Accessing Brazil Central Bank Data via API

Overview

This simple library allows users to access Brazil Central Bank (BACEN) data by interacting with its API. The library consists of three main R scripts that work together:

1. Bacen_URL: Generates the URL where the data is available.
2. Bacen_API: Connects with the BACEN API, extracts the requested information, and converts it to a readable format.
3. Bacen_series: Retrieves data from multiple Central Bank series, given a vector of series IDs and corresponding names.

This README provides a detailed guide on how to use each function.

Bacen_URL

Description

This function generates the URL for accessing BACEN data by specifying three arguments:

• series: The series code.
• star_date: The start date.
• end_date: The end date.

Important Notes

• Use the Brazilian date format: dd/mm/yyyy.
• Ensure dates are provided as strings/characters.

Example

# Generate URL for IPCA series from 01/01/2003 to 31/12/2023
ipca_br_url <- bacen_url(433, '01/01/2003', '31/12/2023')

# Output
print(ipca_br_url)

Result:

[1] "https://api.bcb.gov.br/dados/serie/bcdata.sgs.433/dados?formato=json&dataInicial=01/01/2003&dataFinal=31/12/2023"

Bacen_API

Description

This function connects to the BACEN API using either the httr or httr2 package. It internally verifies the HTTP status code (e.g., 200 for success, 400/404 for failure) and retries up to three times if the initial connection fails.

Arguments

• url: The URL generated using the Bacen_URL function.
• httr: A logical variable indicating whether to use httr. Defaults to TRUE.

Example

# URL for IPCA series
ipca_br_url <- bacen_url(433, '01/01/2003', '31/12/2023')

# Access API data
data <- bacen_api(url = ipca_br_url, httr = TRUE)

# Display results
print(head(data))

Sample Output:

         data valor
1  01/01/2003  2.25
2  01/02/2003  1.57
3  01/03/2003  1.23
4  01/04/2003  0.97
5  01/05/2003  0.61
6  01/06/2003 -0.15

Bacen_series

Description

This function retrieves data from multiple Central Bank series, given a vector of series IDs and corresponding names:

Arguments

• series: A numeric vector containing the series IDs from Central Bank API.
• names: A character vector containing the names corresponding to each series.
• start_date: A string specifying the start date in dd/mm/yyyy format.
• end_date: A string specifying the end date in dd/mm/yyyy format.
• httr: A logical value indicating whether to use httr (TRUE) or httr2 (FALSE). Default is TRUE.

Example

# Retrieve data for multiple series
series <- c('433', '13005')
names <- c('ipca_br', 'ipca_for')
data <- bacen_series(series, names, "01/01/2013", "31/12/2023", httr = TRUE)

# Display results
print(head(data))

Sample Output:

         date ipca_br ipca_for
1  01/01/2013    0.79     0.74
2  01/02/2013    0.60     0.53
3  01/03/2013    0.47     0.40
4  01/04/2013    0.55     0.50
5  01/05/2013    0.37     0.32
6  01/06/2013    0.26     0.21

Footnotes

• Customize series codes and date ranges as per your needs.