Country Study Information Source

King Yik
(all links work as of Nov 15, 2013)
The following is a list of useful websites to locate country information:
Free sites:
You can Google or use Wikipedia. However, you need to double-check on the accuracy
of the information available there. The following are free information that is reliable.
1. Global Insights at globalEDGE (Center for International Business Education, Michigan
State University):
http://globaledge.msu.edu/Global-Insights/by/country
2. Background Notes by the State Department
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/
3. Doing Business In X: A Country Commercial Guide for U.S. Companies series
These Country Commercial Guides can be located through the Market Research Library
by the U.S. Commercial Service at
http://www.buyusainfo.net/adsearch.cfm?search_type=int&loadnav=no
There are three types of reports available. Click the down arrow in the Report Type box
and you will see: market research reports, country commercial guides, and best market
reports. Country information can be found in the country commercial guide. Click the
down arrow in the Country box and select the country you want. Then click the down
arrow in the Report Type box and select Country Commercial Guide.
The information in Chapter 2: Political and Economic Environment of the Country
Commercial Guides is from the State Department Background Notes.
4. BBC country profiles
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm
The BBC country profiles are very brief. However, it does contain links to current news
about the country and it has multimedia content.
5. Country Studies Series by Library of Congress

Country profiles produced by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress
can be found at:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles.html
Some of these profiles are more update than others. The newest one is Aug 2008 and the
oldest one is Dec 2004.
Country studies, in more depth than the country profiles, can be found here:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html
Note that the information in the country studies is quite out of date. In particular, in the
following page
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/about.html it says,
Note on Timeliness
Studies included here were published between 1988 and 1998. Information on some
countries may no longer be up to date. See the "Research Completed" date at the
beginning of each study or the "Data as of" date at the end of each section of text.
6. CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html
Select a country or region from the drop down menu near the top of the page.
The CIA World Factbook has two very convenient features. For each category within a
country, there is a field listing icon (
) for you to click to see information about the
same category for all countries in alphabetical order. In addition, for some categories,
there is also a country comparison to the world feature showing country ranking by that
category. For example, look up a country that interests you. The country page is
organized by sections. Under the Economy section, look for Debt external. That gives
you the amount of external debt for that country. To see the same information for other
countries, click on
. To see a ranking of countries by the amount of external debt, click
on the number next to country comparison to the world.
7. Central Banks
List of central banks can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_central_banks

Country information available through Business Source Complete:

The ISU library has subscription to a database called Business Source Complete via
EBSCOhost. Some of the information available there is proprietary and requires a
subscription fee. However, it is freely available to ISU students. Use the following link to
go to the librarys Resource by Subject page:
http://www.isu.edu/library/research/subjecthttp://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&bQuery=JN+%22Brazil+Economic+Competitiveness
%22&db=buhs.shtml
Click on business on that page. The first entry on the next page is Business Source
Complete. On the right side of the advance search home page, you will see a Browse
section. Click on Country Reports in the Browse section. This will bring up a list of all
country reports. Click on the country tab to select a country or click on the region tab to
select a region.
If you are connecting from off campus, you need to login using your Bengal card number
and your last name.
Even though the Business Source Complete country reports list is quite comprehensive, it
does not contain all country information available. In the sections below, I will provide
details of how to search for some specific publications.
1. CountryWatch (www.countrywatch.com) compiles country information. Their web site
requires a paid subscription. However, one of their products, Country Review, is available
through Business Source Complete. In particular, the Social Overview section of Country
Review contains a subsection called Cultural Dos and Taboos. You can see the country
reviews included in Business Source Complete by doing the following search. On the
opening page of Business Source Complete click on Advanced Search at the top of the screen.
Type (country review) with the parenthesis into the left search box in the first row. Click on the
down arrow in the first row and select SO Source. Type (country overview) with the parenthesis
into the left search box in the second row. Click the down arrow in the second row and select TI
TITLE. Scroll back up to click the search button. This will bring up the latest country overview
for many countries. Each entry will have Country Overview highlighted in blue. Find the entry
that corresponds to the country you want to write on. (You can do this by performing a Refine
Search.) Click on Country Overview. This will bring up information about the country review
of the chosen country. Click on Country name Country Review (highlighted in blue) under
Source near the top of the screen. On the right of the screen you will see all issues of country
review for the chosen country. Click on the latest year to see the various sections of the country
review. Note that the country review does not come in one file. Business Source Complete breaks
the country review into sections.

2. Datamonitor compiles company profiles and some country profiles. On the opening page
of Business Source Complete click on Advanced Search at the top of the screen. Type (country
profile) with the parenthesis into the left search box in the first row. Click on the down arrow in
the first row and select SO Source. Type datamonitor into the left search box in the second row.
Click the down arrow in the second row and select TX All Text. Type the name of a country into

the left search box in the third row. Click on the down arrow in the third row and select SO
Source. . Click the search button. Datamonitor had been acquired by MarketLine. So repeat the
above search steps by replacing datamonitor by MarketLine.

