Trade and business statistics have common features starting with the fact that in the end the businesses are the ones making decisions on trading internationally and on making other kinds of international business arrangements, such as FDI, establishing foreign affiliates and outsourcing of business functions. These statistics include international merchandise trade statistics, statistics of international trade in services, foreign affiliates statistics, and foreign direct investment statistics; and links trade and business statistics to gain insights into the impact of globalization on competitiveness, employment, innovation and economic success.
The full list of all available publications related to "International Trade and related Economic Statistics" can be found HERE.
The Center for Economic Studies (CES) and the U.S. Census Bureau’s network of Research Data Centers (RDCs) host research on a broad range of topics in demography, economics, geography, sociology, and other social sciences. Each year, our annual research report highlights findings from different topics and fields… more »
n the context of globalization, one of the main challenging development areas for external trade statistics is to link them more closely to other statistics. The linkage of trade statistics with business statistics allows to measure, on the one hand, the contribution of real economic sectors to trading, and on the other hand, to complement business data with detailed information on trade, which is traditionally not part of business statistics... more »
Micro.3 is the outcome of a joint collaboration ISTAT-LEM. The development of MICRO.3 took a considerable amount of time and involved the work of researchers at several units at ISTAT together with collaboration of LEM members during the various phases of the project. What made the project even more demanding was the necessity to bridge together data coming from different sources. Ofcourse, since Micro.3 and the related database contain census data collected by ISTAT it can only be accessed at ISTAT facilities in Rome on the basis of a research agreement... more »
We examine the sales of French manufacturing firms in 113 destinations, including France itself. Several regularities stand out: (1) the number of French firms selling to a market, relative to French market share, increases systematically with market size; (2) sales distributions are very similar across markets of very different size and extent of French participation; (3) average sales in France rise very systematically with selling to less popular markets and to more markets... more »
Statistics on multinational companies (MNC’s) may be grouped into two broad categories: (1) those that pertain to cross-border transactions and positions between direct investors and direct investment enterprises (balance of payments and direct investment position data), and (2) those that pertain to MNC operations more broadly, including statistics on their domestic as well as international activities (financial and operating data)... more »
The paper focuses on systemically important jurisdictions in the global trade network, complementing recent IMF work on systemically important financial sectors. Using the IMF’s Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) database and network analysis, the paper develops a framework for ranking jurisdictions based on trade size and trade nterconnectedness indicators using data for 2000 and 2010. The results show a near perfect overlap between the top 25 systemically important trade and financial jurisdictions, suggesting that these ought to be the focus of risk-based surveillance on cross-border spillovers and contagion. In addition, a number of extensions to the approach are developed that can provide a better understanding of trade dynamics at the bilateral, regional, and global levels. more »
Trade and business statistics are based on different concepts and classification, thus using them separately may provide incoherent basis for analysing the effects of external trade on production, employment and enterprises' performances… more »
The Census Bureau’s Business Dynamics Statistics (BDS)2 provides data on business dynamics for U.S. firms and establishments with paid employees.This briefing highlights some key features of the most recent BDS update, which now has data through 2010. As the most complete public-use dataset allowing for the analysis of business dynamics in the United States, the BDS is a key source of knowledge about the changing state, as well as the national, economy... more »
Entering and successfully surviving in export markets is a costly process for firms. Key steps for success include learning about the existence of foreign demand, determining the production costs of exportable goods, building a high-quality reputation, succeeding in product branding to reduce competitive pressures, constant upgrading of quality standards to better serve demanding international clients, and remaining competitive with other players in the global marketplace. Drawing on the findings of recent research (Reis and Varela 2013), this note argues that tourism can help alleviate some of these costs by providing a relatively inexpensive platform for cost discovery and acting as a low-cost in-house trade fair, accessible to all domestic producers. more »
Why does development matter? It matters because we aspire to a more equal world, in which the possibilities of living well are available to all, and not just to a minority of the world’s population. That aspiration requires the convergence of living standards across the globe. Convergence in turn requires the economic development of countries with low standards of living and, in view of the threat of climate change caused by carbon emissions, paths of convergence that are consistent with a low-carbon future for our planet… more »
