Business and Economics Databases on the Internet

Below are listed a selection of pages which provide genuinely useful and comprehensive coverage of particular areas, comparable to commercially available databases.

Bank of England
The Bank of England site includes: the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee which sets interest rates; summaries of the Inflation Report and Quarterly Bulletin; the latest monetary and financial statistics; press
releases.

BIS - Department for Business, Innovation & Skills
A comprehensive information source, with overviews of the main UK business sectors and links to regulatory documents and statistics. Sectors covered include Automotive, Computer Games, Construction and E Commerce. You can also download a number of BIS reports and search for analysis and statistics on business policy.

Biz/ed
Biz/ed is a free online service for students, teachers and lecturers, in the areas of business, economics, accounting, leisure & recreation, and travel & tourism. The site is a combination of primary and secondary teaching and learning resources. It includes current affairs articles, weekly newsletters, case studies and in-depth features.

Businesslink.gov.uk
Supported by the Government, this website offers advice and support service for businesses. The site provides all the information needed for anyone setting up or running a small business: legal issues, licences, finance, grants, taxation, IT risk assessment, health and safety, marketing , employing people, personal development, growing the business etc..

Directgov
The web database of the UK government containing over 1.3 million documents from all government departments and agencies. Particularly helpful in the human resource management areas of working conditions, health and safety and industrial relations.

Directory of Open Access Journals
This database has been set up to promote open access to scientific and scholarly journals. It aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. At the moment only about 100 business and management journals, and 90 economics journals, are available (coverage is better for subjects like Computing for example), but this is growing, so it's worth a look.

Economic and Social Research Council
The ESRC's research catalogue contains details of ESRC-funded research projects, including over 100,000 research outputs, such as articles, books and papers.

HM Treasury
Contains over 4,000 documents, from press releases to consultation documents, Budget Reports and Spending Reviews.

Intellectual Property Office
This is the site of the official government body responsible for granting Intellectual Property (IP) rights in the UK. You can find information on copyright, designs, patents and trade marks. There is a search facility for finding specific designs, patents (back to 2002), and trade marks granted in the UK.

National Statistics
Official government data on the economy, population and society at national and local level. Summary and time series data can be downloaded free of charge.

UK TradeInfo
This site, provided by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), compiles trade statistics on goods leaving and entering the UK. Information is taken directly from returns and reports required with every export and import consignment. Extremely useful market intelligence which helps to identify new trade opportunities for products across the world, measures market share to identify growth areas and helps to forecast trends and analyse patterns. You can also find trade tables and exchange rate information from this site.