3. EIU publishes a country profile for about 80 countries once a year. According to the
EIU website, The Country Profile product was discontinued in 2009, at which time the
data it contained was incorporated into the Country Report product.
EIUs country profiles are available in full text PDF format through Business Source
Complete. However, I do not think every country profile published by EIU is included in
Business Source Complete. You can see the country profiles included in Business Source
Complete by doing the following search. On the opening page of Business Source Complete
click on Advanced Search at the top of the screen. Type (country profile) with the parenthesis into
the left search box in the first row. Click on the down arrow in the first row and select SO Source.
Type (basic data) with the parenthesis into the left search box in the second row. Click the down
arrow in the second row and select TI TITLE. In the Limit your results section on the left of the
screen, check the full text box. Scroll back up to click the search button. This will bring up many
results. Each entry will have Basic data highlighted in blue. Find the entry that corresponds to the
country you want to write on. Click on Basic data. This will bring up information about the
country profile of the chosen country. Click on Country Profile (highlighted in blue) under Source
near the top of the screen. On the right of the screen you will see all issues of country profile for
the chosen country. Click on the latest year to see the country profile. Note that for some
countries and for some years, the country profile does not come in one file. Business Source
Complete breaks the country profile into sections.
4. EIU publishes a country report for about 200 countries once a monthly. These country reports
cover more countries than the country profiles and they are published more frequently. However,
each country report is not as in depth as a country profile. You can see the list of current country
reports at the EIU website:

http://country.eiu.com/AllCountries.aspx
EIUs country reports are available through Business Source Complete with a 6-month
delay. However, I do not think every country report published by EIU is included in
Business Source Complete. You can see the country reports included in Business Source
Complete by doing the following search. On the opening page of Business Source Complete
click on Advanced Search at the top of the screen. Type (country report) with the parenthesis into
the left search box in the first row. Click on the down arrow in the first row and select SO Source.
Type glance without the quotes into the left search box in the second row. Click the down arrow
in the second row and select TI TITLE. In the Published Date box, enter 2004 to 2004. Scroll
back up to click the search button. This will bring up a list of results. Each entry will have
Country name at a glance highlighted in blue. Find the entry that corresponds to the country
you want to write on. (You can do this by performing a Refine Search.) Click on country name
at a glance. This will bring up information about the country profile of the chosen country. Click
on Country Profile (highlighted in blue) under Source near the top of the screen. On the right of
the screen you will see all issues of country report for the chosen country. Click on the latest year
to see the country profile. Note that for some countries and for some years, the country report
does not come in one file. Business Source Complete breaks the country report into sections.

Note also that since the EIU country reports are available with a 6-month delay through Business
Source Complete, some of the most recent reports are not available in full text.

5. The ICON Group (www.icongrouponline.com) periodically publishes a series titled X

Economic Studies, also known as Executive Report on Strategies in X, where X is the
name of a country. The series covers about 191 countries. On the opening page of Business
Source Complete click on Advanced Search at the top of the screen., Type (economic studies)
with the parenthesis into the left search box in the first row. Click on the down arrow in the first
row and select SO Source. Type (icon group) with the parenthesis into the left search box in the
second row. Click the down arrow in the second row and select TX All Text. Each report has a

section on human resource assessment and cultural and demographic risk. These
reports are included in Business Resource Complete.
More recently The ICON Group also produces a series of country economic
competitiveness report for a number of countries. Repeat the above search in Business
Source Complete with (economic studies) replaced by (economic competitiveness).
Appendix
The following information about resources available through Red River College is no
longer valid. It will be updated if the links are fixed.
The Red River College of Canada has an extremely useful library web site that will take
you directly to the country information available through Business Source Elite. The
address is:
http://library.rrc.ca/subjectguides/internationalmkt/page_01.htm
Go to the above page. Click on a country. It will show you a list of country and industry
information available from Business Source Elite. It is really convenient. When you click
to see a document, it will ask you for Red River College User ID and password so you
cannot use it. However, you can copy and paste. For example, From the Red River link
above, you find that there is a document called Brazil Economic Competitiveness. Copy
the phrase Brazil Economic Competitiveness from the Red River page. Then go to the
above link for ISU Business Source Complete. Paste the phrase into the search box on the
ISU Business Source Complete page and add JN and a space to the front. Adding JN to
the front will help you narrow down the search results to only documents with the phrase
in the journal title. If you do not append JN to the search phrase, you might get too many
results.
Note that Red River Colleges subscription is for Business Source Elite while ISU has the
broader Business Source Complete. So if you do a search in Business Source Complete
directly, you might find more documents than listed on the Red River College site. Also,
pages on the internet change constantly. I do not know whether this very useful Red River
College page will continue to exist in the future or how often it is updated.