Each chart on the site ties to a chapter of Laurence Wilse-Samson's textbooks. Below, every chart has an exercise that uses its data. Download the CSV, work in a spreadsheet, R or Python, and check your reading against the chapter.
For fiscal policy, the Fiscal calculator ↗ scores ten-year budget options and works as a classroom exercise on its own.
Rank the six countries by months of import cover in the latest year and in 2015. Which fall below the three-month rule of thumb? Then explain why import cover can mislead for a country with large short-term external debt, and name the measure the chapter prefers.
Find the largest four-week fall in custody holdings in March 2020. Why would foreign central banks sell Treasuries during a dash for cash, and how did the FIMA repo facility, marked on the chart, offer them an alternative to selling?
Compute Belgium's and the Cayman Islands' holdings as a share of the five shown in the latest month. Why are those holdings so large relative to their economies? Read Setser's post on custodial holdings, linked on the chart, and explain what custodial bias does to the data.
Find the month the official share peaked and its latest value. Who replaced central banks as foreign buyers of Treasuries? Why does it matter whether foreign demand comes from price-insensitive official holders or price-sensitive private ones?
Compute the change in the dollar share from the first quarter of 2008 to the last quarter of 2009. Did banks retreat from dollar lending during the crisis, or did the share hold? Connect your answer to the dollar funding shortage the chapter describes.
Using the CSV, compute the index's percentage change over the six months after 15 September 2008 and after 15 March 2020. Why does the dollar rise in a global crisis even when it starts in the United States? Answer using the chapter's account of who needs dollars in a crunch.
Explain why the shares sum to 200. Then list the renminbi's share in each survey year and compare its latest share with China's share of world goods exports (look it up in WTO data). What explains the gap between trade weight and trading weight?
Compute the dollar's average share over the first three years in the data and over the last three. Has the dollar's role in foreign-currency borrowing grown or shrunk? Why does this measure matter more for emerging-market balance-sheet risk than the reserve share does?
Find the year the euro's share peaked and its latest value. What happened to the euro's share after the euro-area crisis? Then compare with the foreign-currency-only chart: why does the euro look stronger here than there?
Compare the U.S. estimate in 2007 and in 2019. If the neutral rate fell between them, what does that imply about how restrictive a given policy rate was in 2022–23? Use the policy-rates chart alongside this one.
Find the month the Fed began raising rates in 2022. Which of the other five central banks had already started tightening by then, and which followed? What does the order tell you about how much policy autonomy the periphery has?
Find the peak weekly level of swaps in 2008–09 and in 2020, and count how many weeks each took to fall below $50 billion. Why did the 2020 episode unwind so much faster? Use the chapter's discussion of standing swap lines.
Compute the banks' net foreign-currency claims in the last quarter of 2015 and in the latest quarter, and the change in official reserves over the same years. Which grew more? Setser argues that China's state banks now hold reserves the central bank no longer shows. What would you need to know about who owns these banks, and who decides what they buy, before counting their foreign assets as reserves?
For each country, compare the dollar invoicing share in the latest year with the share of its goods exports that go to the United States (look this up in UN Comtrade). Which countries invoice far more in dollars than their U.S. trade would explain, and why?
Compute the dollar, renminbi and ruble shares in the first year shown and in the latest year. How much of the dollar's lost share went to the renminbi and how much to the ruble? What does that say about where sanctioned trade goes?
Compute the dollar's share in the first quarter of 2000 and in the latest quarter. Then compute 100 minus the five shares shown for both dates: that is what went to other currencies. Where did the dollar's lost share go? Compare your answer with Arslanalp, Eichengreen and Simpson-Bell (2022), "The Stealth Erosion of Dollar Dominance".
Find gold's share in 1980, 2000 and the latest quarter. How much of the change since 2000 came from the gold price rather than from central banks buying more? Compare this chart with the currency shares above: why does adding gold to the denominator change how dominant the dollar looks?
Compute the average collected rate over 2017 and over the latest four quarters in the data. Announced tariff rates in 2025 were far above the collected rate. Give three reasons collected duties fall short of announced rates.
Compare the two lines in 1932 and in 1972. How can duties over dutiable imports rise while duties over all imports fall? Which line better measures protection, and what does each one miss?
Count the rules per year before and after 2018. One rule can add a single company or hundreds. Why is the number of rules an imperfect measure of export-control intensity, and what would measure it better?
Compute the share of entries added since 2022 that are Russia-related. The chart counts entries still on today's list by the year they were first added: what bias does that create for the early years, and in which direction?
Compare entries based in the United Arab Emirates and in China and Hong Kong before and after 2022. Why do sanctions aimed at Russia produce designations in third countries? Connect your answer to secondary sanctions.