The Bank of Israel is taking steps, via the internet, to broaden the public's knowledge of Israel's economy. Thus, for example, the Bank's publications and data tables on various aspects of Israel's economy that satisfy the need for current and updated information are shown on the Bank's website. The database of series forms part of that setup.

The database intended for economists, researchers, students, and public and private organizations that deal with Israel's economy from an empirical standpoint contains time series only, and not cross-sectional studies. These series constitute important tools for economic research and analysis.

Sources
The series in the database are taken from various sources, mainly from the different departments in the Bank of Israel: the Research Department, the Comptroller's Office and the Monetary Department. Another important source of data is the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). With the intention of presenting series with as long a span as possible, the Bank of Israel Research Department concatenates series with different definitions, reclassifications and changes in the price bases. Hence the historical data appearing in the database are not necessarily identical to those published by the CBS. Other sources of data for the series are: the State Revenue Administration, the Ministry of Finance, the Income Tax Commission (Hebrew), the Employment Service (Hebrew), and the National Insurance Institute.

Description of the series
The series in the database encompass a wide variety of areas. There are two ways of finding a particular series of data:

1.  By navigation: the series are divided into areas, which are subdivided further. When a subdivision is selected, all the series in that subdivision are shown. This display gives a description of each series, its frequency, units of measurement, price basis if relevant, and whether the series contains raw or seasonally adjusted data. Additional characteristics of the series can be obtained by clicking on the mouse.

The range of series in this database does not include the exchange rates of various currencies published daily by the Bank of Israel. A separate system on the website is dedicated to that, and offers the possibility of retrieving selected exchange-rate series or retrieving exchange rates of selected exchange rates for a given date.

2.  By the search engine: The user can search for a series by entering a key word. The search can be fine-tuned by entering more than one word, and by selecting whether to search for one word or all the words. The search covers all areas, subdivisions, and descriptions of series, or just some of them. The search can also be performed by frequency of the series (daily, monthly, quarterly or annual), price basis (constant or current prices), and whether the series is seasonally adjusted or not.

Display of series
The system allows several alternative displays: one is as an internet page (HTML display), intended for immediate viewing. It enables the user to view a single series or a limited number of series, but is not suitable for working with the series. Another possibility is a graphic display, a diagram that enables the user to see the trend in the series immediately. There are two methods of series retrieval that are appropriate for working with the series. One is downloading series into an Excel file on the user's computer; the other is downloading onto a CSV file, which is a standard data file via which the series can be transferred to databases of various types or read into Excel. There is no restriction on the number of files that can be downloaded onto the user's computer.

Basket of series
For the convenience of users who require more than one series, there is the possibility of constructing a personal basket of series drawn from different areas. If series of different frequencies are included in the basket (e.g., monthly and quarterly), the basket is split into separate components by frequency. For each series and basket the user can select the period to be displayed, by starting date and ending date. When a basket of series is chosen, there may be instances of data missing in the series, depending on the starting dates and ending dates selected for each series. The basket of series is personal to each user, and its characteristics are maintained via a "cookie" in the user's computer for one year from his first entry into the series database.

People to contact
The series are received from different departments in the Bank of Israel, so that the database may be viewed from the departmental aspect. In case of difficulty with regard to any series, or if further clarification or explanation is required, please contact the relevant coordinators, as follows: