FRB: Z.1 Release--Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, Historical--December 11, 2008

Historical data

The Flow of Funds Z.1 files provide the full set of historical data that correspond to the statistics in the Z.1 release. Two data frequencies are available--annual and quarterly.

(1) Annual: For amounts outstanding, from 1945 forward; for flows, from 1946 forward. Data can be viewed and printed for the following periods:

(2) Quarterly: Compressed files of data from 1952:Q1 to the most recently published quarter can be downloaded.

The data series in the compressed ASCII files of quarterly data are organized in the same way as in the releases and in the Flow of Funds coded tables. You can separately retrieve each of the table files, which have been grouped for convenience into five categories:

Category	Compressed file (PRN)
Flows--seasonally adjusted annual rates (in millions of dollars)	atabs.zip (1.0 MB ZIP)
Flows--unadjusted quarterly rates (in millions of dollars)	utabs.zip (966 KB ZIP)
Outstandings--unadjusted (in millions of dollars)	ltabs.zip (963 KB ZIP)
Balance sheet (in billions of dollars)	btabs.zip (117 KB ZIP)
Debt growth -- adjusted annual rates (in billions of dollars)	gtabs.zip (22 KB ZIP)
Supplementary tables (in billions of dollars)	stabs.zip (542 KB ZIP)

To download any of these files via Netscape, hold down the left shift key and click on the file name.



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Because of their large size, many of the .prn table files contain two parts.  For 


these tables, the last row of data corresponds to the second set of series names, 


which appears part way down the spreadsheet array, not to the set on row 1. 






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Each of the files in atabs.zip, utabs.zip, and ltabs.zip begins with 1952:Q1 and ends with the most recently published quarter. The series in the supplemental tables (F.100.a and L.100.a) are in stabs.zip and contain annual data for 1988 through 1993. The debt growth file (gtabs.zip) contains data from 1953 forward; the data corresponds to tables D.1, D.2, and D.3 in the release. The balance sheet file (btabs.zip) contains quarterly data for 1952 through the last complete year published.

The data files were compressed with PKZIP, version 2.04; the software to expand the files is available from PKWARE's Web site.

Each file name contains the number of the table in that file. For example, the data for table F.117 (seasonally adjusted flows for life insurance companies) is in the file named atab117d.prn (the "d" identifies a DOS file).

Retrieving Tables from Downloaded Zip Files

To retrieve a table, enter the command pkunzip followed by (1) the name of the ".zip" file containing the compressed table and (2) the name of the table or tables desired.

For example:

To retrieve the seasonally adjusted annual flows of table F.117, enter the following command (assuming the .zip file is on your C drive):
C:>pkunzip atabs.zip atab117d.prn
To retrieve the unadjusted quarterly flows of tables F.100 and F.105, enter the following command:
C:>pkunzip utabs.zip utab100d.prn utab105d.prn
To retrieve all the levels tables, enter the following command:
C:>pkunzip ltabs.zip

Expanded files contain a column of dates to identify a time period (in quotes). The series code (in quotes) is at the top of each column of data. In some of the longer tables, a second set of data columns is continued under the first set.

Flow of Funds codes have the following elements:

a two-letter code (FA, FU, or FL), which identifies whether the series is a seasonally adjusted flow, an unadjusted flow, or a level
a nine-digit code, which represents sector; type of transaction; and type of adjustment, data source, or calculation
a one-letter code, which indicates the frequency (.q or .a).

For example, the code FA313161105.q identifies the quarterly seasonally adjusted flow (at an annual rate) for federal government Treasury issues, which is calculated from other series in the flow of funds accounts. The unadjusted flow for the same series is FU313161105.q, and the corresponding levels series--Treasury debt, in this case--is FL313161105.q.

Instructions for Reading Data into Microsoft Excel or Lotus

Microsoft Excel

Click on the "File" pulldown menu
1. Select "Open"
2. Use the resulting dialog box to find drive and file name (use "All Files" option in the window for "List of File Types")
3. Click "OK"
In the resulting dialog box "Text Import Wizard: Step 1 of 3"
1. Original data type: Select "Delimited"
2. Click "Next"
In the resulting dialog box "Text Import Wizard: Step 2 of 3"
1. Delimiter: Select "Space" (and de-select any other delimiter previously selected)
2. Treat conservative delimiters as one: De-select
3. Text qualifier: Select " (the double-quote character)
4. Click "NEXT"
In the resulting dialog box "Text Import Wizard: Step 3 of 3," click "FINISH"

Lotus 1-2-3

With a new spreadsheet displayed, type
1. / (the slash character)
2. the letter f (for File menu)
3. the letter i (for Import menu)
4. the letter n (for Numbers)
At "Enter name of file to import," press the "escape" key to erase the existing entry
Type the drive and file name desired.

Statistical releases