Economic Intelligence MCP

Ask your AI about the economy — interest rates, jobs, inflation, housing, bank health.
Interactive app with cross-source analysis from FRED, BLS, Treasury, and FDIC data.

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Quick Start

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/thinkchainai/economic-intelligence-mcp.git
cd economic-intelligence-mcp

2. Double-click the .mcpb file

Open economic-intelligence-mcp.mcpb — Claude Desktop will prompt you to install it.

3. Add your FRED API key

Get a free key (30 seconds): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html

Claude Desktop will ask for it during setup:

4. Configure permissions

The server has 1 interactive tool (open_economic_app) and 12 read-only data tools:

5. Enable the connector

6. Open the economics app

Just type "Open the economics app" and Claude will launch the interactive dashboard:

The app has tabbed navigation for rates, inflation, jobs, housing, GDP, treasury, banking, comparison, and search — all with live data and interactive charts.

Other things to try:

"Show me interest rates over the last 5 years"

"Compare unemployment rate with inflation"

"Any economic alerts right now?"

"How has the yield curve signal changed over the last 6 months?"

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13 Tools

Interactive App (1 tool)

Tool	What it does
open_economic_app	Opens the interactive dashboard — charts, recession gauge, signals, data explorer

Live Data (9 tools)

Tool	What it does
econ_interest_rates	Fed funds, 10Y/30Y treasury, mortgage rates, yield curve
econ_inflation	CPI, PCE, core inflation with YoY analysis
econ_jobs	Unemployment, nonfarm payrolls, wage growth, job openings
econ_housing	Housing starts, permits, home prices, affordability index
econ_bank_health	FDIC capital ratios, problem banks, failure history
econ_gdp	GDP growth — nominal, real, annualized
econ_treasury	Treasury rates, yield spreads, federal debt
econ_compare	Compare any two FRED series with correlation analysis
econ_search	Search 800K+ FRED series by keyword

Stateful Intelligence (3 tools)

These tools use a local SQLite database to track how signals change over time. On first run, the server backfills 12 months of signal history so they work immediately.

Tool	What it does
econ_signal_history	How yield curve, jobs/inflation, and bank stress signals have changed over months
econ_changes	What shifted recently — compares latest signals to prior snapshots
econ_alerts	Threshold crossings, trend reversals, recession probability shifts

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Cross-Source Intelligence

This isn't just an API wrapper. The server combines data from multiple government sources and computes:

• Yield curve inversion — 10Y-2Y spread analysis, historically the best recession predictor
• Jobs vs. inflation divergence — overheating, stagflation, and goldilocks detection
• Housing affordability index — home prices × mortgage rates × income composite
• Banking stress score — FDIC problem bank count + failure trends
• Composite recession probability — weighted signal from all sources

Signal History & Alerts

The server tracks its own computed signals over time in a lightweight local database (~/.economic-mcp/data.db). On first startup, it backfills 12 months of historical signal data by running its scoring algorithms against historical FRED data. After that, it refreshes every 6 hours.

This enables questions that no other MCP server can answer:

• "How has recession probability changed over the last 6 months?"
• "Did any signals cross a critical threshold this week?"
• "Is the yield curve trend reversing?"

Government APIs → Scoring Engine → Signal Snapshots → MCP Tools → Claude Desktop
       ↓                ↓                  ↓                ↓
     FRED          Yield curve         Local SQLite     Interactive app
     BLS           Jobs/inflation      12mo backfill    Charts & gauges
     Treasury      Bank stress         6hr refresh      Alert detection
     FDIC          Recession prob.     Change tracking

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Data Sources

All free government APIs with generous rate limits:

Source	What	Auth
FRED	800K+ economic series — GDP, CPI, unemployment, rates, housing	Free API key
BLS	Employment, wages, CPI by metro and industry	Free API key (optional)
Treasury	Daily rates, federal debt, bond auctions	None
FDIC	Bank health, capital ratios, failure history	None

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Rebuild the .mcpb

If you modify the source or need to update env var config:

./build-mcpb.sh

This runs npx @anthropic-ai/mcpb pack and outputs a fresh economic-intelligence-mcp.mcpb in the repo root. Double-click to reinstall.

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Alternative: Run from source

If you prefer not to use the .mcpb file:

# Install
pip install -e .

# Set your API key
export FRED_API_KEY=your_key_here

# Run the server
economic-intelligence-mcp

Then add to your Claude Desktop config (~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "economic-intelligence": {
      "command": "economic-intelligence-mcp",
      "env": {
        "FRED_API_KEY": "your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

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Hosted Version

Don't want to manage API keys or run locally?

mcpbundles.com — same tools, zero setup. Data is always current.

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Contributing

PRs welcome — bug fixes, new scoring algorithms, new data sources, UI improvements.

git clone https://github.com/thinkchainai/economic-intelligence-mcp.git
cd economic-intelligence-mcp
pip install -e ".[dev]"

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Built by MCPBundles.