We link industry-level data on trade and offshoring with individual-level worker data from the Current Population Surveys. We find that occupational exposure to globalization is associated with larger wage effects than industry exposure. This effect has been overlooked because it operates between rather than within sectors of the economy. We also find that globalization is associated with a reallocation of workers across sectors and occupations... more »
Demand for statistics on business demography has grown and developed considerably in recent years. Data on births and deaths of enterprises, their life expectancy and the important role they play in economic growth and productivity, as well as the information they provide for tackling social demographic issues, are increasingly requested by policy makers and analysts alike... more »
The fact that large manufacturing plants export relatively more than small plants has been at the foundation of much work in the international trade literature. We examine this fact using Census micro data on plant shipments from the Commodity Flow Survey. We show the fact is not entirely an international trade phenomenon; part of it can be accounted for by the effect of distance, distinct from any border effect... more »
There were 47 352 enterprises in exports, 51 627 in imports. For exports, the proportion of the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME’s) which had 0-249 employees, was 59,8% and 40,1% for imports. In 2009, the rate of micro enterprises (0 -9 employees) was 17,3%, small enterprises (10- 49 employees) was 25,1%, medium-sized enterprises (50-249 employees) was 17,4% and large enterprises (250+) was 39,8% in exports... more »
International trade statistics are among the most consulted statistics by public and private users. Throughout their long history, their basic character has remained unchanged. Their purpose is to answer questions like “which products countries are importing from or exporting to other countries?” However, it has been more difficult to reply a question “what kind of businesses are behind these trade flows?” Trade statistics do not present by nature any explicit information on the characteristics of traders... more »
This manual provides a common methodological framework for anyone working on the collection, compilation, transmission and analysis of FATS. As such, it will make significant contributions to data quality and comparability. The target audience are FATS compilers, including statisticians in National Statistical Institutes, National Central Banks, Eurostat and other international organisations. The manual can be used also by users as background information... more »
Balance of payments statistics serve as the common basis for analyzing cross-border trade in services, providing information about exports and imports by individual countries or by economic or monetary areas, specified by service categories and partner countries... more »
Balance of payments statistics serve as the common basis for analyzing cross-border trade in services, providing information about exports and imports by individual countries or by economic or monetary areas, specified by service categories and partner countries. However, balance of payments statistics do not deliver insight into the facts that determine trade flows as it is not countries who trade services but corporations... more »
Despite the fact that importing and exporting are extremely rare firm activities, economists generally devote little attention to the role of firms when discussing international trade. This paper summarizes key differences between trading and non-trading firms, demonstrates how these differences present a challenge to standard trade models and shows how recent “heterogeneous-firm” models of international trade address these challenges... more »
When the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) was established in 1984 as the first research and training center of the United Nations University under the visionary leadership of then Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, its mandate was set out quite clearly: ―To undertake multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on structural changes affecting the living conditions of the world's poorest people; To provide a forum for professional interaction and the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmentally sustainable growth; and To promote capacity strengthening and training for scholars and government officials in the field of economic and social policy making.‖ Since then, WIDER has contributed enormously to the strengthening of the development knowledge. more »
Over the years, the United Nations Statistical Commission has considered a number of conceptual and practical issues pertinent to the compilation of economic statistics. The Commission has also been concerned with the capacity of national statistical systems to meet the high demand for timely economic statistics of high quality, produced in the most cost effective manner... more »
Until now two approaches existed to identify high-tech foreign trade: The product approach which uses a list of goods classified as high-tech products2 and the sectoral approach which identifies the trade by the sectors classified as high-tech industries. The current nomenclature of the sectoral approach stems from an investigation done by Thomas Hatzichronoglou presented in 1997 by the OECD and was subsequently updated in 2005 and reviewed by the EU Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in 2008… more »
