W|A or Mathematica for CountryData?

Question

Sometimes W|A gives you something ...

WolframAlpha["electricity production of the United States in 2007", "Result"]

... not available in the WDF

CountryData["UnitedStates", {"ElectricityProduction", 2007}]

Other times, the opposite seems to apply - say for more recent data in WDF ...

CountryData["UnitedStates", "ElectricityProduction"]

... whereas in W|A

WolframAlpha["electricity production of the United States in 2014", "Result"]

... or at least I'd assumed it was more recent and this now conflicts with the earlier W|A output?

CountryData["UnitedStates", "ElectricityProduction", "Date"]

Are multiple data sources being used here or is this a bug?

I would guess that it is indeed an issue with multiple sources; I cannot figure out what else it could be, and the way you checked the dates for both of the data requests should guarantee it. It could be that because W|A runs on an offsite computer, it is told to take an average of all the available values, whereas Mathematica would take the first available value as a good enough approximation to reduce the computing time required? reference.wolfram.com/language/note/… — V-J, Jan 4 '16 at 9:10

Paco Jain · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-04 20:21:29Z

Based on the documentation, I would say that this is a bug. Note, however, that you can perhaps get at the data you want via the call

EntityValue[Entity["Country", "UnitedStates"], 
 EntityProperty["Country", "ElectricityTotal", "Date" -> 2007]]

though the relationship between "ElectricityTotal" and "ElectricityProduction" is less than clear. I would file this as a feedback to Wolfram.

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