Library Guides: Marketing: Country Information

Country Profiles in Library Databases

Among the Library databases, there are some resources that collect country reports and information. Some of them are strictly political, others are more business oriented.

In order to get a comprehensive knowledge, you should explore more than one single resource.

Business Source Premier
includes full text country economic reports from the selected sources such as EIU, Global Insight, ICON Group and CountryWatch.
Search tip 1: type the name of a country and limit the results by publication type Country Report

Search tip 2: type the name of a country and "country review"
CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online)
CIAO includes an atlas that provides country data gathered from the Economist Intelligence Unit.
It covers a very wide range of subjects related to International Politics, such as:
- Security
- Economics
- Development
- Foreign Policy
- International Relations
- Diplomacy
- Governance
- Defense Policy
- European Union
MarketLine Advantage
Includes country macroeconomic outlooks and PESTLE analysis.
Search tip: type the name of the country and select Country Profiles
Content includes:
- industry profiles
- country and city profiles
- theme reports
- case studies
- analyst insights
- company news
- financial deals
and more.
Nexis Uni
You can search for news, risk, and economic overviews about a specific country.

In the Guided Search section:
1. Choose Country Info in the What are you interested in? box.
2. Choose a country name from the Which country? drop-down list.
3. Choose a specific source from the Choose a source drop-down list. Your options include All Sources, Recent news stories, Country Risk Overview, Political Risk Overview, and Economic Overview.
4. Click Search. Your results appear.
News sources provided by Nexis Uni include:
- national and regional newspapers
- international news
- news transcripts
- newswires and press releases
Legal material includes:
- U.S. Federal and state case law
- codes
- regulations
- legal news
- law reviews
Business content includes:
- international legal information
- business news journals
- company financial information
- industry and market news.
Statista
Statista includes country reports that can be accessed by selecting Country Reports from the Reports tab. There are also country studies that report statistics about the chosen country.

Do not forget to research individual country home pages and tourism bureaus!

Basic Facts about Other Countires

CIA Factbook

Business-Related Information About Specific Countries

OECD Corporate Governance Factbook 2019
The OECD Corporate Governance Factbook provides easily accessible and up-to-date information about the institutional, legal and regulatory frameworks for corporate governance across 49 jurisdictions worldwide.

OECD Factbook 2015-2016 by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Staff
Publication Date: 2016
OECD Factbook 2015 is a comprehensive annual statistical publication. More than 100 indicators cover a wide range of areas: agriculture, economic production, education, energy, environment, foreign aid, health, industry, information and communications, international trade, labor force, population, taxation, public expenditure, and R&D. Data are provided for all OECD member countries (including area totals) and, when available and considered internationally comparable, for Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, and South Africa. Each indicator is given a two-page spread: the first page includes a short introduction followed by a detailed definition of the indicator, comments on comparability of the data, an assessment of long-term trends related to the indicator, and a list of references for further information on the indicator. The second page contains a table and a graph providing, at a glance, the key message conveyed by the data. Each indicator includes StatLinks, which allow readers to download the corresponding data.
The publication was discontinued.

Country Commercial Guides
U.S. Government Country Commercial Guides provide a TON of information intended to assist individuals looking to do business in a particular nation. As well as general background information on countries, coverage includes specifics regarding: Selling U.S. Products and Services, Leading Sectors for U.S. Export and Investment, Trade Regulations, Customs and Standards, Trade and Project Financing.
Doing Business: Measuring Business Regulations
This report series is a valuable introduction to many aspects of doing business in over a hundred countries. It includes general information on countries in individual volumes, as well as such topics as foreign investment incentives, restrictions on foreign investments and investors, the regulatory environment, banking and finance, labor relations and social security, accounting principles, the tax system, taxation of corporations and individuals
more...less...
The project will be discontinued (https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2021/09/16/world-bank-group-to-discontinue-doing-business-report)
Lex Mundi - Guides to Doing Business
The Lex Mundi Guides to Doing Business series provide an in-depth look at business, economic, political and cultural trends in more than 100 jurisdictions around the world.
World Chambers Network
The official global chamber directory, with over 12,000 chambers representing more than 40 million member businesses and boards of trade worldwide. Keyword search by typing in country name, industry, or product.
Enterprise Surveys
Enterprise Surveys provide the world's most comprehensive company-level data in emerging markets and developing economies.
The surveys cover a broad range of business environment topics including access to finance, corruption, infrastructure, crime, competition, and performance measures.
Numbeo - Cost of Living
Cost of living information for nearly 5,000 cities around the world.
Note: the database is built on user generated data.
IMF Country Focus
IMF publishes articles focusing on various economic aspects of countries of the world.

World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open-access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
Includes books, reports, working papers, policy notes, Country Strategy Documents and Economic and Sector Work (ESW) Studies.

The Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC)
A visualization tool that allows users to create a visual narrative of countries, and the products they trade.
UNData
This website pulls out information from various UN statistical databases. You can pull out information from databases individually, or search by country.

Social and Cultural Environment

UNDP Statistics of the Human Development Report
Focused analysis inclusing rankings of countries on measures such as the life expectancy, access to health care and technology, income distribution, and literacy.
Transparency International
This organization aims to create a world free of corruption. You can find reports, surveys and information about corruption by topic or by country.
Hofstede Insights
Evaluates a country's culture based on metrics such individualism, masculinity, power distance and indulgence.
World Happiness Report
The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be.

Country Information

Country Profiles in Library Databases

Basic Facts about Other Countires

IMF Country Information

CIA Factbook

Countries and Economies

IMF Country Information

CIA Factbook

Countries and Economies

IMF Country Information

Business-Related Information About Specific Countries

Social and Cultural Environment