A newly developed dataset permits examination of new dimensions of firm activity, including how many products firms trade, how many countries firms trade with, the characteristics of those countries, the concentration of trade across firms, whether firms transact at arm’s length or with related parties, and whether firms import as well as export. Firms that trade goods play an important role in the United States, employing more than a third of the US workforce. The most globally engaged US firms... more »
An increasingly important feature of global economic integration is trade in intermediate inputs associated with the fragmentation of production across national borders. For some goods, production has become a multinational process in which different stages are carried out in specialized plants around the globe. Materials and components produced in one country may pass through a sequence of other countries that each add value through fabrication, assembly, or other processing before a final product is delivered to consumers.… more »
The continuous globalisation of our economies confronts the national statistical offices with new challenges and user demands to measure new phenomena such as international sourcing. The increased fragmentation of the value chain resulting from the sourcing of business functions internationally is an important feature of the globalisation process... more »
EThe growing internationalisation of the production of goods and services means that national economies are becoming more and more interconnected. This process of economic globalisation is characterised by increasing international trade and foreign direct investments, and by a growing role of multinational enterprises... more »
Globalisation has become a popular and much discussed topic over the past two decades. International developments have major implications particularly for a small and open economy like the Netherlands. The recent financial and economic crisis illustrates the role the international economy plays for the Netherlands... more »
Economic globalisation is characterised by increasing international trade, foreign investment and international outsourcing. For the Netherlands, this concerns activities by Dutch multinational firms abroad as well as foreign enterprises in the Netherlands. Not only do these cross-border activities have important economic consequences, they also raise a number of questions with respect to employment... more »
This fifth edition of the Internationalisation Monitor describes recent developments in international trade in goods and services, foreign direct investment, multinational enterprises, and traffic and transport. In addition, four analytical chapters provide an in-depth analysis of enterprise dynamics and the role of (increasing) internationalisation in this respect. more »
In recent years, global value chains have played an increasing role in business strategies, profoundly affecting international trade and development paradigms. Global value chains now represent a major source of socio-upgrading opportunities and a new path for development. Trade, competitiveness and development policies should be reshaped accordingly to seize these opportunities and avoid the risks associated with greater participation in global value chains. This paper provides a framework and analytical tools for measuring and improving a country's performance with respect to participation in global value chains. With a clear operational focus, it provides guidance for countries willing to join, maintain participation, and/or move up global value chains. more »
Official statistics form the basis for informed policy development and evaluation by central and local government, as well as underpinning decision making by businesses and the public. Data collected within the tax administrative system offers opportunities to complement existing sources of official statistics, to support wider uses of available data, or to minimise provider load within existing outputs... more »
This paper’s purpose is to develop a suitable method to identify the contribution that start-up businesses (business births) make to total job creation in the New Zealand economy. And similarly, the contribution of closing businesses (business deaths) to total job destruction in the economy. Developing this method will enable further research into total job creation and destruction across the economic business cycle... more »
This article contributes to an assessment and celebration of the scholarly and policy work of the late Sanjaya Lall. As Rasiah (2009) highlights, Lall’s work was at once broad, deep and intensely focused. Over his long career, Lall and his many collaborators used the lenses of the transnational corporation (TNC), competitiveness, globalization and technological learning to uncover… more »
Do you think this project is relevant for both analytical purposes and policy implications? Which is the best way to achieve consistent and internationally comparable empirical results based on national level micro analysis? Do you plan to joint this project, even over time and with intermediate goals (simplified dataset)?... more »
Financial markets have evolved into a more globally integrated framework as a result of increasing liberalisation of exchange controls and market access. This integration, accelerated by increasing competition amongst market participants, has led to the introduction of new financial instruments with broad market access and lower transaction costs, attracting investors of many nationalities and countries (economies)... more »
