally and with non-members.

• Bank for International Settlements-- Owned and controlled by national central banks, the BIS provides services to central banks and, through them, to the international financial system more generally. Site hosts publications on world banking, statistics on international finance, links to the central banks of the world, and a Central Bank Research Hub with publications from the world's central banks.

• Foreign Trade Information System-- Trade Unit of the Organization of American States, with information, statistics, and documents about hemispheric integration, trade trends in the Western Hemisphere, and links to further data.

• Global Preferential Trade Agreement Database-- From the International Trade Department of the World Bank, "information on preferential trade agreements around the world, including agreements that have not been notified to the World Trade Organization... indexed using a classification consistent with the WTO criteria... that allows users to search PTAs around the world by provisions or keywords and to compare provisions across multiple agreements."

• Global Trade Alert—“Provides real-time information on state measures taken during the current global downturn that are likely to affect foreign commerce. It goes beyond other monitoring initiatives by identifying the trading partners likely to be harmed by these measures.” Supported by the World Bank and several other prestigious organizations.

• International Monetary Fund-- The IMF oversees a wide range of international economic and financial issues. At the eLibrary, you can "find in-depth, independent analysis on the financial crisis, development, macroeconomics, poverty reduction, trade, globalization, and much more." Check the Data page to find your statistical topic. A Dataset page provides central access to large IMF macroeconomic and financial data banks for download. Numerous publications on economic and financial issues, including country information and World Economic Outlook reports, are available. There is a multimedia section. Also see the quarterly journal Finance and Development.

• International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-- An NGO "network of the national standards institutes of 162 countries, on the basis of one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, that coordinates the system." Site has information on the ISO and its work, with documents and reports about the standardization of products and services in the global market.

• International Trade Centre-- A  joint subsidiary organ of the WTO and the United Nations, ITC posts excellent infobases, including bibliographies, trade contacts and information sources, international trade statistics, services, and country and market briefs. Trade Forum is its digital magazine.

• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-- The international organization of the industrialized, market-economy countries, to exchange information and harmonize policy to maximize economic growth within member countries and assist non-member countries to develop more rapidly. OECD data and statistics search facilities are available online. The Publications section is a good place to start searching for publications, as are the iLibrary and the Papers section. OECD resources focusing on a particular country (OECD member or not) can be found in the Countries section.

• UN Comtrade-- From the United Nations Statistics Division. Fine source, includes data visualization. "Free access to detailed global trade data... a repository of official trade statistics and relevant analytical tables. It contains annual trade statistics starting from 1962 and monthly trade statistics since 2010."

• United Nations Commission on International Trade Law-- "Core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law... [whose] business is the modernization and harmonization of rules on international business." Posts resources on international trade law and arbitration.

• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development-- "UNCTAD is the principal organ of the United Nations General Assembly dealing with trade, investment and development issues." Site posts major development studies in summary or full-text, basic documents, and newsletters. UNCTADStat is the master location for all UNCTAD statistics and is continuously updated. Many of UNCTAD's areas of work are relevant to international business.

• World Bank Group--  A very large number of excellent online publications available, relevant to international business, as well as fine specialized sections tuned to that purpose. Business Ready "is the World Bank’s new flagship report benchmarking the business environment and investment climate in most economies worldwide. The report assesses the regulatory framework and public services directed at firms, and the efficiency with which regulatory framework and public services are combined in practice." Take a look at the large Data and Documents and Reports sections. The valuable Open Knowledge Repository serves to "increase access to information at the World Bank and to make its research as widely available as possible." The World Bank Data Catalog is "a listing of available World Bank datasets, including databases, pre-formatted tables, reports, and other resources." The Countries and Economies page presents time-series tables of key indicators by country.
Check out the large Trade section, with many online publications. The Logistics Performance Index "is an interactive benchmarking tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance on trade logistics and what they can do to improve their performance [which] allows for comparisons across 160 countries." The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency provides analyses of global trends in political risk and case studies, especially the annual "World Investment and Political Risk." The World Bank's Enterprise Analysis unit allows user-customized inquiries with the Enterprise Surveys of "data from face-to-face interviews with top managers and business owners in over 130,000 firms in 135 economies." The annual World Development Indicators is "compiled from officially-recognized international sources. It presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates." The Global Consumption Database "is a one-stop source of data on household consumption patterns in developing countries," excellent for "businesses seeking a better understanding of the markets into which they are expanding or those they are already serving."

• World Customs Organization-- This international organization dealing with customs regulations worldwide posts much information, explanation, and analysis of customs regulations and procedures, news, WTO recommendations, historical documents, a magazine, and links to national customs authorities.

• World Economic Forum-- A world-class organization of leaders from business, government, academia, and the media partnering to create new business opportunities and to shape and address in an action-oriented way the key issues on the global agenda. Many excellent online publications relevant to international business. Note the prestigious annual reports on Global Competitiveness, Global Enabling Trade, Financial Development, Global Gender Gap, Global Social Mobility Index, Global Risk, and other valuable global, regional, and country reports.

• World Trade Organization-- The only global body dealing with the rules of trade among nations, whose agreements are the legal ground-rules for international commerce and for trade policy. Note the Documents and Resources page for statistics, research, publications and other services of the WTO, the International Trade and Market Access Data page, and the WTO Documents page for access to all online official WTO documents. Trade Topics is a directory for much of the information on the site. The News section is helpful. The annual World Tariff Profiles "provides detailed data on the bound and applied tariffs of WTO members." The detailed WTO annual report on international trade statistics and the Trade Profiles booklet are especially useful. There is a regional trade agreements section with an Information System that allows retrieval of information on all RTAs notified to the GATT/WTO. The Tariff Download Facility database "contains comprehensive information on Most- Favoured-Nation (MFN) applied and bound tariffs at the standard Harmonized System (HS) subheading level for all WTO Members."