Why not ask your own questions of global data?

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Why not ask your own questions of global data?

19 April 2026All categories Comments (0)

This new MR’s Data website has now been updated and makes it easier to find many gems you’re looking for. It is a vast playground where general data can be selected and presented in a variety of ways. Above all, it is a place where one can discover unexpected connections. Everything here is factual, which allows the imagination to go beyond the raw data.

A correlation that nobody asked you to look for

Go to data.mr-int.ch, select the fertility rate on the y-axis and the proportion of the population aged 65 and over on the x-axis, choose all countries for the year 2023, add a logarithmic regression line — and you get this:

Figure 1 — Women of childbearing age are having fewer children in an ageing population.
If there is a correlation, the confounding factor will need to be identified.
All countries, 2023; logarithmic regression. Source: MR’s Data, World Bank data.

The correlation is striking: the older a country’s population is, the fewer children women have there.
The trend is clear; it spans every continent and every income bracket.

But be careful — and this is where things get intellectually interesting: correlation does not imply causation.
People over the age of 65 were conceived more than 65 years ago. In principle, this fact has nothing to do with the likelihood of a young woman today having children.
If there is a causal link, we will need to identify one or more factors that link them — economic development? urbanisation? access to education?
Several possibilities are plausible, but none is obvious.

See also here the changes compared to 1960; the scales are completely different.

This is exactly the kind of question that MR’s Data allows you to ask – and to leave open, without any preconceptions.

MR’s Data : official data, free exploration

The website data.mr-int.ch brings together data from three authoritative sources:

FAO — agricultural production, food, livestock farming, fishing (70 countries, 1961–2025)
World Bank · WDI — economic, social and demographic indicators (72 countries, 1960–2025)
Energy Institute — primary energy, electricity, share of fossil fuels (69 countries, 1965–2024)

The selected countries account for over 80% of the world’s population and represent 90–95% of the available agricultural, economic and energy data.

What sets this site apart from a simple database is the freedom to combine data: any variable can be compared with any other, whether in a time series, a ranking, or a scatter plot like the one shown above. The five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is calculated automatically for each series, allowing you to see not only where the world stands, but also the direction in which it is heading. Each country’s share of the global total is also provided for all available data.

More examples on the website

The Examples page provides further examples of what you can create in just a few clicks:

The Malthusian theory put to the test in two graphs — and disproved.
The fossil fuel saga: 86.7% of the global energy mix in 2024, compared with 97.4% in 1965. Decarbonisation is making progress — but slowly, and at a very uneven pace across countries.
Wheat producers: the rise of China and India, the decline of the United States, and Russia, which has expanded its acreage.

Each chart can be shared via a unique link that includes all the selected settings — country, variables, year, chart type. Charts can also be exported as images.

Simple, free, bilingual and factual

The data you’re looking for can be found very quickly in one place. Access is free. The site is available in French and English, with a one-click switch between languages. If you use the data or charts in a publication, simply cite the source as: ‘Source: MR’s Data, data.mr-int.ch’.

Financial contributions can be made via PayPal for those wishing to support this project, which was developed using the large language model Claude Sonnet 4.6.

→ See examples

→ Go and play on MR’s Data