The Social Policy Lectures are endowed by the ILO’s Nobel Peace Prize of 1969 and dedicated to the memory of David A. Morse, Director-General of the ILO from 1948 to 1970. They are held in major universities of the world with the three-fold aim of stimulating the interest of graduate and post-graduate students in international social policy; of promoting academic work in areas of concern to the ILO; and of encouraging greater dialogue between the academic community on the one hand and policy makers… more »
Outsourcing of professional and support services by U. S. firms, especially goods producing firms, is one of the factors that has contributed to the steady increase in the service sector’s share of the U.S. economy. Outsourced services typically include software production, information and data processing services, computer systems design, professional, scientific, and technical services, and administrative and support services… more »
This paper examines the experience of the Swiss Federal Statistical Office in the implementation of the revised classifications of economic activities. A description of background, the different tasks, the challenges in the coordination activities are the main subjects that will be addressed. The model of the revision system in the statistical system will be also presented… more »
This report is the third in a series by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) that examines the domestic and global operations of U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Commission found that U.S. exporting SMEs outperform their nonexporting SME counterparts by several measures. Whether they deal in services or manufacturing, exporting SMEs show higher total revenues, faster total revenue growth, and higher labor productivity than their nonexporting SME counterparts. The Commission also found several noteworthy contrasts between exporting large firms and exporting SMEs… more »
This report describes characteristics of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the role they play in U.S. exports. Within the U.S. economy, SMEs account for the vast majority of firms and approximately half the gross domestic product (GDP) generated by nonagricultural sectors. However, SMEs accounted for only about 30 percent of merchandise exports between 1997 and 2007... more »
This report examines the extent and composition of U.S. exports by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and factors that may disproportionately impede U.S. SME exports. It compares the exporting activities of SMEs in the United States with those of SMEs in the European Union (EU); describes barriers and costs associated with exporting, as reported by U.S. SMEs; and identifies the benefits to U.S. SMEs from improvements to the exporting environment resulting from free trade agreements (FTAs) and other trading arrangements… more »
The Structural and Demographic Business Statistics (SDBS), 2006, publication marks a significant change from the last publication in this area (Structural Statistics for Industry and Services, 2003) in a number of ways. The most important of these is the incorporation, for the first time, of structural business statistics by size class; an important development reflecting the increased policy and analytical focus on entrepreneurship and the role of small and medium enterprises within economies... more »
The paper provides an overview of the tax statistics as published by the South African Revenue Service and National Treasury. South Africa is considered to be an emerging economy and is member of the economic block “BRICS”. It has an abundant supply of natural resources, which are mainly exported. The key challenges facing the country are recovery from the recession, as well as addressing post-apartheid structural problems related to unemployment and lack of skilled labour. The Gini coefficient of South Africa was measured at 0.679 in 2009, which is among the highest in the world... more »
The U.S. International Trade Commission’s latest update in this series of reports presents results on the economic effects on the U.S. economy of removing significant U.S. import restraints, including U.S. tariffs and tariff-rate quotas on certain agricultural products, textiles and apparel, and other manufactured products. The Commission estimates that liberalization of all significant import restraints quantified in this update would increase annual U.S. welfare by $1.1 billion by 2017. The eighth update also features a special topic chapter on the role of services in manufacturing, which explores trends in U.S. manufacturers’ use of services and the contribution of services to manufacturing output and productivity. more »
We investigate numerous predictions regarding the relationship between rms' pro- ductivity and the geographic extensive margins of trade in both goods and services. A unique dataset combining French rms' production information with country- product level information on services and goods imports and exports allows us to examine numerous hypotheses... more »
As the largest federal statistical agency and primary collector of data on businesses, households and individuals, the Census Bureau each year conducts numerous surveys intended to provide statistics on a wide range of topics about the population and economy of the United States. The Census Bureau’s decennial population and quinquennial economic censuses are unique, providing information on all U.S. households and business establishments, respectively... more »
