BACI: International Trade Database at the Product-level

Gaulier, Guillaume and Zignago, Soledad (2009): BACI: International Trade Database at the Product-level. Published in: CEPII Working Paper No. 2010-23

Abstract

We document BACI, our international trade database covering more than 200 countries and 5,000 products, between 1994 and 2006. Original procedures have been developed to reconcile data reported by almost 150 countries to the United Nations Statistics Division, which disseminate them via COMTRADE. When both exporting and importing countries do report, we have two different figures for the same flow, which is useful to reconcile in a single figure. Firstly, as import values are reported CIF (cost, insurance and freight) and the exports are reported FOB (free on board), CIF costs have to be estimated and removed from imports values to compute FOB import values. We regress the unit-values ratios reported for a given elementary flow by gravity variables and for years, and world median unit-value for each product category . The second step is an evaluation of the reliability of country reporting, based on the reporting distances among partners. We decompose the absolute value of the ratios of mirror flows using a (weighted) variance analysis, and an index is build for each country. These reporting qualities are used as weights in the reconciliation of each bilateral trade flow twice reported. Taking advantage of this double information on each flow, we end up with a large coverage of countries not reporting at a given level of the product classification with a special care in the treatment of unit-values. BACI is freely available to users of COMTRADE database in our webpage: http://www.cepii.fr/anglaisgraph/bdd/baci.htm

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: International Trade, Trade Costs, CIF-FOB, Data reconciliation
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F13 - Trade Policy ; International Trade Organizations; F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F10 - General; F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F14 - Empirical Studies of Trade; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology ; Computer Programs > C80 - General

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