Overview
Our World in Data (OWID) is an open-access online research platform providing long-term global data and visualisations across topics such as health, economy, environment and development. Its primary purpose is to aggregate and display empirical datasets to track trends and changes over time. For finance professionals, it offers a rich repository of macro-level indicators that can support risk assessment, environmental‐social‐governance (ESG) analysis and investment research.
Organisation behind the tool
OWID is produced by the non-profit organisation Global Change Data Lab, in partnership with the Oxford Martin School at University of Oxford, United Kingdom. The platform is maintained with open-source datasets and visualisation tools, and financed by grants and donations.
What the tool does
- Provides interactive charts and maps showing global and national data over long time-horizons.
- Covers data across many domains: economic development, environment and energy, food and agriculture, health, education, technology and population.
- Allows users to download datasets and access source links, facilitating external analysis.
- Enables comparisons across countries and regions, and visualises long-term trends such as GDP per capita, CO₂ emissions and public health indicators.
- Offers free and open-licence content suitable for reuse in research or reporting.
Target audience
Primary users are researchers, policy-makers and academics interested in global long-term trends. It is also useful for data-journalists, educators and the informed public seeking empirical evidence on key development issues.
Relevance to finance professionals
- Risk assessment – Long-term data on environmental hazards, demographic shifts or resource constraints can assist in assessing exposure to systemic risks.
- ESG analysis – Environmental and social metrics (e.g. CO₂ emissions, education levels, health outcomes) support sustainability reporting and ESG benchmarking.
- Market/commodity insights – Trends in agriculture, energy use, water scarcity and infrastructure provide context for commodity markets and transition-economy assessments.
- Investment context – Broader economic and environmental trajectories (for example global GDP growth, carbon budgets, population ageing) offer perspective for long-term strategic investment decisions.