Services are increasingly important in modern economies contributing about 68% of world economy value added in 2002 and, although at a much lower level, are increasingly traded internationally. These patterns of increasing importance of services are observed in the generality of both “developed” and “developing” economies, although there are economies which show exceptions to the trend… more »
Canada’s statistical system has evolved over the years to the point of now being quite dependent upon administrative data for the regular production of statistics. The computerization of tax administrative programs, including both income tax and commodity tax, over the past number of years has made it possible to increase usage of the resulting data files for statistical purposes... more »
Many national statistical agencies collect data on business establishments; however, very few disseminate establishment-level data as unrestricted public use _les. Instead, they disseminate business data in highly aggregated forms, such as the County Business Patterns and the Business Dynamics Statistics released by the U. S. Census Bureau or the Business Employment Dynamics released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.1 The dearth of establishment level data stems from requirements, both legal and practical, to protect the confidentiality of establishments' data... more »
This paper examines the effects of trade on growth among Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement countries. To accomplish this task, the authors collected a panel data set of 136 countries over 1960– 2010, and estimated cross-country growth regressions using an econometric methodology that accounts for unobserved effects and the likely endogeneity of the growth determinants… more »
The financial crisis that emerged in the US housing market in 2008 quickly spread around the world to become a truly global economic crisis. While we are seeing output recover around the world, lessons from previous crises tell us that employment is slow to pick up. As a consequence, many of those who lost their job during the crises are still unemployed… more »
THE BUREAU of Economic Analysis (BEA) takes a broad perspective of U.S. international sales and purchases of services in this article by presenting information on (1) services that cross borders and are included in the international transactions accounts as exports and imports and (2) services supplied by multinationals’ affiliates through the channel of direct investment. This approach acknowledges the extent to which multinational companies (MNCs) provide services using affiliates located in—but owned outside of—the markets that they serve… more »
Reduced barriers to the flow of capital, goods, and services, combined with rapid advances in communication and transportation technology, have for many years been fostering increased specialization of production activity, and this trend continues. The same factors have also led large firms, particularly multinational firms, to reorganize how they manage their operations… more »
Discussions of international trade often focus on aggregate trade flows, but it is firms that trade, not countries. This column presents evidence from Norwegian export data showing that larger exporters have more customers and greater dispersion in customer size. Moreover, exporters with many customers tend to sell to importers with few suppliers. These stylised facts are captured by a model in which finding a buyer is costly. The model’s prediction that export responses are amplified in destinations with less buyer dispersion is confirmed in the data. more »
Trade, like every other aspect of the economy, has been deeply affected by the global recession that started to emerge in the wake of the 2008 .nancial crisis. As this book goes to press, we are projecting a decline in world trade for the .rst time since 1982. Trade is not at the origin of the crisis, but since it binds economies closely together, it helps to spread developments from one country to another – the negative developments as well as the positive. Weakening consumption and investment reduce demand for exports, a matter of critical importance for most countries, and particularly those whose economic development strategies rely on export-led growth… more »
Global foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows rose modestly by 5 per cent, to reach $1.24 trillion in 2010. While global industrial output and world trade are already back to their pre-crisis levels, FDI flows in 2010 remained some 15 per cent below their pre-crisis average, and nearly 37 per cent below their 2007 peak. UNCTAD predicts FDI flows will continue their recovery to reach $1.4–1.6 trillion, or the pre-crisis level, in 2011. They are expected to rise further to $1.7 trillion in 2012 and reach $1.9 trillion in 2013... more »
Global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows exceeded the pre-crisis average in 2011, reaching $1.5 trillion despite turmoil in the global economy. However, they still remained some 23 per cent below their 2007 peak. UNCTAD predicts slower FDI growth in 2012, with flows levelling off at about $1.6 trillion. Leading indicators – the value of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and greenfield investments – retreated in the first five months of 2012. Longer-term projections show a moderate but steady rise, with global FDI reaching $1.8 trillion in 2013 and $1.9 trillion in 2014, barring any macroeconomic shocks… more »
