Niagara University Library: Business and Market Conditions in Countries of the World: A Guide to Online Research

Niagara University Library
Business and Market Conditions in Countries of the World:
A Guide to Online Research

This guide is intended to help you find information on business, market, and economic conditions of countries. It is aimed at students doing research in international marketing and other courses where learning about the economic and commercial climate of a country is important.

Below you will be pointed to two types of resources:

Web sites.
Databases to which the Library subscribes that you can search from anywhere on campus without needing a password. But if you are connecting from home, you will need a user id and password, which you can obtain from a reference librarian. Call 716-286-8022, stop by the reference desk, or send an email request to reflib@niagara.edu (please make sure to include your name and student ID number in your message).

Find Out What Has Recently Been Going On in the Country

This step is not specifically business-oriented. But before you do anything else, it is important for you to have some idea of what has recently been going on in the country. You could collect all the economic and demographic data you could find, but the context of that information would be completely changed if a civil war recently erupted or if a devastating earthquake occurred.

Here are a few web sites that link to news stories on countries:

ABYZ News Links (www.abyznewslinks.com): A portal to online news sources from around the world. It is primarily composed of newspapers but also includes many broadcast stations, internet services, magazines, and press agencies.
Google News (news.google.com): Presents information culled from approximately 4,000 news sources worldwide. You can't browse by country, but you can type your country's name as a keyword.

There are two Library databases that are good sources of news.

Lexis/Nexis (www.niagara.edu/library/ltrial.html) provides access to a great number of newspapers. Chose the News category and click on Guided News Search tab. From there you can choose to search World News. Then you choose which region's papers to search. We recommend that you search the region the country is in and North American News sources (which will give you news about the country from American newspapers).

Here is an example of what Lexis/Nexis search can look like.

The search in the example above looked for Thailand or Thai in the headline of north American newspapers, covering the last six months. You can also search European, Asian, and Middle Eastern African news sources from the second drop down box.

Please note that Lexis/Nexis won't let you retrieve more than 1,000 articles, so you may have to limit your search to the last couple of months, which you can do manually. The Tips link in Lexis will show you how to do this.

The other database you can search for general news is called Academic Search Premier via EBSCOhost (www.niagara.edu/library/ebsco.html). It provides access to a lot of magazine news sources like Newsweek, Business Week, and more.

Collect Economic and Demographic Data

In order to do effective market research, it is important to obtain economic and demographic data on the country.

CIA World Factbook (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html): Facts and statistics on more than 250 countries and other entities.
Country Background Notes (www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/): Produced by the U.S. State Department.
CountryWatch.com (highly recommended--www.niagara.edu/library/cwatch.html): Consolidates a great deal of data into a single location and even provides recent news stories.
Portals to the World (www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html): Nicely organized country links.
United Nations Statistics Division (unstats.un.org/unsd/): Provides all sorts of detailed statistics, some of which you need a subscription to, but still a lot for free.

Find Specific Information on Business Climate and Market Conditions

Up to this point, your research has been general, so it is important to find resources that discuss the investment and market climate of your country. The following web sites are helpful.

Country Briefings from the Economist.com (www.economist.com/countries/): Contains short country profiles. The forecasts are helpful.
Doing Business: Benchmarking Business Regulations (www.doingbusiness.org): Provides indicators of the cost of doing business by identifying specific regulations that enhance or constrain business investment, productivity, and growth.
Export.gov Country and Industry Market Research (www.export.gov/index.asp): Links to helpful resources, including advice and statistics.
Overseas Private Investors Corporation (www.opic.gov/): OPIC, a U.S. government agency, assists U.S. private investment overseas. The Investor's Info Gateway Links provide a lot of country-specific information.

You still may also need to read specialized articles from business publications on your country.

The two best databases are:

ABI-INFORM Global via ProQuest (www.niagara.edu/library/pquest.html): The premier business and management journal database providing extensive coverage of North America and the world.
Business Source Premier via EBSCOhost (www.niagara.edu/library/ebsco.html): Full-text coverage for 8,200 periodicals, including the full text for more than 1,100 peer-reviewed business publications covering management, economics, finance, accounting, international business, etc. The database also includes many leading journals in the areas of economics,finance, and accounting, as well as country economic reports from the EIU, DRI-WEFA, ICON Group and CountryWatch. To obtain country reports, do a simple search of the country name. Then when the results are displayed, you can view Country Economic Data, if you wish.

Find Trade Statistics

If you need to find world trade data (who imports/exports what from whom), then consult these sources.

Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb (dataweb.usitc.gov): This site is hard to use, but provides detailed data on American exports to other countries. For example, you can determine the dollar value of exports of sleeping bags to Germany in any given year.
International Trade Centre Statistics (www.intracen.org/menus/countries.htm): Provides statistics by country or product.
Statistical Resources on the Web for Foreign Trade (www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stectrad.html)
TradePort (www.tradeport.org): The premier online resource for comprehensive information and links to global trade assistance centers throughout California.
UN Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) (comtrade.un.org)
U.S. Trade Administration (www.ita.doc.gov/td/industry/otea)
World Bank Trade Statistics (www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/databytopic.html)
World Trade Organization International Trade Statistics (www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/statis_e.htm)

Find Books in the Library

You may have enough information by this point, but you might want to also investigate some of the print materials that can be found in the Library.

The Library might own some useful books. Try a Title Keyword Search of your country name in the Library Catalog (www.niagara.edu/library/catalog.html), and then sort the results by date, so that you view the most recent books first.

If You Did Not Find Everything You Need,
Ask a Reference Librarian for Assistance

In a guide like this one, it is impossible to identify all the sources of information available to you. So, if there is information you need that you can't find, please consult with a reference librarian. You can also schedule an appointment with the librarian specializing in business information. Just contact David Schoen at 716-286-8001 or schoen@niagara.edu.