CEPII, Recherche et Expertise sur l'economie mondiale
TradePrices


Description


Export and import price indices can be used to analyse terms of trade, inflation or volume/price elasticities in open economies. Price indices also allow to deflate trade values in order to obtain volumes. CEPII aims at providing aggregated and sectoral trade price indices for all countries of the world. These indices are computed using unit values given by BACI, the CEPII database of international trade at the product-level.

The large country dimension of BACI is particularly useful for international comparisons of prices evolutions. Indeed, national statistical institutions often use different methodologies which prevents any type of cross-country analysis. The United Nations and the IMF provide cross-country comparable Laspeyres price indices releasing export and import unit value indices at the aggregate level. However, Laspeyres indices are not necessarily  appropriate to all studies (for instance, they can over-estimate actual price changes). Moreover, UN and IMF provide price indices for only 44 countries excluding then a lot of developing countries. Finally, there is no disaggregated trade indices allowing an international comparison.

This database is not maintained.


Reference document to cite: Gaulier, G., Martin, P., Méjean, I. and Zignago, S. (2008) International Trade Price Indices. CEPII Working Paper 2008-10

Person in charge & contact: Pierre Cotterlaz, tradepricescepii.fr

Licence: Etalab 2.0

Download
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We provide the following five datasets for trade unit values indices. 
  • The aggregated import  unit-values indices database: MUVI.csv.
  • The aggregated export price indices data: XUVI.csv.
  • The sectoral (ISIC) import price database: MUVI_isic.csv.
  • The sectoral (ISIC) export price database: XUVI_isic.csv.
  • The ISIC revision2, 3 digits, labels database: LAB_isic.csv.
     
Variable Description
i/j ISO country numeric code for exporters i and importers j.
y Year
L Laspeyres index
P Paasche index
gL Geometric Laspeyres index
gP Geometric Paasche index
cgL Chained geometric Laspeyres index
cgP Chained geometric Paasche index
F Fisher index
cF Chained Fisher index
T Tornqvist index
cT Chained Tornqvist index
ISIC ISIC revision 2, 3 digits code
lab ISIC revision 2, 3 digits label


The programs to create the TradePrices databases are organised as follow. The master program TradePrices specifies the different paths and includes the subprograms. Namely, the subprograms are: the baci_isic program creating the database from dowloadable BACI data, the outlier program dealing with the treatment of outliers in the table, and 5 other programs computing the different indices.  Thus there are 8 programs working together:

  • Master program: TradePrices.sas
  • Program to create the base: baci_isic.sas
  • Program to treat the outliers: outliers.sas
  • Program to compute Laspeyres and geometric Laspeyres indices: l_gl.sas
  • Program to compute chained Laspeyres and geometric Laspeyres indices: cl_cgl.sas
  • Program to compute Paasche and geometric Paasche indices: p_gp.sas
  • Program to compute chained Paasche and geometric Paasche indices: cp_cgp.sas
  • Program to compute Fisher and Tornqvist indices in their simple and chained forms: f_cf_t_ct.sas
Country codes : country_code.csv .

Methodology
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The database contains  “common” Laspeyres and Paasche indices but also “superlative” Fisher and Tornqvist indices, all in their chained as well fixed-base forms. The chained Laspeyres and Paasche are calculated in their geometric form. The user will then be able to choose the most relevant among an array of indices. An exhaustive sensitivity analysis is performed in order to determine the “best” way to deal with many technical difficulties such as the treatment of measurement errors in bilateral unit values. Sectoral trade price indices are provided in different product classifications. In addition to the reference paper describing in detail the methodology, the SAS programs are downloadable making the CEPII trade price indices transparent and flexible.