Getting started with saisdata

saisdata puts the course data for the SAIS MIEF R workshop one line away. Everything on this page runs offline: the data are inside the package.

This package is not an official IMF or World Bank product.

Install and load

Run this once, in the R Console:

install.packages("saisdata", repos = "https://teal-insights.r-universe.dev")

Then load it in each session. There is nothing else to read in:

library(saisdata)

dim(weo) # rows, then columns
#> [1] 6720    9

A small example with nothing else installed

weo has one row per country and year. This uses only base R, so it works in a brand new R library. Net interest is not a column; it is the primary balance minus the overall balance.

kenya <- subset(weo, code == "KEN" & year >= 2020 & year <= 2025)
kenya$net_interest <- kenya$primary_balance - kenya$overall_balance

as.data.frame(kenya[, c("year", "gross_debt", "net_interest")])
#>   year gross_debt net_interest
#> 1 2020     67.959        3.925
#> 2 2021     68.232        4.091
#> 3 2022     67.800        4.374
#> 4 2023     73.405        4.786
#> 5 2024     67.306        5.247
#> 6 2025     71.269        5.447

Kenya’s interest bill took about 5.4 percent of GDP in 2025, on gross debt of about 71 percent of GDP.

Join the World Bank’s groups

wb_groups joins to weo by code. This gives the typical country’s gross debt in 2025 at each income level:

countries_2025 <- merge(subset(weo, year == 2025), wb_groups, by = "code")

aggregate(gross_debt ~ income_level, data = countries_2025, FUN = median)
#>          income_level gross_debt
#> 1         High income    55.6590
#> 2          Low income    52.2640
#> 3 Lower middle income    49.5845
#> 4 Upper middle income    54.1335

Tidy the IMF’s own layout

weo_groups keeps the IMF’s layout, with the years across. If you have the tidyverse, two moves make it tidy, and one more gives the world’s interest bill in dollars.

library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)
library(ggplot2)

bill <- weo_groups |>
  select(-indicator_name, -units) |> # keep the codes, drop the long text
  pivot_longer(
    cols = `2001`:`2031`, # every year column
    names_to = "year", # the column names become a year column
    names_transform = as.integer, # "2025" becomes the number 2025
    values_to = "value"
  ) |>
  pivot_wider(names_from = indicator, values_from = value) |> # one per indicator
  mutate(
    net_interest_usd_bn = (GGXONLB_NGDP - GGXCNL_NGDP) * NGDPD / 100
  ) |>
  summarize(net_interest_usd_bn = sum(net_interest_usd_bn), .by = year)

filter(bill, year %in% c(2001, 2025))
#> # A tibble: 2 × 2
#>    year net_interest_usd_bn
#>   <int>               <dbl>
#> 1  2001                849.
#> 2  2025               2371.

The two groups’ balances are averages weighted by GDP, so this total is an approximation.

Chart it, and print the credit

Every chart made from these data carries a source line. From 2026 on the values are IMF projections, so the chart dashes them. This chart uses no World Bank groups, so its source line drops that sentence.

labeled <- filter(bill, year %in% c(2001, 2025, 2031))
labeled$label <- format(round(labeled$net_interest_usd_bn), big.mark = ",", trim = TRUE)

ggplot(bill, aes(year, net_interest_usd_bn)) +
  geom_line(data = filter(bill, year <= 2025), color = "#1F6F78", linewidth = 0.8) +
  geom_line(
    data = filter(bill, year >= 2025),
    color = "#1F6F78", linewidth = 0.8, linetype = "22"
  ) +
  geom_point(data = labeled, color = "#1F6F78", size = 2.4) +
  geom_text(
    data = labeled,
    aes(label = label),
    hjust = c(0.5, 1.2, 0.5), # the 2025 label sits left of the line
    vjust = c(-1, 0, -1),
    size = 3.6,
    color = "grey20"
  ) +
  scale_y_continuous(
    limits = c(0, NA),
    expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0.14)),
    labels = function(x) format(x, big.mark = ",", trim = TRUE)
  ) +
  labs(
    title = "The world's net interest bill is nearly three times its 2001 level",
    subtitle = "Net interest of governments, billions of US dollars. Dashed: IMF projections",
    x = NULL,
    y = NULL,
    caption = paste(
      "Source: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, October 2026,",
      "https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.RES:WEO.\nNet interest is the primary balance",
      "minus the overall balance, calculated for this workshop."
    )
  ) +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 12) +
  theme(
    panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
    panel.grid.major.x = element_blank(),
    plot.caption = element_text(hjust = 0, size = 8, color = "grey35"),
    plot.title.position = "plot",
    plot.caption.position = "plot"
  )

Line chart of the net interest bill of the world's governments, in billions of US dollars. It rises from about 849 in 2001 to about 2,371 in 2025, and the IMF projects about 4,665 in 2031.

Where to read more

?weo, ?weo_groups and ?wb_groups say what one row is, the units, the source, the vintage and what was changed.
citation("saisdata") prints how to cite the package and the data.
system.file("LICENSE-data.md", package = "saisdata") is the path to the data terms. The MIT license covers the package’s code and documentation, not the data.